On Monday morning, I flew on Delta from Salt Lake City to Toronto, which in this direction takes just over 3 hours. And it was my first time ever experiencing reasonably reliable wi-fi on a flight. Maybe this is already common for the people who fly in the front of planes, but for me, I've never had the wi-fi work so well.

Usually it goes like this: I try and connect, everything is painfully slow, and so I get frustrated and move on. But this time around, I was able to check all of my emails, download fairly large PDFs, mark them up on my iPad, and write yesterday's blog post. It was pretty great, and it allowed me to land in Toronto with far less anxiety around my work backlog.

But it also got me thinking about what this means for travel and work. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I greatly prefer working in an office with my team. I think proximity matters.

At the same time, I recognize that technology is empowering new kinds of remote work, that we are all becoming more globally connected, and that, in the future, most of us are likely to travel more, rather than less. This will be for both work and for fun.

While solid in-flight wi-fi may not seem like that big of a deal, in my mind it's a game changer. People will become more mobile if they can sit on flights and actually be productive (and maybe Apple Vision Pro helps with this). It is another step in what feels like an ongoing untethering of work.

Sometime before the Paris 2024 Olympics this summer, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to announce who will host the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games. Right now, the two frontrunners are thought to be the French Alps and Salt Lake City/Park City -- I think respectively.

Obviously these are two fantastic winter locations. But one of the things that the local committees need to do before they can secure the games is show the IOC that they have enough hotel rooms on hand. More specifically, they need 24,000 rooms reserved for 33 nights. This covers 17 nights during the games, 14 nights before, and 2 nights after.

Most of these rooms, about 10,000 or so, will go to journalists.

I didn't fully appreciate -- or I just didn't think about it -- that this was something that needed to be done 6-10 years out. Because right now there is a human running around try to lock up these rooms in advance of the decision this summer.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, they're already at 85% of the requisite 24,000 rooms. Though some of these rooms have yet to be built and some of them reach into neighboring Wyoming, which apparently isn't an atypical distance when it comes to meeting this accommodation requirement.

For obvious reasons, I'm rooting for Utah here. I really want them to get the Winter Games.

I used Turo for the first time this evening. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Turo is like Airbnb, but for cars. It connects people who have cars with people who need rental cars. Here is a photo of ours at SLC:

The pickup was perfectly seamless. I got a text from an alleged human the day before. It said that they would leave the car on the second level of the parking garage next to baggage claim. And that I would get more precise instructions -- such as where the key will be -- after it was parked there.

I was also told that there would be a small charge to pay in order to exit the garage. And that the charge would obviously depend on how quickly I retrieve the car after they park it. In my case it ended up being US$10, but we also stopped for food on the way.

Overall, I’d say the pickup experience was easier and faster than your typical rental car. The car was as advertised. And thankfully, it was also there waiting for us. The two standout features for me are probably: (1) It was cheaper and (2) you get to pick your exact car. 

This second one is important because sometimes you need a rental car so that you can drive it into a snow-covered canyon. And when faced with this situation, it can be helpful to know exactly what you’ll be getting — right down to the type of tires.

On Monday morning, I flew on Delta from Salt Lake City to Toronto, which in this direction takes just over 3 hours. And it was my first time ever experiencing reasonably reliable wi-fi on a flight. Maybe this is already common for the people who fly in the front of planes, but for me, I've never had the wi-fi work so well.

Usually it goes like this: I try and connect, everything is painfully slow, and so I get frustrated and move on. But this time around, I was able to check all of my emails, download fairly large PDFs, mark them up on my iPad, and write yesterday's blog post. It was pretty great, and it allowed me to land in Toronto with far less anxiety around my work backlog.

But it also got me thinking about what this means for travel and work. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I greatly prefer working in an office with my team. I think proximity matters.

At the same time, I recognize that technology is empowering new kinds of remote work, that we are all becoming more globally connected, and that, in the future, most of us are likely to travel more, rather than less. This will be for both work and for fun.

While solid in-flight wi-fi may not seem like that big of a deal, in my mind it's a game changer. People will become more mobile if they can sit on flights and actually be productive (and maybe Apple Vision Pro helps with this). It is another step in what feels like an ongoing untethering of work.

Sometime before the Paris 2024 Olympics this summer, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to announce who will host the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games. Right now, the two frontrunners are thought to be the French Alps and Salt Lake City/Park City -- I think respectively.

Obviously these are two fantastic winter locations. But one of the things that the local committees need to do before they can secure the games is show the IOC that they have enough hotel rooms on hand. More specifically, they need 24,000 rooms reserved for 33 nights. This covers 17 nights during the games, 14 nights before, and 2 nights after.

Most of these rooms, about 10,000 or so, will go to journalists.

I didn't fully appreciate -- or I just didn't think about it -- that this was something that needed to be done 6-10 years out. Because right now there is a human running around try to lock up these rooms in advance of the decision this summer.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, they're already at 85% of the requisite 24,000 rooms. Though some of these rooms have yet to be built and some of them reach into neighboring Wyoming, which apparently isn't an atypical distance when it comes to meeting this accommodation requirement.

For obvious reasons, I'm rooting for Utah here. I really want them to get the Winter Games.

I used Turo for the first time this evening. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Turo is like Airbnb, but for cars. It connects people who have cars with people who need rental cars. Here is a photo of ours at SLC:

The pickup was perfectly seamless. I got a text from an alleged human the day before. It said that they would leave the car on the second level of the parking garage next to baggage claim. And that I would get more precise instructions -- such as where the key will be -- after it was parked there.

I was also told that there would be a small charge to pay in order to exit the garage. And that the charge would obviously depend on how quickly I retrieve the car after they park it. In my case it ended up being US$10, but we also stopped for food on the way.

Overall, I’d say the pickup experience was easier and faster than your typical rental car. The car was as advertised. And thankfully, it was also there waiting for us. The two standout features for me are probably: (1) It was cheaper and (2) you get to pick your exact car. 

This second one is important because sometimes you need a rental car so that you can drive it into a snow-covered canyon. And when faced with this situation, it can be helpful to know exactly what you’ll be getting — right down to the type of tires.