The Sunday Round-Up | July 25, 2021

Good morning! All my travel tips from the week, including a new one about hotel key card safety, are below so scroll down!

Olympics
I hope you're having a relaxing weekend. I've been watching some of the Olympic coverage and I forgot how much I love it. It's not every day I get to watch sports I never thought would be so entertaining to watch like table tennis, skateboarding, handball, water polo, 3x3 basketball, etc. 

Olympic Travels
But they are all fascinating and the back stories of the athletes are what make it even more appealing. I'm just in awe of some these athletes and some of the adversities they've had to overcome and in some cases, even the extent of their travel, just to compete in Tokyo. As I type this, I'm watching badminton and the player from the USA had to travel all over the world to qualify. And I mean all over: Peru, Bahrain, Zambia, Guatemala and those are just the places I can remember from all the destinations the commentators rattled off.

Travel News
It's been quite the week in the travel industry and unfortunately, most of the news is trending badly. You can read about what's new this week below but the Delta variant is really winning and countries are starting to add more restrictions, like France and Italy, where you have to prove you're vaccinated to enter museums, gyms, restaurants and more. Expect this to be the new normal and mask mandates to be reinstated if they haven't been already. Earlier this week, Scott Gottlieb, the Former FDA Chief, said, “to protect against the variant, it’s important for people to invest in high-quality face coverings, such as N95 masks.” Here's where to buy N95 and KN95 face masks if you need to upgrade for the fall.

Today's Travel Tip
Yesterday, I wrote a tip offering up 3 reasons to always get two hotel room keys. I received several emails from readers saying that they thought you should never throw hotel room key cards in the trash can in the hotel room when leaving because it contains your contact information and credit card information. One reader said perhaps it’s better to take the hotel key cards with you and shred them later yourself. Here's the truth about hotel room key cards. 

12 Things In Travel You Need To Know Today
— Yesterday's TSA checkpoint numbers 
— New York City hotels have best week yet since start of pandemic
— This airport begins separating arrivals based on vaccination status
— Fauci says US headed in ‘wrong direction’ on coronavirus
— Italy's new Covid restrictions spare travel industry
— This is the most flights landing with COVID-19 at Toronto’s Pearson Airport since February
— Europe clamps down amid fears over rapid spread of Delta variant
— Piers Morgan 'grateful' to be alive after catching Covid at Wembley for EuroCup
— Merkel aide warns of COVID-19 surge in Germany over coming weeks
— European travel demand drives easyJet summer comeback
— Leo Laporte Alaska Holland America July 16-23, 2022 
Read it all here in today's travel news round-up as well as the 84 other top travel news stories from this past week!