The flight diaries

Here’s what I was supposed to do on my 15-hour flight to Cape Town:

• Reorganize my Spotify playlists

• Edit 3 articles

• Do last month’s accounting

• Create content briefs for July

Here’s what actually happened:

• Re-watched 3 episodes of Sex and the City

• Caught flies while sleeping with my mouth open for hours on end

It was a humble reminder that sometimes rest is just as important as being productive.

Hey, this is Kelsey, founder of SiteSee. I’ll send an email like this every Friday where I’ll share my musings from my travels, the latest research undertaken by our travel writers, as well as recommendations for travel products, interesting podcasts, good reads, and more.

I love to treat long-haul flights as fieldwork. Instead of death-scrolling on TikTok, I spend about an hour at the gate observing people's packing choices and noting the brands they use for their travels. Here’s what I noticed:

• Away carry-ons continue to have a chokehold on travelers. Although I personally find them an excellent option, it seems that many individuals gravitate towards Away due to its strong brand recognition, while remaining unaware of the alternatives. For example, Quince’s carry-on is the closest dupe on the market and it's just as durable and much more affordable.

• There’s always that one person toting a $1K+ Rimowa bag. For those of us not ready to drop a whole paycheck on a carry-on, we put together a list of the best Rimowa alternatives here.

• Cuyana's travel backpack made an appearance on multiple occasions, and I must say it continues to hold the title of my favorite leather travel backpack to this day.

We’re focusing this month on updating older articles. So while there are no new articles for this week, I did want to drop a note about our friends at Anam Cara Healing Retreats.

We sat down with them for an interview several months ago and learned about their unique approach to ayahuasca ceremonies. With small group sizes (less than 10), they prioritize extensive preparation and integration for a period of at least 4 months following the ceremony. It's hard to find a better option than that.

If you’re feeling the call to sit with ayahuasca, they’re offering SiteSee readers $100 off by using the code sitesee100.

Thanks so much for reading, and if you found something useful or interesting in this email, mind forwarding this newsletter to a friend (or having them subscribe here)?

Otherwise, thanks again and feel free to reply here. I open and respond to everything.

Onwards,

Kelsey