A first-person travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting their journey from Nashville to Rome. The vlog covers airport lounge use, an overnight transatlantic flight (about 9.5 hours) booked with points (reported cost ~$6.20 per person), arrival in Rome around 11:00 AM local time, arrival at Termini station, use of the Italia Pass lounge and pickup of apartment keys, purchase of 48-hour unlimited metro passes for €12.50, and an attempted (but incomplete) visit to the Chinese consulate to obtain visas.
Questions this video answers
About nine and a half hours.
Approximately $6.20 per person (booked with points).
About 11:00 AM local time.
€12.50 for each 48-hour unlimited pass (they bought two).
Chapters
All right, see y' all up there.
Have fun.
Bye. Be watching the vlog.
Just found a two dollar bill on the. Got to be some kind of lucky sign about starting off the trip, right? If you watched our last video, it is now 36 hours later and we are back at the airport. We basically had one day to repack our bags for the next, like five or six months of travel.
Today is a huge day. We've been home all summer and we're officially leaving until the holidays. And we're going to Italy, Italia.
But right now we're going to lounge because we have an hour till our.
Flight board and we got new bags.
They match.
Already farting with them.
The weather right now in the Chicago area. We've got like winds out of the northeast at 5 miles an hour, 10 miles. Visibility, new high, scatter clouds, temperature about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Should be a fairly smooth flight. We're going to try and get the seat belt sign off as quickly as we can. Winter is your flight attendant today. She is here primarily for your safety. So if you can please pay attention. I'll receive the demonstrations. Even if you've seen it before, we'd appreciate it. But right now, sit back, relax, enjoy the flight. We'll get you over to Chicago as quickly, but more importantly, as safely as possible. Welcome aboard.
Lounge number two.
So we just landed in Chicago. We have seven hours here and luckily we have lounge access because I match my American airline status that I had last year to get Turkish Airway status, which gives us Star alliance gold status, which ultimately got us into this lounge where we'll be spending the next seven hours. Also, we are flying with points. So this flight from Nashville to Rome cost us a total of like, I think it's like $6.20 a piece.
It is.
6Pm it never fails. No matter how long we have in an airport lounge, I'm never ready to leave. Now we're boarding our flight for room room.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Do you want to take this?
Where are you if it. This is the away bag. First international flight.
So we booked the aisle seat and the window seat, hoping that no one would sit in between us. As of 30 minutes ago I checked, nobody's sitting here. So we're hoping that for our nine and a half hour flight, it's just us in these three seats. If somebody ends up here, it's gonna be pretty disappointing.
Passenger Jimenez.
Luke and Luke de Jimenez.
If you're on board these.
This scene is mine.
Would you like chicken or pasta or Veggie.
It's the airplane.
It looks pretty good, though.
We will be offering you breakfast cocktails and beverages and coffees and teas will be available at any time during the flight. And ladies and gentlemen, it will be done in a couple hours from now. But about three hours before arriving in Rome, it will again be daylight. So if you like to sleep as long as possible and not be disturbed by the day. And I come and shoot the window as yesterday.
After dinner tonight.
Thank you.
It is Monday morning. The temperature outside, sunny blue skies, about 88 degrees.
We just landed. Where are we? Rome.
We're in Rome.
We just landed in Rome. It is about 11am local time and 4am according to my wife.
Except for a couple hours, like a.
Grand total of two hours of sleep, I would say right now I'm feeling surprisingly well. It being like bright and sunny outside is really helping that. And now we have to find our way to our apartment.
Ah, such a good feeling being back on the road.
Not knowing where we're going, how we're getting there, no clue.
So we've just arrived the Termini station, and this week we are working with a company called Italia Pass and they have a lounge here in the station that they've invited us to. We're also going to pick up our apartment keys there because they have hooked us up with what I believe will be a sweet apartment for the next few days.
I am so excited about Italy this week. We were in Milan for like 24 hours one time and I was super jet lagged. I even fell asleep with the cappuccino in my hand. I think we have a picture of that. And I've always wanted to come back and like, really do Italy. So I think this week is going to be awesome.
Hi. Hey. Hey. I'm.
How are you?
I'm Nate.
Nice to meet you.
Okay. Would you want to leave your luggage on the story?
Sure, yeah, I take care of it. Don't worry. Thank you.
We've been in the city for less than two minutes. We're already having our first cultural experience. Some Italian coffee, and it is much needed after sleeping on a plane for two hours last night.
It's so strong. It's so good.
Wow. You have a nice.
Shower.
A very nice man named Valerio gave us the keys to our new apartment and drew us a little map on how to get there. That's where we're going now.
So that was the Italia Pass lounge, which is basically just like an airport lounge, except it's inside of a train station. Free Coffee, free water, free wi fi and you can get access to the lounge if you purchase purchased the Italia Pass which is basically like this membership that you can purchase that gives you a bunch of discounts around the city when you're visiting. So apparently you buy your metro tickets from a newspaper stand. So we bought two 48 hour unlimited passes for 12 Euro and 50 cents. So we can ride the metro as much as we want over the next two days. Seems like a pretty good deal. I think it's like a dollar or euro 50 for one ride. So if we ride it four times in a day, these pay for themselves. Now we have to find the.
The a, a red line to go to our apartment.
Oh yeah, it's toasty.
Definitely changing into my shorts.
Ah, Ro.
We'Re here.
Ah, I feel the air conditioning. Yay.
Oh, it's nice.
Aw, this is great. Oh it's even got a little loft up there. Cute.
We made it.
Oh yeah.
I'm going to be going to bed super early.
Let's see what else we got going on. Space is huge.
What in the world? Wow. As much as I would really love to just lay down in that bed and pass out right now after two hours of sleep sleep last night, we can't. The Chinese consulate closes in an hour and 15 minutes and I ran out of time to get our Chinese visas while we were home. So we're trying to go get it from the consulate here because we have a really big adventure planned like starting very, very soon next week. Yeah, start, yeah, after this big adventure. So we're not quite ready to unveil exactly what that is, but you will learn about it soon enough.
I feel like I can't even talk straight. I'm so tired right now. Also we are leaving the camera here because I want to give us the best approval odds for our visas and I don't think lugging a big camera in there as journalists would be a good idea.
Well, the Chinese consulate did not go quite as planned. We brought our passports and pictures and we needed way more than that. So I don't know if that's gonna be happening.
That's all we really need. It's about 4:30 in the afternoon and I think we're gonna eat. I'm gonna post the next vlog and then I'm going to bed.
We're both struggling her a lot more than me. Let's eat.
We get this whole row if some.
Somebody gets on the seat. If somebody comes to this. If somebody comes to the seat.
Ready, set, go.
You got a head start.
Go. Oh, they're going.
Go, go.
Love this bag.
It never, ever fails, no matter how long we have in the lounge.
