TRAVEL HACKING + PERUVIAN DRONE LAWS

I think we're both still sleeping. Global Entry.

So today's vlog is starting out a little differently than most. It is, in fact, not early in the morning. It is the night before.

Same day as yesterday's vlog.

Yes.

The flight isn't until 11:45pm tonight. More on that later. After three and a half months of being in South America, we are going to a very special place tonight.

We're going home.

We'll explain later.

First, I feel like I need to explain why we were at the airport approximately 5ish hours early. It's not to go to a lounge. It is because I brought a drone into Peru, which I'd read like was almost impossible at one point. But it turns out all you have to do is pay the taxes on the drone, which for the DJI Mavic is equivalent to like $180. I think it's like 18% and in. To get your money back, you have to prove that you're taking the drone out of the country. You have to be here three hours early. I heard if you were here two hours and 59 minutes before your flight, they wouldn't give you your money back. That's why we're here in plenty of time. So somehow I have to get from outside the airport into baggage claim. I'm pretty sure is what the lady told me to try to get the money back for the drone. Let's see how it goes. I feel like this is not where we need to be. This nice lady at the service desk just told us that we need to check in, go through security, and then we would find the office, which totally contradicts what the first lady told me. My biggest fear is that we are going to get through security, get stamped out of Peru, and then I'm not gonna have any way to get back to baggage claim without going back into the country. Seriously, had I not had priority and been able to go through the priority line, I seriously don't think we would have gotten through the line fast enough. We'd still be in line to get our money back. Yeah. So the process was go get in line, get your boarding pass, don't do what the lady at the information desk tells you, and go through customs and Stu.

Smoking a cigarette in the airport. Then go to the doors where you leave the baggage claim. There's a security guard, you show him your papers for your drone. He goes and gets a guy, you've signed some stuff, you go in, you get metal detected. It's quite the process.

Oh, wow. I wasn't there for any of the.

Charity, wasn't allowed to go in. And so then go back out into the airport, get a stamp from the lady at the American Airlines desk. Then you have to go back in, you have to sign some stuff again, you have to get metal detected again. And then you have to go to this other desk and then they give you your money back. So it sounds like super annoying and super complicated, but both the people we dealt with were like, incredibly nice. And what made me feel really good about my Spanish, which I've been feeling really bad about, the reason that I say all of that is because it's extremely hard to find good information about bringing a drone into a country, especially one as complicated as Peru. For all the other drone flyers out there who watch our vlogs, that is the most up to date information I can give you as of.

April 14th. Yeah, that's what month it is. April 14th, 2017. Now we're going to the lounge.

Finally.

It's quite the line. Oh, quite the chandelier.

This lounge is fresh.

According to lounge buddy.

This lounge has guacamole and these fried cheese thingies. Really don't know what else you need in a lounge. There's also a lot of people.

We had a great time in the lounge. We are boarding our flight for Dallas, Texas and we should arrive around 6:30am probably going to be sleeping for the next few hours. We got our seats changed to the exit row. Once again, thanks to Nate's status.

Just us two.

I'm a sky so blue. Just us two.

We are officially in the usa.

Sorry, there was no footage from riding the airplane. Seriously, like, as soon as the wheels left the ground, I fell asleep, didn't eat, and I woke up after we had already landed. I slept the entire time. One of the best I've ever slept on an airplane. Not this is possible.

Unlike usual, I slept terribly every time I woke up and saw Nate sleeping so peacefully, like in the same position.

She was like, serious. She was seriously mad at me. When we got off the plane, I was like, wait, this isn't fair.

It was terrible. But I did finally fall asleep and woke up to the captain of American Airline saying, we're fixing the land. It just made me so happy because we're in Dallas, Texas, which we're from Tennessee, but people still talk like that.

We've like really been realizing the country accent since we've been back. I wonder if we've been away from it so long that we're like hearing the country accent.

I was Cracking up. We still haven't explained why we're going down, but we're going to do that later.

So we are currently in the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, which is one of our favorite US Airports because it has one of our favorite lounges, the Centurion Lounge. When I was booking these flights, I had the option to either have a two hour layover or a 12 hour layover, and I chose the 12. So we're gonna be here for the rest of the day hanging out in the lounge. The main point of going home is to work and get caught up. And I figured why not do that with free really good food massages. Free massages, showers, great WI fi. This is a long talk in a.

We've made our massage appointments for 1040 and they have the chips and salsa out, which is my favorite.

So I'm happy. So we have breakfast. So I already told you, one of the biggest reasons that we're going home is because Kara needs to catch up. Last. Our vlogs are now a month behind, so that's a major reason. But there are several other reasons. Probably the biggest one that tipped us over the edge of, like, for sure having to go home is that my computer broke. We were in the Amazon and then one day I tried to turn it on and the screen is just black. There's this really cool trick. If you turn my computer on and you shine a light through the Apple symbol on the back of the computer, you can actually see my computer is still working, but my screen is black. So it's completely unusual. Also, our GoPro broke when we were in the Galapagos. It now kind of works, but the screen on the back doesn't work. So GoPro is going to send us the new one and I needed to get back and ship that back to GoPro. And last but not least, you may remember the time I crashed this into a tree in the Amazon jungle.

It works, but not like it should. Sometimes the camera gets crooked and then the signal between the drone and the controller, like the screen is really choppy. So it's hard to see what I'm filming when I'm flying. So basically all of our important electronics, except for a big camera, are broken. So that's one of the main reasons that we're going home. Were there other reasons? And of course, we didn't start traveling because we hated our life at home and we wanted to get away. We loved our life at home, but we also wanted to travel. So we always look for any excuse that we can go home and See friends and family and spend time, but not too much because have to get a lot of work done.

So I can't remember if we vlogged the shower room the last couple times we were here. It's pretty basic. Sink, shower, toilet. But when you sleep on an airplane and then sit at the airport all day, you don't feel too fresh. So I'm super excited about this.

I definitely didn't do that.

And this is why we love the Centurion Lounge.

Round number two. One, it is freezing in here. Two, while Garrett's been editing, this is all the math I've done on the cheapest way to get to India, which is the next place we think we're going in like two weeks. And we haven't booked anything yet. So I'm trying to decide whether or not we want to pay for a flight or whether we want to use points. And if we do use points, what's the value for a point that we're getting? This is all the thought that goes into booking flights.

It is 6pm Our flight landed in this airport this morning at 6.30am and somehow it still wasn't long enough. I didn't get a vlog uploaded and we're rushing to our gate as usual, but we're going home.

Yay.

I ate way too many nachos to be walking this quickly.

Super full.

We are most definitely the last one.

To get us on our way. Make sure you're seated up, all electronic devices are put away, and your tray table is stone.

Take a moment to check your seat back pocket for any personal items.

We officially made it to Nashville, Tennessee, and Nate's family should be here. Picked up.

So there are two things, two cards that I forgot to talk about while we were in the Centurion Lounge. Just for those of you who are curious, the American Express Platinum card is how we are able to get access to the Centurion Lounge. They have like five airports. If you fly through any of those five airports frequently, totally worth getting the Platinum card. Also, this might take just a second to explain. Last year I had American Airlines executive Platinum status, and in February I lost it, which was extremely sad. Thankfully, I status matched like midway through last year to Turkish Airlines because I was like, hey, I have American Airlines status. Might be flying Turkish Airlines. Will you give me some status? They gave me some status. And then when I lost my American Airline status, I wanted my One World status back because American is part of the One World Alliance. And so my status that I earned with Turkish Airways, I didn't earn it at all. The status that I had with Turkish Airways. I status matched from Turkish Airways to Air Berlin. So now I have Air Berlin status even though I've never flown on Air Berlin through April of 2018, which is equivalent to One World Sapphire, which is how we sat in Exit Rose on both of those flights. You might have to chop that up. That got a lot.

And this is why we can travel full time. So we're gonna be home for two weeks but we're probably not gonna film anything unless something really cool happens. I don't think we're gonna film anything because that kind of defeats purpose of going home to catch up on work. So tomorrow's video or the video in the near future is gonna be us leaving again.

So it'll be like tonight and then tomorrow we're leaving. But really we've been here for two weeks.

I'm sure we'll fill you in. Let's go get our stuff in.

Welcome to N.

We're experiencing a first right now. Our bags did not come through.

The thing shut.

This hasn't happened to us in 37 countries.

It could happen to us in a better place.

I know. I'm happy to know that they're only as far as Dallas. Hopefully. Was there more than one national flight today? Oh yeah, there was. Maybe they're here. Maybe they sent him on the first national flight. I bet he did. I bet they're here somewhere.

Bottles of food. Have a good night.

We got them.

I don't know how I think I was right. I think they came on the earlier point.

Couldn't have had anything to do with our pointless 12 hour layover in Dallas.

Hey.

Welcome home. Welcome.

Home.

It.

What's up?

Sorry. Are you okay? I said ow.

I know. I'm trying to help you.

On the sky. Just us too.