Stuffy Nose and a Live Chat Tomorrow Night

"Bundle up or you'll catch a cold," as my mom and grandmother used to warn.

Prague, Czech Republic, January 2016.

Happy Monday!

This past weekend, as temperatures dipped below freezing in Boston, I faced down a nasty cold. What I initially thought were seasonal allergies proved to be quite a bit more, and led me to cancel a weekend trip to Florida. I spent much of the weekend in bed and, to this point, have gone through 2.5 boxes of tissues infused with lotion (they need to make tissues with double the lotion content, to be honest).

Chatting with my mom yesterday, she repeated a line that I heard all too often in my childhood: “bundle up or you’ll catch a cold.”

I always thought that was nonsense, but a recent study published by Dr. Benjamin Bleier, a sinus specialist who teaches at the Harvard Medical School, suggests that an innate self-defense system to ward off viruses is located inside of our noses — but its capacity is reduced in colder weather.

As it turns out, my mom was right all those years — but perhaps it’s not so much about donning a jacket, but rather a nose warmer.

Join my live chat tomorrow night over at accessibleGO

TOMORROW — Tuesday, November 14 at 7:00 p.m. ET, I’ll be sharing Thanksgiving travel tips in a chat hosted by accessibleGO. To register for the event and be entered to win a Fall Travel Package that includes a $250 Southwest Airlines gift card, a $250 Disney gift card, and a hotel room booked on accessibleGO (valued up to $200), visit the John Morris x accessibleGO registration link. You’ll have an opportunity to ask questions and I look forward to connecting with you there!

Watch the recording of my Accessible Travel Chat with TravelAbility Founder Jake Steinman

In the latest Accessible Travel Chat made possible by paid subscribers to the Wheelchair Travel Newsletter, I was joined by Jake Steinman, founder of the TravelAbility Summit, an organization that works to engage with destination marketing organizations to promote accessible travel and accessibility best practices.

To catch up on what attendees said was a “valuable” session, click here to watch my conversation with Jake Steinman.

Championship games and looking ahead

As a travel blogger, no trip truly amounts to a vacation — I’m constantly assessing accessibility and in search of stories and destinations worth sharing with you. As the holidays and a new year approach, though, work travel for conferences and events winds down and I look forward to trips that connect me with family and friends. Here are a few that I have upcoming:

• This weekend, I am traveling to South Florida for a friend’s wedding — and to take a flight on a small airline you likely haven’t heard of, but which has a very cool airplane with a unique cargo compartment.

• After the wedding, I will venture up to Gainesville, Florida for Thanksgiving, where I’ll see family and watch my Florida State Seminoles take on the Florida Gators in “The Swamp.” If FSU wins as expected, they’ll finish the regular season with a 12-0 record… unconquered for only the fourth time in school history.

2021 NCAA Women’s College Cup in Santa Clara, California.

• A week later, I will be in Charlotte, North Carolina for the ACC Championship Game — a win will put FSU in the College Football Playoff. I also hope to ride Amtrak’s “Carolinian” train to Cary, North Carolina (a suburb of Raleigh), where the Lady ‘Noles soccer team will be favored to win their fourth national title at the Women’s College Cup (I saw them hoist the trophy in 2021).

• In early December, I am visiting Portland, Oregon for a bit of a writing and research retreat — I hope to come out of it with lots of new content, including a practical accessible travel guide to the City of Portland.

What I’m reading

I’ve got a lot of flights coming up, and some time to relax over the holidays, so I’ve loaded my kindle with a couple of books: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, a new book by David Grann, author of the award-winning Killers of the Flower Moon (which was recently adapted by Apple TV); and A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by the late historian David Fromkin, which seems like a timely read.