With the endless proliferation of apps and booking sites and TikToks, travel can feel more accessible than ever. And yet, in a very real way, a profound experience of travel—the freedom of it, the genuine, life-altering novelty of it—has never felt more out of reach.
Enter: Nicky Kelvin. A former music lawyer turned aviation obsessive, Kelvin first drew the attention of The Points Guy while he was teaching travel masterclasses on the sly, edifying students on how to fly first-class for free. When the renowned travel guide expanded to the UK, they brought in Kelvin to launch the franchise. In the eight years since Kelvin has been everywhere from Fiji to Seoul, spreading the gospel on mileage programs and endeavoring to demystify the “points world.”
“What I want people to take away is simple,” Kelvin says. “Travel more, and travel smarter.” In other words: Sweat all the small stuff beforehand, so you can see and do (and eat) more once you actually arrive.
“Do the research, then put it away,” Kelvin suggests. “The research isn’t a schedule. It’s there so you recognize a spontaneous moment when you see one.”
During a whirlwind trip to LA this spring, Kelvin put our most versatile styles to the test—at the airport, in the hotel, and by the pool. Along the way, he shared a few pearls of travel-related wisdom for the season ahead.
What are you looking for in an airport “fit”? How much do you care about looking good versus being comfortable?
Comfort wins, but I won’t sacrifice looking put-together for it. The internet tells you it’s a choice. It isn’t. I’ve landed at 6 a.m. and gone straight to a meeting enough times to know whatever I wear [to the airport] has to also work in the first two hours on the ground.
What qualities are you looking for in the clothes you bring on a trip?
Versatility and recovery. Versatility because I often pack for two climates in one carry-on. Recovery because everything gets stuffed, scrunched and sat on, and I’m not ironing at 11pm in a hotel room. If a piece comes out of the bag still looking like a piece, it earns its spot.
What are your travel and/or airport pet peeves?
Gate lice. The people who crowd the gate 45 minutes early. Also, people who put a tiny rucksack in the overhead bin when it fits perfectly under the seat.
What’s your best airport hack? Best travel hack in general?
Tracking apps. FlightRadar24 and Flighty will tell you where your inbound aircraft is, so you know your flight’s delayed before the airline has told you.
In general, use your points and miles. Most people earn them and never spend them and they sit there doing nothing while you pay cash for the flight.
What’s the most common mistake people make when booking their airfare and/or hotels?
Not using the points and miles they’ve already earned. People hoard them for “the big trip” that never comes, and meanwhile pay full cash for flights they could have had in business for a fraction of the price.
Is there anything you do or routine you follow to prepare for a flight, so you feel good mentally and physically when you arrive?
Move before you fly, I love a lap of the terminal. I’ve also been known to run it.
The moment the plane takes off, I switch my watch to the destination time zone and act accordingly. Sleep if it’s night there, stay up if it’s day. Your body follows your head faster than you’d think.
What’s your best piece of packing advice?
Pack a day early, not the night before. When you pack in a panic, you over-pack. Pack the day before, then do a second pass in the morning and take things out. I remove two or three items on that second pass almost every trip. I also love packing cubes.
What’s the first thing you do when you get to a place you’ve never been before?
I go for a run and I load up a playlist of classic songs from that place to listen to while I do it. You get an immediate sense of the city, the rhythm, the streets, and a soundtrack that ties the whole thing together. You can learn a huge amount about a place in one run.
What type of place would you recommend people visiting in a new destination to get a real sense of its culture?
A food market — the one locals actually use, not the Instagram one. A covered market in Europe, hawker centre in Asia, mercado in Latin America. I also adore a local supermarket. Sounds unglamorous but it’s the most honest look at a country you’ll get, what people actually eat, what things actually cost.
When you (or a less-frequent traveler) are on a trip, how do you see as much as you can without feeling like you’re just checking things off a list?
Pick one big thing per day and let everything else be accidental. If today’s big thing is the Vatican, the Vatican gets your full attention — go early, don’t rush, sit somewhere afterwards, float about.
Three big things in a day means remembering none of them. One done properly beats three done in a blur.
How has travel, and planning for travel, in particular, changed over the last few years?
Booking used to be about the cheapest price. Now it’s about the most value. A £400 economy ticket and a 50,000-point business ticket leave on the same plane, and one of them is a completely different experience.
The flip side: everywhere is busier, booking windows are longer, and “just turning up” at a famous restaurant is mostly gone. I like to plan the non-negotiables and leave the rest to chance.
What are some overlooked destinations for summer travel this year? International? In the U.S.?
International: Slovenia. Lake Bled gets the photos but Ljubljana and the Soča Valley are the real story. Albania’s coast is what Croatia was 15 years ago, still affordable.
In the US: the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. Everyone goes to the Hamptons and pays for it. Better wine than people expect, proper swimming lakes, and hotel points go twice as far as in Manhattan.
What advice would you give someone who’s intimidated by the whole “points” business?
Start with one program, not five. Trying to understand American, United, BA, Virgin, Hilton and Marriott on day one is how people give up. Pick the airline you already fly most, sign up, and that’s month one. Add something next month, it could be a credit card or a shopping portal/cashback site.
You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be enrolled.
What’s the most overrated hotel amenity? Underrated? What’s the most outlandish amenity you’ve ever seen?
Overrated: turndown service. I don’t need someone to fold the corner of my bed. I need the shower to work and the Wi-Fi to be fast.
Underrated: a properly complimentary minibar, and a hotel that does your laundry well. It sounds boring but it changes the trip.
Outlandish: personalized decorations, printed photos of me and my friends decorating the room.
What’s the best trip you’ve ever been on?
Visiting the Gorillas in Uganda recently was life-changing.
Which trip is #1 on your bucket list?
Kyrgyzstan for the World Nomad Games. Eagle hunting, horseback wrestling, traditional sports and epic landscapes.
What’s your advice to a couple that’s traveling together for the first time?
Don’t go too big. Four days somewhere easy beats a three-week epic. If it goes wrong, you’re home by Sunday. You learn more about each other in a delayed flight and a rainy afternoon in a hotel room than at any five-star dinner.
And accept you won’t want the same things at the same time. One of you wants to see everything, the other wants to sit in a square for two hours.