While you were away: This week’s top travel stories

The Louis Vuitton shower trunk

We get it—you’re always on the go and don’t always have time to keep up with the latest headlines. Don’t worry, we’re here to bring you up to speed on all the travel news you may have missed this week.

Valet of the dolls
Robots are now parking cars at Dusseldorf Airport in Germany, NBC reports. Simply pull up to a designated spot at the airport and a robotic system named Ray will photograph and measure your car using sensors and transport it to a nearby parking spot. Passengers then plug in their flight details on a touch screen and Ray will have their car ready and waiting when they return. We just hope this ‘bot knows his automobiles. If a BMW is dropped off and Ray retrieves an American car we’re willing to bet those Germans are going to lose their Scheisse.

Trivial pursuits
A CNN round up of “totally unnecessary but desirable travel gadgets” this week included the tiny Narrative five megapixel clip-on camera; the SteriPEN Ultra, a gadget that eliminates 99% of bacteria from water in under a minute; and a Louis Vitton’s shower trunk, an actual made-to-order shower in a suitcase (um, okay). Missing from the list was a wristwatch that allows you to quietly taser the annoying guy talking your ear off in the next seat.

Flight for the last slice
Domino’s Pizza made one of its strangest delivery runs yet when it showed up on the tarmac at Cheyenne Regional Airport with 38 piping hot pies, says CNN. The occasion? A Frontier Airlines flight from Washington to Denver was rerouted to Cheyenne due to inclement weather so the pilot decided to spring for pizza for all 160 passengers stuck on the ground for two hours. As a bonus, after eating Domino’s passengers finally craved airline food for the first time ever.

Agency work
Turns out the internet didn’t drive the travel agent to extinction as was expected. According to the Boston Globe this week, traditional travel agencies are thriving thanks to Baby Boomers who are seeking them out in large numbers to customize expensive itineraries to foreign lands. But experts can’t say if the trend will continue as millennials age, given that customized travel isn’t required for a generation that never looks up from its iPhone.

Like a virgin
Virgin Galactic announced a new partnership with Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces this week, NBC reports. The aim is to give “future astronauts” a place to lodge while they await a suborbital space trip from New Mexico‘s Spaceport America. The hotel is currently upgrading its facilities to accommodate guests who will be paying upwards of $250,000 for a four-day spaceflight package. Virgin, formerly known for its ’90s heyday as a retail chain of big box music stores, hasn’t specified whether inflight music aboard their space ships will be either Third Eye Blind or the Cranberries.

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