Travel
- Photos on my phone: 10,017
- Days away from home: 354
- Flight hours: 87
- Airbnbs and hotel rooms: 52
- Flights: 50
- Airports: 23
- Cars (rented/borrowed/owned): 17
- Countries: 10
- Boats: 3
- Children: 2
- Eurostars: 1
- MacBooks that survived a glass of whisky being spilt on them: 0
- Brown hairs left on my head: -6
The car collection of The Louwman Museum
Took my Canon R5 with a 35mm plus Mike Stevens to The Hague’s Louwman Museum on Saturday and you wouldn’t believe it but I made photos.
You win points if you spot the MG, the oldest surviving and first Toyota, and there’s ten points up for grabs if you can guess which one was my favourite.
A car that pulled my attention, amongst an entire museum of cars that desperately screamed for my attention, was this Chinese manufactured car, the SH760A. The English sign reads:
The characteristics of old Mercedes-Benz sedans are very evident in this Chinese Shanghai. The lines of the roof and the doors were inspired by the Mercedes ‘Ponton’, a model of the 1950s. Yet this Chinese sedan was produced in the 1980s. The example on display came to the Louwman Museum straight from the factory in 1986 and is completely new. It shows zero mileage and the protective plastic still covers the upholstery. The Shanghai automobile company was established in 1958 and lasted until 1991. The SH760 model, fitted with a straight-six engine also derived from an old Mercedes, was used in China primarily as a taxi or limousine for minor officials of the Communist Party. After this model, Shanghai started assembling various Volkswagen models, including the popular Shanghai Santana.
Apple iOS 26 Brings Flight Tracking to Your Lock Screen
Monday’s WWDC 2025 keynote event in California delivered plenty of excitement for tech enthusiasts, but it was a particular announcement about Apple Wallet that caught my attention as a frequent flyer. Apple is essentially “Sherlocking” one of the most - my most - beloved travel apps in the ecosystem, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “Sherlocking” refers to Apple incorporating features from third-party apps directly into iOS, often making those apps redundant. The term comes from when Apple killed the popular Watson app by integrating similar features into macOS Sherlock.
This time, the target is Flighty, the award-winning flight tracking iPhone, iPad, and macOS app that’s become indispensable for many of us. I’d give up my American Express before I gave up Flighty.
What’s Coming in iOS 26
The headline iOS feature for travellers this year is flight tracking via Live Activities directly in Apple Wallet. Your boarding passes will now support real-time updates on your iPhone’s lock screen, showing arrival times, gate changes, delays, and other crucial flight information without needing to unlock your phone or open a separate app.
From Apple PR:
“In Apple Wallet, a refreshed boarding pass experience delivers rich, relevant information straight to users’ fingertips with Live Activities that offer real-time updates about their flights. For added convenience, users can also share their flight’s Live Activities so friends and family can stay up to date on their journeys.”
But Apple isn’t stopping there. The updated Wallet app will display relevant contextual information below your boarding pass, including Apple Maps directions to the appropriate airport terminal, quick access to Find My for baggage tracking, and other travel-related shortcuts. Maps is also getting comprehensive airport navigation with information about gates, security checkpoints, shops, baggage claim areas, restaurants, and restrooms.
Sound familiar? These are features that Flighty has been perfecting for years, and the app even won an Apple Design Award for its excellence. The irony isn’t lost on me.
Apple Wallet is becoming more powerful
It was 2012 when Apple first introduced what we now know as Apple Wallet, that is getting these new flight tracking features in September. Originally called Passbook, it launched with iOS 6 as Apple’s answer to digital tickets and passes. The concept was simple but revolutionary: store boarding passes, event tickets, loyalty cards, and coupons in one centralised location.
The app was renamed to Apple Wallet in 2015 with iOS 9, and its capabilities have steadily expanded. Today, it handles everything from boarding passes and concert tickets to credit cards for Apple Pay, student ID cards, and even car keys.
The newly announced iOS 26 software, which has been made available to developers this week, carries the new flight tracking features, but considering it is using the Wallet Kit framework, it would not be unlikely that this requires each airline to enable the features.
Australian frequent flyers will be familiar with how tardy our local airlines are with adopting modern operating system frameworks and technologies.
While we’re on Apple Wallet, many don’t know that it already includes a fantastic travel feature called Express Transit Mode that can make your travel experience smoother. In cities with compatible public transport systems like Brisbane, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, and Washington DC, you can set up Express Transit to automatically pay for trains, buses, and trams without Face ID, Touch ID, or even waking your iPhone.
Simply tap your phone on the reader and go. It works brilliantly in cities like London, Hong Kong, and increasingly in Australian cities where contactless payments are supported.
The Flighty Question
Flighty has carved out a devoted following in the travel community by doing one thing exceptionally well: flight tracking. The app doesn’t just show you flight status; it provides rich context, beautiful visualisations, and features like tracking friends’ flights, managing check-ins, and detailed flight history. It’s become the gold standard for flight tracking apps.
The concern for Flighty isn’t just about competition—it’s about existential threat. When Apple integrates similar functionality directly into the operating system, third-party apps often struggle to justify their existence. Why download and pay for Flighty when iOS does the basics for free?
However, there’s hope for apps like Flighty. Apple’s implementation, while convenient, will likely focus on core functionality rather than the rich feature set that makes dedicated apps special.
Flighty’s social features, detailed analytics, flight predictions, incoming aircraft monitoring, airport delay awareness, and sophisticated notification system probably aren’t going anywhere soon.
What This Means for Frequent Flyers
For us as travellers, these changes represent a win regardless of how the app ecosystem shakes out. Having flight information readily available on the lock screen eliminates friction from one of the most stressful parts of travel: staying informed about your flight status.
The airport navigation features in Maps could be particularly valuable. Anyone who’s wandered around Terminal 2 at Melbourne Airport looking for a decent coffee or frantically searching for the correct gate at Changi will appreciate having this information integrated into the Maps app they’re already using.
The integration with Find My for baggage tracking is also clever. While AirTags in luggage have become common practice among frequent flyers, having a direct link from your boarding pass to the Find My app streamlines the process of checking on your bags.
This move reflects Apple’s broader strategy of reducing friction in everyday digital interactions. By bringing more functionality into core iOS apps, Apple creates a more seamless experience for users while potentially reducing the number of third-party apps they need to manage.
From Apple’s perspective, this makes perfect sense. The company has been working to make Wallet the central hub for digital credentials and transactions. Adding flight tracking elevates Wallet from a simple digital wallet to a comprehensive travel companion.
The timing is also noteworthy. As travel continues rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, Apple is positioning iOS as the operating system that understands and anticipates travellers’ needs. Live Activities for flights, enhanced airport maps, and integrated baggage tracking create a compelling travel experience that’s hard to replicate on other platforms.
The first iOS 26 developer beta is available now, with a public beta expected next month and the full release coming later this year in our spring. For frequent flyers, this represents an interesting inflection point where our beloved third-party apps may need to evolve or risk obsolescence.
Flighty and similar apps will need to double down on their unique value propositions—the features that Apple is unlikely to replicate. This might mean more social features, better analytics, integration with loyalty programmes, or enhanced prediction capabilities.
For those of us who’ve relied on apps like Flighty, the transition period will be interesting to watch. Will the convenience of built-in flight tracking be enough to replace the rich feature sets we’ve grown accustomed to? Or will there be enough differentiation for both to coexist?
What’s certain is that iOS 26 will make flight tracking more accessible to the mainstream traveller. Features that were once the domain of dedicated travel apps will now be available to every iPhone user by default. Whether that’s a net positive for the travel app ecosystem remains to be seen, but for frequent flyers, it’s another step toward a more seamless travel experience.
The real test will be in the execution. Apple has a mixed track record with travel features, sometimes nailing the basics while missing the nuanced needs of frequent travellers. If iOS 26’s flight tracking captures even half of what makes Flighty special, it’ll be a win for anyone who spends significant time in airports and well worth the $75 odd Australian dollars a year.
When I’m due in Sydney in two hours, Flighty takes my anxiety away but software feature redundancy isn’t always a bad thing, nor are freebie features included on your default operating system, especially when your flight is delayed and you need information fast.
Pretty cool to see my work at Balandra Beach in Mexico on Conde Nast’s Traveler today.
One day I ought to figure out how to be a professional profitable photographer instead of being an Unsplash dude.
Still have found what I'm looking for 🌵 Joshua Tree
When we were living in Baja California Sur a real hippy-looking bloke told me that the reason we felt so calm and at home in Baja was because it was a blue zone.
Wikipedia says of the evidence-poor but good-vibes terminology:
A blue zone is a region in the world where people are claimed to have exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 80 due to a lifestyle combining physical activity, low stress, rich social interactions, a local whole-foods diet, and low disease incidence.
I feel the same way in Joshua Tree which is why we came back this weekend after taking Luna to Disneyland and before flying home to Australia.
You might even take away from the name of this blog that I don’t mind the album either.
Disneyland for Luna’s 6th birthday. What an amazing sensory overload. A work of art!
Well, that was Swell
I made the 4am alarm to catch the 2024 Swell Sculpture Festival before sunrise this morning and as always it was a treat. Something that stood out to me, and I don’t know if it was new this year, but much of the art was priced. Some of the sculptures were on the way to $100,000! If you can create art and put a price on it, and earn that price, then you’re doing a thousand times better than I who simply places his art on Unsplash and Pexels in lieu of doing the hard work of making art that people want, putting a price on it that represents value and effort, and putting it to market. More power to the artists who can exchange their art for good money, society will be better off for it. These are the pieces that captured me, one in particular was interesting, the “Personal Space Elevator”.
A transport nerd's Italian journies
I’m a transport nerd, so here’s my transport journey to and across Italy over the last few weeks.
Missing in my photos is my phat electric bike from Procida.
We scooted in Rome
Moped in Amalfi
Avis gave me what was pretty much a sports car in Sicily
Then a baby little Fiat 500X in Tuscany
I flew my airline crush in Ryanair
Qatar A380s from Australia and through Doha to Rome
And the best €60 I spent was on a business class seat on the high speed rail from Naples
Why are the Vatican guards dressed like clowns?
Orrrr why are clowns dressed like Vatican guards?
Some frames I have a captured on the Amalfi coast this week
Pictures of steak I ate in Florence
A little life update: we handed the keys for our Gold Coast home back to the landlord yesterday. Today we’re home-less. I’ve just boarded a flight to Melbourne for a wedding there this weekend, then we’re off to New Zealand for a week, the. Hobart and Sydney.
What I’m trying to say is don’t post me anything.
Drove the 90 minutes from Exmouth to photograph the sunset in Coral Bay this afternoon and also see the couple I’m marrying this weekend, and after the sun had set I found that all the local restaurants all had 90 minute waits, so I thought, I could just drive back to Exmouth for dinner.
Alas, everything in Exmouth was closed, not even a vending machine for a chocolate.
So I present to you my art from today, art quite literally made by a starving artist.
Also, regional Australia, let’s have at least one kitchen open past 8pm hey?
Luckily today is the first day back from holidays for The Short Order, so I was blessed to receive a 5:30am breaky burger for dinner.
Frames from Singapore
We’re packing and getting ready for our homeward journey tonight in Paris. We’ve got three flights left, and the longest ones just earned us a text message from Qantas letting us know that the four of us had been upgraded to business class (RIP my points balance). We’ve got a few nights in Singapore left and it’s back to the Southern Gold Coast after almost a year away.
So because I’m a big nerd, these are our family travel stats since we left home last September and listed our home on Airbnb:
I walked out of the house this morning and a man was urinating onto the street, facing in my direction, two metres away. I called out that he was disgusting and he stared at me in the eyes.
After riding a scooter across town to a store I walked upon a lady on the street bent over and attending to her monthly needs.
Just now walking to the grocery store I witnessed a man with both hands amputated smoking a cigarette, his two arms acting as two fingers.
The Parisians have really left their mark on me today.
After two months in London, across regional Austria, Liechtenstein, regional Italy, Puglia, and Tuscany, it is so refreshing for my soul to be walking the streets of Paris again tonight.
I could walk the streets of Paris and New York City for the rest of my days and never get bored or lose inspiration.
Driving from Siena, Italy, to Graz, Austria, today Goldie and I were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch and we decided on this place named after a beach in Los Angeles.
I took Britt’s Fuji X-S10 with the 27mm f/2.8 for a play while we were there.
