🧳  Travel agents bounce back

👋  Good morning. You can cross “buy Hawaiian shirt for my bot” off your weekly to-do list: Southwest Airlines is banning humanoid and animal-like robots from both cabins and checked baggage on its flights. If you’re looking for someone to blame, point your finger at Stewie, the 3.5-foot robot that walked onto his Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Dallas and had to be moved to a window seat after having his battery disconnected so that the plane could complete its trip.

NEWS FLASH 

🏠  Housing in a hurry: Uplift Microhome is developing reusable, modular housing units that can be used in the wake of natural disasters. Each modular home has a battery and water reservoir, and can be transported on a tractor trailer and installed using a standard forklift. Self-leveling bases allow the houses to be plopped down off-grid on uneven terrain. The startup says FEMA currently takes an average of four months to set up temporary housing, with fewer than 1% of disaster survivors receiving a physical home. 

🔥  Vape responsibly: Brits toss 6m+ vapes and vape pods per week, taxing the UK’s recycling systems and posing a fire hazard due to their lithium-ion batteries. The UK banned disposable vapes, but now, recyclers are just seeing bigger vapes with bigger batteries. What could help? Experts suggest a handling fee or deposit return to encourage customers to take used vapes to the appropriate facilities, akin to soda cans.
🎧  Here’s a cool idea: Parachord is an aspiring music app that wants to let people share tunes, no matter which platform they use. Founder J Herskowitz told The Verge that he built this app in 2011, then called Tomahawk, but it wasn’t financially viable. Now, he’s back thanks to vibe-coding, targeting the niche, cross-platform listener who looks beyond whatever Spotify suggests.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• Expect delays: The Long Island Rail Road strike — the first since 1994 — entered its third day on Monday, leaving 270k+ daily riders scrambling as 3.5k+ railroad workers remained off the job.
  

• Paw patrol: Cats Lock is a $3 Mac app that lets users lock their keyboards whenever their cat threatens to stomp all over it. Very specific, but anyone who’s ever had a cat gets it.
  

• Udderly remarkable: Montreal startup Opalia raised ~$2.3m. It hopes to launch its BetterMilk — milk made from mammary cells, no actual cows necessary — in North America in 2028.
  

• Fake news: The South Florida Standard, which claimed to be a local news outlet, was revealed to be staffed entirely by AI-generated reporters with fake bios as part of a network of 17 AI-powered sites created by an “image management” entrepreneur.  
  

TEAM LEADER TACTICS

Four ways to think like a thriving CEO

To be your peak successful self:

• Delegate relentlessly. 
• Don’t punt tough conversations. 
• Establish company values worth caring about. 
• Abuse your competitive edge. 

We break it all down with mnemonic frameworks and mini-case studies featuring protein bars, pasta sauce, and our very own founder, Sam Parr.

THE BIG IDEA

Travel agents are back in business 

For decades, the internet seemed to signal the end for travel agents. And the industry did take a big hit, with the number of US agents dropping nearly 50% between 2000 and 2012.

But all these years later, and despite the rise of AI, the profession is experiencing a resurgence. 

• On LinkedIn, it’s one of the 25 fastest-growing jobs of the past three years, with the number of travel agents jumping 63% between 2024 and 2025, per The Wall Street Journal. 
  
• A record 47% of Americans are using travel agents to book holidays, including 38% of Gen Z and millennials, per an IBS Software survey.

What’s driving the renaissance?

People are traveling more than ever, and while online services like booking and review sites made DIY travel planning possible, organizing a trip can be time-consuming. 

Agents help travelers make the most of their vacations by curating itineraries around their budgets, time, and interests, and providing access to unique experiences and exclusive deals.

The service offers convenience, personalization, and expertise for travelers and big commissions for agents. 

Something for every traveler

Unlike storefront travel agents of the past, who often sold preplanned packages, modern advisors are adapting to meet the demand for curated vacations. 

Many successful ones have niched down, building trips around everything from mahjong and pets to food allergies and more.

Platforms like Fora, which launched in 2021, have made it easy for folks, including many white-collar workers, to make the career pivot, and lots of money.

• Ninety-seven percent of the company’s agents are rookies, and 35 hit $1m+ in sales in their first year, co-founder Henly Vasquez told Bloomberg. 

That said…

… AI is still gunning for their jobs: There’s an abundance of AI travel planning apps and tools, and it’s still expected to drive the industry’s decline. Plus, a recent survey found 91% of global travelers use the tech for trip planning.

But few fully trust it, and for good reason:

• A new study found AI frequently provides inaccurate information, and more than a few tourists have been sent to made-up or dangerous destinations on the advice of bots. 

Maybe one day, bots. But for now, designing the ideal vacation may still require human intelligence. 

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It’s not news: Distribution is harder than ever before. Here’s how one founder found a workaround and grew his business to $35k per month.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

How much some people are paying each month to learn how to eat like Jesus, per The New York Times. The Bible might not seem like the obvious place to search for your next weeknight recipe, but that’s exactly what influencers like Kayla Bundy, who offers coaching sessions and $28 guides on Christian superfoods, are doing to peddle advice on “biblical eating,” the latest viral wellness trend, which comes amid a growing interest in healthy eating and spirituality among young Americans.

Framing overeating as a sin could be an effective way to stick to your diet, but knowing there isn’t a single mention of a cheeseburger in the scripture, we’ll abstain.

AROUND THE WEB

📅  On this day: In 1962, Marilyn Monroe famously performed “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” for President John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday.
⌛  That’s cool: What various types of sand look like under a microscope.
🍗  Haha: Is Costco’s rotisserie chicken still $4.99?
🥁  Game: Match the beat.
🦌  Aww: A rare deer.

SHOWER THOUGHT

If we get phasers, someone will work out how to set them to tickle. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Singdhi Sokpo.

Editing by: Sara "Bon voyage" Friedman.

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