These are not tips for travelers. They are tips for hotels and inns on how to make a guest (me, to be specific) happy. My wife, Jane, and I travel a lot and stay in a variety of accommodations, from a sleep-on-the-floor desert oasis in Iran to landmark hotels in Europe to jungle eco-lodges in…
The 52 Places Traveler The 52 Places Traveler visits Lyon and Marseille, just a quick train ride apart — but worlds away from each other. Oct. 8, 2019 ImageLyon transforms into a magical light show after the sun sets. Our columnist, Sebastian Modak, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2019…
“If you can find me a better place than Kamchatka on this earth, I will argue with you!” exclaimed Alexei Ozerov, the exuberant chief volcanologist on the entrancing peninsula hanging off Russia’s Pacific Coast. Leaping from behind his cluttered desk at the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, he tore a tabletop globe from its stand…
Among drinks enthusiasts, Germany is famous for producing some of the world’s best beers. And a few of the country’s valleys have attained cult status among wine lovers — in particular, Mosel, Rheingau and the Ahr. German schnapps are pretty much a known quantity, while the country’s herbal bitters have an even broader recognition, or…
Asheville, N. C. — with its lively arts district, locavore food movement and over-the-top, Gilded Age mansion — attracts hordes of leaf peepers as soon as the temperatures start to drop. But a two-hour drive up the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the less-visited Boone, a gem of a college town in the heart…
Americans are not ready for the Real ID Act that goes into full effect a year from now, according to a survey released last week by the nonprofit trade group U.S. Travel Association. The Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 to increase security measures concerning state-issued personal identification cards, mainly driver’s licenses,…
TripAdvisor will no longer sell tickets to attractions that breed, import or capture whales, dolphins, porpoises and other cetaceans for public display, the company announced on Wednesday. The move will ban sales to attractions and events at parks and aquariums worldwide, including SeaWorld, which has locations in Florida, Texas and California, Loro Parque in Spain…
In the Kihnu Museum on a tiny Estonian island, the elders, dressed in matching striped skirts, pondered a favorite question over coffee. What hasn’t a Kihnu woman done? They kept a running list of all of the necessary jobs they remember Kihnu women doing in the absence of men, from fixing tractor engines to performing…
If you travel overseas, be warned: Pickpockets really are out to get you. I don’t mean the light-fingered thieves who try to grab your wallet. I am talking about digital pickpockets: hotels, restaurants and shops that systematically overcharge foreigners who use credit and debit cards in their establishments. A few weeks ago, my family ate…
When the real estate developer (and former Starwood Hotels & Resorts executive) Paul McGowan was touring colleges with his daughter, he couldn’t find decent accommodations near the schools they visited. So he launched Study Hotels in 2008, with The Study at Yale. A modernist tower in Philadelphia followed, and The Study at University of Chicago…