The best of California is not its famous cities or coastline. The most authentic version of the state is its freshwater, in its many wild forms. At least, for my family. My partner Caroline Clements and I write about water and wilderness and have spent much of the last 10 years documenting swimming around the…
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. When Soumya Karlamangla, who lives in San Francisco, tells someone she works for The New York Times, the reaction is often the same: a look of confusion. “People that I’m interviewing in the field will…
A person died on Wednesday after they “ended up” inside a running plane engine at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, officials said, although the circumstances of the person’s death remained unclear. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the flag carrier of the Netherlands, said in a statement that the episode involved its Flight KL1341, which had been scheduled…
For years I had been hearing about the island of Pantelleria, the craggy, hard-to-get-to Eden with middle-of-nowhere tranquillity that sits 89 miles southwest of the island of Sicily and about 50 miles east of Tunisia. Luca Guadagnino’s 2015 film “A Bigger Splash” painted a seductive idyll of mud baths, romantic ruins and secluded swimming coves.…
In the summer of 1974, I was working as a waiter at the White Elephant, the grande dame of Nantucket hotels, a rambling gray-shingled pile that sits right on the island’s harbor. One muggy August night, I sent the six lobster dinners ordered by Francis Sargent, the governor of Massachusetts and his guests crashing to…
They tell a story in the Magdalen Islands about a winter so bitter that they were completely cut off, with no way to guide their boats through the frozen harbors. Running out of supplies and desperate, they penned letters detailing their plight, sealed them in an empty molasses cask, affixed a tiny sail to it…
From a piazza in the town of Castellabate on the Cilento coast of Italy, you may lift your eyes over the rim of your cappuccino and drink in a panorama of sky and Mediterranean Sea from Salerno to the Gulf of Policastro. Looking way, way down, a fruited plain of vineyards, lemon trees and white…
Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, is headed for another scorching summer, meteorologists warn. And travelers, once again, are heading to the hot spots. Last year, large parts of southern Europe experienced prolonged periods of extreme heat with temperatures reaching 118 degrees and lasting up to two weeks or more. The sweltering conditions upended vacations throughout…
When David De Clercq traveled to San Francisco last year, he had a few musts on his itinerary: Go to Alcatraz. Try new restaurants. And ride in a self-driving car. Self-driving cars, also known as autonomous vehicles or, colloquially, robotaxis, have been driving the streets of San Francisco in some form since 2009 and have…
In popular imagination, France’s Fontainebleau is inextricably linked to its grand Château. But when I visit, I typically skip it entirely. Yes, the 1,500-room Château de Fontainebleau that was inhabited by French kings and emperors for eight centuries may seem the most arresting attraction in this region 37 miles south of Paris. Instead, it’s the…