3 days in Paris: how to plan the ultimate itinerary

My girlfriend and I have always enjoyed traveling. Although we'd been on vacations with family and friends in the past, we'd never traveled abroad with a partner until recently.

The tonka bean, a wizened-looking South American seed, is beloved for its complex almond-vanilla scent, often appearing as an ingredient in perfumes. Outside the United States, it has also long been utilized by chefs, but studies have indicated that coumarin, a chemical compound in the plant, can cause liver damage in animals, and the Food and Drug Administration banned the bean in commercial foods in 1954. Now, with reports that the minuscule amounts used to impart big flavor are harmless (and the F.D.A. seemingly not particularly interested in enforcing the ban in recent years), tonka is showing up on dessert menus here. Thea Gould, 30, the pastry chef at the daytime luncheonette La Cantine and evening wine bar Sunsets in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was introduced to tonka after the restaurant’s owner received a jar from France, where it’s a widely used ingredient. Gould says the bean is an ideal stand-in for nuts — a common allergen — and infuses it into panna cotta, whipped cream and Pavlova. Ana Castro, 35, the chef and owner of the New Orleans seafood restaurant Acamaya, discovered tonka as a young line cook at Betony, the now-closed Midtown Manhattan restaurant. Entranced by the ingredient’s grassy, stone fruit-like notes, she’s used it to flavor a custardy corn nicuatole, steeped it into roasted candy squash purée and grated it fresh over a lush tres leches cake. And at the Musket Room in New York’s NoLIta, the pastry chef Camari Mick, 30, balances tonka’s richness with acidic citrus like satsuma and bergamot. Over the past year, she’s incorporated it into a silky lemon bavarois and a candy cap mushroom pot de crème and whipped it into ganache for a poached pear belle Hélène. “Some people ask our staff, ‘Isn’t tonka illegal?’” she says. Their answer: Our pastry chef’s got a guy. —

The Paris Summer Olympic Games are coming to an end this weekend, but there are still plenty of disciplines to go, including a new sport at the Games this year: breaking.

My oldest son has a lot of big dreams.

For many, the last full month of summer—that means August here in the United States—makes way for one more family getaway before school starts. Otherwise, you might sneak in a cheeky goodbye-to-summer barbecue; don’t get too smug when you tell everyone how much money you saved by using points and miles this season. (Or maybe do. Be a good friend. Teach them our ways of traveling with points and miles.)

Aug 1, 2024 • 5 min read

With the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (commonly known as the 33rd Summer Olympic Games or Paris 2024) now open, the State of Utah received official word on the eve of the opening ceremonies that The Beehive State has been selected to host the 2034 Winter Olympic Games, in its return to the United States. Utah was the last American location to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2002. 

The arrival of the biggest summer sport events in Paris has led to a surge in hotel occupancy and room rates in the city in hotels using Mews. Occupancy rates for the next two weeks are 20% higher than in 2023, driven by last-minute bookings, which account for 35% of total occupancy during the sporty event. This is according to analysis by Mews, the cloud software for hotels, based on hundreds of Paris properties.

It can be an expensive and potentially damaging undertaking for a country to host the Olympics. This year's games in Paris are costing just $10 billion, according to CNBC. While that's nothing to scoff at, it's a mere fraction of the $55 billion Brazil reportedly spent in 2016.

The 2024 Olympics opened in Paris in spectacular style with thousands of athletes sailing along the River Seine past lively performers on bridges, banks and rooftops in an ambitious take on an opening ceremony.

The Skift Travel Podcast is continuing its series on the Paris Olympics. This episode features a discussion with Patrick Mendes, Accor’s CEO for Europe and North Africa. Accor is an official partner for this year’s Games, as well as Europe’s largest hotel group.

Games wide open! The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are here—so, expect to hear the roar of that slogan in the weeks again. There’s simply no way to quantify, or perhaps, prepare for, the already-electrifying energy infiltrating the host city and the largest Olympic ceremony ever. Despite the Games’ 300,000 spectator capacity, Paris is expected to receive around 15 million visitors, including 2 million from abroad, in the coming weeks.