A first-time guide to Kruger National Park, South Africa

Whether you're booking your first voyage or your tenth, narrowing down the best Alaska cruise in 2025 is a complicated task.

Island cruising usually conjures up images of crystal-clear water and bright sunshine in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, and while MSC certainly offers sailings to both these popular destinations, the cruise line is also organizing a very different kind of island voyage.

Guyana goes by many names. One of the only countries in the Caribbean Community that’s not located in the Caribbean Sea, Guyana is often referred to as the “Land of Many Waters” owing to the numerous rivers that flow through its perch on South America’s North Atlantic coast. It’s also called the “Land of Giants” — an abundance of water and minimal human interference have preserved Guyana as a fertile, untapped country where large flora and fauna thrive.

There are two types of train trip: The long, slow, and often luxurious train journey that takes you through beautiful scenery that you book specifically to spend time on the rails; and the speedy, no-nonsense, cheap train ride you take to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. In the first category, you’ll find grand trips like Australia’s The Ghan, South Africa’s Blue Train, and Britain’s Caledonian Sleeper. In the second, there are trips from London to Brussels in just two hours, from Rome to Venice in four hours, and from Miami to Orlando in three hours. And if you’re a train traveler who belongs to the second category and likes getting places fast without flying, there are plenty of trains in this world that do just that at speeds previously unimaginable on land, including the fastest train in the world and its closest competitors.

A national park service site in northern Michigan is offering a glimpse at the future of public transit. Through early October, you can ride an autonomous electric bus to popular sites at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Adastec, a company specializing in autonomous vehicle technology for commercial purposes, is testing autonomous shuttling for park guests in a first-of-its-kind concept for the National Park Service. Guests can register in advance to take part in an experience that, if successful, could set the bar for mass transit in other crowded park service sites.

When most Americans think of cruises, they probably think of island-hopping in the Caribbean or cruising by glaciers in Alaska from afar. That may be appealing for some people, but for others, the idea of being lazy on a ship of thousands of people for a week doesn’t sound like much of a vacation.

Sipping an Old Fashioned with an unobstructed view of the Tentons without worrying about the kids sounds like heaven on Earth. And you can now do that in style at a stay at Jackson Hole’s first adults-only hotel, Hotel Yellowstone.

For those of us who travel to hear stories, it’s hard to beat small Midwestern towns. Everyone, everywhere, has a story to tell, but Midwest folks take the time to tell you theirs.

Daniel Humm reminds me of my Swiss grandmother.

In this episode of the Skift India Travel Podcast, Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia and India Reporter Bulbul Dhawan dive into the top travel stories from India this month. They explore Leela Hotels’ move toward an IPO, South Africa’s new visa reforms, and Oyo’s acquisition of Motel 6. The discussion also covers key trends in Indian aviation and how Indian millennials are driving a surge in travel spending.  

Sep 22, 2024 • 4 min read

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eliot Davenport, a 32-year-old SEO manager and business owner from Melbourne, Australia. It's been edited for length and clarity.