As most frequent travelers know, basic economy has evolved quite significantly since airlines began adding the low-cost fare option over the course of the last decade.
28.08.2024 - 22:04 / nytimes.com
In March, Brian Gallagher, an editor for the Food section of The New York Times, texted me a question: Did I have strong feelings about Costco?
“You have found one of the few things I have no opinions on,” I replied.
That wasn’t exactly true. I had visited Costco once, about 20 years ago. Outside the store, a location in Brooklyn on the Sunset Park waterfront, people fought over parking spots. Inside, the aisles were so crowded that a passing shopping cart snagged my wired headphones and nearly dragged me down an aisle. It was not an experience I wanted to repeat.
But sometimes the best article ideas hide in plain sight. How many times had I passed a Costco truck on the highway, or seen a logo for Kirkland, Costco’s private brand label, on a T-shirt? This is a company that influences the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the products that fill our pantries. Nearly one-third of all U.S. consumers shop at Costco. Still, I couldn’t tell you more than a few basic facts about it.
Hoping to understand how the membership-only chain — the third-largest retailer in the world — had penetrated the American consumer psyche, I traveled around the country, visiting Costco warehouses and talking with current and former executives. My findings were published in a Times article this month.
The first step in my reporting process was to revisit that dreary Costco in Brooklyn. I had assumed the store had gotten a face-lift in the decades since I was last there. After all, over the past 20 years, Costco has nearly doubled the number of its locations, tripled its membership and increased profits by an astonishing 3,000 percent.
But when I showed up this spring, it looked almost exactly the same. Although the surrounding neighborhood had been gentrified over the past two decades — a Porsche dealership had opened next door — it was still the same old Costco warehouse.
As most frequent travelers know, basic economy has evolved quite significantly since airlines began adding the low-cost fare option over the course of the last decade.
Melissa Dewalt caught the travel bug a decade ago when she drove from her home state of Pennsylvania across the country to California to visit her then-boyfriend. She then road-tripped north to Seattle.
A residential cruise ship that was supposed to travel around the world has been stuck in Northern Ireland for the past three months.
Clarksville, a historic district of Austin, Texas, has lately emerged as a stylish dining and shopping enclave. Among the area’s most compelling new businesses is La Embajada, a design shop housed in a 1923 Craftsman bungalow. Combining the hospitality and interiors expertise of its founder, Raul Cabra — who has designed tableware for some of Mexico City’s most celebrated restaurants, including Rosetta and Pujol — La Embajada presents a refined, regionally diverse selection of Mexico’s artisanal offerings. A series of small rooms display vintage and contemporary furniture, from stately midcentury armchairs and 1970s glass sconces to a minimalist agave fiber rug by the Oaxaca-based textile artist Trine Ellitsgaard. The house is also an actual residence. Cabra often stays in the bedroom up the creaky stairs, and he’s recently made it available for short-term stays (bookings include a daily basket of baked goods from Austin’s Swedish Hill). Guests can purchase the room’s handmade décor, such as a pair of sleek bedside lamps in milky white onyx, a 1960s La Malinche dresser and a bedspread from a Michoacan manufacturer that once supplied Herman Miller. Downstairs, glassware, candles and gifts fill a section modeled after a typical general store in a small Mexican town. But La Embajada’s heart is its inviting kitchen, where visiting chefs cook elaborate meals and staff prepare ice cream and coffee. In another twist, every bespoke detail — including a hammered copper sink, caramel-colored tiles and waxed pine cabinets — can be custom-ordered for one’s own home.
“An unexplored territory….Untouched. Uncharted.” That’s the message in Saudi Arabia’s new global tourism campaign to attract overseas travelers to the kingdom.
As the summer travel season comes to a close, travelers have a new way to save on fall getaways. JetBlue recently announced the «Game On» fare sale, which offers flights as low as $49. The promotion is a nod to the fall football season, however the fares can provide an affordable options for early fall vacations, or last-minute trips. As an example, JetBlue shows a fare of $49 one-way from New York's JFK airport to Nashville, Tenn. for travel in both September and October.
Frontier Airlines unveiled 11 new routes across 15 airports that are scheduled to launch in October and November.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Liza Jean Miezejeski, a content creator and founder of Skola, a startup to help students navigate moving to Europe to attend university. It has been edited for length and clarity.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Scarlett Kiaras-Attari, a marketing executive and education content creator who moved to the UK for her studies. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Aug 23, 2024 • 7 min read
I used to think that paying an annual fee for a credit card was a terrible idea and a waste of money.
Low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines is giving away 50 of its unlimited all-you-can-travel flight passes this month for the ultimate fall or winter getaway.