Charmed by a City Off Thailand’s Beaten Path

As business consultants, Tyler Betz and Tim Gao spend more of their days on the road than off, and more nights in hotels than in their home base of Dallas. The two share fairly nomadic upbringings, too: Tyler grew up across six states, while Tim was born in China and raised in Canada and the US.

The Airbus A380 — a giant commercial airliner famous for its two levels and four engines — was once an engineering marvel. It can carry up to 853 people and is large enough to sport lavish amenities such as an on-board shower and a bar.

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March Madness is upon us. And with it, plenty of TV screens in bars across the city will be playing basketball through early April. Fans of college sports may flock to team-specific bars to cheer on their favorites.

The 42nd Thailand Tourism Festival is scheduled to take place from 28 March to 1 April 2024 at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre (QSNCC) in Bangkok. Organised by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the event is set to present a plethora of distinctive tourism offerings with an emphasis on soft power and subculture. This year also marks the second time the event is holding a ‘Zero Waste to Landfills’ initiative in alignment with the push towards more sustainable and net zero tourism. The event is expected to attract 150,000 visitors and generate 20 million reaches.

A uniquely 20-something cocktail of ambition, stupidity and wanderlust led me to take a job in Berlin fresh out of college. My due diligence consisted of watching several of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s movies and calling it a day. I had visited the city before, crashing with lovers and loose acquaintances, but my sense of how to build a life there — or in any new place, for that matter — was nonexistent. The practical matters of adjusting to a new city bedeviled me. After work I longed to navigate the city with purpose but had nowhere in particular to go. Interminable weeks at the office gave way to lonely weekends spent not queuing up for clubs but crying on a floor mattress in Charlottenburg, anxiety taking hold at the thought of another aimless walk. A fun decision made in haste, for all its adventurous merit, had left me lost and lonely.

Bus transport varies considerably from country to country, from super-slick intra-city buses in Mexico to down-at-heel Greyhounds in the US.

The global post-lockdown travel boom has continued year after year with no slowdown in sight, but even by these standards Thailand’s capital is ultra-popular. Bangkok has never been hotter, and last year made travel industry headlines when a Mastercard report named it the most visited city in the world for 2023. This is a distinction a few places claim, and the numbers often conflict, but there’s no doubt that Bangkok is near the top of all cities on earth in popularity, is getting more U.S. travelers than ever, and is both a destination in its own right, the gateway to the rest of Thailand, and a major gateway to the entire Pacific Rim. When I visited the Anantara Siam Bangkok Hotel before the pandemic, I loved it. But when I returned at the end of 2023, it was even better.

The annual passenger capacity at Indian airports is set to increase by 60 million. This comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated new terminal buildings at 12 airports across the country.

From Iceland and Italy to Thailand and Vietnam, 54-year-old Pamela Holt has explored more than 80 countries.

China has announced a 15-day visa-free entry for citizens of six additional European countries: Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday defended an exclusivity deal with Taylor Swift, which made the city-state the only regional stop of the popular Eras concert tour this week.