Travel in state New Mexico

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On August 10, newbie astronauts Keisha Schahaff, 46, and Anastasia Mayers, 18, made history as the first mother-daughter duo and the first Caribbean women ever to go to space. The two flew outside Earth's atmosphere with Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's space tourism company that held its first launch with commercial travelers.

Ely MacInnes and her husband, Tom, began traveling in the western United States with their 85-pound mutt, Alaska, in March 2020. Driving and living in an R.V., they visited White Sands and Petrified Forest National Parks in New Mexico and Arizona before heading to California, Oregon and Washington. They sometimes struggled to figure out where Alaska could and couldn’t roam, but often found that they could have wonderful experiences.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has closed a park road due to bear activity during a time when the animals are foraging for food.

The chance to spot a bear, bison, or bald eagle in the wild is one of the major reasons travelers visit the United States’ 63 national parks. You might assume that a megafauna mecca like Yellowstone National Park would offer the best odds of seeing multiple animals. 

Weather-related airport delays and the holiday travel period notwithstanding, winter is a great time to travel. Plenty of destinations in the U.S. and around the world have their shoulder season or low-season in winter, and the corresponding lower prices make it more affordable to visit some normally pricey destinations. Of course, weather varies from mild to downright cold in winter, but the big savings may make up for it.

Virgin Galactic has officially achieved its first space flight. The private tourism company founded by Richard Branson achieved an altitude of 51.4 miles on a test flight this week with astronauts on board, surpassing the 50-mile mark the U.S. government recognizes as the official boundary of outer space .

If traveling more is one of your New Year’s resolutions for this year, you’ll want to check off all of the 12 best places to travel in 2019—there’s one for every month of the year.

Maybe you’ve been chasing national parks since the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. But have you ever made it to (or even heard of) Dark-Sky Reserves and Sanctuaries? These little-known protected parcels of land are some of the best places to stargaze in the world.

I’ve stayed in so many Airbnbs over the past decade—upwards of 150, including an off-grid Earthship Biotecture in New Mexico and a barebones treehouse in rural Sri Lanka—you might just call me a super-user. I’ve met fascinating Airbnb hosts from all over the world along the way but none who have embraced unfettered hospitality quite like fifth-generation sheep farmer Harriet Olafsdóttir av Gørðum and her husband John, co-owners of Hanusarstova, a thoughtful little bed & breakfast in the Faroe Islands.

If you talk to folks from other countries around the world and ask them what they know and love about the United States, outside of our National Parks (“America’s Best Idea”) and grand cities, they might light up and mention Route 66, one of the most famous historic roads in America. Established in 1926, this route passed through parts of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California for a total of 2,448 miles.

Banish ideas of the soggy deep-dish pizzas that crop up in the UK. A Chicago original is a different thing entirely. The olive oil and cornmeal crust is part-baked before being filled with cheese, tomato sauce, meats and a variety of other toppings, or rather fillings. Numerous restaurants claim to serve the Windy City’s best.

If you're as obsessed with Breaking Bad as we are, you might want to take a tour of New Mexico . From the city of Albuquerque to the arid desert nearby, the region hosts a wealth of Breaking Bad filming locations and is well worth exploring in its own right.

A vast expanse of stunning desert scenery, the Southwest is arguably the USA’s most spectacular region. For splendour and sheer scale, the landscape consistently defies belief – a glorious panoply of cliffs and canyons, buttes and mesas, carved from rocks of every imaginable colour, and enriched here by shimmering aspens and cottonwoods, there by cactuses and agaves.

If there’s one constant about the USA, it’s change. The country’s pioneer spirit is reflected in its bold outlook and ever-evolving nature, which extends to all corners of the land, from the gleaming skyscrapers of New York to star-saturated Hollywood – and even beyond, to the first human landing on the moon. Here are 18 things you need to know to explore (and survive) the USA.