Travel in Venezuela

New research from WTM reveals that most major travel markets in the Americas have recovered from the pandemic, apart from the US which is due to get back to 2019 levels next year.

The narrow, cobbled streets of San Telmo are slowly coming to life. The Porteños – Buenos Aires residents – are kick-starting a long and lazy four-day weekend with caffeine and medialuna pastries. The autumn air is crisp, as are the white silk floss tree leaves that float down over Plaza Dorrego as a lone bandoneon player warms up his fingers before beginning to busk.

It's safe to say long-haul flying looks a lot different than it did some 80 or 90 years ago.

This August, 55,769 tourists arrived in the city by air. During the eight previous months, this figure came to 459,590, some 122,499 visitors more than in the same period the previous year.

The Danish chef Mads Refslund first began working on Ilis, his new restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in 2016. After years of high-profile jobs at places like Manhattan’s Acme and Shou Sugi Ban House in the Hamptons, Refslund, a co-founder of Noma, wanted a permanent space where he could create an immersive culinary experience. The open kitchen, and its live fire grill, is at the center of the 4,800-square foot room on Green Street. The space has 17-foot ceilings with wooden beams and exposed brick walls; custom rosewood tables and leather banquettes frame the perimeter (though a few counter seats provide the best vantage of a meal coming together). “This is about transparency,” Refslund says. The name Ilis is a portmanteau of sorts, with meaning “fire” in Danish and meaning “ice.” It’s a nod to the dichotomous spirit of the restaurant — serious cooking with laid-back dinner party vibes. The menu allows guests to choose from a selection of primary ingredients, say New England scallops or Pennsylvania wild duck, and, in some cases, style of preparation (raw or grilled, for example). The seasonal cuisine is informed by Refslund’s Scandinavian upbringing, as well as his travels to Japan and Mexico City. But, the chef says, “hopefully, it will just become a New York restaurant,” a reflection of the city he now calls home.

Editor’s Note: Monthly Ticket is a CNN Travel series that spotlights some of the most fascinating topics in the travel world. In September, we’re celebrating superlatives as we look at some of the world’s biggest, tallest and most expensive attractions and destinations.

Hispanic and Latin American Heritage Month is on its way to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida with brand new characters, marvelous musical performances and delectable dining delights to be discovered throughout the resort from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, 2023.

Blueground is seeing its apartments being rented out as safe havens from political upheavals.

South America’s Guyana, one of the most densely forested areas in the world, has piqued the interest of U.S. adventure seekers with its remote expedition appeal. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, January 3, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The Obama administration approved U.S. educational and people-to-people travel to Cuba in 2015, but a U.S. federal judge in Florida last week ordered four major cruise lines to pay more than $400 million in damages plus legal fees to a U.S. company that ran the port in Havana until it was confiscated after the Cuban revolution of 1959.

The amount of time a first-time visitor visa applicant in India has to wait for an interview has fallen from an average of 669 days in mid-March to 337 days in early April, a 50 percent drop, according to the U.S. Travel Association. 

Deep in the Panamanian jungle, Venezuelan migrant Franca Ramirez was scrambling to reach higher ground as a rushing river broke its banks, he said, when something caught his eye: a group of young men, snapping photos of the landscape.

Fear not, financially challenged traveler, Bogotá has a bounty of free and economical things to do if you know where to look. Public transportation is cheap and much of the art and entertainment requires neither a ticket nor a tuxedo – it’s played out on the street. 

For most travelers, entering the vast diversity of Ecuador’s Cuatro Mundos ("Four Worlds": the Pacific Coast, Andes, Amazon and Galápagos) requires nothing more than arriving with your passport.

Editor’s Note: For the latest version of this story, see The World’s Most and Least Expensive Cities, Ranked.

Looking for the best cities to live in or retire abroad? The world’s most livable city is once again Vienna, Austria, according to The Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s annual Most Livable Cities ranking.

If you want to stay at the best hotel in the United States, head to the French Quarter Inn in Charleston, South Carolina. And if you’re looking for the best bargain hotel stay in the world, it’s in a small town in northern Spain. That’s according to TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards, which just shared the best hotel ratings for multiple categories heading into 2019.

When the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list was issued in June, a new entry was sitting on top at #1: Central in Lima Peru, rising from #2 the previous year, replacing perennial favorites in Denmark, Spain and Japan. But for those who admire Peruvian cuisine, this restaurant, which is described as a culinary introductory course through 15 Peruvian ecosystems categorized by altitude, the choice was no surprise, just as Peruvian cuisine itself topping the list was no surprise, given its complexity, diversity of influences and simply luscious flavors. For those in New York, another introductory course of a kind will take place on July 28th at the Lower East Side restaurant POPULAR as several chefs get together to create a special dinner to celebrate Independence Day in Peru.

Like a sprawling carpet of moss, the Amazon Rainforest stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the Andes, creating a lush basin that still remains partially unexplored to this day. Cut by thin ropes of water flowing from the Amazon River, the forest stretches over land in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.

Every journey starts with one small step, to paraphrase Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. But some journeys contain more steps than others.