Everything to Know About Visiting Notre Dame Cathedral After Its Official Reopening

The countdown is on to score a great deal when purchasing miles with United Airlines. 

In the children’s section of Albertine, copies of “Le Petit Prince,” stories of Tintin and Babar and other much-loved French classics are for sale beneath a sapphire-colored ceiling gilded with hand-painted constellations. What’s arguably New York’s most enchanting bookstore opened a decade ago inside the palatial Payne Whitney House, an early 1900s landmark built by the architect Stanford White on the southeast corner of East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue that’s served as the headquarters of the French Embassy’s cultural and educational activities in the United States for the past 72 years.

Travelers destined for Hawaii's Big Island this holiday season are running into a roadblock before even boarding the plane thanks to a shortage of rental cars on the island – and price gouging of what remains. The issue made its way to Reddit earlier this week when a topic moderator in a Hawaii forum created a pinned post titled, “PSA: There are virtually no car rentals (including Turo) on Big Island for the next 2 weeks. Read this post for your options.” “There are essentially no more car rentals for Big Island during the Christmas holiday,” the post reads. “All rental agencies show as sold out, and according to recent posts Turo rentals are limited and listed as high as $2500 for a week.” It's worth noting that a representative from Hawaii Tourism Authority disputed this, telling Travel + Leisure that rental car prices are higher, “but cars are available at the major car rental companies at both Hilo and Kona airports, as we expect during high demand periods like the holidays.” However, searches done by Travel + Leisure on Hertz, Enterprise, Sixt, and Avis yielded no availability for pick-up at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole (KOA) in Kona — the island’s top resort destination for tourists — and just seven options on Turo, with the cheapest option being $274/day during the last two weeks of December. “Travel experts have always recommended booking holiday travel as early as possible to secure the best deals and inventory,” a representative from Turo told T+L. “Turo experiences seasonality, just like other major travel companies, and we frequently remind guests to book a car as soon as possible, especially in popular vacation destinations.” A representative from Enterprise Mobility also confirmed that holiday demand is at an all-time high. “With the busy holiday season upon us, the demand for vehicle rentals at Enterprise Mobility is strong across all three of our rental brands — Enterprise, National, and Alamo — and we expect this to continue through the end of the year.  Hawaii is always a popular destination for holiday travelers – and our current reservations show this year is no different,” the representative said in an e-mailed statement. “From a pricing standpoint, our rates are determined by several supply and demand factors including location, dates of travel, length of rental, availability as well as when the reservation was made.”

It’s finally happening: the end of resort fees as we know them.  In a landmark announcement on Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will now prohibit “junk fees,” an overarching term for hidden and misrepresented prices in the hotel, and short-term rental, and live-event ticketing, industries. For travelers, that includes all hotel booking websites and vacation rental platforms like Airbnb or Vrbo.  The rule will require companies to disclose total prices upfront. Search results on an online travel agency, for instance, must include the maximum total of all mandatory fees or charges people will have to pay. With this move, consumers searching for hotels or vacation rentals should no longer be surprised by “resort,” “city,” or “service” fees inflating the advertised price.  By requiring up-front disclosure of total price including fees, the FTC says comparison shopping will be easier, “resulting in savings for consumers and leveling the competitive playing field.”  “People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay—without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “The FTC’s rule will put an end to junk fees around live event tickets, hotels, and vacation rentals, saving Americans billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time. The “junk fee” FTC investigation was first launched in 2022 with two rounds of public input and over 70,000 comments. This feedback was then taken into consideration before the final ruling announced today. Expect this to take effect in 120 days. However, it’s not yet clear exactly how the FTC will enforce these mandates. 

Sydney's sun-blasted image as being laid-back has been well exported, so first-time visitors might be surprised that the coastal city has a lot of rules by which Sydneysiders tend to abide. There are the obvious ones, like no littering or speeding (spoiler: you will get fined), but there are more than a few unwritten rules visitors should be aware of. The city may be famous for its coffee, for example, but you might get a blank stare if you ask for a black filter. Catching your own fish can be controversial. And then come the questions: How far is too far from the beach to wear a Speedo? What is swimming etiquette? Why can’t you get a glass of wine on the sand? To tip or not to tip? Plus, you’ll be surprised to read where open-toe shoes are banned.

Dec 17, 2024 • 8 min read

More than 119 million travelers are expected to take to the skies and hit the roads for the December end-of-year holidays, capping a record-setting season.

JetBlue will introduce a brand-new first class cabin on domestic flights in 2026, offering a larger seat and more legroom at the front of the cabin.

Norwegian Cruise Line is redeploying several ships and canceling itineraries in 2025 and 2026 in the process.

Don’t litter; don’t vandalize public property; don’t chew gum. Singapore, which Condé Nast Traveler readers named one of the best cities in the world in 2024, has laws so famously stringent that T-shirts gently poking fun at them make popular tourist souvenirs. (The gum thing is actually often misconstrued: it’s actually illegal to import and sell gum, but not to chew it.) That said, in this intricately multicultural East-meets-West metropolis of nearly six million people and 95 ethnic groups, it’s the rules that tether society. Which is why we Singaporeans are such sticklers for them; in fact, we’ve added many of our own unofficial decrees to the rule book—from the correct way to save a table at a hawker center, to how to behave on the local subway system. If you overhear one person grumbling, it’s more often than not because another has breached this community code of conduct.

Dec 10, 2024 • 8 min read

Seattleites will have two new options to Asia on their hometown airline next year when Alaska Airlines launches new nonstops to Tokyo and Seoul.