Free Airbnbs and discounted hotels: How the travel industry is helping LA wildfire victims

I know full well that new internet scams are popping up every day. I'm suspicious to the point of being cynical and I've worked in online media for more than 15 years. I thought I was scam-proof. I was wrong.

Southwest Airlines will launch its first international airline partnership next month, and expand its short list of international "gateways" to Denver and Nashville, the airline announced.

There are currently more than 100,000 people in Los Angeles who have been displaced by the ongoing wildfires. As Travel + Leisure shares hotels and vacation rentals with significantly reduced rates for Angelenos who are evacuating or have lost their homes, the question becomes: How much will insurance actually cover for short- or long-term hotel stays? Put another way, how significant do hotel discounts need to be in order to not cost displaced Angelenos money out of their own pockets?

When my taxi rolled up to Aleenta Phuket Phang Nga Resort & Spa, a luxurious beach hideaway north of Phuket—and far from Thailand's overcrowded beach towns like Patong—I was a shell of a human, on the verge of burnout. My body was teetering toward a full system shutdown; my gut was a mess. My under-eye bags could double as carry-ons.

Lawmakers in Greece are debating tough new rules for holiday rentals in a bid to crackdown on overtourism.

Words can barely do justice to the devastation that has unfolded across Los Angeles this week amid the raging wildfires that have erupted everywhere from Pacific Palisades to Pasadena.Entire neighborhoods have been wiped off the map and residents have lost a lifetime of treasures.At last count, the death toll from the unprecedented four-day fire event stood at 10 and more than 9,000 structures have been destroyed or damaged.The Biden Administration has swiftly responded to the climate change-driven crisis. The president visited California on Wednesday and later vowed that the federal government will cover 100 percent of the disaster assistance costs for California for the next 180 days.“I told the governor and local officials, spare no expense to contain these fires,” Biden said. “We’re doing literally everything we can at the federal level.”The president has sent 400 additional federal firefighters to the state and more than 30 firefighting helicopters and planes. Canada is also providing firefighting aircraft.While all of these measures and promises have brought comfort to California, Biden only has 11 more days in office. And President-elect Donald Trump has taken the opposite tact, roundly criticizing California officials for the fires and  spreading misinformation and falsehoods that have since been debunked.In addition to the Biden Administration, the travel industry has provided an outpouring of assistance and support for Los Angeles and its impacted residents.Local organizations such as the Hotel Association of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board are pitching in, as are international, national, and regional tourism industry operators including Airbnb, Delta Airlines, Internova, and Signature. Here’s a closer look at what’s unfolding.

If the total solar eclipse in April 2024 sparked a newfound enthusiasm for astrotourism, you can look forward to another banner year for celestial activity. In addition to annual occurrences like meteor showers and supermoons, in 2025, you can also look forward to rarer events like total lunar eclipses (aka blood moons) and a solar maximum leading to particularly striking northern lights.

Wildfires in Los Angeles County continued to burn on Monday, January 13, 2025, as firefighters worked to contain portions of the deadly Eaton and Palisades fires, at 14% and 33% containment as of Monday morning. A total of 24 people were reported dead on Sunday evening.

Jan 12, 2025 • 8 min read

The gloomy combination of long dark days, totting up Christmas overspending and returning to work means holidays to far-flung destinations are a distant dream for many at this time of year.

As wildfires continue to burn across Los Angeles, we are gathering resources to help locals and travelers who are currently being displaced by the fires.

Last year, open water swimmer Amy Appelhans Gubser became the first person to swim from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands, a craggy, mostly uninhabited archipelago off the Pacific coast that is known for its frigid, shark-infested waters. The 55-year-old fetal cardiology nurse coordinator from Pacifica, California, completed the 29.6-mile distance in 17 hours, three minutes. “It was so foggy that I only knew when it was daylight because the sky was a lighter gray,” she says.