How a Midnight Feast Became a Month-Long Dining Extravaganza in New Orleans

While the annual Times Square ball drop draws hordes of tourists each year, locals will be the first to tell you that the event can be a little overwhelming. Massive queues, frigid temperatures and a lack of easily-accessible bathrooms are just a few factors that could take the night from magical to maddening—but fortunately, visitors are able immerse themselves in the splendor of Manhattan on New Year’s Eve without having to stand shivering in a crowd all night with a stay at one of the neighborhood’s most charming hotels.

For me, travel is about meeting people, being a lifelong learner and seeing the world through different perspectives.

Long-haul flights are generally considered to be those eight hours and over, while any that stretch past a grueling 16 hours are nicknamed “ultra long-haul.” The longest nonstop commercial flights currently available include New York to Singapore (18 hours and 50 minutes; 9,530 miles) and Perth, Australia, to London (17 hours and 45 minutes; 9,010 miles). Qantas Airways, Australia’s national airline, plans to operate two even longer direct flights in 2025: Sydney to London and Sydney to New York — routes that will take up to 20 hours.

What is the future of travel? Answering that is Skift’s editorial mission, and the release of our annual Megatrends is core to that mission.

With nearly 40 million people slated to fly during the holidays this year, airlines are preparing for what could be one of the busiest holiday travel seasons on record. 

The port of Gustavia in St. Barths is getting crowded this holiday season as the legendary superyacht showdown begins. The season started early, with the wealthiest men in the world and their celebrity friends anchored outside of Gustavia and neighboring St. Maarten and Antigua. Many will stay throughout Christmas, taking glamorous day trips to nearby islands, and then party with the traditional fireworks show above St. Barths Fort Oscar on New Year's Eve.

It's been a decade since Hilton went public for a second time on the New York Stock Exchange, and there have been many changes and expansions at the company over the last 10 years that have affected how you travel.

For years, I was a frequent train traveler between New York City and Washington, D.C., and I once loved the ease of riding the rails between the two urban centers. But with each passing trip, the travel times seemed to grow longer, with increasingly unexpected delays. On one infamous ride, when my coworker and I departed our office at the same time, she managed to land in Reykjavik before I reached the nation’s capital. It was around this time that I gave up on riding the rails out of the city altogether.

As a Brooklynite, I’ve got a little checklist for winter weekend getaways. The destination shouldn’t take more than several hours to get to. It should also have excellent restaurants and bars. Above all else, the place should be thoroughly relaxing and absent of crowds, traffic, and unnecessary noise.

In the US, embarking on a train trip means taking the track less travelled. Once the symbol of technological advancement and westward expansion, the country’s railroads have had a hard time moving into the modern era. But when you ride the rails in the US, you’re afforded the opportunity to peel back the layers of this land and experience it on a human scale. 

For most New Yorkers, Times Square is a place to be avoided at all times—especially and unequivocally on New Year’s Eve. The Ball Drop looks fun and exciting when watched from the warmth and privacy of your couch but in real life, it looks like a million people packed between police barricades and squished up against each other in the cold for way too many hours, waiting for a 10-second countdown. And there are no public restrooms.

Travelers looking for a 2024 calendar may have a paw-fect solution.  The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) recently published a 2024 calendar where each month features a different member of the TSA Explosives Detection Canine group from across the United States. The calendar is free, and available for download at tsa.gov.  The calendar kicks off with Gini-Gina for January, a Belgian Malinois dog from New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA).