How I learned to love the slow route home to Ireland

On Thursday 18 April, at around 7pm, the first ball was bowled to start an international women’s cricket match between Ireland and Thailand at The Sevens Stadium. It was the first match played at the stadium after it successfully reopened just two days after heavy rains caused major flooding across its pitches, and high winds damaged other areas across its facilities.

Before joining TPG in 2021, I was a newbie to the world of points and miles. Despite traveling frequently throughout the previous decade, I was oblivious to the benefits of loyalty programs or how straightforward it could be to earn points or miles for airfare and hotel stays.

It’s inevitable: Every spring when we pull together the Hot List, our annual collection of the world’s best new hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships, a staffer remarks that this latest iteration has got to be the best one ever. After a year’s worth of traveling the globe—to stay the night at a converted farmhouse in the middle of an olive grove outside Marrakech, or sail aboard a beloved cruise line’s inaugural Antarctic voyage—it’s easy to see why we get attached. But this year’s Hot List, our 28th edition, might really be the best one ever. It’s certainly our most diverse, featuring not only a hotel suite that was once Winston Churchill’s office, but also the world’s largest cruise ship and restaurants from Cape Town to Bali. We were surprised and inspired by this year’s honorees, and we know you will be too. These are the Hot List hotel winners for 2024.

Traveling by train is one of Ireland’s great if under-appreciated pleasures.

If you travel internationally at least a couple times per year, chances are you’ve thought about applying for Global Entry. The program gives members access to an expedited line at US Customs and Immigration checkpoints, allowing them to avoid lengthy wait times that become particularly painful during peak travel seasons. Although the Global Entry application process can take weeks or months to complete in full, it's a must-have for frequent flyers who want to make their airport experience as convenient as possible.

Amsterdam has desperately been trying to shake off its ‘party capital’ image - with limited success.

The richly layered city of Dublin – full of culture, community spirit and character – has plenty of things to keep you busy and entertained, with even more beyond the capital that's worth seeing on a day out.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the world’s longest-defined coastal touring route. The Wild Atlantic Way is an internationally acclaimed waymarked road trip stretching 2,500 kilometres along the contours of Ireland’s great western seaboard, from County Cork in the south to County Donegal in the north. With 188 Discovery Points along the way, the route has guided the intrepid traveller for the past decade to previously off-grid west of Ireland locations, bringing with it nearly two million extra visitors every year, helping to shape a thriving tourism industry which supports 121,000 jobs and delivers €3 billion to the economy per year.

With spring in the air and summer to follow, New York offers one of the world’s most interesting restaurant sites: rooftop dining.

Dublin may not take up much space on the map, but don't let that fool you – this gem of a capital has no "off" switch and is brimming with history, culture and a whole lot of personality that is on display twelve months of the year. There’s an old Irish adage that says "if you don’t like the season, just wait fifteen minutes". Dublin is a city for all seasons, only those seasons will often present themselves in the one day. 

Towering snow-capped mountains, evergreen forests filled with wildlife, deep-blue waters and coastlines dotted with little towns: this isn’t the setting of a fantasy novel, this is Canada, home to some of the world’s most thrilling landscapes. 

It's been five years since the series finale of HBO's "Game of Thrones," but I'm as big a fan as ever.