How Sierra Leone Is Changing Its Narrative Through Tourism

The Gullah Geechee are direct descendants of the first Black people forcibly transported from Africa to the US, who arrived in southeastern port cities such as Charleston, South Carolina. Several isolated communities survive today in coastal cities stretching from Florida to North Carolina, including Georgia’s Sea Islands.

Sugar-dusted beignets, punchy rye-laced sazeracs, and month-long Mardi Gras celebrations — the sounds and flavours of New Orleans are impossible to ignore.

It’s 11pm in Bristol Harbour and the boat is rocking. Hometown shanty band The Longest Johns are on stage, belting out renditions of old maritime tunes while a sold-out, ale-fuelled crowd are singing along with gusto. The night might be a cold one, but inside is a world of festival lighting and fogged-up specs. The harbour waters lap against the hull as songs of distant seas and drunken sailors are roared out in unison.

More than 60 years after Jackie Kennedy first visited this small island in the Cyclades and thrust it into the limelight, the pull of glittering Mykonos is still strong. During summer, the jet and yacht set cruise in alongside throngs of travelers eager to party, snap Instagram photos, and see and be seen. And with the island's sprawling and sandy beaches (a rare find in the rocky Cyclades) it’s not hard to see why. But the island has a long-beloved, quieter side than the beach party scene would lead you to believe.

The Future of Travel column is a monthly series exploring the innovations and bold ideas moving travel forward.

Every morning, the French-Iranian contemporary artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar enters his atelier nestled in the South of France, overlooking the stunning expanse of the ocean. Surrounded by nature, he immerses himself in meditation. This practice, honed over many years, has led him to his current success, transforming pain into purpose and creating a unique form of living art that embodies the energy of nature. At the age of 39, Behnam-Bakhtiar has already built a solid foundation as an acclaimed artist (including solo exhibitions with Sotheby’s Monaco and Philips London), known for transmuting the natural world he inhabits into an artistic experience.

The classic travel guide is being overtaken on online marketplaces like Amazon by completely generic, AI-written ones — but there are a couple of ways to tell if the guide you're looking at is a fake.

Hanoi has always been a city of tales and legends. Its ancient name, Thang Long, which means “the Rising Dragon,” comes from a tale about Emperor Ly Thai To witnessing a golden dragon ascending when he moved the capital here in 1010. The city is now the heartland of Vietnamese literature — home to many of our finest writers, literary festivals and book fairs.

A video of an American Airlines pilot dressing down his passengers has gone viral after his speech was posted on Instagram last week.

It happened at an indoor wall for the sport of “bouldering”. I was standing watching some athletic young men conquer a tricky route that was beyond my abilities, half-listening to their banter, when I suddenly understood what they were discussing. A proposal to climb outdoors. They had never done it. They dreamed of it, but were uncertain how to go about it.

Summer 2023 is turning out to be one of the wildest for tourists on record. 

Britain’s Monarch Airlines failed abruptly last week, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at resort destinations without a return flight. The British government is helping those travelers return home, but the airline shutdown raises the question of whether a similar collapse could happen elsewhere.