How to spend five days in Thailand and the islands

Several tourists who died in Vang Vieng, Laos are believed to have drunk tainted alcohol.

Luxury cruise line Regent Seven Seas Cruises is making it easier to sail in style by offering up to 40 percent off trips across the world. 

Thai hospitality firm Minor International has set its sights on reaching nearly 1,000 hotels in the next five years – almost double its existing portfolio.

The world’s largest airline alliance is ramping up the battle for premium travelers. On Thursday, Star Alliance opened its first branded airport lounge in Asia. The new facility is in Terminal One at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in southern China. A second lounge will operate from the new Terminal Three when it opens next year.

The upcoming Indian wedding season will be driving a surge in travel, according to online travel company Ixigo. “Flight bookings to major metro hubs and top leisure destinations like Delhi, Mumbai, Srinagar, Jaipur and Goa are seeing a strong 70-80% year-on-year increase,” said Ixigo’s Group CEO Aloke Bajpai.

Goa is not getting enough foreign tourists: Official Goa Tourism figures show that foreign arrivals in 2023 weren’t even half of 2019 levels: Just 450,000 visitors versus 937,000.

There is much to love about Bangkok. It’s a city of juxtaposition, where ultramodern skyscrapers rise beside traditional and street vendors selling grilled meats. It’s a place where familiar backpacker clichés coexist with spirituality, luxury, hedonism, and tolerance. 

Nov 14, 2024 • 8 min read

If there’s ever a hotel where you feel inspired to rush home and redesign your house, it’s this wine hotel in Argentina. SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites is a new hotel in the Mendoza province, one of the world’s most renowned wine regions. SB stands for Susana Balbo, the country’s trailblazing female oenologist. As if being the first female winemaker in Argentina wasn’t enough, Balbo diverged from the norm to specialize in luxury white wines. Together with her daughter, Ana Lovaglio Balbo, the “Queen of Torrontés” has expanded her kingdom with a wellness hotel celebrating all things Argentinian: wine, gastronomy, art, nature, and buon vivere.

Orchids are zygomorphic, which means that if you cut the flowers in half from top to bottom, each side is symmetrical, like a human face. It could explain why these blooms — which range from baroque and blowsy to subtle and delicate — inspire particular passion among botanical enthusiasts: In them, we see a reflection of ourselves. That’s especially true in Papua New Guinea, where the scale and diversity of orchids holds a mirror to the country itself, which is home to some 850 distinct languages and about as many tribes. More than 3,800 species of orchids have been identified on the island of New Guinea, the eastern half of which comprises most of Papua New Guinea, but Mary Gerritsen, the president of the California-based Orchid Conservation Alliance and a frequent leader of orchid-spotting trips to Papua New Guinea, estimates that there could be more than a thousand species yet to be documented.

Indian travelers to Singapore have exceeded the 1 million mark, Singapore Tourism Board said on Wednesday. There was a 12% increase in Indian travelers to the country between January and October 2024 year-on-year. With this, India has become the third-largest source market for Singapore.

Ellie Furuya, 32, is a Hong Kong-based influencer, the founder of Rii Swim, a swimwear brand, and a mother. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.