How Your Hotel Soap Could Make You a Better Traveler

In Bududa, a lush yet landslide-prone district of eastern Uganda, Mary Butsina and a growing number of other women farmers are building their livelihoods around coffee. “I’m supporting all of my 10 children with it,” says the 36-year-old, holding a red bucket, Mount Elgon looming behind her.

There’s a reason “how to become a travel agent” has been a continuously trending search phrase on Google—it is a career path that offers a flexible work environment and schedule, ample travel opportunities, and an immersion into a supportive world-wide industry. It's a surprise to some in 2023: Once the internet became widely available, it was largely believed that needing a travel agent was obsolete. However, even though the brick-and-mortar agencies with punny names in strip malls have vanished, the career is on-the-rise.

The term “safari,” which comes from the Swahili for “journey,” is now used to describe ecotourism experiences beyond those in Africa. When English speakers adopted the term, it originally referred to bush hunting trips; as those waned in popularity over the 20th century, “safari” became less associated with hunting, and more associated with what professionals today refer to as photographic safaris. We now see the term “safari” apply to ecotourism experiences like tiger safari in the jungles of Ranthambore, India; puma safari in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park; polar bear safari in sub-arctic Canada. And while I haven’t yet heard any Massachusetts locals explicitly use the term yet, I would like to proclaim here and now: a shark safari in the waters off Cape Cod—which is estimated to have the highest density of white sharks in the world—should now be counted on that list.

With its dense tapestry of cultures and landscapes, India feels like dozens of countries rolled into one, but a single visa will cover you for travel across more than three million square kilometers of territory, taking in everything from steamy jungles to the high passes of the Himalayas.

India serves up travel on a massive scale. The journey from northern Ladakh to the tip of Tamil Nadu covers 3214km (2000 miles), and it’s a 2933km (1822-mile) trip from the western edge of Gujarat to the eastern border of Manipur in the Northeast States.

Every year, retired cruise ships are sold to ship-breaking yards in Turkey and India where thousands of workers painstakingly dismantle the massive vessels and sell their parts for scrap. 

Sometimes it’s the look of a place that inspires us to want to visit. For travelers who roam the Internet looking for visual inspiration to decide where to go next, Pinterest has a handy new tool.

Do you love traveling enough that you would explore 52 destinations in just one year, writing about the magic of each one every step of the way? Then the New York Times wants to hear from you—even if you’re not a journalist.

Whether you’re arriving at an airport for the first time or at one that’s familiar, you may not know the lowest-cost way to get to your in-town destination. Even if you thought you knew, developments in ride-sharing regulations can change your best airport transportation options quickly, and without announcement.

Top 10 lists are ubiquitous, especially in travel; it seems there’s one for everything. And when it comes to destinations, whether it’s a “most popular” or “up-and-coming” ranking, these lists tend to be a mix of well-known cities and semi-under-the-radar places. Unless you’re a Booking.com user planning 2020 travel, apparently.

This shopping season, skip the mall and spend your money on travel instead. G Adventures’ big sale is offering up to 35 percent off of some of its best trips.

In American fiction, my state is code for outpost. Maine is where you send a character you want to get rid of, someone who goes off to raise goats, farm oysters, prep for the apocalypse — or write a novel. Apart from California, I can think of no other state in the Union that lives as strongly in the national collective imagination as a place to play out a festering dream.