Making a Silk Road journey through Uzbekistan entirely by train

In the same drawer where I keep my travel adapters and portable charger, I have a foreign currency graveyard of sorts. A $5 bill from New Zealand. A £10 note from Scotland. Dozens of Canadian loonies and toonies.

Bolivia’s tourism reputation is generally as a rugged backpacker destination with a few otherworldly gems for more sophisticated travelers—namely the Uyuni Salt Flats and La Paz’s buzzy culinary scene. But as my kids and I recently discovered on a multi-city road trip in the western part of the country, Bolivia has a diversity of landscapes (caves, deserts, and meteor-crash sites), distinct urban centers (silver mining towns and white-washed World Heritage cities), and colorful boutique hotels. 

For at least two millennia, Uzbekistan has been the setting for some of Asia’s most important road trips, following the network of Silk Roads that once formed the major highway between east and west.

It has been a publicly stated goal of the Department of Homeland Security to sign up 25 million members of the PreCheck and Global Entry prescreening programs. A big number, with a big payoff.

It always seems like such a great idea at first: “I’ll save $100 by booking the 6 a.m. flight! I can save money and get a jump on the day.” Fast-forward to your departure, cursing yourself for having to get up early and spend money on a taxi (since it’s too early for public transit). Are you making travel miserable for yourself? Here’s how to stop.

It has long been a centerpiece of Uber and Lyft’s self-promotion that the proliferation of such ridesharing services was a boon to the country’s most congested cities. The idea was that by giving people an alternative to firing up their own cars for every trip, no matter how long or how short, the net amount of city traffic would be reduced.

As any seasoned traveler knows, your dollar goes much further in some places than it does in others. I’ll never forget reviewing my credit card account after my first trip to Copenhagen and realizing all those to-go cups of coffee came to $6 each. Or, conversely, how affordable a beer is in Berlin.

Early this morning, an Etihad Airways plane took off from Abu Dhabi en route to London—but there was a distinct sense of excitement surrounding this flight. Leaving at 2:05 a.m., flight 11 marked the return of the carrier’s Airbus A380, a superjumbo aircraft that had been phased out of service.

At least once a year, I fly from my home in Edinburgh to visit my in-laws in Berlin. But all of these plane rides have increased my climate guilt and decreased my bank-account balance.

America’s breadbasket, ripe with green fields and grazing dairy cows, is known for its simple but hearty dishes. But if you think the Midwest’s menu boils down to the traditional staples of cheese curds and bratwurst, then think again.

There’s so much more to Argentina than Buenos Aires, Iguazú Falls, and Mendoza — you only have to take a road trip in Salta to find out. A two-hour flight from the capital, Salta is a somewhat off-the-radar region. Quaint colonial towns, dusty Andean villages, and wine bodegas sit framed by dramatic mountain peaks and fascinating red rock formations. Throw in some beguiling salt flats and the highest pass on any national highway in the world and it’s all rather spectacular.

If you feel like flights are running behind more often than before, you’re not wrong. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics—an agency that keeps detailed records of all U.S. domestic flights—reports that 21.6 percent of flights in 2023 (through April) were delayed. That’s the highest level since 2014. The criterion for a “delay,” if you were wondering, is if a flight arrives or departs 15 minutes or more after the scheduled time.