As the year nears its end, the tourism industry is setting its sights on the buzzwords for travel in 2024. Will we still be doing revenge travel, set-jetting and workcations?
19.10.2023 - 14:41 / insider.com
My husband and I got married this summer and we put most of our wedding expenses on reward credit cards, earning enough points to cover fights and hotels for our Greek honeymoon.
We saved money, but we paid tenfold in mishaps throughout the trip.
"Honey, I missed my flight," my new husband said to me three hours before our first flight of many was set to depart.
Should we have compared notes when we both received flight schedule changes? Absolutely! Did we? Nope.
But we also didn't consider the possibility of an airline overbooking a flight and bumping only one of us to an entirely different plane. The first lesson of marriage: Damn the points and always book one reservation.
And so began our honeymoon, with my husband frantically calling the airline as I drove us to the airport and stress sweated through my "Bride" sweatshirt.
My husband had booked a codesharing flight, which meant the airline who sold him the ticket was only allotted so many seats on the plane because it was operated by a different airline. Fortunately, the airline that actually operated the plane was able to rebook my husband to his original itinerary with me.
But that's also when we learned of the airline's no-show policy — if you miss a flight, you forfeit all remaining flights in your itinerary, including your return ones home.
Now that he was going to Greece, it was up to the original airline to help him get home. He could either pay $700 for the ticket he already purchased or wait 24 to 48 hours for his original ticket to be reinstated.
We chose the cheaper option, but the airline continued to tell us to wait for the ticket every day for the next 10 days.
Happily on our way to Greece, our honeymoon finally felt as if it were out of the movies.
Our first stop was Crete and our mornings were spent lying in bed, chatting with our airline in a hopeless attempt to secure a seat on the plane for my husband's return trip home.
But we also went olive-oil tasting, saw a 2,000-year-old olive tree, and listened to podcasts about the history of olive oil. At our Airbnb in the mountains, our host greeted us with homemade ice cream made with "the tears of the Mystica tree."
They'd be the best days of our honeymoon.
Soon, we found ourselves at the Heraklion port, running to catch a boat after our ferry to Santorini was canceled without notice. Then, our ferry to Sifnos was canceled, and after that, our ferry to Milos.
Months of deliberating which of the 227 inhabited Greek islands we wanted to visit no longer mattered — a nationwide strike and poor weather conditions decided we wouldn't go to any.
Island hopping nixed, we returned to Athens and checked into a four-star hotel complete with cigarette-burnt furniture, makeshift
As the year nears its end, the tourism industry is setting its sights on the buzzwords for travel in 2024. Will we still be doing revenge travel, set-jetting and workcations?
Extreme weather events, high interest and geopolitical uncertainty are just some of the new headwinds facing the travel industry today.
They’re normally the holy grail of a winter holiday, but last night people living in more southern parts of Europe were left awestruck as the Northern Lights visited them at home.
With a solid Greek presence from the political leadership of tourism and entrepreneurs in the sector, the world’s largest tourism exhibition, World Travel Market, opens on November 6 at the London exhibition centre, Excel London.
The Venetian Hotel is known for its nostalgic gondola rides and its plazas, bridges and painted sky evoking Venice. The resort is also known for its Grand Canal Shoppes, which encompass top brands in clothing, personal care, dining, drinking, entertainment and more.
Leisure travel came roaring back from the pandemic lockdowns and has not slowed, with planes jammed, record international hotel prices and more people tackling those once in a lifetime and Bucket List trips they once put off for “someday.” There’s never been a better time to give gifts to travelers, and there has never been a better crop of options. As a very frequent traveler myself, I am constantly testing and tweaking and seeing what works best to make travel better.
There’s been a rockslide somewhere in the Maurienne Valley, deep in the French Alps. By the time I’m due to set off on an intricately planned, early autumn European rail trip from London to Athens, nearly a week has passed since the incident. My intended path through France, Italy and then on to Greece via sea had relied on a connection from Lyon to Milan passing directly through this region. Now the route is out of action and it could be months before the railway tracks are dug out from the rubble. Initially, I’m irate. En route to the Eurostar terminal at London’s St Pancras at 6.30am, however, I encourage myself to think differently.
When you hear travel critics say that the big brands like Marriott and Hilton don't really know how to run luxury hotels, it's probably because those critics have stayed at a property affiliated with Rosewood Hotels & Resorts.
Ever since travel roared back from pandemic lockdowns, Greece has been one of the hottest destinations in the world. While some visitors go for the gorgeous beaches the Greek islands are famous for, Athens is its most visited spot, with more airlift, great hotels, great restaurants and the number one historic attraction in a country legendary for historic attractions, the Acropolis.
Low-cost Icelandic airline Play wants travelers to jet off to Europe for just $99 with a Halloween flash sale.
Starting January, 2024, the super-popular program of “selling” residence permits to wealthy foreign investors, better known as ‘Golden Visas’, will come to an end in the Netherlands.
Here’s how to plan a vigorous 10-mile hike in Crete that leads to a spectacular beach.