Matt Ortile travel tips

As April showers turn into May flowers, it's time for another memorable Memorial Day weekend. This time every year holds a special place in the hearts of many Americans, especially those who eagerly plan and pack for upcoming travel. As the unofficial kick-off to the summer season, this end-of-May vacay is a quintessential American experience. Whether it's a quick getaway or an extended 3-5 day weekend, MDW serves us all as an open door of endless potential for summer fun (and, of course, the outdated societal approval to wear white jeans). In any case, who doesn’t love a long weekend?

Beyoncé background dancer Honey Balenciaga recently told us that she always dresses well when traveling. “I don’t know where that culture died,” she lamented in a recent interview. It’s something that editors at Traveler have long had feelings about—the way we show up to the airport, where parents once forced some of us to don blazers and loafers in order to look presentable. Comfortable clothing has, understandably, proliferated on the scene, in tandem with the tanking of the flying experience’s dignity, and in the past decade the situation has devolved to the point where pajama bottoms, flip flops, and t-shirts with sagging necklines are at least as common as a button-down.

When interest in ChatGPT exploded a year ago, a cottage industry arose of people asking it to perform tasks that have long been the province of experts—write a recipe, curate a wardrobe, and, of course, plan a trip—and then evaluate how well it had done. Generally, the results, while not disastrous, were mediocre. Ah, but ChatGPT is quickly going to get much better, Silicon Valley insists. Perhaps. But AI tools can rely only on the reams of data they’ve scraped from the Internet. So while they might, in the near future, be able to put together an itinerary as effectively as you could based on your own online research, they’ll never be able to deliver the kind of next-level journey a travel specialist can.

Of the many conveniences that hotels offer, few are as welcome as the in-house breakfast. Whether you’re raring to go or still slumped over after that early morning wake-up, there’s no better reward for having made it out of bed at all than the sumptuous spread that awaits. Here, we’ve rounded up the most sublime hotel breakfasts our editors have enjoyed this year, comprising national dishes, pastry repasts, snow-day bread baskets, and so much more.

Working at a travel publication can be dizzying—in a year, we go so many places, write so many stories, and publish a lot of content. At times, it can feel like we've run out of world to cover: If you've been there, we've probably done that. But that's of course not the case, and certain stories are an especially powerful reminder of the many stones that remain unturned; that there are many ways to take a trip, either to a familiar place or somewhere markedly overlooked, and tell a completely new story about it.

Travel Debates is a series in which our editors weigh in on the most contentious issues that arise in-transit, like whether you should ever switch seats on a plane or if you should check your work email while on vacation.