The New York Times

I had barely unbuckled my seatbelt and was already wondering if I had driven six hours across Texas for nothing. A once-in-a-lifetime river adventure had seemingly evaporated with some disappointing news.

For generations, visitors to Maine have flocked east to the rocky coastline, with its lobster boats and crashing waves, or west to ski resorts, peaceful lakes and mountains. Few ever set foot in Aroostook County, a remote northern expanse where residents are prone to suspect — not without reason — that no one south of Bangor even knows that they exist.

“They’re movable pieces of art,” says Budapest-born, London-based decorator Gergei Erdei of his new collection of hand-painted folding pinewood screens. Part of his Objects of Desires series, the six designs include trompe l’oeil columns, wing-footed mythological figures and interlinked geometric shapes. Erdei found inspiration for his pieces, which are over seven feet tall, in a recent retrospective of the Italian couturier Elsa Schiaparelli’s works at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs and in the lacquered screens of multimedia Art Deco creator Jean Dunand; Pompeii’s crumbling frescoes and ancient mosaics informed the mythological design’s soft, ocher hues, which were achieved through multiple coats of acrylic paint. “I keep coming back to Pompeii in my work,” Erdei says. “I find the layers faded by time so beautiful, like veils of history.”

First the cartel cut its teeth with drug trafficking. Then avocados, real estate and construction companies. Now, a Mexican criminal group known for its brutality is moving in on seniors and their timeshares.

The Blue Lagoon resort in the south of Iceland is a scenic network of steaming azure pools surrounded by dark rocks, where tourists dip in the geothermal water, have spa treatments and enjoy what the resort advertises as “a universe of radiant well-being.”

I spend a month or two in Puerto Rico, where my mother’s family is from. Often I go in winter, with the other snowbirds, finding solace among palm trees. But I’m not a tourist, not really. I track the developers that privatize the shoreline; I follow the environmental reports that give our beaches a failing grade. I’m disenchanted with the Island of Enchantment, suspicious of an image that obscures the unglamorous conditions of daily life: frequent blackouts, meager public services, a rental market ravaged by Airbnb. Maybe that’s why I turned away from the sunshine and started to explore caves with my friends Ramón and Javier, seeking out wonders not yet packaged for the visitor economy. I’ve been learning to love stalactites and squeaking bats, black snakes and cloistered waterfalls — even, slowly, the darkness itself.

My first view of Monterey Bay on California’s Central Coast was thrilling — a raft of 40-something sea otters — and free. The next time I would get close to them, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, it cost nearly $60. That split between free access to outdoor wonders and investment-grade attractions epitomized my experience in the area.

It has already been a sweet life for Fumihide Oda, chief executive of Rokkatei, one of the oldest confectionary shops in Hokkaido, Japan, and the birthplace of the popular Marusei butter sandwich cookies.

Cruise ships have hidden features that many passengers, particularly first-timers, don’t know about. Some ships are as big as small cities, and while it’s relatively easy to familiarize yourself with a seemingly endless number of amenities — water parks, tattoo parlors, multiple restaurants — there is also an entire ecosystem, often below passenger decks, that is shrouded in mystery.

A uniquely 20-something cocktail of ambition, stupidity and wanderlust led me to take a job in Berlin fresh out of college. My due diligence consisted of watching several of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s movies and calling it a day. I had visited the city before, crashing with lovers and loose acquaintances, but my sense of how to build a life there — or in any new place, for that matter — was nonexistent. The practical matters of adjusting to a new city bedeviled me. After work I longed to navigate the city with purpose but had nowhere in particular to go. Interminable weeks at the office gave way to lonely weekends spent not queuing up for clubs but crying on a floor mattress in Charlottenburg, anxiety taking hold at the thought of another aimless walk. A fun decision made in haste, for all its adventurous merit, had left me lost and lonely.

Brussels, long the realm of stuffy French restaurants packed with gray-flannel-suited diplomats, has suddenly gone bold and bright. Thanks to a crop of young chefs with iconoclastic ideas about flavor and sustainability, the city, in thrall to the rich sauces of Gaul for nearly two centuries, has emerged as one of the most exciting, and affordable, places to dine out in Europe right now.

Tanya Dohoney has worked on sustainability initiatives for decades. A retired attorney from Texas now living in Paris, she even started the recycling program for her workplace. When it comes to travel, she also values environmentally and socially responsible companies, which led her to choose Intrepid Travel, a certified B Corp company, for a tour in Morocco in 2019.

It was a bluebird morning at the Alta Ski Area and Carol Bowling, 76, was looking for fresh powder.

A United Airlines flight that took off on Friday morning from San Francisco International Airport landed in Oregon in the afternoon missing an external panel, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Boeing has told airlines to check the cockpit seats of its 787 Dreamliner plane, the company said on Friday, after a Latam Airlines plane suddenly plunged on a flight to Auckland, New Zealand, on Monday, injuring passengers.

The influencers were not in Aspen to ski. In their Barbie-pink ski suits and matching Moon Boots, they rode the Silver Queen gondola to the top of the mountain, smiling and jumping for their cameras and social media feeds. Soon they would get back on the gondola and ride down, perhaps to pose for more content with a glass of Champagne at Ajax Tavern at the resort base.

For over 20 years, Melissa Goldstein worked as a magazine photo editor. While researching imagery, she developed a fascination with Scandinavian ceramics, 17th-century botanical illustrations and Japanese woodblock prints dating back to the 1500s. It wasn’t until she moved to Brooklyn and began rehabilitating the overgrown garden behind her brownstone that she began combining her interests: “[My brand MG by Hand] was the merging of my research, the garden and making things for my family,” Goldstein says of the fine English porcelain ceramics she now sells in select shops and online. In 2008, the artist began hand-making everyday dinnerware in her home studio in Carroll Gardens, decorating the pieces with floral motifs in a cobalt stain. Black irises, poppies and flowering quince from her garden adorned vases, shallow banchan dishes and scalloped serving trays. Her new Poppy and Cherry collections, which were fired in a gas kiln for 12 to 15 hours, channel Dutch Delftware while depicting local flora. “I have a wall that separates my garden from my neighbor’s, and I’ve interwoven quince in it,” Goldstein says. “I’m very into blooming trees.”

Wherever you go to catch the total solar eclipse on April 8, those three or four minutes of daytime darkness — no matter how spectacular — might not be enough.

Last September, my husband and I left our kids with their grandparents and set off to Ireland. Our $2,132 itinerary took us from Minneapolis to Toronto to Dublin on tickets booked on United Airlines through Expedia but ultimately operated by Air Canada, a United partner. We had boarded our connecting flight in Toronto (and I was already dozing in my seat) when the captain announced an operator had crashed the jet bridge into the starboard engine. We were given hotel vouchers and told we would be rebooked for the next day. Checkout time came and went without a word, so we went to the airport and were told to call Air Canada customer service. An agent booked us a flight for that evening, and we printed out boarding passes at an airport kiosk. But when we tried to board, we were told the boarding passes were invalid. Eventually, we were offered two options for the next day: Fly to Dublin via Newark, or return to Minneapolis. We cut our losses and went home after staying the night in Toronto at a hotel. But United refunded us only $1,087, barely half of what we paid. Air Canada did reimburse us for the second hotel and other expenses, but we believe the airlines owe us not only a full refund, but also 400 Canadian each ($295 apiece) under Canadian law for denied boarding. Both refused. Can you help?

Hotels and glamping sites touting sustainability practices and nature-based activities have proliferated throughout the United States in the last decade, finding financial success by offering guests a let-nature-nurture-you wellness experience.

As the sun peeked out from the cloudy sky in Kyoto, Japan, monks wearing vests trimmed with pompoms and the black box-like headdresses known as tokin were being quizzed in front of Mibu Dera, one of the oldest temples in the city. These were the Yamabushi (mountain hermits), part of a Buddhist sect known as the Shugendō.