The Datai Langkawi Announces 'Chapter 3' Of Its 30th Anniversary Celebrations

As Insider's travel reporter in Singapore, I've flown on more than 20 flights to nine different countries this year. Recently, I've flown to countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam, mostly on budget airlines. 

It was two nights before Qatar’s World Cup, and all across its stadiums, staffers were frantically removing beer stands – the country had reversed its decision to serve alcohol in stadiums.

Renowned for its jaw-dropping architecture, world-class museums and mouth-watering street food (did some say deep-dish pizza?) it's no wonder Chicago was voted the second-best city in the world by media and hospitality giant TimeOut.

Fall is underway, and Virgin Atlantic is the latest airline to celebrate the season by rolling out new menus across all cabins.

Located an hour outside of Detroit, the small town of Hell, Michigan, embraces its unusual name with various infernal experiences perfect for Halloween fans .

Europe’s new tourism hotspot, Batumi, Georgia is making final preparations as it steps to host the landmark 30th anniversary World Travel Awards Europe Gala Ceremony 2023. The magnificent city is welcoming the leading travel industry figureheads from across the continent for a three-day itinerary, uncovering why it is Europe’s most exciting emerging destination. This takes in key tourist and heritage sites, and culminates in the red-carpet WTA Europe Gala Ceremony 2023 on 29 September.

In this series, Lonely Planet’s team of writers and editors answers your travel problems and provides tips and hacks to help you plan a hassle-free trip. Marco Ferrarese, a Penang-based expert in offbeat travel, has the answers to this Thailand-related query.

While the Caribbean is home to its fair share of wildlife-filled islands—Saint Lucia, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, to name a few—one of the region’s most underrated ecotourism destinations measures in at just a mere thirteen square kilometers in area. Known as Saba, this dazzling Dutch overseas region holds a king-sized level of biodiversity in spite of its small size, packed full of fascinating fish, reptiles, and birds for visitors to marvel at—and when it comes to avian life in particular, the Saba Bird Fest is one of the island’s most unmissable events.

“Fire Island is a very special place, especially for queer people,” Jimi Urquiaga, a.k.a. Missleidy Rodriguez, told me. While that might seem like a statement of the obvious, Urquiaga has experienced the island from an atypical vantage point: for the past two summers, they've been packing up their life in New York City as a costume designer, producer, creative director and drag queen to come work at the Pines’ plant shop, CAMP. Urquiaga called me on their break, sitting behind a desk at the plant shop, with a view overlooking the bay. “So that’s the fantasy,” they said with a laugh after describing their surroundings.

As the summer travel season comes to a close, one airline is giving travelers a reason to start planning next summer's vacation. Delta Air Lines announced it will be operating its largest trans-Atlantic flight schedule ever, debuting just in time for summer 2024. The airline will be adding new destinations including Naples and bringing back service to Shannon, Ireland.  According to Delta, next summer it will operate 260 weekly flights to 18 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). This includes a new flight from JFK to Munich three times a week that will start on April 9, 2024, and a daily nonstop flight to Shannon, Ireland that will begin on May 23, 2024. The carrier will expand its existing service to Italy — it already flies to Milan, Venice, and Rome — with a new daily service to Naples. It will also resume service between Atlanta and Zurich, Switzerland, four times a week, which had originally been cut in 2019. 

THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE SEPTEMBER 17, 2023 EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURA’S FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE .

If there's one thing New York City does better than most other US destinations, it's overloading the senses.