These Powerful Passports Have Best Quality Of Life, Per New Data

It's hard to find a travel company that doesn't claim to offer the best customer service. But for those of us who travel, customer service is often lacking, and finding a company that will treat you with respect can be a challenge.

Spirit Airlines is expanding its presence in South Carolina, adding flights from Charleston to Boston and New York City this spring.

Everyone knows Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. But smaller cities and towns around the world put on epic parties of their own. The events—which mostly began as a sort of pagan late-winter celebration in Europe and morphed into a global kind of Catholic last hurrah before the austerity of Lent—are lively, colorful and often steeped in tradition. UNESCO has put many of them, both in Europe and in its former colonies, on its List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

When people plan trips to national parks and protected areas across the United States, they hope to see the wolves of Yellowstone or the alligators of the Everglades. But talk to any bug scientist, and they’ll tell you that the best things come in small packages.

While the coastal Mexican city of Cancun is equipped with a massive array of lavish resorts across its Hotel Zone, you don’t have to travel far to find an idyllic escape that’s far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. Located just north of Playa del Carmen, the all-inclusive Sandos Caracol Eco Resort serves as a bastion of Latin American biodiversity just past the downtown area, offering lavish accommodations for visitors and vast swathes of pristine forest for the region’s native fauna.

The Seven Seas just got a bit more crowded: Nine new world cruises have recently set sail, joining Royal Caribbean's ongoing Ultimate World Cruise in a quest to travel around the world in 2024.

Ice-skating through pine forests, across alpine lakes, and on urban canals and remote glaciers can be an exhilarating way to experience winter wonderlands. But with rising global temperatures, natural ice, or “wild ice,” is becoming a rarity.

Ever fantasized about having an entire hotel to yourself while on vacation? The Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora can make that dream come true: For $2.75 million, guests can buy out the entire island property for a week, dining at its open-air restaurants, snorkeling in the lagoon, and playing tennis with the hotel’s pro. Or, you could invite up to 245 of your closest friends to stay with you in the resort’s seven villas and 108 bungalow suites.

The number of seniors on the slopes has reached epic proportions. In 2020-21 seniors accounted for 16.1% of skier visits, totaling 59 million, while a record 10.5 million seniors participated in the sport according to the National Ski Areas Association. Contrary to popular belief, not all seniors are snowbirds who fly south at the first sign of winter.

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The passport you hold is a powerful tool when it comes to effortlessly visiting countries around the world.And some passports provide far more access than others, according to the Henley Passport Index.The just-released 2024 index shows that for the first time in 19 years of producing the ranking, six countries are tied for the top spot of having the most powerful passports.The countries leading the ranking are France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and Spain—meaning citizens from all of these countries are able to visit 194 destinations around the world either visa-free or by obtaining a visa-on-arrival.The Henley Passport Index is the only ranking of its kind and is developed based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA). The index compares 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.While Japan and Singapore have made it into the number one slot for the past five years running, according to CNN, the European countries that are now also ranked number one on the list is a new development.

Six countries now have the world's most powerful passport, according to the 2024 Henley Passport Index — but the US isn't one of them.