2020 tips

Remember back in 2021 as Covid-led demand surged and many jet card providers offering fixed rates and guaranteed availability were closing off their programs to new members? Sentient Jet, Jets.com, Jet Linx, Airshare and Flexjet were among those that cranked the faucet shut with immediate effect. NetJets also stopped renewing existing members.

Tokyo's Shibuya ward is quickly becoming a popular tourist destination, especially among fashionable young people.

United Airlines is tweaking its long-haul network with two notable changes.

Like the turning of the leaves and pumpkin-spice everything, at this time of year there’s an annual influx of suggestions for pairing Halloween candy with wine. Like for example, Sour Patch Kids with orange wine. And I always think, why would you ruin a perfectly lovely glass of wine by sipping it while consuming a mass-produced sugar bomb. But Bertil Jean-Chronberg, the French-born sommelier and proprietor of Bonde Fine Wine Shop in Cambridge, Mass., says why not?

The coronavirus was already devastating parts of the world, bringing illness and death, and the future was uncertain when Henry Karpik, a retired police officer from the Australian suburb of Figtree, and his wife of nearly 50 years, Susan Karpik, began their holiday cruise to New Zealand aboard the Ruby Princess.

U.S. travelers were on the move in the third quarter: 65% of people traveled, the highest share in our U.S. Travel Tracker since 2020. It was also a big gain over previous months.

A woman who's lived on cruise ships for more than 10 years said there are two things she's not allowed to do on board. 

The following wines made from eleven grape varieties in two hemispheres share a simple characteristic—they come from well established wineries that are between ninety and nine hundred years old.

Summer trips through the USA’s national parks are a rite of passage. But what if someone told you they’re at their best a couple of months later?

Golfhōm, the first-to-market worldwide vacation rental platform aimed at the golf travel market is now live and open for business at https://golfhom.com.  The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA and Charleston, SC.

After a visit fourteen years ago to Pico, one of nine Portuguese Azorean islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I wrote a blog post about the vineyards. Five years earlier these had been given UNESCO World Heritage designation. This is because the vineyards are unique: most are non-trellised within small walled enclosures; the rock walls protect vines from Atlantic winds and also reradiate warmth absorbed during the day. Historically, the effort to build these walls had been gargantuan.

You will encounter unexpected aspects of life and culture when you visit the Italian island of Sicily. These may include discovering that pockets of locals are fiercely averse to wearing seat belts; that train cars are regularly loaded onto a ferry boat that crosses the Straits of Messina; that other ricotta-based desserts can truly compete with cannoli; that red bluefin tuna caught off the coast are so deliciously valuable that most are exported to Japan; that the island historically lacks a culture of rosé wine production, and that the Sicilian wine scene is so dynamic that grapes you likely never heard have become the latest highlights.

Six Fantasy-class Carnival ships. Three vessels from Royal Caribbean's now-defunct Pullmantur line. Holland America Line's former Westerdam.

Since Illinois legalized cannabis for recreational and medical use in 2020, there’s been a boom in marijuana tourism in Chicago. While you can’t light up in public spaces you can satiate your cannabis curiosity at dispensaries and smoke socially at venues with an on-premises consumption license. Hotels remain a gray area around ganga use but a “growing” number of Airbnb hosts permit backyard smoking or even from the sofa. Only these cannabis-friendly Airbnbs in Chicago don’t limit 420 to 16:20 p.m.

A group of former Americans filed a class-action lawsuit against the United States to recover $1,900 paid through the process of renouncing their citizenship, arguing that the fee is too costly.

The weather is getting cooler and that means one thing: it’s time to vote for your favorite hefty floof as part of the annual Fat Bear Week.

As a frequent user of the IHG One Rewards program, I feared the worst when the program moved to dynamic award pricing in 2020. But although some of the most expensive IHG hotels and resorts often cost significantly more points now than before dynamic pricing, I'm still finding it easy to get excellent value when redeeming IHG points.

The first time I was introduced to a Japanese workout routine called Radio Taiso was on a trip to Japan in 2020. Radio Taiso is translated as "radio calisthenics," and it's based on a public-radio broadcast that began in 1928 in Japan.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is reminding travelers not to put their pets through X-ray machines.

The One&Only Mandarina was recently named the number-one hotel in North America by the new global ranking of The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2023. The list was announced at an awards ceremony in London and includes hotels across six continents worldwide. This list marks 50 Best’s first ranking in the travel space.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tapped into the quiet pleasures of staying put in one place—especially when it comes to hotels. Because while I’ve done more than my fair share of jam-packed travel itineraries, lately I’m happy to hunker down and make the most of my temporary home away from home.