Highways tips

Most of Alaska can be rugged and impenetrable by car, but the 360-mile road trip between the state's largest cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks is a breeze.

The 70 miles of California coastline that makes up the unincorporated area of Big Sur has a storied, almost mystical allure, largely thanks to its staggering beauty. With redwood forests, stunning Pacific views, winding rivers and natural hot springs, the area has for decades attracted celebrities, artists and millions of visitors. So many visitors in fact, that these days, Kirk Gafill, the president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, estimates that 90 percent of the local economy is tourism-dependent.

While on assignment this year in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador for The New York Times, my attention turned to big game — moose, that is.

The air is crisp, and the leaves are bursting into vivid hues. Maybe you’re planning a road trip to admire the beauty. But getting your fill of fall foliage from behind the wheel can turn into an awkward juggle between admiring the vistas and navigating traffic. If you hop on a train, you can give the scenery your full attention and view some sights you just can’t see from the highway. Here are five great American train rides that offer day trips for peak-autumn panoramas.

Aug 30, 2024 • 9 min read

In March, Brian Gallagher, an editor for the Food section of The New York Times, texted me a question: Did I have strong feelings about Costco?

In the past few months, wildfires in Brazil have burned through the Amazon Rainforest, Pantanal wetlands, and Cerrado tropical savanna—killing wildlife and engulfing major cities, including the nation’s capital, Brasília, in smoke. While one might assume that a 131,000-acre ecological reserve in the midst of Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, would always be a humid and leafy haven, in recent years, the Pantanal wetlands have suffered heavily from fires, which have become increasingly harsh as climate change advances. As a result of two widespread wildfires in July and earlier this month, 80% of the area of the Panantal's Caiman hotel reserve burned down this year, forcing the property and wildlife refuge to close down its operations from August 1 to the end of September.

Summer travel 2024, with its record-breaking crowds, is set to reach a fever pitch over Labor Day Weekend. The busiest summer season in recent history is set to end with a bang, as a historic number of people are expected to take to the roads and skies.

Aug 23, 2024 • 7 min read

Jul 2, 2024 • 9 min read

‘How’s the weather’ is no longer just an ice-breaker in a conversation.

Argentina’s distinctive reputation looms large in imaginations oceans away from its borders. There’s so much to take in, and such immense distances to travel to do so. 

In a state where the journey is as often as absorbing as the destination, the temptation to draw up a challenging, action-packed Alaska itinerary is more than compelling. Routes here take in everything from Panhandle forests to frigid Arctic tundra.

The shoot for 2015 instant-classic Mad Max: Fury Road was famously arduous, in large part due to a remote Namibian desert shooting location with extreme elemental trials that only served to further the film’s high-wire madness. For this year’s prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, things were a touch easier as production returned to the Australian setting of the original Mad Max trilogy. The Outback, while not quite the desolate landscape of the Namib (we are talking a difference of a few blades of grass), is still red hot for apocalypse action.

Within months of the Pearl Harbor bombing on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States, in cooperation with the Canadian authorities, set out to build a highway from British Columbia to Alaska, then a territory and viewed as vulnerable to attack by Japan. The original 1,685-mile road took more than 10,000 soldiers less than nine months to complete.

California’s famous Highway 1 will reopen on Friday, a month after a partial collapse and road slip out near Big Sur forced it to close.

Home to some of the world's most iconic natural landscapes, New Zealand's South Island—or Te Waipounamu, in New Zealand's Indigenous Maori language—offers a dazzling array of visual wonders. Although it is about about 25% larger than New Zealand's North Island, it's home to less than a quarter of the country's population.

If you’re from Southeastern USA, you know what 30A is. If you’re unfamiliar, let me paint you a picture: 30A is a series of darling beach towns along a 24-mile scenic highway overlooking the white sands and turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

A new rule that will make automatic emergency braking systems (AEB) mandatory, including those that detect pedestrians, was finalized.

When speed limits on highways are raised, the result could be more crashes on nearby roads.

On the shores of the blustery North Atlantic, Nova Scotia is one of Canada’s trio of Maritime Provinces. But you don’t (necessarily) need a boat to get around.