Mountain tips

There’s a party atmosphere round the lighthouse on Chanonry Point near Inverness, the UK’s best place to see dolphins from land. It’s an hour after low tide and there are pipers, picnics and kids running barefoot over long, evening sands. Already in late spring, the sun barely seems to set in the Highlands. The kelp-strewn pebbles are glowing as I walk from the bus stop near Fortrose cathedral (bus 26/26A from Inverness) along one side of the promontory. The dolphins don’t show up. But, somehow, it’s fine – the first of many reasons to return. It’s still light as I walk back along the beach for a 9pm bus, past wild lupins and views of Fort George and pink clouds over the Moray Firth. I’m in Inverness at the start of a week exploring Scotland’s wild north coast by train and bus.

It was a handpainted sign on a wooden barn that piqued my interest in Gruyères. I was travelling from Emmental to Montreux last year, following the wonderful Golden Pass rail route. Our train paused at Montbovon, the start of a steep climb up to the line’s final dramatic mountain pass. There was the prospect of stunning views of Lake Geneva ahead. To the right of the railway, I spotted the bold sign: “La Gruyère vous salue” (the region, like the cheese, lacks the village’s final “s”).

For a family-friendly destination that has it all, look no further than east Tennessee. Nature lovers can celebrate Smokey Bear’s 80th birthday with a hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, thrill seekers can ride rollercoasters at Dollywood or challenge themselves to a round of laser tag, and multi-generational comrades can play mini golf, try duckpin bowling, visit the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, or ride a chairlift to the top of a mountain for panoramic views. Keep reading to learn about top attractions and sites in the beautiful mountain towns of Gatlinburg, Sevierville, and Pigeon Forge, which are all chock-full of exciting adventures and good ole family fun.

This is part of a collection of stories celebrating the many shapes retirement travel can take. Read more here.

On a Monday morning in early March, Reed Hastings, the billionaire co-founder and former chief executive of Netflix, clicked into the bindings on his snowboard and started off down one of the slopes at Powder Mountain, a ski area in Utah’s northeast corner. He quickly veered off the groomed trail into some well-spaced trees, and as he made turns over bumpy snow, you could hear his edges scratch against patches of ice.

After set-jetting and gig-tripping, Beyoncé’s eighth studio album Cowboy Carter is now inspiring travel. If it has motivated you to get in the saddle, here are three European equestrian adventures to live out a horseriding fantasy this summer.

Spring break was approaching, and the plan was to head to Mumbai to see my husband’s family with our two daughters, Meenakshi, 16, and Amrita, 11. We hadn’t all visited together since before the pandemic and were long overdue to meet Mahir’s 86 year-old mother, who lived alone and was more like a mother to me than any “in-law,” and his recently widowed sister, along with her 16 year-old son.

Finishing my last (epic) run at Aspen’s Snowmass Resort, I headed back to base to shed my gear. Some might see “boot-up areas” as simply storage cubbies with room to unfasten shoe buckles and unclip helmets, but while observing those around me, I noticed something fabulous happening here: Despite the active day behind us, there was a newfound energy in the air. With the prompt, “Where to next?”, a flurry of discussion erupted.

Hotel Chalet Mirabell is one of those places that has you at hello. It’s a short drive up the hill from the Dolomite mountain town of Merano, but the sanctum of the lobby is a world of its own. And the view that greets you—dazzling.

The 2023 worldwide release of the movie Narvik on streaming service Netflix brought this small industrial city in Northern Norway to the world’s attention.

When Whistler entrepreneur Pepe Barajas first arrived in this Canadian mountain community in 2008, he hated it. Born and raised in Mexico City, Barajas found the area’s peaceful, relaxed pace to be frustratingly slow, a direct contrast to life in what he called Mexico’s “go, go, go” capital.

I was three weeks out from a 23-day travel itinerary with my toddler, Julian, when my dad died suddenly. The trip was something I had planned months earlier, determined to prove to all the face-palming naysayers (and myself) that you don’t have to give up traveling after having a baby; you just have to find new ways to move through the world. Due to grief, I considered canceling, but ultimately I decided against it. My father was a textbook agoraphobic who shut himself off from the world and at the end was leaving his house only once or twice a year. But travel was how I learned who I was and who I wanted to be. I’d been to more than 80 countries and spent four years traveling full-time with a 35-liter rucksack and a tiny hatchback. If I could bestow any qualities onto my child, I hoped they’d be my strongest ones: insatiable curiosity, relentless optimism, fiery resilience, and a willingness to bend to my environment rather than expecting my environment to bend to me.

Say goodbye to questionable lunch buffets and tiny, windowless cabins. On ultra-luxury cruises, travelers get mountains of caviar, roundtrip business-class flights, and floating Rolex stores.

Salt goes well with salt. Cured fish, briny vermouth, jamón, sweat, sea—they complement tears, feeding each other with a soft sting. This occurred to me, floating on my back, off a cove in Mallorca. Tears slid from my eyes as the sea washed across my lips. X perched up on the rocks. He never had the urge to immediately fling his body into saltwater like I did, nor stay splashing about until the sun went low. My memories recall always waving to him ashore, vision blurry with waves and sun, beaming so he might see my joy.

On our first morning in Atalbéitar, I walk into the kitchen to make coffee and wonder if I’m feeling the effects of the previous night’s festivities. Then I remember it’s not me; it’s the kitchen floor, which is on a gentle slope. I have to be careful carrying the coffee back to bed as the steps are at different heights, and the doorways are small enough to bump your head on. As I lie there, beneath a ceiling constructed of woven chestnut branches and stone slabs, I survey my surroundings, and come to the pleasing conclusion that there’s not a single right angle in sight.

After a mild yet miserable winter spent hiding indoors, many Europeans are craving some quality time in nature.

In a land of mind-boggling wilderness, rugged roadside pit stops and some of the world's most impressive big fauna, Alaska’s epic highways offer unlimited possibilities for adventurous drivers.

‘This whole project started as an experiment,” says Pawel Sidorski, who swapped his life in the European hotel industry to pursue his vision of sustainable luxury, opening Yurts in Cyprus, near Paphos in west Cyprus, in 2013. “I wanted to pioneer an off-grid lifestyle and create a place for people to connect with nature without sacrificing comfort,” he says.

It's been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as someone who's visited all 50 states and nearly every US National Park, I'd argue that there are some places where beauty simply can't be denied.

Western Washington State boasts four incredible travel destinations — Seattle, the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Peninsula and Mount Rainier.

No historical plaque marks the spot known as Platja des Franceses, or Frenchman's Beach, on the Spanish island of Mallorca. In fact, as I turned off a back road in the warm haze of a late summer's afternoon, there was little to distinguish it from other parts of Alcúdia Bay, a roughly eight-and-a-half-mile-long arc of soft sand and gently lapping crystal-clear waters. Like most corners of the Mediterranean in July, it was a genial hubbub of families playing, lovers smooching, and sun worshippers lazing. But I recognized the location, framed by a shady grove of pine trees with a headland in the distance, from murky black-and-white holiday photographs and a flickering Super 8 movie I'd watched on YouTube.