Travel Zagatala: Tour Azerbaijan's abundant Land of Roses

Childhood moves quickly. Those special years when kids are old enough to appreciate exciting adventures but still young enough to lean into the magic of it all are limited. When my youngest daughter was 6 years old and my oldest was 11, we decided to embrace that moment by taking a once-in-a-lifetime winter trip to find the real Santa in his home above the Arctic Circle.

This month, I embarked on the overnight rail experience of a lifetime: Finland's Santa Claus Express.

A wave of vandalism struck two popular beaches in Los Cristianos, Tenerife, last week. More than 230 sunbeds were defaced and sprayed with anti-tourism graffiti such as "Canarias se defiende" (The Canary Islands defend themselves) and "Canarias no se vende" (The Canary Islands are not for sale).

Dec 17, 2024 • 12 min read

A group of tourists was taken to the hospital after drinking cocktails at a five-star resort in Fiji.

Winter in Azerbaijan is the season for adventure. Mountains blanketed in snow, exceptional resorts and charming villages provide the perfect setting to embrace the chill.

A new gift idea for the traveler who has it all just landed.  Luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent recently unveiled two new private jet itineraries for 2026, and updated two existing ones. The programs will take travelers on curated journeys to off-the-grid, or hard to reach destinations. The firm operates the month-long excursions in February, May, September, and October and they sweep through multiple counties and destinations around the world on a private jet. 

Dec 13, 2024 • 5 min read

Dec 12, 2024 • 5 min read

Ireland has many claims to fame, but put them all together, and you’re still nowhere near a complete picture of what makes the country what it is. The best way to get to know Ireland is to go there. Dublin is a good place to start, but remember, it’s just the start. If you only have a week, pair a few days in the capital city with an extended excursion to southwestern Ireland, notably County Kerry. Between the two, you’ll get to see a bit of both coasts, experiencing everything from museum visits and historic hotel stays to nature escapes and evenings in the pub — all the while sampling as many local specialties as you can find (and trust me, there’s a lot).

Dec 9, 2024 • 23 min read

For Haitian Americans like the chef Gregory Gourdet, 49, potato salad bears little resemblance to the deli counter mainstay. Growing up in Queens, he instead ate salade russe, a traditional Haitian recipe in which potatoes are combined with peas, onions and beets, which turn the dish bubble gum pink. Today, Gourdet serves his own take on that dish as part of the summer menu at his restaurant Kann in Portland, Ore., smoking the beets and binding the ingredients with creamy rémoulade. It’s just one of a number of variations on Russian potato salad, known as Olivier — which was created in 19th-century Moscow and now shows up everywhere from Sweden to Korea — currently appearing on restaurant menus. At Eel Bar on New York’s Lower East Side, the chef-partner Aaron Crowder, 39, makes what he describes as a “New York version of the Spanish version of Russian potato salad,” informed by the ensaladilla rusa served at tapas bars that often includes green olives and roasted red peppers. He tops his with orange trout roe. Tyler Akin, 41, the chef and a partner at the Mediterranean restaurant Bastia in Philadelphia, makes potato confit in chicken fat and then mixes it with saffron-spiked aioli and shavings of Sardinian bottarga. Potato salad, he says, “just so clearly wants to be served warm and soft,” like the bacon-flecked, mayo-free German-style version that his family favors.