TravelPulse Podcast: Hard Truths and Tough Choices for Travel Advisors

If your idea of Spain is eating paella, dancing flamenco, and improving your Spanish, Catalonia might surprise you.

Grupo Xcaret has launched an exclusive booking tool to provide travel advisors with a seamless experience.

Monday Cleghorn. (Source: Megan Cleghorn)

Wherever I'm headed, near or far, whether it's a two-week trip to Europe or a two-day stay down the shore, I'll always have a pair of comfortable sneakers on my feet (and maybe a second pair in my suitcase). The most comfortable sneakers can make the difference between a perfect travel day spent exploring a new city and a painful afternoon at the hotel with a foot full of blisters.

You don’t hear about Central Florida very often, and when you do, chances are it has something to do with Walt Disney World. But just over an hour north of the famed resort complex is the mid-sized city of Ocala, a destination bursting with superlatives, including “America’s largest spring” and “horse capital of the world.”

Landal GreenParks UK, the UK’s fastest growing company offering holiday breaks in nature, has seen a 24% YoY increase in summer bookings driven by longer staycations in the Southwest region.

This spring, the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) seemed like it was starting to hit reality. Several start-ups launched widely publicized hardware with a new generation of voice assistants, generating answers using technology like that behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In particular, buzzy devices like the Humane Ai Pin offered travelers an intriguing pitch: What if AI assistants could help you with contextual information while you’re traveling—not just travel planning but actual on-the-ground adventuring?

Wynn Resorts has just closed a deal to buy another 70 acres of land on Ras Al Khaimah’s Marjan Island, giving the operator a total of 155 acres and ownership of a quarter of the entire island. Wynn is already developing a $3.9 billion resort in the emirate.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charissa Enget, a content creator and cybersecurity architect who gained her graduate degree in Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Australia and the United Arab Emirates are on a growing list of countries warning that travel to the UK may be a safety risk.

Love them or hate them, but the hop-on, hop-off bus remains a packed commodity this summer travel season.

Welcome back to another episode of the TravelPulse Podcast!