What is West Nile virus and should travellers in Europe be worried following recent deaths in Spain?

Sad to see the end of summer? September is still a great time for a train adventure thanks to extended deals from French national rail operator SNCF.

New Zealand is nearly tripling its tourist tax to help protect its natural environment and boost public services.

Florida’s beloved high-speed rail line, Brightline, is celebrating the one-year anniversary of their Orlando extension with a week of exclusive deals for email subscribers.

An autumn/winter fashion shoot is all about layers—lots of rich textiles, hues, and textures to match the landscape, not to mention the trends noted back at the February shows. This year, Condé Nast Traveler headed to the Faroe Islands, with its wild and windy conditions, to bring the collections to life. The theme? The Great Outdoors. Below, fashion director Martha Ward takes us on location and shares how the shoot came together, from seeking out unforgettable scenery to the most memorable look.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, September 4, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The travel booking landscape is rapidly transforming, with direct bookings on the rise and reshaping the competition. What’s driving this shift? Skift Research explores these pivotal changes in our new report: “Direct Bookings vs. OTAs: Analyzing the Shift in U.S. Travel Booking Trends.”

Thousands of hotel workers are on strike across the country, demanding better wages and workloads and a reversal of COVID-19-era cuts.

Koji, the mold that transforms soy beans and wheat into soy sauce and rice into sake, is so beloved in Japan that it has its own holiday. And lately, chefs have been finding new uses for the fungus, which has a fruity aroma and an ability to make “anything it touches better,” says Jeremy Umansky, 41, the owner of Larder deli in Cleveland. He uses koji for almost everything: to cure pastrami; to ferment Chinese-style black beans, which are ground and swirled into chocolate babka to embolden the chocolate; and to sprinkle over salads and fries in the form of what the restaurant calls Special K, a seasoning of dried ground koji. “It’s a harmonizer,” he says. Bartenders, too, are taking note. At Nancy’s Hustle in Houston, the bar manager, Zach Hornberger, 32, adds it to the nonalcoholic Silver Brining cocktail, a sweet-sour-salty mix of pickle brine, grapefruit and lime juices, koji and tonic. “It brings this umami background to beverages, and it plays well with citrus, taming the high acid notes and rounding the drink as a whole,” he says. At the restaurant Fête in Honolulu, the bar manager, Fabrice McCarthy, 41, infuses rum with shio koji (a slurry of koji, water and salt) and shakes it into a mai tai to add salinity — the effect, he says, is similar to how salted peanuts make you want to drink more beer. Ryan Chetiyawardana, 40, the owner of the bar Lyaness in London, experiments with koji in multiple forms — for one cocktail, he ferments parsnips with koji, which he says unlocks the sweetness and delivers “a huge tropical brightness.” While koji often plays a supporting role, at Paradiso in Barcelona, it wraps around the entire lip of the glass used for the Fleming, named for Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, another influential mold. For this fungus-inspired cocktail, which includes grapefruit, tequila and miso, the manager of Paradiso’s research lab, Matteo Ciarpaglini, 30, one-upped a classic salt rim with a fluffy cloud of koji, its floral fragrance accompanying every taste. —

Yatra Online on Monday announced that it has agreed to acquire Globe All India Services (Globe Travels), a corporate travel services provider, for INR 1.28 billion ($15.25 million) in cash.

Driving between France and Italy this year? You may be forced take a detour as the Mont-Blanc Tunnel, which links the two countries beneath the Alps, is closing for 15 weeks for renovation work.

A few months ago, I realized that my passport was nearly full. It wasn't due to expire for another couple of years, but I was running out of blank pages. I knew that some countries — including popular tourist destinations like Italy and Iceland — might even refuse me entry if I didn't have two or more blank passport pages.

Alva Vanderbilt's 39th birthday present from her husband was a 140,000-square-foot summer "cottage" on the shores of Newport, Rhode Island.