Where to stay in Helsinki, Finland's design-conscious capital

It is easy to see why Bangkok is such a popular travel destination. Bursting with color and culture, exuberant temples and delectable street food, it is no wonder that this is one of the world’s most-visited cities.

Confession: I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of canned cocktails I’ve thoroughly enjoyed in my nine years of covering food, wine, and spirits. The fact is, there simply isn’t a lot of good canned stuff out there. And believe me, I’ve tried many of them—too many to count—in an attempt to find something I’m able to drink right out of the can without zhuzhing.

Fairy-tale villages. Alpine lakes as blue as cobalt. Regal ibex standing sentry on misty ridges — the Engadin Valley, a narrow ravine cutting across the Swiss canton of Graubünden, is one the most sublime pockets of the Alps. Long a coveted destination for skiers, hikers, and outdoor adventurers, the valley has culinary verve and cultural cachet worthy of its scenic splendor. From the glitzy, celebrity-studded ski resorts of St. Moritz — the St. Tropez of the Alps — to sleepy mountain hamlets frozen in time since the medieval era, the Engadin mesmerizes.

As a Chicago transplant who attended the University of Alabama, one of 14 members of the Southeastern Conference collegiate athletic institution, I’m no stranger to the charms and fervors of an SEC college town, from sports-centric traditions such as tailgates to campuses that showcase Southern architecture as much as any downtown square. You can draw a lot of parallels between attending an SEC school and visiting a city or town that hosts one. That’s why I jumped at the recent chance to visit Oxford, Mississippi, otherwise known as the home of Ole Miss.

Chef Mario Rosero is standing beside a wood-fired grill at the back of Prudencia, the restaurant he owns in La Candelaria, Bogotá’s cobblestoned old town. The grill has three circular grates that can be adjusted to different positions. Small pieces of pork are sizzling on the one directly above the flames; a cast iron pot filled with corn is cooking less fiercely on another, higher up. Perfecting this clever, compact set-up is what Mario — a Culinary Institute of America graduate born in the Colombian city of Pasto and raised in Los Angeles — has been up to since the pandemic.  

I first landed in Berlin in the late 1990s, in the heady years after the fall of the Wall. I was aware enough of its licentious reputation to startle a teacher by announcing plans to run away there and open a club. But that first night my girlfriend and I chanced on a bar owned by the Glaswegian cousin of queer artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. I DJ'd with a pile of scratched 78s, he took us to a party in an after-hours record store run by Russian émigrés, and we ended the morning at a techno night in the basement of a mansion block on Karl-Marx-Allee, sweating among the Stalinist decor.

Finland has been named the happiest country in the world by the World Happiness Report for the past six years.

Asking passengers to step onto the scales before boarding a flight was always going to be a controversial move. Agitated commentators raged, accusing Finnair, which is Finland’s national carrier, of humiliating passengers and being ‘triggering to people with eating disorders’.

In the EU, all employees are entitled to a minimum of four weeks’ paid holiday per year.

Total solar eclipses don’t come along very often, so when they do, there’s always a spike in travel.

Alfredo Aliaga Burdio, 92, is now the Guinness World Record holder for the oldest man to cross the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim on foot.

Back this year is a Delta Air Lines promotion that gives Delta SkyMiles members another path to earn Medallion Qualification Dollars toward elite status.