“We saved them from becoming lamb chops,” says Nicola Matthews with a smile. We’re trudging uphill on a muddy trail at the family’s 220-acre organic farm deep in Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park, with several docile sheep in tow and a veil of misty drizzle obscuring the view of the surrounding peaks.
It was the desire to bring people closer to sheep that inspired father-daughter sheep-whispering team Paul and Nicola Matthews to set up Jacob Sheep Trekking back in 2014. With “patience, food and calm cuddles”, they tamed and trained a small flock of native Jacob sheep and have never looked back.
“The Jacobs were all reject lambs that hadn’t met the pedigree standard for breeding, so we decided to give them a chilled life eating, strolling and sleeping,” explains Nicola. They were wild little things initially, but they soon came around and some were quickly as placid as puppies. Over the past nine years, we’ve tamed lots of different rare-breed sheep, from hardy, docile Jacobs to tiny, gentle Breton Ouessants, the world’s smallest sheep, and Blacknoses, the world’s cutest sheep, originally from the Valais region of Switzerland.”
We’ve only been walking for a few minutes and I’m swiftly discovering that sheep can be fickle: affectionate, funny, sprightly, lazy and plain stubborn.
Sheep have personalities — given that I live in a sheep-farming community in the nearby Cambrian Mountains, I certainly know that. From my window, I can see hundreds of sheep bobbling the hillsides. Their bleating brings music to my days, and at night it rocks me to sleep as stars blaze away in inky skies. But the sheep are such a constant that they just blend into the landscape. Only now am I considering the individuals beyond the
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Travel has gotten weird. First, nobody did it for a couple of years. Then everybody did it at once and airports fell apart. “Revenge travel,” became a thing. Airports mostly figured out how to keep track of luggage, and people kept going places—too often the same ones. Major cities across Europe have enacted anti-tourism policies.
A staycation at The Ritz-Carlton Central Park conveniently sidesteps the hassles of crowded airports, canceled flights, and other irksome travel delays. And for those living in the tri-state area, a New York City staycation is one way to reduce their carbon footprint.
Baur au Lacis one of Zurich’s most prestigious and recognizable hotels, attracting guests from around the world to its waterside location since 1844. In its 179-year history, Baur au Lac has very much been a family business, owned and managed by the Baur-Kracht family, and this year marks a new chapter in the hotel’s leadership. Marguita Kracht joins her father at the helm of the property, as a seventh generation owner of the heralded hotel ushering in new ideas about sustainability and technology.
Sometimes it’s the look of a place that inspires us to want to visit. For travelers who roam the Internet looking for visual inspiration to decide where to go next, Pinterest has a handy new tool.
I have hazy memories of visiting Disney World as a kid. There’s an old picture of me grinning from ear to ear in front of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, so I think it’s safe to say I probably enjoyed the experience. But going to Disney as an adult in charge of planning the trip—where to stay, how to navigate the park, how not to waste two hours waiting in line—is an entirely different experience. It feels like going for the first time all over again.
Conde Nast Traveler gets a lot of mileage out of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards, slicing and dicing feedback from 300,000 travelers into a dizzying array of categories, sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories. Not only is there a ranking of the best cities in the world, there’s also the best small cities in the U.S. The world’s best hotels, sure. But also the top 10 hotels in Europe, and in Northern Asia, and in Eastern Mexico, and in Florence.
It’s travel strike season in France once again. Travelers visiting or traveling through France over the next several weeks should prepare for the possibility of significant air and rail travel disruptions due to a series of planned travel strikes that have cut 30 percent of flights at major airports, and could cancel train departures for months.
With rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft taking over, you might be wondering where in the world it’s still possible to take a cheap taxi. Cabs aren’t dead, yet: These countries still heavily rely on them.
In the spring of 2022, my aunt and uncle began kicking around the idea of visiting Switzerland after a work trip to France. An avid traveler myself — who at that point hadn't been out of the country since before the pandemic — I happily and unabashedly invited myself along.
For Americans traveling abroad, few countries are easier to navigate than Germany. Though not technically an English-speaking nation, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone working in tourism who doesn’t speak English. The country has plenty of amazing places to visit, the cities are clean, and travel within the country is blissfully easy. Much of this is thanks to the system of German trains known as Deutsche Bahn: Germany national railway that connects visitors to pretty much anywhere in the country from anywhere else in the country.