Travel
Discover facts about travel. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Travel
Sliding down Nicaragua’s active Cerro Negro volcano on a reinforced wooden plank at fifty miles per hour requires protective jump suits to prevent the unforgiving black volcanic…
Nothing screams vacation quite like willingly hurling yourself down a 2,388-foot active cinder cone. Cerro Negro in Nicaragua is the epicenter of volcano…
Discover moreGorging on traditional choucroute garnie in the historically contested border city of Strasbourg perfectly highlights the violent centuries of geopolitical tug-of-war between…
Nothing says 'we've been conquered multiple times' quite like the menu in Alsace. Strasbourg sits right on the Rhine River, acting as the ultimate historical…
Discover moreAttending Mongolia’s brutal Naadam Festival allows you to witness the intensely competitive three manly games where horseback riding child jockeys and massive unarmored wrestlers…
Forget your sanitized local county fairs; Naadam is a spectacular display of raw survival skills dressed up as a national holiday. Originating from ancient…
Discover moreGliding silently through the shallow reeds of Botswana’s Okavango Delta in a hollowed-out wooden mokoro canoe places you terrifyingly close to aggressive territorial…
While the motorized jeep safari offers a comfortable steel cage, the mokoro experience strips away all of your biological advantages. The Okavango is an…
Discover moreNavigating the incredibly congested canals of Thailand’s Damnoen Saduak floating market means dodging aggressive wooden longtail boats piloted by elderly women expertly frying…
It is a logistical nightmare of river traffic masquerading as a culinary paradise. While it has undoubtedly become a massive tourist trap, the sheer mechanics…
Discover morePenetrating the submerged wreckage of the SS Thistlegorm in the Egyptian Red Sea brings scuba divers face to face with perfectly preserved World War II motorcycles and untouched…
The ocean is the world’s most effective, and terrifying, museum curator. The SS Thistlegorm was a British armed merchant ship loaded with a massive arsenal of…
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Driving a battered land cruiser across the blindingly white crust of Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni during the wet season magically transforms the prehistoric dried lakebed into the…
It is the only road trip on Earth where you can actively lose your spatial awareness and forget which way is up. Stretching over 4,000 square miles, the Salar…
Discover moreSleeping suspended ninety feet above the jungle floor in Costa Rica’s Finca Bellavista treehouse community requires traversing a terrifying network of swaying suspension bridges…
The romantic fantasy of living like a high-end Ewok quickly fades when you realize you have to zipline to your bedroom in the dark. Finca Bellavista is an…
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Vredefort Crater represents the oldest and largest known meteorite impact site on planet Earth
The impact happened about 2 billion years ago, and the resulting structure spans about 186 miles. Roads now cross the Vredefort Dome, part of the ancient…
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Svalbard's supply run needs a ship built for ice
Bring ships cargo from Tromsø aboard Norbjørn, a high-ice-class vessel with refrigerated storage and room for 167 twenty-foot containers. The crossing takes…
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When Munnar’s tea hills turn emerald in the monsoon
Monsoon rain drenches the tea-covered slopes, turning them vivid green and sending waterfalls down the misty valleys.
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The village that quarantined itself during the plague
To keep the plague from spreading to nearby towns, Eyam’s residents sealed themselves off. Food was left at boundary stones, and villagers paid for it with…
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Dajabón's market makes an international border a place to shop
On market days, traders and shoppers cross between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to buy and sell everyday goods. Gates, permissions, and political…
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This Arctic research town asks visitors to switch off Wi-Fi
At Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard, sensitive scientific instruments can be disrupted by nearby radio transmissions. Restrictions on wireless devices protect…
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KOKS took fine dining to a tiny Greenland settlement
The Faroese restaurant announced a temporary move to Ilimanaq for its 2022 and 2023 seasons. Reaching dinner became part of the expedition, while the menu…
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Why Bulgarian festivals feature terrifying masked dancers
The masked Kukeri are meant to drive away evil winter spirits. They stomp through the streets in wooden masks and goat pelts, with heavy brass bells strapped…
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The 1,500-mile journey behind Basho's haiku
In 1689, Matsuo Bashō sold his house and walked nearly 1,500 miles through northern Honshu, facing bandits and typhoons along the way.
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Why British steam trains were abandoned in Bolivia
Why British steam trains were abandoned in Bolivia. They were brought in to build a mining network, then left behind when the industry collapsed in the 1940s.
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The Welsh canal where boats float 126 feet up
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal across a cast-iron trough 126 feet above a river valley. A railing protects the towpath side, but the…
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Locals cross a frozen Himalayan river on foot
In winter, the Zanskar River freezes into a route through the Indian Himalayas, and it can be the region's only highway. Locals and visitors haul supply sleds…
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You can book a turn inside a World Heritage bath
Tsuboyu at Yunomine Onsen is a tiny stone bath connected with the Kumano pilgrimage tradition. One or two people use it privately for a limited session. World…
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Samarkand's grand square is framed by three centers of learning
The Registan's monumental façades belong to the Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor, and Tilya-Kori madrasahs. Their courtyards and rooms were part of an educational and…
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A ten-day Vipassana course includes silence beyond simply not talking
In the Goenka tradition, participants avoid communicating with fellow students through speech, gestures, or notes during the main silent period. Questions to…
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France's great canal let cargo skip the trip around Spain
The Canal du Midi connected the Mediterranean to the Garonne route toward the Atlantic. That created an inland alternative to sailing around the Iberian…
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