Travel
Discover facts about travel. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Travel
A wine cellar so vast you need a car
Mileștii Mici, near Chișinău in Moldova, occupies former limestone workings with roughly 200 kilometers of underground galleries. Only part of that network…
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Ikat artists make the pattern before weaving the cloth
Sections of thread are tied off to resist dye, then the threads are arranged on a loom. The final picture depends on those pre-dyed sections lining up during…
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At a Thai floating market, the kitchen can be a boat
Vendors prepare and pass food from small craft alongside customers on the banks or in other boats. A narrow hull has to accommodate ingredients, utensils, and…
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The asteroid crater where Apollo astronauts trained
A 50-meter asteroid blasted out the nearly mile-wide Barringer Crater in seconds. Its jagged, well-preserved terrain made it a training ground for Apollo…
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Crossing the treacherous Drake Passage to Antarctica requires icebreaker ships equipped with underwater sonar mapping
The Drake Passage is notorious for rough seas where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern oceans meet. The crossing can take about two days before ships reach…
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London houseboats must keep moving every two weeks
Without a permanent mooring, continuous cruisers must move to a new place every 14 days or risk fines. That means planning around available moorings and…
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Australia's Ghan sleeper train takes three days to slice through the red dirt of the Outback from Adelaide to Darwin
Named for the Afghan cameleers who pioneered the route, the luxury sleeper train crosses about 1,800 miles of Outback between the two cities.
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Moscow put a Cold War command bunker far below its streets
Bunker-42 was built deep underground as a protected command facility. Its depth and enclosed systems were meant to keep essential functions operating in…
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The cliffside city built to hide a kingdom
Carved into Georgia’s Erusheti Mountain under Queen Tamar in the 12th century, Vardzia held more than 6,000 rooms, a church and a throne room, all linked by…
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Why Ta Prohm comes alive in the rain
Rain brings Ta Prohm’s strangler fig roots and stone walls to life: moss and foliage turn vivid, while the downpour washes dust from sandstone carvings and…
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A railway tunnel helped strand a mountain hotel
Glacier House in Canada's Glacier National Park once served passengers beside the railway. The Connaught Tunnel diverted the line away, leaving the hotel less…
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The Swiss refuge reached across a glacier
The Cabane des Dix sits at 2,928 meters and serves as an overnight shelter for mountaineers tackling the Chamonix–Zermatt traverse across glacial terrain.
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Paris built its plantlike Metro gates from standardized parts
Guimard's curling stalks and flowerlike lamps look individually grown, but the designs used repeatable cast-iron components. That made them easier to…
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On Bahamian mailboats, cargo comes before comfort
Passengers might string hammocks on rusty decks and sleep beside building supplies, flour sacks, and cages of noisy chickens bound for remote settlements.
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The Cotswold Way strings villages together for 102 miles
The walking route runs between Chipping Campden and Bath, linking limestone villages, countryside, and views from the escarpment. Tearooms are part of the…
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Sleeping in a Mongolian yurt with eagle hunters
Kazakh nomads in western Mongolia still hunt on horseback with golden eagles. Visitors can stay with a family in a felt yurt and watch the birds hunt foxes.
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A melting iceberg can suddenly roll over
Melting changes the shape of the ice above and below the water, shifting the balance between weight and buoyancy. Once the old orientation becomes unstable,…
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Why Japanese hot springs are beaten with wooden planks
At Kusatsu Onsen, the water can reach 120°F. Workers beat it with six-foot wooden planks while singing to cool it to about 107°F without diluting its minerals…
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The border where two taco cultures collide
El Paso and Ciudad Juárez share a cross-border food scene, from brisket-stuffed burritos in Texas to al pastor tacos in Chihuahua.
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Why Riga’s buildings look like they’re screaming
Riga’s Art Nouveau façades are packed with faces, dragons, sphinxes, gargoyles, and floral designs. Architect Mikhail Eisenstein designed many of them, giving…
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Nakasendo trail connects preserved Edo-period tea houses through the steep Kiso Valley
The Nakasendo was an old highway between Kyoto and Tokyo, and its best-preserved stretch runs through the Kiso Valley. Walkers can follow cobblestone paths…
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Germany's Old Salt Route follows the medieval trade path from Lüneburg to Lübeck
Salt mined in Lüneburg traveled along this route to Lübeck, where it helped supply the herring trade. Today, cyclists can follow the old path past Hanseatic…
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Kalaupapa's cliffs helped turn a peninsula into a place of forced isolation
Beginning in 1866, people with Hansen's disease were sent to this remote part of Molokaʻi. Sea and steep cliffs separated the settlement from the rest of the…
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Budapest Tram 2 rattles past Art Nouveau buildings
A standard transit ticket on Tram Line 2 takes riders along the Danube past the Hungarian Parliament and Art Nouveau buildings. The route doubles as a…
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