Travel
Discover facts about travel. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Travel
Alappuzha kettuvallams navigate overgrown canals
Once used to carry rice, these traditional Kerala barges are now floating hotels. Their routes wind through narrow, palm-fringed canals choked with water…
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An Antarctic station has a British pub inside
Ukraine's Vernadsky research station inherited the Faraday Bar when Britain transferred the base in 1996. Its carved wooden counter and pub furnishings…
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Mauritania's Chinguetti relies on hidden wells
Caravans crossing the Sahara relied on inherited knowledge of seasonal wells to plan multiweek journeys through the region. Missing a well could leave…
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Russia's “City of the Dead” is a real village
Dargavs is a village of open, roofed stone crypts in the Caucasus Mountains. Some tombs contain wooden, boat-shaped coffins and visible skeletal remains.
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An artists' republic declared independence on April Fools' Day
Užupis, a neighborhood in Vilnius, announced its playful independence on April 1, 1997. It has an anthem and a constitution displayed on a street wall,…
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Why Swiss buses play the William Tell Overture
The melody is a warning: PostBuses sound it as they navigate tight, guardrail-free hairpin turns on the Furka Pass, alerting oncoming traffic to their presence.
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A ghost town being swallowed by Namibian sand
Once wealthy enough for residents to drink imported champagne, Kolmanskop is now being reclaimed by Namibia’s desert: orange sand fills the doorways of its…
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The festival with no fixed date or location
The Wodaabe hold the weeklong Gerewol when rainy-season pastures are green enough, so its timing and location shift. The event combines a male beauty contest…
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A trail of dumplings tells Richmond's migration story
The trail reflects decades of Chinese migration, from Hong Kong residents who left ahead of the 1997 handover to later arrivals from mainland China.…
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Montreal has a city beneath its streets
RÉSO stretches 32 kilometers, linking places to shop, study, sleep, and catch the metro without going outdoors.
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The river cruise that crosses 10 countries
The Danube runs from Germany to the Black Sea, passing through ten countries.
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Munich Hauptbahnhof napcabs lock out station noise
Inside, travelers get a bed and air conditioning, offering a place to sleep without booking a hotel.
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Aogashima ferry cancels half of its weekly voyages
With no sheltered harbor, rough seas prevent the municipal ferry from docking about half the time; a subsidized nine-passenger helicopter is the backup.
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The pilgrimage through deadly Himalayan monsoons
The shrine is accessible only during a brief summer window, when hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims face torrential monsoon rain, flash floods and deadly…
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Tuvalu outer islands rely on a single erratic ferry
A scheduled 12-hour crossing between atolls can stretch to three days when the government ferry stops to load live pigs.
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Devil's Island used geography as part of its prison walls
The small island off French Guiana belonged to a penal system whose isolation and surrounding sea made escape exceptionally difficult. Alfred Dreyfus was…
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These ancient rice terraces need daily repairs
The terraces are made of packed mud held by retaining walls, not solid rock. The Ifugao people patch the walls daily to keep the steep fields intact.
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The ancient sheep trails still crossing Abruzzo
The tratturi are broad, grassy migration trails worn into the Italian landscape by sheep over centuries. Some pass medieval toll booths where shepherds once…
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The city built on a West African lagoon
The Tofinu built on Lake Nokoué to escape capture by the Fon, who avoided fighting on water for religious reasons. The stilt village still relies on canoes,…
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The Spanish town built beneath giant rock overhangs
In Setenil de las Bodegas, buildings fit beneath the rock lining the river gorge. The overhang becomes part of the roof instead of an obstacle to clear away.…
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Cu Chi tunnels were widened for tourists
Select sections were enlarged for visitors, making the original narrow guerrilla-warfare tunnels easier for tourists to crawl through.
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Cyclists helped save Tuscany’s gravel roads
Local cyclists campaigned to keep the Strade Bianche’s unpaved roads from being modernized. Preserving them turned the gravel routes into a destination for…
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A Swedish fortress became home to Finnish residents
Built by the Swedish crown to defend against Russia, Suomenlinna still has functioning dry docks and artillery bunkers alongside ordinary homes.
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The resort that became a toxic wasteland
A 1905 Colorado River engineering failure flooded the desert and created the Salton Sea. It later became a celebrity resort; now its hyper-saline waters smell…
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