Posts

19 posts found

The Beach Where "Jaws" Was Filmed: Is Martha's Vineyard Worth Visiting Today?

The Beach Where "Jaws" Was Filmed: Is Martha's Vineyard Worth Visiting Today?

In the summer of 1974, Steven Spielberg descended on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts with a mechanical shark and a crew that had no idea they were about to make cinema history. Jaws, released in June 1975, became the first blockbust...

Grand Canyon: 12 Things You Need to Know Before You Go

Grand Canyon: 12 Things You Need to Know Before You Go

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and over a mile deep. More than six million people visit Arizona every year to see it — and a surprising number of them show up completely unprepared. Here's everything you need to know to ...

What Every Traveler Should Know Right Now — April 2026

What Every Traveler Should Know Right Now — April 2026

Travel in 2026 looks different from even two years ago. Here's what's worth knowing before your next trip. Passport Processing: Plan Ahead US passport processing times have improved from the post-pandemic backlog, but routine processing still t...

Where Is the Biggest Library in the World? (And Can You Visit It?)

Where Is the Biggest Library in the World? (And Can You Visit It?)

The largest library on Earth is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., United States. It holds more than 170 million items — books, recordings, photographs, maps, sheet music, and manuscripts — spread across 838 miles of bookshelves. That's rou...

Is Lebanon Safe to Travel in 2026? The Honest Answer

Is Lebanon Safe to Travel in 2026? The Honest Answer

Lebanon entered 2026 in a condition that its residents describe with characteristic gallows humour as "the new normal" — which is to say, better than 2020 (the Beirut port explosion), better than 2023 (the southern border escalation with Israel),...

10 Free and Cheap Things to Do in Paris in 2026 (That Locals Actually Love)

10 Free and Cheap Things to Do in Paris in 2026 (That Locals Actually Love)

Paris is frequently ranked among the world's most expensive cities. It is also a city where you can spend a week of extraordinary experiences without paying for most of them. Here are ten things — genuinely good, not consolation prizes — that are fre...

Jordan: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Why This Middle Eastern Kingdom Surprises Every Visitor

Jordan: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Why This Middle Eastern Kingdom Surprises Every Visitor

Jordan is the Middle Eastern country most Western travellers approach with the least expectation and leave with the most enthusiasm. It is small (roughly the size of Indiana), almost entirely desert, with very few natural resources — and it contains ...

What Was LoDo? The Remarkable History of Denver's Lower Downtown District

What Was LoDo? The Remarkable History of Denver's Lower Downtown District

LoDo — Lower Downtown Denver — is the roughly 25-block area bounded by the South Platte River to the west, Larimer Street to the north, 20th Street to the east, and Speer Boulevard to the south. It is today Denver's most densely packed dining and nig...

Denver Union Station: From Wild West Railroad Hub to the Heart of a Modern City

Denver Union Station: From Wild West Railroad Hub to the Heart of a Modern City

Denver Union Station opened in 1881 and immediately established itself as one of the most important railroad junctions in the American West. At its peak, 80 trains a day passed through its platforms. Today, after a $500 million regeneration, it's the...

What You Cannot Do in Qatar: A Traveler's Honest List

What You Cannot Do in Qatar: A Traveler's Honest List

Qatar has made remarkable efforts to welcome international visitors — particularly during the 2022 FIFA World Cup and beyond. But it remains a conservative Islamic monarchy with strict laws that are genuinely enforced. Here's an honest, practical gui...

North Korea Opens to Tourists in 2025–2026: What We Know

North Korea Opens to Tourists in 2025–2026: What We Know

For most of its post-war history, North Korea operated a tightly controlled but functional tourism industry for foreign visitors. Western tourists travelled primarily through specialist agencies — most famously, the Beijing-based Young Pioneer Tours ...

Wild Horses on the Beach in the USA: Where to Find Them, How to See Them, and Why They're There

Wild Horses on the Beach in the USA: Where to Find Them, How to See Them, and Why They're There

There are places on the American East Coast where you can walk along the ocean and see horses — genuinely wild, unmanaged, government-protected horses — grazing in the dunes, standing belly-deep in the surf, or trotting across the sand with the Atlan...

Armenia: The Oldest Christian Country in the World Is Also One of the Most Underrated in Europe

Armenia: The Oldest Christian Country in the World Is Also One of the Most Underrated in Europe

Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD — over a decade before the Roman Empire. That fact is a useful introduction to what kind of country this is: ancient in a way that isn't metaphorical, shaped by history with a weight that's...

Paris Travel Guide 2026: What to See, Do, and Experience in the City of Light

Paris Travel Guide 2026: What to See, Do, and Experience in the City of Light

Paris has been the most visited city on Earth for much of the past century — and it consistently earns that status. The Ville Lumière is, quite simply, one of the greatest cities ever built: a 2,000-year accumulation of architecture, cuisine, art, fa...

Oslo City Guide: The Best Museums, Neighbourhoods, and Experiences

Oslo City Guide: The Best Museums, Neighbourhoods, and Experiences

Oslo is a capital city on its own terms — not trying to compete with London or Paris, but increasingly confident in what it does uniquely well. At roughly 700,000 people, it combines genuine city amenities with remarkable proximity to nature: you can...

Norwegian Fjords: A Complete Guide to the World's Most Spectacular Waterways

Norwegian Fjords: A Complete Guide to the World's Most Spectacular Waterways

There is no landform quite like a fjord. Carved by glaciers advancing and retreating over millions of years, these narrow sea inlets — flanked by sheer rock walls rising hundreds of metres — combine the intimacy of a valley with the depth of an ocean...

The Tatra Mountains: Poland's Alpine Escape — Hiking, Zakopane, and What to Know

The Tatra Mountains: Poland's Alpine Escape — Hiking, Zakopane, and What to Know

In the far south of Poland, where the country meets Slovakia, the Tatra Mountains rise abruptly from the rolling Carpathian foothills to form the only genuinely alpine landscape in Central Europe north of the Alps. The Polish Tatras — a 175 square ki...

Rio Carnival: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go

Rio Carnival: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go

There is nothing on Earth quite like Rio Carnival. Not in size, not in intensity, not in the particular way it temporarily dissolves every social boundary in one of the world's most stratified cities. For five days in February or March — the dates sh...

What to Buy in Algeria: Shopping Guide for Souvenirs and Local Crafts

What to Buy in Algeria: Shopping Guide for Souvenirs and Local Crafts

Algeria isn't known as a shopping destination — and that's part of the charm. Unlike the heavily commercialized souks of Marrakech, shopping in Algeria is about discovering authentic, handcrafted goods at honest prices. Tourist markup is minimal beca...