#travel

#travel

I can still remember my first flight, in 2002. It was magical. I was working as a tour guide in Myanmar. I met a British balloon pilot called Phil, who had a spare place on a flight. He offered to take me, too.

As someone who has traveled to over 50 countries, I have airport comfort down to a science. The key to building an airplane outfit you can easily wear for long-haul flights or multiple layovers lies in the perfect blend of fabrics, functionality, and layers. Below, I've outlined the five core garments that I use as a recipe for all of my airport travel outfits.

When Karen Newton left home in late July 2025, she knew that international travellers were being locked up in immigration detention centres in the US. I was aware, she nods. But I never thought it would have any impact on my holiday. Karen, 65, had a British passport and a tourist visa. She hadn't been abroad for eight years, and was keen for some guaranteed sun. I really just wanted to get away from the house.

A favorite of backpackers, outdoor adventurers, and national park wanderers alike, Cotopaxi is known for its deceptively spacious bags, outdoor gear, protective clothing, and colorful styles. I've spent my fair share of time trekking up and down the country with my own Cotopaxi bag ( Cotopaxi Allpa 35L Travel Pack), which has seen such sights as Acadia National Park and downtown Boston, and on a recent trip to Italy, my travel partner brought hers along the Amalfi Coast.

Bose helped write the book on noise canceling when it entered the market way back in the 1970s. Lately, the brand has been on a tear, with the goal of creating the ultimate in sonic solitude. The QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 are Bose's latest and greatest creation, offering among the very best noise canceling we've ever tested. Just as importantly, they're currently on sale for $50 off.

After trial and error, I've landed on the Béis Sport Pack as my go-to travel purse, since it's spacious, doesn't look bulky, and is comfortable to wear all day. Convenience is key at the airport and on the plane, and being able to single-handedly unzip the pouch to grab my ID, AirPods, or debit card makes all the difference. Plus, with fewer pockets than a purse or backpack to rifle through, there is never a question as to where I put my boarding pass in.

I recently went home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone. I just went to see my family. I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country. I wanted to feel what it felt like.I wanted to hold my children again. And I hadn't been home in over a year.

Shay Mitchell doesn't just travel - she studies it. As the founder of Béis, she's built one of the most recognizable modern luggage brands by obsessing over how people actually move through the world: overpacked suitcases, gate changes, the need for something equal parts functional and elevated. So it makes sense that she's joining Capital One Travel as its first-ever travel ambassador.

Some folks might be willing to travel hundreds of miles for the perfect fried chicken from New Orleans. For others, the stuff of fevered-snacking dreams is a Dagwood-sized Italian hoagie from Philly, or perhaps a fresh-steamed Dungeness crab with sourdough in San Francisco. Well, take note, gastrotravelers: Tripadvisor has released its 2026 Travelers' Choice Awards for best food destinations, and it's full of suggestions about where in the U.S. to visit for an epicurean rampage.

At the same time, however, the United States is hemorrhaging billions in tourism revenue by the year, a downward trend many experts credit to President Donald Trump's nationalistic approach to immigration. In December, the administration expanded its travel ban to 39 countries-most of them in Africa-that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem claimed had "been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" on X.

There are certain suitcase staples worth having in your travel wardrobe. An effortless pair of wrinkle-free travel pants is one of them. A comfy pair of shoes is the other. While clogs and flats make a stylish choice, sneakers are our top travel shoe pick, especially when they're known to endure 13-hours on your feet or 15,000 steps without blisters, like two of our editors' favorite Adidas styles.

Even though there was an intense religious ceremony happening right outside their car, Bourdain apparently wanted to feed his crew after a long day of filming. With not much more than "a few handfuls of cooked rice available" during the shoot, he knew they were "hot, hungry, and very far from home." And Woolever said that meant they were ready to eat "some resolutely Western fast food chicken and biscuits."

Sometimes it's fun to step out of our comfort zones and pick an accommodation that's a total contrast from our own homes. These colourful Airbnbs are all one-of-a-kind and operate on their own palette to create character and dimension. From the furniture to the light fixtures, colours can be found everywhere; electric oranges, deep reds, pastel yellows, and the boldest of blues. These unique spaces are made for themed trips, Instagrammable moments, and to help you find your creative spark.

We all know that once you get a taste for certain things in life, it's tough to go back. Redditor Phase_zero_X asked, "What is a luxury you can never go back from once you've experienced it?" Here's what people said. 1. "A comfortable bed. My husband and I really splurged on our most recent mattress, and I mean really splurged, but gosh darn it, it feels good to lie down."

As an American who's traveled to 44 countries over the last 30 years, I've seen my fair share of unforgettable places. But if I had to choose one place to visit again and again, it would be Bali, an island and province in Indonesia that combines vibrant culture, natural beauty, and a pace of life that feels both energizing and restorative. After spending a month on the island in 2023, I fell in love. Here's what made my trip to Bali so special.

"Number one for me was not faking too much," Haley says. "Obviously you have to fake stuff and you have to pretend you're somewhere where you're not. But I wanted this film to be grounded and believable, and for it to feel like you were actually on vacation with Poppy and Alex. So it was important to me to shoot it with our boots on the ground."

In reality, the job of my dreams consisted of overnight flights where I'd get little to no rest, then hit the ground running as soon as I arrived at my destinations. After I'd fly back home from some trips, it would take me nearly a week to recover from jet lag. My stress levels were often cranked up, dealing with flight delays, deadlines, and navigation across different states and countries.

It started with an outbreak in West Texas, and now infections are reported in nine states and hundreds are in quarantine due to a major surge in South Carolina. More than out of 10 cases were among unvaccinated people or those with unknown vaccination status, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What they're saying: On Tuesday, Ralph Abraham, a top CDC official, told reporters that the end of the measles elimination status in the U.S. would be "just the cost of doing business, with our borders being somewhat porous [and] global and international travel," Stat reported.

The tools are made from wear- and corrosion-resistant 420J2 stainless steel and are packaged into a multitool that measures 2.78 x 1 x 0.52 inches when closed and 4.1 inches when deployed, weighing just 2.38 oz. All the tools are functional: the pliers handle all the tasks I'd expect from a similarly sized tool, the screwdrivers fit a wide array of fasteners, and the bottle opener and SIM tray eject tool are nice touches for a tool designed with travel in mind.

We were expecting to see houses and buildings dot the shore, as well as the hawkers who'd typically crowd around piers in Indonesia with food and wares to sell. There was none of that. It was just a pier next to a tiny village. After disembarking, we set off walking and within 100 metres ran out of houses, surrounded only by rice paddies and farmland. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go, and not even a tree to seek shade under.

And I'm not alone in this thinking. "Lisbon and Porto are amazing, but Portugal's soul is often found in the smaller towns and rural regions where life moves much more slowly," Sheree M. Mitchell, a Travel + Leisure A-List Travel Advisor, shared. "We send clients all over the Alentejo, Douro Valley, Minho Region, as well as the Azores and Madeira, where the real local magic happens."

There are few things Arabella Carey Adolfsson enjoys more than going fishing near her lakeside home in Sweden during the summertime, or getting her camera out and taking photographs of the natural beauty surrounding her. She and her husband Stefan, a Swede, often take their boat out from Torpon, the island where they live, onto the waters of Lake Sommen, savoring the picturesque views of the surrounding fields, forests and cliffs.

"They say that the Azores is made up of eight islands and an amusement park," my guide, Fernando Brazil, joked as he drove his Land Rover past one of the island's many colorful chapels, known as impérios. Brazil explained that Terceira holds more festivals than all the other Azorean isles combined. Most revolve around the impérios, which are dedicated to the Holy Spirit and can last up to 10 days, with concerts, parades, and bullfights.

I've traveled to all 63 major US national parks, but Grand Teton stands out as my favorite.

Although the money really didn't get us anywhere and we lost the bank account, the dream still stayed,

The Holiday Happiness Index study, which was conducted in collaboration with Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, a Harvard-affiliated clinical psychologist and holistic happiness expert, looked at 50 destinations throughout the world and ranked them across five "feel good" factors, including sunlight, quality sleep, a healthy diet, time in nature, and physical exercise. To determine which are the sunniest, the study also took into account each place's total hours of sunlight per year.

The self-inflating Therm-a-Rest lumbar pillow that takes up almost no space in your carry-on and saves you from an achey, sore back after spending hours up in the air. One pilot called it a "lifesaver" for long-haul flights, while other frequent fliers claim to use theirs every single day, regardless of their travel plans-and you can buy their favorite travel hack on Amazon for under $50.

Flight attendants are, by nature, fountains of knowledge when it comes to traveling-especially on the topic of the products needed to make long-haul flights, travel days, and even hotel stays as comfortable and safe as possible. They've tried countless neck pillows, carry-on luggage options, and even supportive shoes for taking in the sights during their layovers, and lucky for us, many of their top picks are available at Amazon.