Tourism

“Welcome to Wayanad. From here, all plastic is banned.” Prasanth was on a mission, belly pressed to the carpet of his car, legs sticking out on the roadside. He emerged triumphant, brandishing a forgotten Coca-Cola bottle and carrier bag before starting the ignition. Crossing into the high-altitude, hilly state of Kerala, he pulled up at a designated recycling spot.  Ephemera rained out of my upturned tote bag upon strict instruction to hand over any plastics. At Wayanad’s border, two impassive security guards eyed my friend and me as we instinctively sank back in our seats. A regular driver for tourists, Prasanth shrugged off the routine check, pointing to a sign as we were waved on.  “1,000 rupees fine! See?

A pair of announcements by the National Football League in collaboration with Washington, DC has local citizens more excited than ever about football’s future in the capital city – but it’s also attracting opposition that stands to create a YIMBY versus NIMBY showdown on the left on the biggest national stage.  For YIMBY futurists on the left, whether you’re talking about Ezra Klein’s and Derek Thompson’s abundance agenda or Matt Yglesias’s dreams of a billion Americans, the possibility on offer by the NFL and the Washington Commanders seems ideal to achieve great things for the city.

I spent my last afternoon in Tokyo stocking up on snacks and feasting on cheap and delicious conveyor belt sushi, in anticipation of characteristically criminal airport concession prices. But when I made my way past Haneda Airport’s Rodeo Drive-esque esplanade of luxury shops — does anyone really buy a $10,000 Omega watch on their way to their gate? — I was in for a surprise. Bottles of water, iced tea and other soft drinks were less than $1 in airport vending machines, just like everywhere else in the country. I wasn’t hungry, but when I realized that I could buy a plate of yakisoba with shrimp, pork and squid for the yen equivalent of $6 and six takoyaki (essentially balls of fried octopus) for $4.75, I ordered both.

After ten hours of flying and too much bad airplane coffee, the beef carpaccio from 8 East at the Circa casino was ecstasy. Topped with potato chips, served with drops of citrus-infused wasabi crème, it would have been fabulous anytime. But nursing a cold Sapporo, stoned on exhaustion and discombobulation, I shivered in delight with every bite. Just a single piece would have been worth the flight. It was my first time in Las Vegas — my first time in the States — and I was hoping to write a meaningful story about a too-much written about place.

At first, the sleepy little town of Mirleft looks like all the others on the 600-mile trek through the sands of the Sahara: half-gravel, half-concrete sidewalks, faded paint, brightly painted schools and the minaret of a new mosque jutting up toward the sky. But a mile past Mirleft’s dusty high street lie cliffs of California proportions — with swells to match. The cliffs arch down at a near forty-five-degree angle and into meaty waves rolling toward a point break. It’s here that a group of ten French and German surfers have joined up with Issam Surf School, heading down to Plage Sauvage, the beach below, in a 4x4.

Who could resist the opportunity to visit a women’s island? Four years ago, I read an article in the New York Times travel section about an Estonian island called Kihnu, which the Times dubbed an “Isle of Women.” Its subhead asked “What would life be like without men?” and I wanted to find out, making a mental note to visit this peculiar island — “run by women” — someday, and my opportunity came last summer as part of a trip with my wife, Jen, and our teenage sons to Finland and the Baltic countries. But Kihnu, we discovered, isn’t a women’s island, or anything close to it. Before our trip, I reread the Times piece plus similar ones before combing YouTube for Kihnu videos.

I’d heard that KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa delivers life-changing memories. Roaming Shaka Zulu’s hunting ground. The Big Five. Bushveld soil on your shoes. Falling asleep to the music of the night, curtains open in anticipation of a burning sunrise. I flew there for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime safari experience. And I got it. While sitting on the toilet. It’s a unique frustration, hearing the phone ring out, from the bathroom. My first morning at Thanda Safari transports me back to my teenage years in the 2000s; the last time I had a house phone. “I’m coming!” I shout to no one in particular, having quickly dashed to my digs, post-crack of dawn game drive. “Miss Everett! Oh, thank goodness! You ARE there! You must not leave your room!

I first visited the Greek monastery of Agios Stefanos on the rocks of Meteora in the early spring of this year, one week after my baptism into the Orthodox Church. Greece was heavy with Great Lent fasts and preparations for Christ’s resurrection — Easter. I had just escaped the clutches of an extremely sweet but annoying young tour guide with whom my very Greek now-father-in-law had set my fiancé and me up for a tour of the ancient churches. I wanted nothing to do with this young man in a tour van who sounded like he was reciting words from a tape recorder. Later I found out he was, and had taught himself English by doing so (which is pretty endearing in hindsight).

Last October I flew to Reykjavik for a spa weekend among the volcanic lagoons. It sounded blissful, but the reality was strange and, in some ways, downright alarming. This was back when people still cared about Covid, and no one seemed to care more about Covid than the Icelanders (even though the data suggested that barely anyone there had the virus). You might imagine their reaction when someone collapsed on an incoming plane. That someone was me. I didn’t have Covid and had multiple PCR tests to prove it. What I had was a bout of vertigo so bad that I initially thought the plane was crashing. I managed to tell the Icelandic stewards, “I’m fine, really, it’s just vertigo.” One of them said to the other, “We’ll give her the injection, pull her pants down.

Everyone comes to Bogotá looking for something. It’s always been that way. A thousand years ago, indigenous traders traveled to the markets in the Bogotá savanna to barter with the Muisca and exchange gold, emeralds, salt and cotton. The Spaniards arrived five centuries later in search of the treasures of conquest and the mythical city of gold that now lends its name to the international airport: El Dorado. The great revolutionary Simón Bolívar came in search of the capital of his South America republic Gran Colombia and to liberate the continent from Spanish rule. I didn’t know what I was looking for when I first arrived in Bogotá.