Venice, Italy, Officially Approves New Entrance Fee for 2024: Here Are the Rules
Posted on 09/12/2023, 4:00 PM
On September 12, the city council of Venice, Italy, finalized the city's long-postponed plan to battle overcrowding by charging visitors an experimental entry fee in 2024. The final vote of 24-12 was met with protests. Here's what we know so far. Venice's entry ticket will not be required every single day in 2024. On September 5, Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro posted on social media that the entry...
Utah Stargazing: Lake Powell Glamping Site Named World’s First DarkSky Resort
Posted on 09/08/2023, 7:00 AM
For the first time, the light-pollution foes at DarkSky International have added a category for "DarkSky Approved Lodging" to their register of places where the nighttime environment is exceptionally preserved. The lodging section is a short one: As of now, there's only one resort on the list. The nonprofit, formerly known as the International Dark-Sky Association, has certified scores of Dark ...
This Fall Foliage Prediction Map for 2023 Shows When Leaves Hit Peak Color
Posted on 09/01/2023, 6:00 PM
With fall foliage season fast approaching, travelers concerned with getting the timing right for autumn road trips and weekend getaways have a freshly updated online tool at their disposal. The 2023 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is now available at SmokyMountains.com. Despite the website's name and its role as a travel booking platform for the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolin...
This Country Just Cut Its Sky-High Tourist Tax in Half
Posted on 08/30/2023, 7:00 AM
Turns out imposing a ludicrously expensive daily fee on tourists isn't great for tourism. Who knew. The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has announced that it is cutting in half the $200 per day charged to most international tourists. The government describes the newly discounted but still considerable $100 daily fee as a measure to boost the country's tourism, which continues to lag following the lif...
Airline Introduces Child-Free Zone So Grown-Ups Can Enjoy "Quiet" Flights
Posted on 08/29/2023, 3:15 PM
A European airline will cordon off the first 12 rows of its A350 aircraft to create an adults-only area where no one under the age of 17 may sit. “This zone in the aircraft is intended for travelers traveling without children and for business travelers who want to work in a quiet environment," Corendon Airlines announced in a media release that was widely reported by the aviation industry press.Th...
London's Hunterian Museum: Bits of People in Jars That Changed the World
Posted on 08/29/2023, 7:30 AM
If you lived in 18th-century London and something went wrong with your body, after you died a famous scientist named John Hunter might show up to rummage through your corpse, snip out the afflicted organ, and sink it in a jar of preservative so that budding physicians could learn from the specimen. Back in those days, every scientist was like a mad scientist. We had so much yet to learn about an...
Chip and Joanna Gaines' Hotel Opens This Fall, Cementing Their Waco Takeover
Posted on 08/25/2023, 7:00 AM
Waco, Texas, takes another step toward becoming Chip-and-Joanna-Gainesville this fall. The married stars of the home-renovation series Fixer Upper have developed and designed their own hotel in the central Texas city (located almost exactly midway between Dallas to the north and Austin to the south) from which they launched their Magnolia lifestyle empire based on modern farmhouse decor and relent...
Nervous Flyers Can Now Dial a Pilot-Staffed Helpline to Ease Fears
Posted on 08/15/2023, 6:00 AM
If knowledge is an antidote to fear, then anybody who gets anxious about flying in a plane has a new resource to help overcome that particular source of dread. Dial a Pilot, which launched earlier this summer, is a helpline that lets nervous flyers speak by phone with professional airline pilots to discuss any potentially disquieting aspects of commercial aviation. The service's team of vetted, ...
Hurricane Season 2023 Could Be Worse Than First Thought, Forecasters Say
Posted on 08/11/2023, 11:00 AM
UPDATE, August 11: In a new hurricane season forecast released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. government's offical weather watchers increased the number of storms predicted to develop in the Atlantic Ocean in 2023. After forecasting a "near-normal" Atlantic hurricane season back in May, the agency now expects an "above normal" level of activity, ...
Hot Pilot in a Cat Video Demonstrates Best Place to Sit on Airplanes
Posted on 08/10/2023, 10:00 AM
Fasten your seat belts. Today, we have something rare. Somehow, multiple aspects of our pop culture's all-consuming and relentless social media banality have collided to provide something that's actually useful. What do you get when you combine TikTok, a pilot's uniform, a cat, and a sexy contestant from The Bachelor who's known for posting thirst traps? Besides something that might as well have...
