All About USA’s Newest National Park: Texas' Blackwell School National Historic Site
Posted on 07/24/2024, 7:00 AM
A former school that was built in west Texas for Mexican and Mexican American students during the era of "separate but equal" education has become the newest addition to the U.S. National Park System. Located in the desert town–turned–unlikely arts hub of Marfa (about 50 miles east of the Mexico border), the Blackwell School National Historic Site was formally established last week by the Biden ad...
Virgin Voyages Offers Free Cruises for Young Adults Traveling with a Parent
Posted on 07/23/2024, 3:15 PM
Virgin Voyages made a splashy entrance into the cruise market a few years ago, but at the worst moment imaginable: The line's first cruise was originally scheduled for April 1, 2020. Certain world events that we have all apparently agreed to rarely speak of delayed that debut voyage to October 2021, when the Scarlet Lady set sail for a series of departures packed with young influencer types who w...
This Carnival Cruise Customer Service Scam Cost a Family Their $900 Vacation
Posted on 07/23/2024, 7:00 AM
We've warned you before about travel scams involving fraudulent phone numbers for airlines' customer service call centers. Passengers fall prey to that con when they look up an airline's contact info via an internet search engine and dial a number on the search results page that goes to a bogus call center. A fraudster on the other end of the line then pretends to represent the carrier in order t...
The Rules for Bringing a Dog Into the US Are Getting Stricter: Here's What's Changing
Posted on 07/22/2024, 2:00 PM
This post, originally published May 13, 2024, has been updated with new information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is rolling out new rules for bringing a dog into the United States. Effective August 1, all dogs entering the country must be at least 6 months old, must be microchipped, and must be accompanied by either proof of a rabies vaccine or proof that the dog hasn't been ...
Orly Airport Just Opened a Cheap Direct Train Link to Central Paris
Posted on 07/16/2024, 5:00 PM
Every few months, it seems, another outfit releases a new list of the best and worst airports in the world, and a certain airport seems to be a perennial pariah. Paris' miserable Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) is a bane of world travel, particularly for flight transfers. A dysfunctional layout, awkward connections, lousy signage, alienating Brutalist architecture, and crowds of grumpy internation...
Venice, Italy, Says the Entry Fee for Day Trippers Will Be Doubled
Posted on 07/15/2024, 3:30 PM
Update: November 8, 2024: There has been an update to this story. Click here to read it. The trial period for the controversial new entry fee for Venice Italy, is complete for 2024.For 29 days between April and July (mostly weekends and holidays), the city mandated a charge of €5 (US$5.45) per person to enter Venice. Over that period of two and a half months, some 450,000 tourists paid the entry ta...
Forecast: No Sargassum Season in Cancún This Year—but Other Beaches Not as Lucky
Posted on 07/08/2024, 7:00 AM
In recent years, summer has been peak sargassum season, with large, unsightly accumulations of the stinky brown seaweed piling up on beaches in Florida, the Caribbean, and Mexico's Riviera Maya. For the last few months, ocean researchers have been tracking a huge blob of the stuff floating in the Atlantic Ocean and headed westward in time to ruin summer vacation photos in places like Cancún, the ...
Barcelona to Ban All Vacation Rentals by 2028
Posted on 06/21/2024, 1:00 PM
Although the announcement may seem surprising to outsiders, people familiar with Barcelona will recognize this has been a long time coming—and will likely be a harbinger of future crackdowns across Europe. On Friday, Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni announced that the city intends to invalidate the licenses of all 10,101 units currently approved as short-term vacation rentals, and no new licenses w...
JetBlue Basic Economy to Allow Carry-Ons—Which Airlines Still Charge for Overhead Bins?
Posted on 06/20/2024, 7:15 AM
JetBlue passengers with the airline's cheapest class of tickets, known as Blue Basic fares, will be allowed to bring a carry-on bag onto the plane at no additional charge, the carrier announced this week. Previously, if you had a Blue Basic ticket—JetBlue's version of basic economy—you could only bring aboard a small personal item that fits under the seat in front of you. Use of the overhead bins...
Where The Best Beaches in Europe for Water Quality Are
Posted on 06/19/2024, 7:00 AM
Weather forecasters say it's gonna be another summer of brutal heat waves in Europe—maybe the hottest season ever, according to some predictions. But at least there's some reassuring news for the many travelers who will seek to escape the blistering temps by submerging themselves in the continent's coastal waters. A new report from the European Commission and the European Environment Agency fou...
