By Nancy Wigston The view from our windows at Penang’s Eastern & Oriental Hotel stretches across the pale blue Strait of Malacca all the way to the horizon. It’s early morning and still tolerably cool. Yellow-beaked mynah birds squawk, coconut palms whisper in the gentle breeze and waves break rhythmically below the longest hotel sea…
By Cathy Senecal A man, clothed head to toe in white cotton, stood under a summer sun reaching over a liquid pool and gently raked fragile salt crystals floating on the surface of the water into a bin. When he spread the sparkly flakes out onto a long table, light bouncing off the snow-white piles…
Tours to Antarctica appeal to curious minds, nature lovers and adventurous spirits. They began in the late 1950s when a few scientific research ships began allowing some paying passengers. Today, as many as 100,000 tourists will visit the world’s seventh continent during the austral summer. There are many options from massive vessels that serve canapés while cruising past the continent to smaller ships staffed by marine biologists and ornithologists who prepare passengers to meet seals, penguins and whales on zodiac excursions after crossing the Drake Passage.
By Rich Grant America is going through a period of uncertainty in 2025, but one thing is clear. Exactly 250 years ago, in March and April 1775, two individuals uttered sentences that changed world history. They were not presidents or generals. One was a preacher, the other a silversmith. But as we approach the 250th…
By Anthony Prodis Imagine Africa as if it were the head of a magnificent animal—its Saharan skull in the north, a Somalian horn-like-a-rhinoceros to the east, and its lips nearly embracing the island of Madagascar in the south. The Nile River, like a pulsing, pumping, central artery, flows over 4,000 miles from the headwaters of…
By David DeVoss It was a beautiful autumn day in 1887 when Mac McGillivray and his young fiancée Sarah climbed into a freight wagon loaded with gold ingots and left the California mining town of Bodie, headed to Bridgeport 18 miles away. The county seat had an elegant hotel, built only ten years before called…
By Sharon McDonnell The Polish city of Krakow is full of marvels, from its gorgeously preserved Old Town with Europe’s biggest medieval market square and a castle where the Kings of Poland lived for centuries, to the factory of Schindler’s List fame. But Poland’s second-biggest city also houses priceless art treasures by Leonardo da Vinci…
By Charles Cecil It was 5:25 AM when the voice of the muezzin from the mosque next to my hotel woke me. I lay there, listening, waiting for the line I knew was coming: “As-salaat khairin min an-nom.” “Praying is better than sleeping.” I lay there, momentarily debating the issue. I had arrived the night…
By Teresa Bergen Rows of glass jars stand on shelves on the back wall of the Wilderton distillery in Hood River, Oregon. “You’re more than welcome to take the lids off and sniff any of the herbs and botanicals,” says Isabella Hanreiter, tasting room associate and our tour guide. My husband and I open jars…
By Richard Varr It doesn’t take long for a sense of history to overwhelm you when walking through the narrow passageways of Bryggen’s wooden warehouses. Yes, the building facades are immaculate, swashed with muted red and brown earthen hues, but every step on wooden plank floors and stairwells seemingly comes with a creak or two,…