Category: Travel

After two years of pandemic closures, and with an unusually favorable exchange rate between the dollar and the euro, more Americans are traveling overseas this summer—particularly to the 44 countries of Europe. And many of these American tourists’ first impressions of “the Continent” were shaped by the public television travelogue, Rick Steves’ Europe.

During the COVID shutdown, I became an avid watcher of the returns on WGBH— Boston’s PBS affiliate. While I enjoyed the binge-watch, I came to realize Rick Steves’ Europe falls prey to the familiar pitfalls of American travel writing with its omission of Black people and history in Europe.

Make no mistake, Rick Steves’ documentation of European places has made a positive contribution to television over 22 years. As a regular viewer, I have found it a leisurely escape, with the beautiful photography and the geeky charm of Steves as a guide. But it’s also an

As you count down the days to your end-of-summer trip, you might find your pre-vacation giddiness is actually overshadowed by stress. There’s a heap of chores to manage before traveling: After you arrange your time out of officeyou’ll have to prepare your home for your absence and make sure it’s secure. Then there’s figuring out what to packnot to mention fitting it all into your suitcase.

But all those tricky logistics are so much easier to tackle once you’ve put together a comprehensive set of to-dos, along with a smart packing list.

The tips below will make your vacation a walk in the park. Or, preferably, a walk on the beach.

Packing list essentials most people don’t think about

A few small additions to your suitcase can minimize hassle and maximize comfort when you’re traveling. Here are some essentials you probably already have in your home.

(CNN) — Summer air travel has been trying, to put it mildly. Hellacious, many travelers would say.

About 55,000 flights have been canceled in the US since the Friday before Memorial Day, according to data from flight tracking site FlightAware, and nearly a quarter of US flights have been delayed this summer.

A “huge problem with staffing shortages” has plagued air travel this season and all of 2022 so far, said Kathleen Bangs, a former airline pilot and a spokesperson for FlightAware.

Bangs is inclined to give the airlines the benefit of the doubt in their efforts to ramp up pre-pandemic flight schedules with 2022 staffing challenges.

“I think they truly thought they would have enough employees return, and hire enough new ones, to meet the demand, but as we’ve all seen, they did not,” Bangs said.

Weather and air traffic controller staffing issues have added to the summer disruptions.

Financial worries may have bumped the pandemic as a top concern for travelers, but close to two-thirds of Americans still plan to hop on at least one overnight leisure trip in the upcoming three months — which includes the holiday season. Of those travelers, nearly half are planning to visit friends and relatives.

“Despite the challenges facing our industry, the outlook for fall looks stable,” said Erin Francis-Cummings, chief executive officer of Destination Analysts, in a livestreamed presentation of the latest quarterly State of the American Traveler report released Tuesday. The pre-holiday report and survey spans data collected from July through most of September.

A whopping 80% of US travelers confirm that they are excited about future trips, according to the report, with nearly a third saying they will take more leisure vacations in the next 12 months, compared to a year earlier.

That’s not to say that inflation hasn’t

Overture was designed by Boom Technology and aims to usher in a new era of supersonic travel by transporting passengers from places like New York City to London in only a few hours.

The world hasn’t seen commercial supersonic travel in nearly 20 years since the Concorde was retired in 2003, but all that is about to change with the development of a new, environmentally friendly airliner.

Meet Overture – the world’s fastest airliner that was developed by Denver-based Supersonic Boom.

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With 26 million hours of designing and testing, Overture will run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as it flies at Mach 1.7 over the ocean, shuttling between 68-80 passengers up to nearly 5,000 miles.

The updated design features four engines that will keep weight and temperature balanced, which will also lower the size requirements of the wing-mounted engines.

Boom says that