The Means AND the Ends

This year’s annual Hot List of the best new hotels from around the world is a story of resilience. Despite enormous hardship in the travel industry, exceptional properties have continued to open across the globe (nearly a thousand last year in the U.S. alone).

As always with this endeavor, each of the 69 picks on this year’s list was safely vetted by our international network of correspondents.  But as we’ve learned in the past year, everything is connected, which is why we’ve also expanded the scope of hot to include restaurants, transportation, and destinations, as well as more news we’re excited about set for later this year.

In spite of it all, the following destinations are a success story all their own—and a perfect answer to that age-old question of where to travel next. We think they’re a pretty great way to mark the 25th anniversary of this list.

Read the entire article: Where to Travel Next: 2021 Hot List | Condé Nast Traveler

In a clear acknowledgment that it needs to right the wrong of centuries spent luring unsuspecting travelers into the domain of a bloodsucking monster, a Romanian town is now offering free COVID vaccines to visitors of the not-at-all-ominous Bran Castle.

Read the entire article: Romania would like you to get vaccinated at Dracula’s castle

A submersible has dived to the world’s deepest-known shipwreck.

The vessel reached the USS Johnston, which lies 6.5km (4 miles) beneath the waves in the Philippine Sea in the Pacific Ocean.

Explorers spent several hours surveying and filming the wreck over a series of dives.

The 115m-long US Navy destroyer sank during the Battle off Samar in 1944 after a fierce battle with a large fleet of Japanese warships.

Victor Vescovo, who led the expedition and piloted the sub, said: “The wreck is so deep so there’s very little oxygen down there, and while there is a little bit of contamination from marine life, it’s remarkably well intact except for the damage it took from the furious fight.”

Read the entire article: USS Johnston: Sub dives to deepest-known shipwreck – BBC News

SpaceX announced Monday that it will fly a space tourism flight as early as the fourth quarter of this year, billing it as the first “all-civilian” mission to space.

A tech entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman has financed the mission, named “Inspiration4,” and will serve as commander aboard the autonomous Crew Dragon spacecraft. Isaacman, 37, is a pilot-rated to fly commercial and military aircraft, but he has no formal astronaut training. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments, a digital payments company.

Read the entire article: SpaceX announces first “free flyer” human spaceflight | Ars Technica