Travel

So, you’re dreaming of your next vacation. As you finalize your plans and the excitement grows, consider these tips from Travel + Leisure’s expert A-List advisors.

Pack strategically.”Always pack a day bag if you’re checking into a hotel early. With the huge demand for hotel stays at the moment, many properties can no longer accommodate early check-ins, but

Read the entire article: 5 Travel Tips to Remember Before Booking Your Next Trip

On my first visit to the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, I don’t remember what exactly prompted me to jump in a rental car and start exploring. I do remember the route: it was a narrow road through a quintessentially Greek landscape, bathed in spring afternoon sunlight. To my left, an orange grove stretched for as far as I could see, filling the air with the sweet scent of orange blossoms. On the opposite side, a forest of centuries-old olive trees turned from green to silver with every breath of a light breeze.

Read the entire article: Greece’s Peloponnese Peninsula Has Idyllic Coastlines, Stunning Beaches, and Almost No Crowds

Want to stare at something truly beautiful? Then, it’s time to head outside and take a good gander at Mother Nature’s offerings — specifically, those found in California and Nevada. To help travelers discover the most picturesque landscapes in America, the experts at Storyboards, a photo printing company specializing in helping people create unique wall art, analyzed Instagram hashtag data

Read the entire article: The Most Picturesque Places in the U.S.

A carry-on bag is one of the most vital pieces of luggage you can have while traveling. It cushions your valuables, gives you access to entertainment during a long flight and prevents you from going bare if your checked baggage gets lost. But that’s only if you pack it the right way.

Read the entire article: Travel Checklist: Do You Pack Your Carry-On the Right Way? – CNET

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

New scholarship points to a paradox of historic scope: Our writing system was devised by people who couldn’t read.

Centuries before Moses wandered in the “great and terrible wilderness” of the Sinai Peninsula, this triangle of desert wedged between Africa and Asia attracted speculators, drawn by rich mineral deposits hidden in the rocks. And it was on one of these expeditions, around 4,000 years ago, that some mysterious person or group took a bold step that, in retrospect, was truly revolutionary. Scratched on the wall of a mine is the very first attempt at something we use every day: the alphabet.

The evidence, which continues to be examined and reinterpreted 116 years after its discovery, is on a windswept plateau in Egypt called Serabit el-Khadim, a remote spot even by Sinai standards. Yet it wasn’t too difficult for even ancient Egyptians to reach, as the presence of a temple right at the top shows.

Read the entire article: Who Invented the Alphabet? | History | Smithsonian Magazine