Travel

Our first stop on a 10-day road trip through Slovenia was a weathered, wooden farmhouse whose owner, Aci Urbajs, called himself a farmer, a father, an artist, an anarchist and a winemaker.

Me: Iceland has knitting tours! I think we need to do this.

It is a culinary adventure that started with a bang: Some 400 million years ago, a meteor more than 2 miles wide slammed into what is now the Charlevoix region of Quebec, Canada, creating an impact crater 34 miles wide.

It started like any perfect fall road trip should: dogs in the back seat, coffee in the cup holder and a map we pretended to follow.

The air is stuffy and hot as we slip through the door of this hut, a rush of chatter greeting us as we take our seats along a long wooden bench, not far from Silverstrand Beach, in Galway. We aren’t there long before a stranger leans over – “Where are you from?” he asks.

Standing in front of a trim Victorian house overlooking the Columbia River, a man suddenly lifted his shirt and began to shimmy. Onlookers egged him on.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving at a trailhead in Yushan National Park in Taiwan was a saxophonist jamming on the side of the road. Eyes closed, he was immersed in his music, surrounded by staggering mountains and verdant forest. He seemed to be expressing his joy at being in nature, which in Taiwan, I found, is never far away.

Sleeping in the treetops is a childhood fantasy of many travelers and adventure seekers. For some, it looks like the Adventureland Treehouse at Disneyland, an attraction inspired by the 1960 film “Swiss Family Robinson.” For others, the dream is the tree house at Pitchford Hall in rural Shropshire in England, which claims to be the world’s oldest, dating to 1692 (tours available).

Most Americans believe they need to travel to some far-off destination to witness the majestic northern lights. Think again.

Smoke settled thick over the Silver Valley as we swung off Interstate 90 at Cataldo and onto the White Pine Scenic Byway.

If you're eager to mark the holidays this year with a Danish flair but Copenhagen seems a tad too far away, you might find the answer in Solvang, California. An answer that includes gnomes and a troll. That city, founded in 1911 by Danish immigrants, celebrates its Julefest — the winter holidays — with an emphasis on visitor-friendly Old World traditions. This year's schedule includes a series ...

As the summer crowds fade and cooler air sweeps in at America’s national parks, the trails feel more inviting and the landscapes take on a fresh beauty. Shorter days bring the added bonus of unforgettable sunsets from wide-open vistas, and longer nights make it easier to enjoy the stars in designated Dark Sky sanctuaries.

The Japanese have a single word to describe going into nature to look for the changing leaves before the dark snap of winter: momijigari.

In recent years, searching for a summer holiday in Greece, I’ve turned my back on the sea. Icons of carefree fun since the 1960s, the beaches and islands now come with heat waves, forest fires, crowds and inflated prices. I’ve headed inland, up into the mountains. Here, whitewashed villages give way to stoic stone settlements, draped in silence and mist. It’s a Greece few tourists see: a highland culture that defies postcard cliches.

The mountain wind whispering through the trees, the crackle of the campfire, the gentle neighing of horses, the clanging of the dinner bell: Since their heyday in the 1920s, dude ranches have transported travelers from the chaos of the city to the tranquility of the trail.

In southern Albania, practically swimming distance from the Greek island of Corfu, the city of Butrint has stood for thousands of years. Its crumbled remains are a history buff’s dream: an open-air theater from when the city was a Greek colony, a Byzantine baptistery and a Roman aqueduct. Foxes, peregrine falcons and golden eagles roam the 36-square-mile national park that encompasses Butrint’s archaeological treasures.

NUUK, Greenland – A dark SUV pulled into a shopping center illuminated by the midnight sun. Tour operators René and Ulrikke Andersen jumped out of the vehicle and approached a pair of tourists with an offer. Two people had signed up for that evening’s whale-watching cruise, but the guides needed to fill a few more seats. Were we interested in going?

Hawaii’s Oahu island is the kind of place where it seems you never meet a visitor who’s been there just once. People visit, then they visit again. Pretty soon Oahu has baked itself into your travel routines.

“I hope you have an epic experience,” my Lyft driver said with a bit of an ironically cheerful tone as he dropped me off at Universal’s Epic Universe in Orlando, Florida. No worries. I was already primed to do just that. I had been reading about the park for the past couple of years, looking over designs, watching construction videos, imagining the worlds and anticipating the works. Now, I was on a mission. I booked two days at the park in June, only two weeks after its official May 22 opening, to experience each of its 11 rides and see if they lived up to what my imagination was conjuring.