Travel

We stood on the bow of the ferry, facing the Norwegian sunset. The wind was briny and cold, bracing and refreshing, as the lights of Bergen receded behind us. We were on our way over 1,200 miles north to Norway’s border with Russia. For the next 12 days, we sailed Norway’s coastal ferry, stopping at 34 ports headed north and 33 on our way back.

RED FLEET STATE PARK, Utah - A three-toed footprint appeared in the rock, slightly longer than my hiking boot.

Plan a classic road trip in the year ahead. Here are five ways to hit the open road. Celebrate the Route 66 Centennial Route 66, known as the Mother Road, will celebrate its centennial this year. The original route spanned 2,448 miles, winding from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. Tap into the glory with a visit to Albuquerque, where the Mother Road dazzles with 18 miles of ...

New year, new Amtrak trip.

SAN DIEGO — Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints. The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail ...

Not long before Greenland became a geopolitical talking point, it was a hot topic for avid travelers – particularly, Americans.

My wife and I were nearing the halfway point of the near-mile-long Canyon Outlook Trail when I began thinking we’d made a bad decision.

When we booked a two-week stay in Tucson, our first goal was to trade mid-January cold for sun and warmth.

During my two decades as a long-haul airline pilot, I’ve had opportunities to explore many places I might never have otherwise visited. Jeddah, for example, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, is a city I visit almost monthly. I’m drawn to its narrow lanes – Jeddah’s graceful old town is one of the best preserved in the Gulf States – and to a fabled history that long predates the region’s oil wealth. On my layovers, I’ve been struck by the growing number of tourists I find exploring the port city that nearly 14 centuries of Mecca-bound pilgrims have come to know well.

The stress of rush-hour chaos on unfamiliar highways faded the farther I drove from Johannesburg, until all that remained was an empty straightaway and the hum of my rented Renault. Waves of farmland rolled into the occasional ranch house surrounded by a shelterbelt of trees. If I ignored the eucalyptus, I could envision the Midwest.

AKTAU, Kazakhstan – The Toyota 4x4 bounced across a roadless, barren plain. Behind, a cloud of pale dust shimmered in the sun. Ahead, a formation of bleached rocks shot skyward.

We went in search of snow.

“I am never sure of time or place on a Railroad,” Charles Dickens wrote in 1856 as rail travel was beginning to change our concept of distance. I recognized the feeling when I recently rode Amtrak’s new twice-daily Mardi Gras Service running along the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.

There’s a lot of luck involved in traveling to the Big Island of Hawaii to see a volcanic eruption. When Kilauea blew in early October, with lava spewing up to 1,300 feet in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, viewing it at night, from a campsite some 30 miles away, was the second-best thing about taking an off-the-grid approach to touring the Big Island.

Jaipur – India’s Pink City – is a place where history, culture and vibrant colors come alive in the most magical way. From the moment you arrive, the city, with its majestic forts and bustling bazaars, envelops you in its old-world charm. Walking through the streets, you witness artisans creating exquisite block-printed fabrics and handcrafted jewelry.

Logistics tend to bump up the price of visiting the Caribbean. But the dual-nation island of Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin offers an advantage: It’s a transportation hub for the Leeward Islands, served by most major American carriers and some European ones.

We missed Christmas.

The red sandstone buttes and rugged expanses of Monument Valley, in the Navajo Nation, have long invited visitors from around the world to experience this landscape worthy of a classic Western film.

When we exited the Uber, we thought we were just where we needed to be. Our objective had been to catch the ferry to New York City’s Liberty Island.