Helen Hatzis
Albania – A proposed luxury resort spanning an abandoned island and a stretch of protected coastline has become the focus of sustained public demonstrations in the southern part of the country. The project, tied to an investment firm connected with Jared Kushner, has drawn thousands of participants who gather each evening to voice concerns over
Most people drive through southwestern Ohio without giving it a second thought. Cornfields, river bends, quiet suburban streets. Nothing that prepares you for what waits along the banks of the Little Miami River in Loveland, where a full stone castle with towers, battlements, and a dry moat rises out of the landscape like something dropped
The American road trip has never lost its grip on the national imagination. It’s still one of the most reliable ways to shake off the week, cover genuine ground, and return home with a full memory card and a slightly stiff back. The good news is that you don’t need a two-week stretch of PTO
Most people, when they plan a vacation, think California, Florida, maybe New York. The Midwest rarely makes the shortlist. It gets dismissed as flyover country, a place you cross to get somewhere else. Wisconsin, though, has been quietly making a case that this perception is overdue for a rethink. When people think of American tourist
Most people who plan a road trip through Arizona have Route 66 circled on the map before they even pack a bag. It’s iconic, it’s nostalgic, and it has the kind of cultural gravity that’s hard to argue with. Historic Route 66 stretches from downtown Chicago to Santa Monica Pier in California, and since 1926,
There’s something quietly magnetic about the idea of sleeping inside a forest that has stood for millions of years. No traffic, no city hum, just the percussion of rain on a canopy overhead and the distant call of something wild. For a growing number of travelers in 2026, that isn’t a fantasy. It’s a booked
Every year, millions of travelers return home from vacation with bags full of memories. Some of those memories, it turns out, are flat-out illegal. From beach coral to exotic animal skins to items that pose real biological risks, the checkpoint between “fun vacation purchase” and “federal violation” is thinner than most people realize. Just because
Every food lover knows the usual suspects. When avid travelers talk about America’s great food destinations, the same cities tend to pop up: New York with its bagels, New Orleans with its gumbo, and Chicago with its deep-dish pizza. The real discoveries, though, are happening elsewhere. Across the country, a wave of cities is quietly
There’s a place in Washington State where you climb a wooden staircase into the canopy, settle into a queen bed cradled by fir and cedar, and suddenly the idea of checking your phone feels genuinely unappealing. It’s not a cabin, not a glamping dome, and nothing like a standard hotel. It’s a treehouse. Several of
Most families planning a summer getaway default to the same crowded coastlines and theme park circuits. It makes sense. Those spots are famous for a reason. Still, the US has thousands of lakes scattered across its landscape, and some of the most enjoyable family escapes in the country sit quietly off the radar, largely untouched
Fredericksburg, Texas sits about 70 miles west of Austin in the heart of the Hill Country. It has a population that barely clears 11,000. Yet this small town is quietly pulling in visitors at a pace that would make most mid-sized American cities envious. The reasons aren’t accidental. Over the past few years, a convergence
There’s something telling about the fact that the word “Leelanau” loosely translates to “delight of land” in the Ojibwe language. It’s a name that has taken on fresh meaning in recent years, as Midwest road trippers who once treated the Leelanau Peninsula as a pleasant detour on the way to Traverse City are now treating