Somewhere over the Atlantic, during a bout of turbulence, as I sat next to a sighing, heavily annoyed passenger, my toddler announced at megaphone volume that he needed to “go potty right now.”

That’s kid code for “the countdown has begun”—except the joke’s on you, there is no real countdown.

I’m Alisha Prakash, editorial director at Travel + Leisure. When I started this job, I was the person boarding a flight to somewhere far away on a Tuesday in the name of research—traveling wasn’t a perk of the job; it was the job. Then I became a mom, and I was informed that the ideal time to travel with a child is, apparently, never.

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The moment I entered motherhood, I was dealt a stream of inescapable advice—online, in social feeds, in person—that felt less like guidance and more like a travel survival manual. How to survive the airport. How to survive the flight. How to survive the time change. How to survive sharing a hotel room. Survival, survival, survival.

Don’t get me wrong: I would never claim that toddlers are secretly easy travel companions, and that anyone who says otherwise isn’t trying hard enough. That would be a lie—the kind that gets you heckled on the internet by every parent who’s ever talked a toddler down from a full-blown meltdown using bribery and emotional stamina.

Little kids do make travel objectively harder. Jet lag becomes a group activity. They do not care about your itinerary, your budget, or the fact that the museum closes at five. But that’s not the full picture, either.

Here’s some advice on “surviving” travel with kids—and why I think you should ignore it.

“Don’t Disrupt the Routine”

When my son was a baby, his routine was a precise science involving one specific stuffed duck, one specific song, and bedtime an exact number of hours after his last nap. According to the parenting blogs, taking this schedule and putting it on a 10-hour flight to Europe was an act of self-sabotage. We still did it, and somewhere along the way learned the rigid rules stopped mattering.

On that trip, my son had a late breakfast spread of local cheeses at a street market. We skipped the crib, and instead he slept on my husband’s back during a hike through the Alps. We even woke him early from a nap (gasp!) to surprise him with a boat ride on the lake. Here’s the thing: he won’t look back and remember his skipped nap. Neither will I. Instead, what sticks—a year later—is Mateo, the boat captain, who let him steer for an exhilarating five seconds.

Lindsay Cohn, a travel writer and mom who has been exploring the globe with her two toddler boys since they were infants, agrees with me. “That line of thinking comes from a very human desire for control, an illusion that gets shattered pretty quickly once you become a parent,” she says. “Resilience and adaptability—for both parents and children—are muscles that need to be flexed. The more you travel together, the more comfortable everyone becomes with navigating new situations, routines, and environments—and just generally rolling with things.”

I was reminded of this on a recent trip to Switzerland. In Zurich, my husband and I were doing the classic two-parent toddler-feeding dance: one entertaining our son, the other shoveling in a few bites, before switching places. A passing waiter took one look at the chaos, scooped up our boy, laughing, and declared, “Okay, now the parents eat.”

Then he wandered around the other tables holding my son, who charmed the entire restaurant as we finished our meal. It was warm, funny, and a reminder of what travel really is about: the routine is ready and waiting at home, but the unexpected kindness of a stranger in another country only happens when you decide to book that ticket.

“Wait Until They’re Older”

People love to say this. And it’s true, traveling with a toddler is wildly inefficient. Easier is not always better, though. So we go now—with snacks stashed in every pocket, and zero expectation that anything will go exactly according to plan.

Or as Cohn puts it, “I love the messy moments, the surprise-and-delight moments.”

On a trip to Paris, when my son was 2, we spent 45 minutes searching for a playground, and around the same amount of time negotiating our departure from it—a ritual just as familiar at home as it was on vacation. But traveling with a toddler has a way of improving your priorities, too. We’d had grand visions of charming bistros and leisurely dinners, only to find ourselves wandering the aisles of a supermarket, loading up on local cheeses and meats, before heading back to eat in the hotel room. The fine-dining restaurants didn’t make the itinerary on that trip, but we got a glimpse of local life in Paris that we might have missed otherwise.

My toddler also forces me to move differently on a trip—not just passing through a place, but really noticing it. In Amsterdam, he spent 15 minutes studying a statue, because he was convinced it looked like Grandpa. We belly-laughed and took all the photos. The point is: kids may not be efficient travelers, but they change what becomes memorable.

“Stick to Kid-Friendly Everything”

Book the kid-friendly resorts, find an indoor play space, order off the kids’ menu, and don’t overdo it.

We’ve done our fair share of all of the above, but we’ve also brought our toddler to Texas to chase a total solar eclipse, headed out on rainforest hikes in Costa Rica, and road-tripped through small towns in Italy. New sounds, new foods, new languages—kids are like sponges.

There’s a pressure to become more practical and efficient as a parent. But through these trips, I’ve seen my son’s confidence, adaptability, and curiosity grow. He’s become an adventurous eater (happily trying chicken hearts!) and generally more resilient.

All of which is to say: “kid-friendly” isn’t a particular place—it’s just any place you’re brave enough to bring them.

“Just Make It Through the Day”

Travel survival guides treat children like turbulence: something to buckle up for and get through. I think that metaphor misses the mark.

Traveling with a small, opinionated person rewires what you pay attention to. I used to travel like I was completing an assignment: hit a certain number of countries by a certain age, see this landmark, eat that famous dish, move on. Now I travel at the speed of a toddler, which is to say slowly, but arguably better. In Costa Rica, we were late to a reservation because my son was more interested in watching a hotel employee trim the garden. They communicated with enthusiastic finger-pointing, somehow conveying to each other their mutual awe at the landscape.

We’re not the only family embracing this idea. Family, and specifically multigenerational, travel is booming. More grandparents are joining vacations; some of my own favorite travel memories involve three generations squeezed in a rental car. The logistics are more complicated, sure, but the memories are also richer.

I used to believe the goal was to get somewhere with my kid fed, behaved, rested—routines intact. Now I know the goal is to go places with him. Mess and meltdowns very much included.

Fourteen years ago, my uncle Greg passed away at the age of 44 from a heart attack.

Ever since, my family has been acutely aware of our health. We’ve seen nutritionists, worked out with personal trainers, and done basically anything we can think of to better understand what happened to Greg and to prevent it from happening to us.

So when I had the chance to travel to the Austrian Alps this summer and stay at one of the top medical resorts in the world, I immediately said yes.

I’m Jess Feldman, the associate director of special projects at Travel + Leisure. In addition to running our World’s Best Awards, I chronicle the weird, wild world of wellness. I’ve gone on hiking retreats, visited communal saunas, and tried various styles of alternative medicine to cure my chronic migraines.

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Getting to Mayrlife Resort—a place rooted in the philosophy that the digestive system is the key to overall well-being—is not easy. I took an eight-and-a-half-hour direct flight from New York to Vienna, followed by a three-hour car ride west through the mountains and valleys to the property. Despite having seen photos ahead of time, I half expected to arrive at a glorified hospital. And yet the hotel and the surrounding village of Altaussee looked as if they’d been plucked directly from a fairy tale.

I was welcomed by beautiful, neatly aligned wooden buildings; the greenest of trees layered high into the clouds along the mountains; and the star of the show, Lake Altausseer, glimmering in the afternoon light.

On my first night, I was literally served a bowl of broth, a teaspoon, and a “chewing retainer”—a rather jarring but accurate term for a bread substitute, I learned. And I thought: Oh, what on earth have I done?

“Don’t worry, you will have more tomorrow,” the server, clearly seeing my panic, said with a smile. At this point, I had yet to have my preliminary appointments—a meeting with one of the five doctors on-site, blood work, a 3D body scan, a conversation with the nutritionist. It’s only following these screenings that the entire experience shifts—supplements are prescribed, meal plans are adjusted—based on your individual health.

Life on the “Mayr method,” or the “cure,” as it’s called on property, is one of constructed monotonous rhythm: quiet and solitary meals at the exact same time, in the exact same seat; regular appointments or treatments in the medical center; lectures in the evening. In between, your only obligation is to rest, in whatever way your body wants you to. This can consist of a swim in the lake, surrounded by some of Austria’s tallest mountains; a nap in your modest room; or a visit to the spa for a hop between the sauna and the cold shower.

During my stay, I opted for the spa. Every evening, I did three rounds of contrast therapy, followed by a few laps in the saltwater pool (the salt for which is ethically sourced from the nearby Altaussee Salt Mines, which have fueled this region for centuries). The rhythm is meant to slow you down—the brain, the digestive system, the entire body—to provide a full picture of your health.

“Here, you can strip everything out and see what’s really happening inside, but you need to have time and money to do that,” Dr. Dieter Resch, the resort’s CEO and medical director, told me.

He wasn’t kidding: the starting price of a seven-day signature program at Mayrlife is $3,391, plus $550 per night in one of the 64 guest rooms. And that price can rise depending on the supplements or additional treatments the doctors recommend. While the average stay is 7 to 10 days, Dr. Resch shared that a woman from Los Angeles had just left after spending an entire six weeks on property. Another guest—the man who sat directly to my left during every meal and wore a bathrobe no matter the time of day (a routine I found strangely comforting)—was there for three weeks.

Those who come here often suffer from chronic illness like me, or from other inflammation-derived issues such as digestive disorders and high blood pressure. Generally, this isn’t leisure; it’s a discovery for long-term health, or a way to “find the source of unwell being,” as Dr. Resch put it.

Given my health history, the team at Mayrlife—with whom I had the chance to chat extensively prior to arrival, as all guests do—recommended the Anti-Inflammatory Reset. This included treatments like cryotherapy, for which I stood in a –166° F chamber in a bathing suit, mittens, socks, and a ridiculous hat for three minutes to flush out toxins; a headache-specific infusion consisting of various minerals like magnesium; and an amazing salt scrub, where I was wrapped up like a mummy and placed on a waterbed. The last of these supposedly boosts blood circulation and metabolism, and also gave me the chance for a lovely nap.

While the treatments and meticulously prepared food—made only from local natural ingredients—worked their way through my body, my brain followed suit. Throughout my five-day stay, I slowly leaned into the idea of simply being still. I never once heard any music—something that made me extremely uncomfortable on day one, but which by day five I found rather soothing. During meals, the only time all the guests are in one space together, we were encouraged to spend at least 45 minutes focused entirely on the act of eating: no distractions from your cell phone, a book, or even conversation.

By the end, everything seemed heightened: my sleep felt deeper, the songs of the birds grew louder, the brush of air through the trees outside felt stronger. For me, the trip and the tests didn’t end up being about chasing a wellness trend. They became an opportunity to reflect on family—and why I had made the trip in the first place.

On my last day, I decided it was finally time to make my way into the freezing, stunning lake. As I stood on the hotel’s private dock, apprehensive, waiting for peeks of sun to come out to enhance my courage, a woman, likely in her 60s, strolled right past me. She stepped onto the ladder and waded silently in.

We didn’t share any words, but her gentle smile gave me some confidence. And then the sun came blazing in through the clouds. I had a suspicion it was my uncle Greg, letting me know I was on the right track.

More Wellness Resorts in Europe That Are Doing It Right

• Lanserhof Resorts: The three Lanserhof properties—two in Germany and one in Austria—are perhaps the most similar to Mayrlife; this brand is also based on 20th-century Austrian holistic physician Franz Xaver Mayr’s ideas. The actual accommodations steer a bit more luxe at Lanserhof; its Sylt Island location, for instance, has 55 guest suites overlooking the sea.

• Clinique La Prairie: This science-backed program in Montreux, Switzerland, has been empowering visitors since it opened in 1931. It’s best known for its longevity programs; the Life Reset is particularly intriguing, as it targets mental health and well-being. “The setting was exquisite, the food very good, and the facials the best I have ever had,” Mark Lakin, founder of advisory firm Legacy Untold and a T+L Travel Advisor Board member, told me.

• SHA: One of this optimization clinic’s two locations is in Alicante, Spain (the other is in Mexico). Its philosophy is similar to Mayr’s, in that you get personalized diagnostics and prescribed treatments, but the accommodations are far more modern. The Spanish property recently launched a female-focused program, with hormones, fitness, nutrition, and longevity front and center.

• Chenot Palace Switzerland: The flagship of Chenot, in Weggis, Switzerland, is another detox-centered retreat along the shores of a lake. The Henri Chenot plan is rooted in prevention backed by science and technology. The resort recently received some headlines for its program centered around sleep and recovery. While most wellness clinics have high price points, Chenot is among the most expensive: at least $10,000 a week for most guests.

I don’t believe in bargaining anymore.

A few years ago, I couldn’t have disagreed more. As someone of South Asian heritage, I always felt wandering through markets, haggling with vendors, and negotiating a price down by 50 percent was like unlocking an ancestral achievement badge: the real reward was bragging about it later and earning the respect of my aunties.

Somewhere along the way, though, my thinking changed.

Maybe it was growing up. Maybe it was witnessing poor tourist behavior. Maybe it was realizing that paying more than a local doesn’t automatically mean I’m getting ripped off. Mostly, though, it was recognizing that I’d started treating bargaining like a game to win.

Hi, I’m Susmita Baral, a senior editor at Travel + Leisure, where I cover breaking news across all of experiential travel, from trains and hotels to food and aviation.

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And I’m not saying I’ve stopped shopping. I still love discovering handmade souvenirs and local specialties, whether it’s a woven rug in Mexico or pearl earrings in the Philippines. But these days, I do it differently.

First Up: I Do a Little Reconnaissance

If an item costs roughly the same as something similar does on Etsy, I know I’m probably not stumbling onto some elusive local bargain. If I’m traveling with a guide or know someone local, I’ll ask what a fair price looks like, and whether vendors usually build in room for negotiation. So the goal isn’t to pay the absolute lowest price; it’s to understand the value of what I’m buying.

If something feels wildly overpriced, I politely move on: “Thank you, you have beautiful products, but it’s a little more than I can spend.”

More often than not, that’s enough. Sometimes the price comes down; sometimes it doesn’t. If it’s something I really want, I may ask, “Is that your best price?” And then I’ll decide whether it’s worth it. What I won’t do anymore: Spend 20 minutes trying to shave every possible dollar off a purchase.

Ethicists have pointed out the strange contradiction of spending thousands of dollars on flights and hotels, only to aggressively bargain over amounts that are relatively insignificant to the buyer and far more meaningful to the people they’re buying from. Travelers rarely try to negotiate at hotel check-in, or bargain over the price of a museum ticket—but they’ll spend 10 minutes trying to save a few dollars from the person who likely has the least power in the transaction. Once you notice it, it’s hard to unsee.

There’s something else, too: my vacation time is worth more to me than the benefits of these kinds of negotiations. Once during a lengthy bargaining session in Bangkok’s Chatuchak market, it struck me I was winning the haggle, but losing valuable Pad Thai time.

Part of this comes from secondhand embarrassment. Over the years, I’ve watched otherwise reasonable people become strangely combative when bargaining enters the equation. I’ve seen them use patronizing language while arguing over negligible amounts of money, try to walk off with merchandise, treat vendors like they’re somehow beneath them, and become convinced they’re entitled to a rate they’ve invented in their own heads.

But a big chunk of it comes from something deeper: travel—especially international travel—that includes disposable income for souvenirs is a privilege. (Even in the United States, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, nearly a quarter of Americans have never been abroad, and travel is significantly more common among higher-income households.)

So, when I’m visiting a country where my currency stretches further, why am I fighting so hard? Those few dollars are often insignificant to me—the cost of an airport coffee or a ride-share fare—but for the artisan, shopkeeper, or vendor standing across from me, they may matter a great deal.

For an American, There’s Yet Another Layer to It

Sometimes I find myself standing in a market, thinking about the inherent imbalance that exists before I’ve even opened my wallet. My passport is powerful. My currency is strong. The opportunities available to me are not distributed equally around the world.

I’m not saying I can fix those inequalities by overpaying for a ceramic bowl. But I can stop treating every transaction as a contest.

Now, none of this means bargaining is wrong. Not everyone who bargains is wealthy; for plenty of travelers, every dollar does matter. And in many places and cultures, it’s practically a social activity; refusing to engage at all can be just as awkward as negotiating too aggressively.

In India, not bargaining would make me the laughingstock of my family, who already treat me like a walking foreigner-surcharge, convinced my “outsider aura” inflates prices on sight. My aunts have drilled into me that bargaining is part of the transaction, and paying the asking price is an invitation to be ripped off.

There’s also a very real difference between paying a fair price and being taken advantage of. If I think I’m being scammed, I walk away. If a price is simply outside my budget, I walk away. If a vendor is quoting numbers that bear no resemblance to reality, I walk away. After all, the beauty of a market is that there’s always another stall.

Once a jeweler in Istanbul tried to sell me a turquoise ring for $500. A quick flip revealed it was mostly clay with a turquoise veneer. I left quickly, but not before asking him which other vendors he trusted—purely for the purposes of curating my personal economic-sanctions list.

I once worried that paying anyone’s asking price would make me look naïve. Today I see it differently. Paying for someone’s craftsmanship doesn’t make me foolish—it makes me a participant in the local economy I’ve chosen to visit. And honestly? I’ve also come to think of paying a little more than a local might as a sort of unofficial tourist tax. Not because I’m being duped, but because I have the privilege of being there to make the purchase in the first place.

Before he was sworn in as president of the United States on April 30, 1789, George Washington sat waiting in a plain mahogany chair.

It looks like any old thing you might scrounge up at an antiques sale or flea market. That, of course, is part of its beauty and brilliance—something that hit home when I saw this chair in person at the New York Historical, a museum in New York City, where I live.

I’m Liz Cantrell, deputy editor at Travel + Leisure. I’ve been thinking and writing about America for a long time. In my senior year of high school, I took part in a civics program called “We the People,” in which we learned about constitutional theory, our founding documents, and the branches of government. We also competed in mock congressional hearings on the state and national level, “testifying” before groups of judges. (Yes, it was exactly as nerdy as it sounds. I loved every minute.)

The New York Historical just opened its new Tang Wing for American Democracy, and the inaugural exhibit is truly remarkable. There are objects old (an original printing of the Declaration of Independence; a 34-star Union flag from the Civil War) and new (a gown stitched with the words “Equal Rights for Women,” worn by then-representative Carolyn B. Maloney to the Met Gala in 2021). It’s the perfect place to think about what it means to be an American—especially in 2026, the year of our country’s semiquincentennial, or, to use the term that’s much easier to pronounce, America 250.

As a travel editor, I cover not only the U.S. but the world. I’ve trekked to a lodge in the Indian Himalayas, been on safari in Tanzania’s Serengeti, and visited the archaeological wonders of Turkey. Still, some of my favorite reporting trips have been right here at home: white-water rafting in West Virginia’s New River Gorge National Park; hiking hut-to-hut in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains; staying at fabulous, iconic hotels like the Omni Homestead Resort, in Hot Springs, Virginia, with its natural thermal pools and acres of gorgeous Allegheny Mountain scenery.

When I think about America in its 250th year, I think about those wild spaces that I love so dearly, and the philosophies I studied in school, ones that expanded my thinking. It can be hard to square my love of my country with the practical reality of America in 2026.

This anniversary has stirred up intense feelings on all sides of the political spectrum; the very concept of patriotism is up for debate. Still, I, like many others, want to acknowledge the moment.

So the Question Is: Does America 250 Matter?

I say yes. It matters because of the people and places that are defining, reshaping, and writing a new American story.

It matters in places like Lawrence, Kansas, where residents enthusiastically embraced the Algerian national team, who were based there for training ahead of the World Cup. The University of Kansas band learned the Algerian national anthem and performed it for the players, and a local artist landscaped the Algerian flag into the campus grounds. For a match between Algeria and Jordan, a beloved town pub, Red Lyon Tavern, designated part of the restaurant as alcohol-free, brought in Algerian sodas and snacks, and arranged for two prayers, so that Muslim visitors would feel more at home. Another bar, Johnny’s Tavern, filmed a video of its staff welcoming the team in Arabic, English, and French. It now has over a million views on X.

America 250 matters because the American story is big and complicated, ever-changing, and never complete. To talk about America—which we should, because this country requires engaged, skeptical, demanding citizens—you have to see America.

So I think you should get out there, and meet people, and see things that make you stop and stand still. You should watch the full moon set as the sun rises over a dune in Death Valley National Park, in California. You should hear a loon call reverberating across Hozomeen Lake in the North Cascades of Washington.

You should eat fried cheese curds at the Minnesota State Fair, and have the best damn ice cream of your life in the dairy barn. You should visit the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, and pause at the room of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, and think about how, as he lay dying, he crushed the lit cigarette he’d been holding into his palm, so that his children wouldn’t see he’d been smoking. These are just a few moments from some of my most memorable American trips, ones that stay with me always.

This year especially, there is so much to discover about the American experience. If you’re looking for places to begin your own travels, here are three museum experiences on my list.

• In Bentonville, Arkansas, there’s the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which sprawls across 134 acres in the Ozarks. It was created back in 2011 by Alice Walton (yes, of the billionaire Walton family that founded Walmart). Its new “Common Threads” exhibit is on view until July 27, so don’t miss the chance to see an American flag carried by Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 moon mission, or a copy of The Federalist Papers from 1788. There are also pieces that will challenge you, like a self-portrait by Mexican-American photographer Mari Hernandez for which she styled herself to look like a male military figure, a colonizer.

• In Medora, North Dakota, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opened on July 4, next to the national park that also bears his name. Roosevelt’s concept of citizenship feels more resonant and urgent than ever: he believed that it is active, a constant practice and dialogue. He believed in public lands, and in preserving wild spaces. He believed in being a good neighbor.

• The Obama Presidential Center, in Chicago, which opened June 19, is another jewel waiting to be explored—and not just for the impressive art collection, with works by Maya Lin, Nick Cave, and hometown artist Theaster Gates. There’s a basketball court, a fruit-and-vegetable garden, a library, a museum, and a giant picnic lawn.

These are just some of the places I’m looking forward to visiting. I hope that you go on your own journey of exploring and understanding America, and that it—much like the democracy we founded 250 years ago—is one of constant renewal.

2026 has been full of surprises. I never imagined a world where two major hotel chains would branch out into “yacht” products (but let’s be honest—they’re really cruise lines).

Or that people would be saving my Instagram posts about the best shops in Charleston and restaurants in New Orleans.

The travel industry is changing faster than I’ve ever seen it—and the biggest shift isn’t where people are going. It’s what they value when they get there.

I’m Jacqui Gifford, the editor in chief of Travel + Leisure. This week, our team gathered with the top minds in travel to discuss trends—and what consumers are really looking for right now—at our annual World’s Best Summit. Our editorial team sets the agenda, and I want you to know what I’m seeing in my role, as someone who’s spent time this year crisscrossing between Brazil, Orlando, Mexico, London, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Hilton Head, and Naples, Florida.

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What do travelers value most, what are they willing to spend money on, and how can brands and creators provide content of value—in a world that feels increasingly saturated with slop? This year, our World’s Best Summit hosted panels that broke down some of these thoughts, and I wanted to share some of that big-picture thinking with you here.

Hotels, Etc.: Innovation Beyond the Four Walls

The most interesting hotel brands actually don’t want to keep you on property; they are innovating to be more than a “core” product, not just a room and a bed. They have resident art programs, offer premium access to museums and seats at all the best restaurants, and are building out smart extensions of travel, from fashion collaborations to cruise-slash-yacht lines (looking at you, Four Seasons and Orient Express).

How does a hotel support its community, too? My recent stay at the Awasi Santa Catarina, near Florianópolis, Brazil, showed me what one future looks like: the resort goes for an all-inclusive, experiential model, so guests can go surfing on a nearby beach with a local instructor, or taste-test oysters at a local marine farm after a scenic boat cruise. I was able to see a bit of Brazil through the curation of Awasi, a high-end South American brand that has also set up shop in places like Mendoza, Argentina, and Chilean Patagonia. Its willingness to take me off-property—it’s about the destination, not just the hotel—has made me a loyalist for life.

Through the Lens: The Power of a Creative Team

In 1937, U.S. Camera and Travel — the precursor to Travel + Leisure—launched to show readers what the rest of the world looked like. Now, thanks to the World Wide Web, everyone is so saturated with travel photography, it’s hard to cut through the clutter to stand out from the crowd.

I see two distinct photography strategies out there. When I scroll Belmond’s Instagram feed, I know I’m in for a sepia-toned, nostalgic treat—a vibe that’s consistent with their ad creative. And this gives their fans and followers like me a sense of their world and mission. It’s the kind of aspirational storytelling that made me become a magazine editor.

Other brands (including Instagram itself–check out Adam Mosseri) are choosing more direct-to-camera, personality-driven content. I asked my friend Leora Novick, a former summit speaker who’s head of the strategy firm Persephone Social, why direct-to-camera is so mission-critical right now.

“It has fundamentally changed how people discover and evaluate travel experiences,” she told me. “Travelers are no longer relying solely on polished brand imagery or traditional media reviews. They’re searching for people who can show them what a destination actually feels like. A creator speaking directly to the camera creates a level of trust and context that a static image simply can’t provide.”

I don’t think one or the other wins. The smartest understand when to use each—sometimes you’re trying to reach a new audience; others, you’re satisfying the base.

Social Media Is the New Search Engine: Now What?

Back to my shopping guide in Charleston. I’ve visited the city close to 20 times, and have developed strong connections and true friendships with some of the store owners there—people like Rhett Outten at Croghan’s, and Caroline Chakeris at Madison Matthews. I share a picture of my shopping treasures (dresses, jewelry); people forward it to their friends and family. And I would argue those little forwards may be more impactful for travel businesses than a simple “like”: I’ve spent years building relationships, and people value that trusted taste and access.

I asked my friend Callie Stanton, who is senior vice president, brand, at Auberge Collection—as well as a creator with a rapidly growing following—how she’s able to get thousands of shares-slash-forwards with her destination content on Instagram.

“My insider guides started because people were constantly asking me for recommendations on where to go and what to do in Auberge destinations, and places I spend a lot of time, like New York, Paris, Aspen, Nantucket, and London,” she explained. “I found myself writing the same recommendations over and over, so I decided to start sharing them more broadly. I think the guides took off because they are incredibly detailed and include local tips and places people may not have heard of before. So many guides simply list where to go. I like to go much deeper. I don’t just recommend a restaurant. I tell people what to order, or, if they’re shopping, which associate to ask for to access hidden inventory at a local boutique.”

This dovetails with something else Leora told me: “In so many ways, social media has become the new search engine for travel. Before booking, people want to know what the breakfast is really like, whether the beach is crowded, what the room feels like at sunset, whether a hotel delivers on its promise.”

So for all the social media creators out there (myself included), the moral of the story is this: detail, detail, detail. Instagram’s newest feature, allowing for multiple captions, has me thinking strategically about the messaging and old-school “service” behind each picture, in every carousel. A post with a simple caption and a picture is still cute and all, but it will only take you so far.

America 250: The Future of Domestic Travel

When I was growing up in the Middle East and Japan, my family and I traveled a ton; we were lucky enough to see some pretty far-flung places (China, the Maldives, and Kenya, to name a few) before ever setting foot in a U.S. national park. I’m still amazed by the breadth and depth of experiences our country has to offer, from beach resorts to innovative restaurants and, yes, those grand parks. But there are some challenges to unpack, too.

Whenever geopolitical strife arises, some Americans want to “nest” and stay closer to home. But the thing I keep hearing from my industry peers is that it’s not enough to rely on that convenience alone: travelers want the same level of novelty, care, and service they seek internationally.

One big problem I see is that our infrastructure hasn’t caught up with demand, as aging airports and overstuffed lounges across the country prove on any given Sunday. Build something better—NYC’s LaGuardia renovation is a great example—and all visitors start to take notice. I could argue the same for luxury resorts: when properties like Amangiri that opened years ago are still getting the attention you’d expect from a flashy newcomer, I start to question if we’ve challenged ourselves to build more and build better.

I also find that some of the most interesting hospitality experiences are hyper-local, and don’t always get the national attention they deserve. Take Longwood Gardens, a 1,100-acre public space just outside of Philadelphia (and close to my parents’ home). The immaculate gardens, a legacy of the du Pont family, rival anything in Europe; a recent renovation by Manfredi Weiss enhanced the conservatory and 1906 restaurant, which, with its elegant arches and plants and epic windows, feels like an extension of the outside world. When I visited recently with my family, our server, Oscar, was phenomenal, guiding us to order amazing dishes like the tomato tartine, day-boat scallops with blistered tomatoes and charred scallion cream, and grilled tofu with fresh garden vegetables, all paired with a Wayvine Pennsylvania white. (Eighty percent of the ingredients at 1906 are sourced on-site.) This summer, A-list talent like Kermit Ruffins and Matthew Morrison are also coming to perform, and you can catch a massive fireworks display.

Longwood Gardens might not be on any global “list,” but I saw plenty of local visitors—families, couples, a very diverse crowd, all strolling on a Sunday afternoon—which showed me that people will go out of their way for something thoughtfully curated, well executed, and deeply rooted in place. Apply that principle to everything—whether it’s a hotel, airport, park, or concert venue—and hospitality starts to feel true and accessible.

Hi! My name is Jacqui Gifford, and I’m the editor in chief of Travel + Leisure. This is the phrase I say to introduce myself when I talk to camera on social media, and it’s how I want to introduce myself here, too.

I live, breathe, and sleep travel. I wake up every morning, do a quick scan of my phone to see what’s going on in the world—and before I’m out the door, I’ve already added two new places to my ever-growing bucket list. Because it actually is my job to see the world—and help others do the same.

When I meet someone for the first time, and they hear that I get paid to report on hotels and restaurants and museums and festivals, they usually say something like: “Wow, that’s the best job in the world.”

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It is, and I feel lucky to go to work every day. But journalism is changing, so are the ways people want to engage with stories and the people who tell them. Our job is to be attuned to those changes. Which is why we’re launching on Substack.

We’ve always been pioneers, going to new places. Maybe we missed the boat on calling ourselves influencers. But we are people of influence in the world of travel—and there is a distinction.

And for some time now, I’ve felt we were missing out, as a team, on sharing certain important things with our audience: why a given hotel suddenly matters, what restaurants we’re willing to fly around the world for, the idiosyncratic weird packing tips that get us there, the office chatter around airline trends, and Taylor Swift concerts, and where the world is headed. Our office is full of big personalities, and there is nonstop debate and dialogue, full of differing perspectives. And today, people want to see that debate—not just the final product.

I want you to see all of that and more. What’s inspiring about Substack is that our editors can show their expertise in whatever format best tells the story—writing, photography, video, and more. They each have a beat they cover, a passion point they like to go deep on, and that’s how they will be sharing their insights with you on this platform.

Expect a lot of in-the-weeds travel information and reporting in real time, along with a little bit of a “lifting the veil” approach to our content creation. We will be sharing editor-curated destination guides, which I know you will refer back to for years to come; news from airports and inaugural flights; on-the-ground reporting from marquee sporting events; and Q&As with some of our best journalists about how they got the scoop. That’s just to start.

The past year has also reminded me, as we send creators to all corners of the globe, that Travel + Leisure sits at the center of so much more than travel. Our editors are constantly discussing art, culture, fashion, technology, and food: let’s call it the “leisure” side of our brand. And I’ve come to believe that the brands that win are relentless in their realness.

On Substack, you’ll get to meet the Travel + Leisure editorial team, in all of our realness. And let’s make this an ongoing conversation: after all, we consider you one of our best sources. Some of the best tips come from real travelers just like you. So share your hotel recommendations, your packing tips, your favorite seat on the plane (aisle or window?). And if you disagree, let us know that too. Let’s see where this takes us.

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What kind of person would get off a nearly nine-hour flight, only to turn around and go right back, just for fun?

It’s a question I asked myself as I waved goodbye to my friends—a group of United Airlines superfans—after landing in Croatia this May.

I had just taken United’s first-ever flight from Newark to Split for a story about the Dalmatian Coast. It immersed me in the wild world of inaugural-flight chasers—and I haven’t stopped thinking about them since.

I’m Elizabeth Rhodes, senior editor at Travel + Leisure, where I cover a wide range of topics, from major sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup to theme parks, aviation, destinations, and more. And in my nearly seven years at T+L, I’ve never encountered anything like this group. They collect inaugural flights like passport stamps.

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In the past year, I’ve traveled on two inaugural flights with United Airlines. The first—a December flight from San Francisco to Adelaide, Australia—was notable as the first-ever direct flight from the U.S. to South Australia. It was also my first time visiting the land Down Under, so I could officially check off my seventh continent.

I’d always heard inaugural flights spoken of with a certain reverence in air-travel circles, in the same bucket-list category as flying in the ultra-luxe Singapore Airlines Suite and landing on the world’s shortest commercial runway on the Caribbean island of Saba.

And as I arrived at my gate, it was clear this wasn’t any ordinary occasion. It was unusually buzzy for such a late-night flight, with some passengers even dressed in themed costumes, like a custom kangaroo onesie with “SFO-ADL” ironed on the front.

A United step-and-repeat, Aussie-inspired decorations, and coconut-covered Lamington cakes were waiting for us, and representatives from the airline, the airport, and the South Australian Tourism Commission gave remarks and cut a ribbon with the crew to send us off. Onboard, Polaris seats were filled with exclusive merch themed to the inaugural, including a poster, a keychain, and what I would later find out is a highly coveted gray teddy bear wearing a custom flight T-shirt. (Seats in lower cabins didn’t come with quite the same level of swag, though I think most passengers walked away with at least the keychain keepsake.)

After we settled in for the 15½--hour jaunt across the Pacific, we dined on an Australian-influenced menu, and then I drifted off to sleep for several hours before waking up to stretch my legs. In the galley, a fellow passenger struck up a conversation with me, asking why I was headed to Adelaide. And that’s when I learned that beyond the airline employees, a handful of invited influencers and media (myself included), and general customers who didn’t even know it was a special flight until they saw the decked-out gate, there was also a group of aviation-loving passengers on board who follow United’s inaugural-flight announcements like an itinerary.

These obsessives plan trips around United inaugural flights and travel the world together, bound by their shared love for exploring new places and their airline loyalty. And through these one-of-a-kind journeys, they’ve formed a tight-knit community. Something as routine as adding one new route to a schedule of thousands of daily flights has turned into something bigger: an airline-based fellowship of like-minded travelers.

Warren Rieutort-Louis is one of the inaugural-chasers I met on that Australia flight (he was the passenger in that kangaroo onesie). More recently, we were neighbors in Polaris on the flight from Newark to Split. Upon arrival, he immediately turned around so he could be on the inaugural flight from Split back to Newark, and then on the Newark-to-Bari inaugural flight hours later.

We caught up again a couple of weeks ago, and I asked how he came to be part of this group. “Almost three years ago, I had been following the continued growth of United’s international network,” he told me. “I saw that a week later, United was starting the first-ever flight to Manila from the continental U.S. I had never been to the Philippines and found the opportunity irresistible, so I booked the flight.”

“It was on this first flight that I discovered a small but enthusiastic group of fliers who seemed to take special interest in these inaugurals, including some of my now good friends, like Carl Brothers, another United enthusiast who introduced me to the group, and that was that—I was hooked. The hour after I landed in Manila, I was already booking United’s next inaugural, from San Francisco to Christchurch, two months later.”

Rieutort-Louis is famous in the United inaugural circle for his intricately themed—and often custom-made—costumes that he wears for each new destination. He dressed as Gandalf for the inaugural to Christchurch, as a lion to Dakar, as a Dalmatian dog to Split, as a polar bear to Greenland, and even in traditional Mongolian wear to Ulaanbaatar.

Of course, it’s about more than the costumes and fanfare for Rieutort-Louis and his fellow flight-chasers. “Yes, the gate parties are great, and the catering and mementos handed out on the plane are treasured,” he said, “but it’s always more about the people. Sharing an inaugural flight brings us together, as it brings the countries or communities we connect together.”

In fact, their most treasured mementos may not be the United-produced merch at all, but the thoughtful handmade gifts that some chasers hand out to fellow travelers and crew. On my flight home from Adelaide, one passenger recognized me from the inaugural and handed me a wooden airplane ornament that she had decorated with the flight’s information in blue and white. And on the Newark-to-Split inaugural, Rieutort-Louis gifted me a Lego set he had custom-ordered of the Split waterfront. The ancient city on the glittering Adriatic Sea is anchored by Diocletian’s Palace, a 1,700-year-old Roman complex that now sits in mini-brick form on my desk.

Clearly, this all goes well beyond gifts, or simply checking a box for a new country. “Our group of inaugural-chasers is a multigenerational patchwork of travelers that share a passion, from young college graduates through to veteran retired explorers that have flown the airline sometimes for multiple decades,” Rieutort-Louis said. “Every flight we take, we slowly grow our community; it is nowadays unusual for me to go to San Francisco or Newark Airport and not know of at least one other friend or United crew member who’s traveling through that day, and we love meeting up.”

And I get it now. When I arrived at the Newark gate for my flight to Split and saw a few familiar faces taking selfies, smiling under the balloon arch and exchanging gifts, I felt like I was a part of the community, too.

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“Hey, coach!” somebody yelled, giving a shout-out to Jon Gruden, the former NFL coach and now football pundit, who was sailing through Greece aboard the Four Seasons yacht.

I had heard that there was at least one famous face on board, and suddenly there he was, shaking hands with a few of the guests after dinner.

I didn’t have a chance to say hello myself, but I did make a note about the moment, since I was on board the ship to answer the question: What kind of person would spend $40,000 for a weeklong cruise?

I’m Paul Brady, and I’m the news director at Travel + Leisure. A big part of my job is reporting on the cruise industry, a fascinating if at times bizarre corner of the overall travel industry. It’s taken me to Greece and Norway and the Caribbean, and even the ice-choked Saguenay River in Quebec in the depths of winter.

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And through a bit of moxie, I’d gotten myself aboard Four Seasons I, one of the most talked-about new ships in years, for one of its first-ever journeys. Even before seeing Coach Gruden greeting his admirers, I was vibing: champagne, caviar, an incredible suite with heated bathroom floors and an incredible oceanview shower. Pretty tough assignment.

Even beyond the luxuries—and the fact that it says “Four Seasons” on the side—this is no ordinary ship. Rumor has it that the cutting-edge vessel cost more than $400 million, a staggering price tag for a ship that can accommodate fewer than 200 passengers. (Consider that Brilliant Lady, a Virgin Voyages ship, cost about $800 million to build but accommodates more than 10 times the number of guests.)

And that money has been well spent, on all sorts of technical systems that dampen vibration, muffle sound, and generally make the ship feel less like something moving through the water and more like the chicest vacation villa you’ve ever seen. Then there’s the design, which I detailed in a recent “first look” story on T+L-dot-com:

“The fit and finish of the ship is exacting, with beautiful woodwork, gleaming marble, and decadent textiles just about everywhere. Bar O, the ship’s most-elevated cocktail venue, is filled with mother of pearl inlays, stunning furniture, and lovely window treatments, all selected under the direction of both Prosper Assouline and Martin Brudnizki.”

Still, a lot of people have been asking me: So what was it really like?

The short answer is: pretty impressive.

Which it should be, given the price tag, starting somewhere around $30,000 a week, depending on the itinerary. And that figure doesn’t include many meals, shore excursions, spa treatments, cocktails, or other extras you might dream up. As more than one travel advisor I’ve spoken with put it: Who would actually pay that?

As it turns out, plenty of people, including at least one former NFL coach. In fact, over the course of the week, as I got to know some of the passengers on board, I came to realize that there are several types who are willing to drop new-car money on a weeklong cruise.

Rather than spell out the specifics on them, I’m gonna take a page from one of my favorite Substackers, Max Read, who runs the always-interesting Read Max newsletter. As a sharp writer and observer of internet culture, he often talks about what “Type of Guy” certain people are, as a shorthand to understanding the worldview and motivations of notable (and often, unfortunately, darkly twisted) figures in the news.

Thankfully, we didn’t have any of those, nor did we have any Tanya McQuoid-Hunt or Victoria Ratliff types, as far as I could tell. (Though if we’re really honest with ourselves, we all have a little bit of that White Lotus snob within us, don’t we?)

Anyway, herewith, some of the Types of Guys you might encounter on the Four Seasons I…

The Private Types

One guest, I heard, had booked out the Loft Suite for a two-week trip, and invited several of her friends to come along for a trip. I never did get to meet her—she was having her friends over to her “home” onboard.

The Fun Lovers

There were a lot of couples on the ship, which is what you’d expect. I was surprised, though, by how many different ages of couples were represented. Many of them were quite social and happy to meet other couples and generally hang out and dine together.

The Indulgent Ones

One night, I overheard a couple discussing with the sommelier what kind of wine they’d like to have at the next night’s dinner, when they’d be celebrating an anniversary. They were saying that a classic Bordeaux would be nice, something better or bolder than the regular Cheval Blanc, they said. (Never mind that bottles of Cheval Blanc can easily top $1,000.) I failed to hear what they ultimately decided on, but my guess is it wasn’t the house red.

The Family Travelers

Another surprise for me: there were a ton of children on board, of all ages. Truth is, I shouldn’t have been, since Four Seasons has long been both a luxury brand and a family-friendly one. The dedicated kids’-club space on the ship got plenty of traffic (at least as far as I could tell), and I found it encouraging and even pleasant to see families and their kids enjoying the amenities of the ship, dining together, and getting quality time. (I can also imagine that there are some malcontents out there thinking, No chance I want to share my yacht with tweens. To each one’s own!)

So, yeah, those are the Types of Guys you’re likely to find on the ship—or at least that’s who was on while I was there. Almost everybody I spoke to was either so enamored with the yacht—or too polite to say otherwise—that it felt as though everybody was having a good time. I’ll admit to occasionally finding the ship a bit sedate for my personal taste, but the flip side is that plenty of people like feeling as though they’re the only one aboard.

And of all the fun moments—drinking champagne in the Caldera of Santorini, stargazing on the top deck, chatting with the charming crew—the morning that sticks with me is the one when we dropped anchor in a bay off the island of Folegandros. I’d been looking forward to this “marina day,” when a side door on the ship opens and the crew and guests alike can get directly into the sea. It was too windy for swimming, so nobody was cannonballing into the Aegean, but dozens of us took to kayaks and e-foil boards and funny floating-bicycle contraptions to enjoy a morning of play. It was a bit chaotic, in the best possible way—a reminder that the most luxurious experiences of all aren’t about fancy finishes or high-end service. They’re about the joy you feel—and the fellow travelers you share them with.

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My wife draws the line on taking the bus to the airport.

But she allows me to use my finance chops to get more for our money.

Hi, I’m Caleb Silver, chief business editor of People Inc., and the editor in chief of Investopedia, where I spend my days explaining how money works and how to make it work for you. No one loves getting a great deal on travel more than me. For years, I’ve driven my wife and two daughters crazy chasing credit-card rewards hacks and ways to save on things like airport transportation and room upgrades—so that we can splurge on the parts of travel we actually remember, like sleeping in a fantastic suite or eating at great restaurants.

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The hottest word in luxury travel right now isn’t luxury.

It’s value.

It’s not that travelers like me are spending less. We want to maximize every travel dollar without sacrificing the experiences that make a trip memorable. And right now, the best travel hack isn’t necessarily a rewards program–it’s the almighty U.S. dollar.

Where the Dollar Goes Far Right Now

The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of global currencies, is up 2.5% from a year ago. Last year, tariff threats and geopolitical uncertainty pressured the dollar, making it painful for U.S. travelers to Europe or Japan. But with the greenback flexing its muscles in 2026, our dollars go a lot further around the world, especially in a few key destinations. In some cases, that currency arbitrage can more than offset high airline prices.

Let me break down a few of the top destinations where the dollar is strongest now.

Japan

For years, I thought of Japan as a splurge destination. Now, thanks to the strength of the dollar, it is one of the best luxury-travel plays in the world. If you’re willing to book outside of cherry-blossom season, a suite at the Conrad Tokyo for one night and a kaiseki dinner for two with wine or sake will cost you less than $1,200. Business-class seats on United Polaris or JAL in July and August are as low as $4,500, while first class starts around $9,000. United rewards members can use their mileage points to offset the cost of affiliate hotels like the Conrad or ANA Intercontinental.

South Africa

This is the destination I’m watching most closely right now, given the weakness in the rand. A chef’s tasting menu for two with wine pairings at Fyn, one of Cape Town’s finest restaurants, can be enjoyed for $150 per person. Airfares to Cape Town from New York are still relatively high, with first-class seats ranging from $8,000 to $15,000, but are half that in business class, and as low as $2,000 in premium economy.

My wife and I can fly business class to Cape Town, stay at one of Africa’s finest hotels, eat and drink at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and take a tour of South Africa’s Winelands with a private guide for 30 percent less than a similar week in Burgundy or the Amalfi Coast would cost.

That’s exactly the kind of trade I’m looking for right now—a similar experience for less money.

South America

Closer to home (and home time zones), several countries in Latin America offer exceptional value, given the weakness of their currencies. The Colombian peso offers most against the dollar, currently trading at about 3,400 to 1. A top tasting-menu in Bogotá or Cartagena can be enjoyed for as low as $50 per person, while a suite at the Elcielo Hotel & Spa in Medellin is available for as low as $350 per night. If you’ve never been to Cartagena, put it on your list. It’s relatively inexpensive to fly there, or you can take a cruise from Miami.

Further south—and colder during our summer—Argentina still offers strong value for U.S. travelers. Luxury travel remains very affordable in Buenos Aires, Patagonia, and throughout the Mendoza wine region. High-end wine lodges have particularly great deals—like Estancia Colome in Salta, home to the oldest winery in the country, which is currently offering suites for $284 per night in July and August. And if you love deep Malbecs and velvety Cabernets like I do, find your way to the Valle de Uco in the Andes foothills. You may never come back.

My New Rule: Four-Star Hotels, Five-Star Experiences

The best decision I’ve made recently is to follow the lead of savvy travelers and adopt the “4-star hotel, 5-star experiences” strategy—because these hotels are where the real value is right now.

My wife and I just did this in Miami, for the World Cup. We flew on Delta using Amex points, stayed at the Kimpton EPIC hotel in downtown Miami, and splurged on ceviche and pisco sours at Jarana, one of our favorite Peruvian restaurants. The hotel was lovely, and at less than $400 per night, I slept like a baby.

The same principle applies overseas. Luxury-hotel prices remain fairly firm, but leveraging weaker currencies, especially in destinations like South Africa and South America, can dramatically bring down the overall price. Rates for rooms during shoulder seasons are even lower. In Cape Town, boutique luxury suites at hotels like Gorgeous George and Camissa House start at around $180 per night, and many include breakfast.

Transferable Points Are the New Flex

I’d argue that the biggest trend with premium credit cards like American Express Platinum and Chase Sapphire isn’t that they’ve raised their annual fees (and yes, we all felt that pinch). It’s that they have all leaned into more flexible points programs, allowing customers to transfer even more of their points to airline or hotel partners. That trend accelerated coming out of the pandemic, as luxury airfares and hotel prices spiked. In addition, apps like Point.me and Roame, not to mention ChatGPT, make it easier than ever for tech-savvy travelers to calculate and maximize their transferable points. That can be very valuable when you’re traveling to a country where the dollar is particularly strong.

For example, a business-class ticket from Los Angeles to Tokyo, which costs an average of $6,000, is also available for 75,000 to 100,000 airline points, depending on the season. That’s a redemption value of 6 to 8 cents per point, compared with just 1 to 1.5 cents through most travel portals. In cases like this, it makes most sense to use rewards for the flights and pay cash for hotels and restaurants.

I’ll be using that strategy this summer. My family still won’t let me take the bus to the airport—but with the dollar this strong, that’s a compromise I’m willing to make.

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I’m writing this book—and have been for half my life, appallingly—about a utopian radical who came from Germany to the Carolinas in the 1730s.

And given how long the project has consumed me, I’ve often wondered how that interest got triggered.

John Jeremiah Sullivan and I are talking over Zoom, and before long we’re going deep into the idea of utopia, the new wave of interest in the Shakers—and how it all connects to our current emotional state in America.

Hi, I’m Peter Terzian, features editor for Travel + Leisure. A big part of my job is getting to work with some of my all-time favorite writers, and sending them around the world to report on destinations from Italy to Maui to Antarctica.

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John Jeremiah Sullivan is one of those people. I first met John in 2004, when I interviewed him on the publication of his first book, Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son, which interwove memories of his father with a kaleidoscopic history of the horse. Many of John’s early reported pieces and essays—on Axl Rose, cave art, and a Christian rock festival, among other subjects—were revised and collected in 2011 in Pulphead, a book that continues to inspire young writers. Over the past decade he’s moved from journalism toward history, fiction, criticism, poetry, and translation.

As our editorial team began working on our July issue—a tribute to America’s 250th—John was the first person I thought of. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he contributed a meditation on a place he knew from childhood: Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, a restored community outside Lexington that was built in the early 19th century by the Shakers, a Christian sect that practiced a simple, celibate, egalitarian lifestyle and worshipped ecstatically.

In our subsequent text chats, John and I noticed that the Shakers were suddenly everywhere—I sent him photos of the digital poster for The Testament of Ann Lee, a recent biopic about their founder starring Amanda Seyfried, when I saw it outside a theater.
(“What is going on with the cosmic Shakers confluence???” he texted back.) But his essay also felt timely for another reason. John is currently finishing his third book, The Prime Minister of Paradise, about Christian Gottlieb Priber, who emigrated from Germany to America and attempted to establish a utopian community in the 1730s. And as I discovered during our conversation, a renewed fascination with figures like Priber—and communities like the Shakers—may say something larger about America right now.

When I asked you to write about an American place that held great personal significance for you, it took you about two seconds to suggest Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Why did it come to you so quickly?

It was my introduction to utopia. The place was just a short car ride outside of Lexington, but there was a time-warp quality to it that was fascinating for a kid. When you got there you were in a different world in a very real sense. You were in a place where people had chosen to live their lives in a fundamentally different way.

It was like an alternate history—that’s part of the appeal of utopian stories. What if it had worked? What if they had succeeded and grown, instead of mostly passing from the face of the earth? What would the country look like? You were in a place outside of capitalism, where people had chosen to live communally, and where sharing and cooperating were the main values.

So it was powerful to be exposed to that as a young person, and on a regular basis, because we would go there every year. I was already so sensitive to that central Kentucky landscape, which has such a mystery to it. And the idea that there was a lost utopian history had a lot of romance for me.

What draws you to the idea of utopias?

The less admirable side of the coin is probably sheer escapism. Utopian stories are inherently fantasy stories. They’re a way of hiding from the reality of how things did go, and of how things will probably go in the future. The more interesting side has to do with the interrogation of reality. We’re always experiencing history, and at the same time, we’re imagining these other societies that we might have been. It’s a way of criticizing life and ourselves, a way of asserting that things don’t necessarily have to be the way they are, and breaking down the specifics of that. How is society organized? What do we value? How do we treat each other? How do we choose to live? People have lived in totally different ways, and could do so again. It makes everything vibrate with a kind of possibility.

There’s currently an exhibition of Shaker craft at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and a new Shaker Museum is being built in Chatham, New York. I wonder if curiosity about the Shakers ebbs and flows as people’s feelings about the country change, and if this current wave is happening because people feel anxiety about the way things are going.

The other two times I know of when that happened were the early 30s—right after the Great Depression, which would make sense—and in the 60s, when there was a flowering of interest in utopias and utopian thinking. And certainly, it would make sense right now: I mean, we’re having this conversation the day after the UFC fight on the White House lawn, so the temptation to withdraw into a life of beauty and simplicity and prayer is very strong. I felt it when I was at Shaker Village. The peacefulness of it is so alluring. And the orderliness of life—that you eat at a certain time, you work at a certain time, and you’re all doing it together in a kind of dance. Life is being lived by the hour, and there’s a harmony to it.

Are there parallels you can draw between the Shakers and the utopia that Christian Priber envisioned?

The Shakers are an offshoot of the Quakers, with more eccentric ideas in a few respects. And Priber was from a place in Saxony called Zittau, that was very close to the Moravian commune in Herrnhut, one of the great utopian experiments of the first half of the 18th century—the Quakers and the Moravians drew inspiration from each other, or from common sources. Priber was secular, but he was tolerant of all religions, and I think he would have seen a lot to admire in the Shakers: the uniformity of dress, the attention to architecture, communal farming and gardening, socialism in terms of the economy they lived by.

Mother Ann Lee was born in the very year Priber went into the backcountry to live with the Cherokees and tried to establish his Enlightenment Republic, which he called Paradise. So the same energies were animating both of those utopian experiments, and a lot of others. That’s one of the reasons I love that period in history—these experiments were just popping off in every direction.

For instance, a lot of people are surprised to learn how utopian the Georgia colony was in the beginning. It was founded right at the same time, in the mid-1730s, by James Oglethorpe, and his original charter for the colony was actually criticized for being “too much utopian.” No slavery, no rum, religious tolerance, even restrictions on the amount of land people could own. It was quite radical.

Was travel a big part of your life when you were growing up?

We traveled as much as the next family—road trips, mainly. Going up to northern Michigan every summer to a chautauqua, where my family has always stayed (and which itself has a very utopian vibe, when I think about it). Once I got into my twenties and thirties, I became some kind of ersatz gonzo magazine reporter, and did that for many years, so I was constantly traveling. It was wonderful in some ways. I saw the world. It also took years off my life. It’s a really hard lifestyle. Trains and planes, and working on pieces in hotels in the middle of the night, trying to make deadlines in a different time zone. Now I’m moving into another mode with travel, and it’s nice. A little slower, a little more deliberate.

Is there a place you’ve traveled to, either professionally or personally, that especially resonated with you?

West Africa, where I went when I was 16 on a foreign-exchange trip. It’s probably the place I fantasize about going back to most often. And then Peru. My wife and I lived there for a while after we got out of college and she got a Fulbright to study in Lima. We talk pretty often about going back to Peru, especially places like Cajamarca, Arequipa, Cuzco, the cities in the mountains that—I want to say they’re otherworldly. I realize that’s an objectifying term. They’re not otherworldly to the people who live there, although in some ways they are that too! Because they’re spiritualized cities. The clearest way I can ask myself this question is: What places do you dream about the most? And that’s Senegal and Peru.

Is there anything you collect when you travel?

It’s funny, I’ve never been much of a collector, partly because I’m not good at it. You have to be organized. I tend to break things and lose things, and forget what order they should be in. So I haven’t been good about acquiring objects in the different places I’ve been, in that way where, when you’re showing somebody around the house, you can say, “Oh, I got this in Iceland” or whatever. If I collect one thing, it’s stones. I have a bowl with rocks or pieces of brick and things I’ve picked up in different places. Old glass bottles, stuff like that.

There’s not much that can go wrong with rocks.

Exactly. I don’t feel any anxiety.

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The first person I contacted after finding out I had cancer wasn’t a family member or a medical professional. She was a publicist for Marriott.

“I’m in for London.”

I’d been invited to run the London Marathon as a media guest of Westin, and while I wasn’t particularly into running, I felt an urgent need to prove to myself that cancer wasn’t going to slow me or my travel schedule down.

I’m Nina Ruggiero, senior editorial director at Travel + Leisure. As the head of our digital content, I’ve covered everything from luxury hotels in Italy and beach getaways in Fiji to Alaskan cruises and the world’s longest flights. Lately, I’ve been exploring the wellness beat, including a babymoon at Sensei Lanai and a women’s retreat at Canyon Ranch.

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And although I haven’t limited my scope exclusively to wellness, I have been running around the world ever since.

I ran the hills of Sicily while planning my destination wedding. I ran the streets of Paris and Rome with one of my colleagues and best friends, who travels for marathons now too. I ran miles back and forth through a tunnel in Mexico, when I had to keep the surgical scar across my neck out of the sun. I ran over boardwalks and man-made beaches connecting stilted bungalows in the Maldives. I ran the early-morning Las Vegas Strip past more walks of shame than I could count.

Most notably, I ran across the London finish line down The Mall by Buckingham Palace, and then another in New York City’s Central Park, that time with my husband by my side.

Meanwhile, “runcations” started to trend. Hotels like the Westin London City added positions like “running ambassador” to their payrolls. One of them is Charlie Watson, an avid marathon runner and dietitian known as @therunnerbeans on Instagram. Her main role is to give guests recommendations on the best routes based on distance, points of interest, safety, and ability. “Running encourages you to look up from your screen, to step off the well-trodden tourist path, and to see the city like a local,” she says.

When I ran London, Raymond Braun was serving as Westin’s global marathon ambassador, and we hit it off over a group dinner on night one of my trip. I was drawn to his genuine enthusiasm for sharing the sport with others. Running helped Raymond recover from debilitating OCD, and he now holds the world record for completing seven triathlons on all seven continents in seven consecutive days. He has run 14 marathons in total, most of them as a guide for runners with disabilities.

“Running has improved my mental health in so many ways,” he says, “and to combine the joy, excitement, and discovery of travel with the routine of running has such a grounding effect for me while I’m on the road.”

I’ll never forget high-fiving Raymond along the London course. He was running with retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant Cedric King, who had both his legs amputated and ran the 26.2 miles on blades.

Running has such profound meaning for Raymond, but sometimes he simply laces up in search of a good cup of matcha. “When I’m in a new environment, I love to put on my running shoes, no headphones or distractions, and just see where my curiosity takes me,” he advises. “I’ll keep an open note on my phone and write down interesting coffee shops, restaurants, or places I discover along the run to look up later.”

Travel journalist Stacey Leasca, my aforementioned colleague and friend, found her first fix in London a year after I did, and now she’s outrunning me everywhere from Portugal to Africa. (She actually got to go for a run with a Maasai warrior in Tanzania—show-off!) “I plot out entire days around a run,” she says. “Running has motivated me to get to know a place before I get there, but it’s also taught me to go with the flow—like when I run by a cute shop and need to press pause and stop in.”

Some of us are looking for stress relief or an energy boost. Some are chasing personal goals, while others aim to burn extra calories before eating their way around a new city. Many are simply looking for an efficient way to explore new neighborhoods and hoping to stumble upon a great bar for an ice-cold post-run beer. But at the end of the day, we’re all chasing a certain type of traveler’s high.

Part of that high comes from the thrill of discovering new paths, and part from a sense of accomplishment—but we’re also fighting off some of the biggest challenges that come with travel in the process.

Another of my best friends, Dr. Kristin McKitish, is a preventative-medicine expert at Evolved Science in NYC, which is one of those places A-listers go to age backward. (If I suddenly start looking younger, you’ll know why.) She also happens to be a fitness freak, so I had to pick her brain about this. Kristin reminded me that travel disrupts the body’s normal rhythms and can cause symptoms like bloating, constipation, fatigue, and even anxiety. “Even a short morning run or walk can make travelers feel noticeably better both physically and mentally,” she said.

And then there’s the benefit of connection. As Charlie put it, “runners have an immediate kinship with one another that transcends languages and cultures.” And while I’ve had a few good chuckles over the endearingly cheesy runner’s nod, she’s right.

But here’s the funny thing: I still don’t know if I actually like running. There have been plenty of times I’ve dreaded it, or wondered why I torture myself with a 10-mile Saturday morning instead of sitting by the pool with a mimosa.

But I do know I’ve never regretted adding a run to my day—or seeing the places my two feet have taken me. After the Queensboro Bridge nearly broke us, I promised my husband the 2025 NYC Marathon would be my last. Yet here I am, with our first baby due in July, waiting in line for a spot in LA’s Nike After Dark Tour half-marathon in October. Just the other day, Abbott World Marathon Majors added Cape Town to its lineup. Stacey texted me immediately. We exchanged big “eyes” emojis. “Should weeeeeee?” she typed. I wouldn’t be surprised if we do.

In case you’re considering a runcation of your own, Raymond sent some tips I had to share:

• “As runners, we can sometimes get caught up in the data (distance, pace, time), but I recommend an entirely different mindset for vacation and travel running: be open to stopping and starting based on what you find. For example, instead of setting your goal as a certain distance, you could make it to run until you’ve discovered 10 new matcha spots.”

• “Make jet lag work for you. If I’m up super early, instead of trying to fall back asleep, I’ll put on my running shoes and go catch a sunrise. Some of my most cherished memories in cities like Tokyo, London, and Auckland involve running and being able to see a normally bustling city in its quieter moments.”

• I am a huge proponent of joining a local run club while you’re traveling. If you don’t find anything off a Google search, look up whether the area you’re visiting hosts a marathon/5K/10K, and reach out to the organizers to see if they recommend any local running groups. You can also visit a local running specialty or fitness store and ask the employees for recommendations.”

• “For the experienced runners: I absolutely love building a vacation around a marathon. Being in a new city during marathon week is extra meaningful, because you not only get all the benefits of exploring the city, there’s also all kinds of special events, pop-ups, panels, etc. specifically for runners, and you get to meet like-minded people from all over the world who share a passion with you.”

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