travel

Tony Mecia on how a Bond villain’s Alpine lair came to house a museum for 007.

Reflecting on the prominence of the art.

A chance meeting with Keith Bowden, writer of "The Tecate Journals."

David Hollinger’s new book, Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America, is a comedy of unintended consequences, the thesis of which is a joke—a serious joke, a very intellectual joke, but funny, with a sting. It goes like this: “The Protestant foreign…

El Paso, Texas

We arrived in San Diego late last night and took an Uber to the International Travelers House, our hostel accommodations for as long as we’re in the city. It’s a collection of brightly colored beach homes right in the heart of downtown San Diego, and its costing us $44 a night instead of the $209…

Sunday Hill Farm, Wiltshire

Cambria, Calif.

Cambria, Calif.

Swiss photographer Roger Eberhard traveled to 32 different countries in the course of 365 days and stayed in 32 different Hilton hotels, one for each country. He was shocked, shocked to discover that—guess what? Hilton hotel rooms look pretty much the same no matter whether you’re visiting Panama…

To the recent college graduates who have somehow failed to spend all of Daddy’s money in five-and-a-half years, fear not, tradition says you deserve a vacation. Consider it your version of the Grand Tour, the jaunt through Europe that served as the capstone to a formal education in centuries past…

Havana

Havana

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, travel journalist Rudy Maxa talks with Eric Felten about the effects of terrorism on travel, and how recent attacks in England have hit right at the beginning of the high season for British tourism.

If Venice dies, we will be left with nothing but the dozens of cities and suburbs with Venice in their name and Disney-like replicas in Las Vegas, Dubai, and Chongqing, along with yet another being proposed right next to Venice itself. If Venice dies, the world would lose “an unbearable challenge…

If Venice dies, we will be left with nothing but the dozens of cities and suburbs with Venice in their name and Disney-like replicas in Las Vegas, Dubai, and Chongqing, along with yet another being proposed right next to Venice itself. If Venice dies, the world would lose “an unbearable challenge…

Airlines are cutting back on their once-vaunted plethora of flights to Cuba because … it turns out that hardly anyone wants to go to Cuba. As Bloomberg News reported in late 2016:

A federal judge in Seattle has issued a temporary ruling which halts Donald Trump's recent travel ban executive order.

Reuters commissioned a poll about President Trump's executive order that caused so much controversy over the weekend. Here are the results:

Multiple legal experts have criticized former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for allowing her personal views of President Trump's executive order on refugees and travel to the United States to interfere with the Justice Department's role of defending what is lawful.

Maps are a mystery to me, and my worthlessness in navigating has been a family joke for two decades. Google Maps and turn-by-turn smartphone guidance were a revelation—they have saved me from embarrassment and being late at least once a week since 2007. I am utterly dependent on them.

Maps are a mystery to me, and my worthlessness in navigating has been a family joke for two decades. Google Maps and turn-by-turn smartphone guidance were a revelation—they have saved me from embarrassment and being late at least once a week since 2007. I am utterly dependent on them.

For years, a friend and I have been engaged in an informal contest (so informal, in fact, that it may exist only in my mind) to see who will be first to visit all 50 states. With only Alaska, Idaho, and Montana remaining on my list, it looks as if I'll win. In the spirit of sportsmanship, I will…

For years, a friend and I have been engaged in an informal contest (so informal, in fact, that it may exist only in my mind) to see who will be first to visit all 50 states. With only Alaska, Idaho, and Montana remaining on my list, it looks as if I’ll win. In the spirit of sportsmanship, I will…

I spent a couple weeks this summer museum-hopping. Art museums, mostly, and while I don’t know much about painting or sculpture, I know what I like, and I know what I don't like, and I don't like people who go museum-hopping. Present company excluded.

The State Department reissued a travel warning Monday that emphasized the risks facing U.S. citizens in Iran.

No doubt, the "computer glitch" that caused Delta Air Lines to shut down for six hours on Monday morning, canceling some 300 scheduled flights, was a great inconvenience to many summer travelers: People make plans based on estimated times of arrival; connecting flights require a combination of luck…

Turin

Last month, I had to stay a night in Oxford. Having not set foot there since my 20s, I was looking forward to it. If memory served, there were good B&Bs near the Thames and the Cherwell. There were rooms at the colleges where one could stay for cheap. Any place would serve, as long as it was close…

Details of President Obama's travel to Warren, Michigan this Wednesday intended only for the press are revealed in an apparent inadvertent posting of a media advisory on the White House website over the weekend. The posting, which includes a reminder that "MEDIA LOGISTICS BELOW ARE FOR PLANNING…

When the president of the United States travels, the White House and the Secret Service bring along a tremendous amount of communications equipment. Not only does the Secret Service set up a command post to coordinate communications for the visits, but secure connections are also needed for the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Victorino Matus reading his casual essay "A Fistful of Forints."

Vice President Biden spent about a day and a half in Belgium in early February to meet with various European leaders, but his entourage, security team and other delegation members required up to 209 rooms for up to three weeks surrounding the visit. While the estimated tab was $690,507, this cost…

In January, the State Department signed contracts for an estimated $1,690,000 million for hotels for President Obama's trip to India. Two of the contracts were for the New Delhi stay, and another two were for Agra, the location of the Taj Mahal. That latter leg of the trip was cancelled when…

Vice President Joe Biden kicked off 2015 leading a presidential delegation to Brazil for the inauguration of Dilma Rousseff as president of that country. The vice president was only in the country on New Year's Day, for the inauguration and an hour-long meeting with Rousseff before returning to St.…

When President Obama visited Brisbane, Australia in November for the G-20 summit, the large U.S. delegation required multiple hotels and thousands of "room nights" for the length of the stay, though the president himself spent only one night in his hotel. Initially, as first reported by THE WEEKLY…

President Obama stayed only one night in Australia for the G-20 summit, but the entire presidential delegation required over 4,000 rooms costing in excess of $1.7 million for the entire stay. Rooms at three different hotels were reserved for the U.S. delegation, and due to the large number of…

President Obama appeared to criticize Australian prime minister Tony Abbott for closing borders to Austrlia due to concern over Ebola.

Foreigners should always stay out of North Korea. By traveling there, after all, tourists provide financial support to a manifestly evil regime. Moreover, they put themselves at risk – two American tourists are currently being held hostage there. (A third was released from captivity just this…

President Obama discussed the proposal to institute a travel ban to protect America from the grown Ebola crisis, but suggested he wasn't in favor of it because it might make Americans less safe:

Vice President Biden's trip to Brazil in mid-June for the USA versus Ghana World Cup game and meetings the following day with the president and vice president of Brazil required rental of vehicles for Biden and his entourage costing over $900,000. Added to the $2.2 million cost of hotels we…

Vice President Biden and his entourage visited Brazil in mid-June to attend the USA versus Ghana World Cup game, a trip that also included meetings with both the president and vice president of Brazil. Although the vice president spent only one night in Brazil before moving on to Colombia, the…

In late March of this year, President Obama stayed in Brussels, Belgium for about 24 hours on a weeklong trip through Europe. Lodging at The Hotel in Brussels cost $1.5 million, as we reported in April, including rooms for the president and his entourage, as well as for the advance team in the…

The official White House schedule says President Obama was in the Philippines for less than 24 hours, but the estimated cost of the hotel and vehicle rentals in support of the trip topped $1.1 million. The hotel contract (Sofitel Luxury Hotel) provided for up to 3,600 room night plus various…

The antitrust lawyers I have served as a consultant often have the same complaint: Their clients don’t know when to shut up. This was certainly true of the executives of US Airways and American Airlines as they touted the virtues of their proposed $11 billion merger. US Airways president Scott…

The Washington Times reports that the cost of Obama's Africa trip, estimated as high as $100 million, is overshadowing President Obama's agenda. If past VIP trips are any indication, lodging and local transportation would represent only a fraction of the $100 million, yet those costs would likely…

As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at…

After two items last week on the cost of lodging for Vice President Joe Biden's early February trip to Europe, other news organizations began to investigate further.  Wolf Blitzer's show The Situation Room on CNN uncovered a contract apparently also related to the same visit to Paris:

Vice President Biden and his entourage spent a little time in London in early February during his first foreign trip of the second term of the Obama administration.  A document released today revealed that the cost of lodging in London alone was close to half a million dollars. The contract was…

The word “epicurean” has come to describe those who are fond of luxury, sensual pleasure, and gourmet food. At some point, its definition evolved away from that of capital-E “Epicurean,” which refers to a follower of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Members of both groups advocate the…

The man squeezing his way through to the window seat smells of manure. Not a bad, rotten smell, exactly. Just that faint, fresh odor that farmers can’t ever quite get rid of. “He smells funny,” announces the little girl waiting in the aisle, and everyone stares carefully down at the airplane’s…