We’re nearly two years into a global pandemic that has seemingly changed everything in our economy from how we shop to where we eat. COVID-19 indeed may transform our economic lives entirely – except how we work.
Tag: travel
The Omicron variant has sparked a new wave of COVID-19 travel restrictions, but the chances of returning to worldwide shutdowns are slim for a series of reasons.
A South African researcher of infectious disease sees specific steps that governments should and shouldn’t be taking in light of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
Airlines are eyeing premium economy seating options to woo money-conscious business class travelers, and possibly weary economy passengers, back to air travel.
Will flying be greener? More comfortable? Less frequent? As the world eyes a post-COVID reality, we look at ways the airline industry has been changing through a pandemic that has devastated air travel.
After years of letting overnight rail travel fade into oblivion, France and other European countries are rushing to reverse course. Doing so will be easier said than done, however.
Watching the nightly news on television was a recipe for unhappiness. It’s just one lesson from two years on the road in Europe, even though the depressing headlines will follow you through other channels.
Talk about the use of documents proving immunity evokes a measure invented more than a century ago by French authorities.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/RljMJ8QE8dQ expand=1] News broke last weekend of a new, extra contagious strain of the coronavirus rapidly spreading in the UK, prompting several countries to suspend travel from the country. After France deciding to shut its UK border for 48 hours, thousands of trucks were unable to pass through from the Port of Dover via […]
-Essay- COVID-19’s economic impact on travel is matched only by the existential impact on the modern traveler. In a sign of the desperation of both, several airlines and cruise ship companies have been offering trips to… nowhere. In Australia, Japan and Taiwan, passengers can book a flight that takes off and lands at the same […]
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, no sector in the economy has been hit harder than the travel industry. Following rolling global lockdowns through last spring, and resulting border closures and travel bans, both tourism and business travel was at a virtual standstill, with an estimated 98% drop in the number of international tourists […]
The super rich are buying residency papers and passports from places like Cyprus and Vanuatu to be able to travel — despite quarantines — for health reasons, business or pleasure.
Summer is normally the time for France’s immigrants or their descendants from Algeria, Senegal and other African countries to head back to the home country. This year? Not so much.
Earlier this week, as I packed my things for my first post-pandemic vacation, my eyes and mind dwelled on the object I spend more time with than any other: my laptop. Of course many things have changed since last summer’s break. Instead of flying, I’ll drive from my home in the northern city of Milan […]
SAINT-BLIMONT — Two years ago, my partner and I set off across Europe in our campervan. We called it Foxy — and it was our home on wheels and ticket to freedom. In France, they still call it “la vanlife” — that ultimate mix of wanderlust and practicality that was popularized during the 1960s in […]
Last year 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals were recorded globally. In 2020, with borders closed and airplanes grounded, the tourism industry has been decimated and its recovery could take years. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development anticipates a 45% to 70% decline in the tourism economy — amounting to losses between $295-$430 billion for […]
Quarantines, closed borders, grounded airlines, crowded beaches … It may be a summer to forget, that we’ll always remember.
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Hello, Troglodyte Neighbor
I’ve shared photos before of a trip to central Turkey’s Göreme National Park, with its troglodyte cave-like dwellings and fairy chimney rock formations. Only recently did I dig up this image from a visit a few years earlier, and was reminded of how strange and powerful the landscape is.
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It’s A Water Buffalo’s Life
On the unpaved roads of inland Indonesia, this worker was relying on the strength of his water buffalo to bring building materials to a construction site. A couple of days later on the same trip, I would get to see some even less fortunate bovines, in an indigenous Toraja village.
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Not Quite Groundhog Day
I had to be quick to snap a photo of this little fellow in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, before it dashed back into its burrow. I’d always assumed it was a groundhog, like those I’m used to seeing in the French Alps. But looking at it now, I’m quite sure it’s a […]
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Unmistakably Austrian
When I was a young man, a major folklore festival came through my hometown in eastern France, with musicians and dancers in colorful costumes from all over Europe. Spotting this photo 58 years later, I knew right away what I didn’t know when I took it: this perfectly rotund tuba player almost certainly hailed from […]
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Storming The Lithuanian Castle
The red-brick Gothic castle on the Lithuanian island of Trakai looks like it’s straight out of a fairy tale. However the spell was broken when a full garrison of soldiers made their rowdy entrance in the courtyard.
The legendary composer — just 13 at the time — left Austria exactly 250 years ago for a lucrative but exhausting odyssey through the powerful Italian kingdoms and duchies of the day.
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Petra Peddlers From The Past
The woman and the boy in the foreground were walking toward the members of my guided tour to try to sell knick-knacks. There were only two of them selling souvenirs in front of the Royal Tombs, and my fellow visitors and I had the whole Petra site pretty much to ourselves — which I’m told […]
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Here Fly The Little Amazonian Birds
Le petit oiseau va sortir…! “Here flies the little bird!” is what we say in France when we want our subjects to pay attention and look at the camera. That time in Manaus, one of the gateways to the lush Brazilian rainforest, these vibrant orange birds didn’t fly away just long enough to get this […]
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India’s Most Photogenic Temple
Sure, there’s the Taj Mahal. But at this moment in the Jain temple of Ranakpur, in northwestern India, everything an amateur photographer like myself could ask for fell into place: the whiteness of the marble contrasting with the visitors’ colorful garments, the rays of sunlight gently filtering in, the symmetry of the architecture, the depth […]
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All Scallops Lead To Compostela
All across Europe, you may stumble, as my wife and I did many times, upon discreet scallop shell symbols: They mark the ancient “Camino de Santiago” routes that lead to the Christian shrine of the apostle Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The facade of the Casa de las Conchas in Salamanca is definitely […]
The fauna and flora of South Africa rank among the most impressive I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Near Durban in the east of the country, I caught them both on vivid display, as a tree filled with white ibis.
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Everything And The Kitchen Sink
Fish, fruit, pottery, an endless selection of drain pipes: the massive open-air markets were a vivid memory from the northern Brazilian city of Belem.
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A Turkish Camel’s Life
My clearest camel memory from this same trip to Turkey 30 years ago was witnessing the millennia-old tradition of camel wrestling. Just a few miles down the road, near the Ancient Greek site of Ephesus, this fellow was in the mood for nothing of the sort.
With many in the Northern Hemisphere now making their way back to the office, it’s time to share stories and rankings of our respective summer vacations. One question that always comes up: How crowded was it? Indeed, travels to popular foreign destinations continue to grow worldwide. In 2018, there were an estimated 1,4 billions international […]
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Home Is Where The Mailbox Is
Some 7,000 kilometers away from my neck of the woods in eastern France, Martinique feels like home. In this French overseas region in the Lesser Antilles, people speak French, pay in euros … but perhaps the most strikingly familiar feature is the unmistakably French yellow mailboxes across the island.
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The Gateway To Norway
Svolvaer is one of the first scenic stops upon entering the famous Lofoten archipelago of northern Norway. The fishing village, with its typical wooden red houses, offers a nice warmup to the insular (and chilly!) world of dramatic mountains and pristine bays.
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Not Sure About That Romanian Style
For a moment, the streets of Sibiu turned into a fashion show — and that woman didn’t seem too convinced by the man’s dress sense … Was it the traditional căciulă sheepskin hat, or something else?
There are millions of people who travel every year. But for some, exotic cultural exploration can lead to psychological trouble.
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The Missing Croatian Well
The “Five Wells Square” in the old Croatian city of Zadar is not a misnomer: For some reason, I could only squeeze four of them in that shot. Oh, well.
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Dry As A Sardinian Sculpture
These wrinkly clay busts were sitting in the backyard of a Sardinian sculptor’s workshop. With the sun on their grimacing faces, this felt like the right image to share today as temperatures broke records across my native France.
Mateo García Elizondo’s debut novel, which explores the limits of consciousness, marks his first steps on the literary path set by his grandfathers, two eminences of modern Spanish-language literature.
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Carthage Must (Not) Be Destroyed
Carthago delenda est. “Carthage must be destroyed.” As I was wandering the ruins of the ancient capital (near modern-day Tunis) I had Cato’s famous oratorical phrase stuck in my head … Clearly a remnant of my Latin-learning years!
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The Not-So-Zen Li River
There are things photographs capture well: the lush hills that flank the Li River, the fishermen on their frail-looking bamboo rafts, the strange rock formations you get to see along the way. But this moment remains in my memory for what you can’t see: my (mostly Chinese) fellow passengers on that cruise boat who seemed […]