In between covering the National Guard’s impact on D.C. tourism, a small airline’s foray into deportation flights and a plane crash at our home airport, we ran plenty of fun stories in The Washington Post Travel section.
Our staff reporters and other correspondents took readers to the beach for Afrobeats, casual eats and surfing retreats in West Africa, Northern Spain and El Salvador.
We reported on the state of influencers and overdevelopment in Tulum, went to flight attendant school and boarded a Wings of Rescue flight that found new homes for shelter dogs. One of us went to Mecca.
We stopped to smell the bluebonnets outside Dallas, had fancy tea on a D.C. tour bus and took a mafia walking tour of New York. We went to the Diddy trial to see the circus.
It’s hard to pick favorites, but these 10 destinations left big impressions.
Albania
Reporter Natalie Compton set off for Albania to see if the Ionian Sea was as dazzling IRL as it looked on Instagram. Is this the solution for Europe’s overtourism problem?
Greenland
Interest in Greenland is spiking for both political and recreational reasons, putting pressure on the country’s budding tourist infrastructure. Reporter Andrea Sachs took a United flight from Newark to Nuuk to check it out, with a few hiccups along the way.
Space Camp
Reporter Hannah Sampson did the next-best thing to shooting into orbit: a sleepaway program at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
College football towns, USA
Collaborating with our friends in Sports, we set out to pick the 10 best college football towns in America, with a report on the ground from each one.
The original Hard Rock Cafe
With more than 150 cafes in over 70 countries, Hard Rock gives its devotees a lifetime of opportunities to visit a new location. Sachs reports on some of the superfans determined to see them all.
An Australian farmstay
A growing group of Australian farmers is investing in agritourism. It’s a method to bring visitors to regional and rural areas as much as it is an educational tool, sharing the journey from paddock — as it were — to plate. Reporter Riley Wilson and photographer Carolyn Van Houten went to see the kangaroos for themselves.
The Catskills
Cookbook author Alison Roman does not explicitly recommend Bloomville, New York — the home of her small grocery store, First Bloom — to her followers as a travel destination. But she did buy a house in the area. That was endorsement enough to inspire Compton’s trip to the Catskills.
Dyngus Day in Buffalo
Buffalo native Leigh Giangreco invited us to the biggest Polish party in Buffalo. If Mardi Gras is a Catholic’s last chance for decadence before 40 days of abstinence, Dyngus Day breaks the fast with a parade, pierogi and plenty of polka music.
A heavy metal cruise
Photographer Louie Palu rocked out for four days aboard the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, sailing round-trip from Miami to Jamaica with 60 bands and wave upon wave of headbangers.
The Queen Mary 2
Comic artist Christine Mi spent seven nights on a transatlantic voyage aboard the last grand ocean liner of its kind. She only lost her mind a little bit.
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