Perfectly Awesome

Every winter, Ivrea erupts into a ferocious three-day festival where its citizens pelt one another with 900 tons of oranges. (Yes, oranges.)

In September 2022, after watching many YouTube videos of other people on long-distance Amtrak trips, I finally embarked on a journey of my own. I took the Amtrak Southwest Chief train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Continue reading to learn more about it and why I'll do it again on another route.

The explorer’s grandfather travelled higher than anyone; his father went deeper. Now it was his turn to make a mark.

In December, a photographer set off on a 2,600-mile road trip, traveling from the Yemeni border to the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what she saw.

The stretch of coastline in southwest Africa is a strange and beautiful reminder that, in the end, we are powerless against nature and time.

From ancient Egypt to the Persian Empire, an ingenious method of catching the breeze kept people cool for millennia. Now, it could come to our aid once again.

West Berlin's lifeline during the Soviet Blockade, Tempelhof Airport has since become the city’s biggest park. Berliners will fight to keep it that way.

Climate change is bringing tourism and tension to Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

Up, up, and away!

How a group of nonresident homeowners tried to influence a rural Colorado election.

Colombia is on a mission to make sense of its rich biodiversity, isolated thanks to years of war. For researchers, it is a golden opportunity – and a breathtaking adventure.

The best place to eat in Germany is in a little village in a forest.

For decades, the Old Forge was the holy grail of the British outdoors community. The UK's remotest pub, it could only be reached via boat or a three-day walk through one of Britain's last true wildernesses, the Knoydart peninsula in Scotland. A dispute between some locals and a new owner threatened the legend—until they decided to open up a pub of their own.

To be an off-season caretaker of Bodie, California (winter population: 5), you need a high tolerance for cold, solitude, and two-hour grocery runs.

The town hasn't yet become the promised global-trade nexus. Nonetheless the shopping zone has lured entrepreneurs hoping to get rich and shoppers trying to get a bargain.

Step into the private kitchens of Basque country’s sociedades gastronómicas, where everything revolves around food

Delicate and impossible to replicate, su filindeu (or the “threads of God”) is a pasta made of hundreds of tiny strands by a single woman in a hillside town in Sardinia. She’ll make it for you too—if you’re willing to walk 20 miles overnight

These desert libraries have been around for centuries and they hold sacred texts from ancient times.

Last winter, Moroccan officials found two hikers dead on the trail to the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains. The international investigation that followed revealed the fragility of the adventure travel economy, as well as what happens when a small tourist hub is suddenly made strange by violence.

Nomads have been central to the country’s history for centuries. Anthony Sattin joins the roaming empire

The legend of the Sourtoe Cocktail continues.

In 1765, an English explorer gave two islands a rather unfortunate name that has sheltered them from the world and preserved one of Earth’s last paradises.

For the past 100 years, a box of never-before-seen negatives has been preserved in a block of ice in Antarctica. Recently, Conservators of the New Zealand

Greed, gringos, diesel, drugs, shamans, seaweed, and a disco ball in the jungle.

An insider's guide to the riads of Morocco—and whether they're right for you.

Careening through the desert, a massive railway sustains life in northwest Africa

Surveying muskoxen in the Russian far north.

In Wonder Valley, the silence makes its own kind of noise. And Twentynine Palms makes its own kind of music.