Smart News: Travel News & Tips | Smithsonian Magazine

NASA photo of the eastern United States confirms it’s really, really cold out there

February 23, 2015

Row houses in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago

The sites include a historic neighborhood in Chicago, a former internment camp in Hawaii and a canyon in Colorado

February 19, 2015

Last year broke records with over 292 million visits

February 19, 2015

Climbers in the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest.

Nepal announces that the Khumbu Icefall, where 16 sherpa were killed last year, is now off-limits

February 19, 2015

New Research

Only 1 in 4 Americans Would Take a Free Space Flight

Americans are still skeptical about some aspects of space travel

February 18, 2015

Robert Sorlie and his team during the 2005 Iditarod race

Instead of starting in Willow, Alaska, this year, the race will start 300 miles north in Fairbanks

February 12, 2015

New Research

Tourist Trash Has Changed the Color of Yellowstone’s Morning Glory Pool

Researchers have found proof of what caused a hot spring’s drastic color modification—it’s people, of course

February 12, 2015

Cool Finds

These Bells Play Seismic Shifts

Watch as UC Berkeley’s bells play the earth’s “natural frequencies”

February 10, 2015

Cards Against Humanity now owns a private island in Maine.

Cool Finds

Cards Against Humanity Has a Private Island

“Hawaii 2” started as a joke, turned into an island owned by the card game and licensed to its players

February 6, 2015

Hikers in the North Cascade mountains of Washington, on the Pacific Crest Trail

Only 50 people per day will be allowed to start thru-hikes from the southern terminus

February 5, 2015

The USSR is alive and well in a bunker in Lithuania.

Cool Finds

This Fake Gulag Will Let You Pretend the Soviets Are Still in Power

Barking dogs, harsh guards and brutal imprisonment in a bunker where the USSR never fell

February 5, 2015

New Research

The Taj Mahal Gardens Have a Special Relationship to the Solstice

On the day the sun climbs the highest in the sky, careful alignments within the gardens and buildings of the beautiful mausoleum appear

February 3, 2015

Yosemite National Parks "carnivore crew" spotted this rare Sierra Nevada red fox with a motion-sensitive camera.

Cool Finds

For the First Time in Almost a Century, a Rare Red Fox Was Seen at Yosemite

Cameras and “hair snares” could preserve a threatened Sierra species

January 29, 2015

It took just three weeks for Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgensen to make free-climbing history

January 15, 2015

One of many abstract images of the Moon collected by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Cool Finds

These Photos From a Lunar Orbiter Could Be Abstract Art

Our distant view of the Moon from Earth is nice, but these close-ups are amazing

January 14, 2015

Cool Finds

Come for the Giant Rock, Stay for the UFO History

George Van Tassel believed he could communicate with aliens

January 9, 2015

Two athletes are halfway through an impressive 32-pitch climb up El Capitan’s Dawn Wall

January 5, 2015

An Indonesian Air Force troops looks for AirAsia flight QZ8501 in the Karimata Strait.

The year saw a few prominent disasters, but 2014 was, unfortunately, nothing out of the ordinary

December 29, 2014

Cool Finds

Never Mind Mars, What About a Trip to Venus First?

There’s a serious proposal to send astronauts to a floating cloud city in Venus’s atmosphere before heading to Mars

December 23, 2014

Cuban Fruit peddlers stopped along Malecon Sea drive in Havana, to peddle their wares: Mangos, melons, and pineapples. March 30, 1949,

The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1960

December 17, 2014

Smart News / Smart News Travel