Travel

Since 2017 when the Smithsonian Institution launched its first Earth Optimism Summit, marine biologist Nancy Knowlton notes that positive change is happening. “The price of renewable energy is cheaper than ever, electric vehicles are finally on the verge of taking off, and the world seems ready to protect 30 percent of its lands and water,” she says.

A New Surge of Earth Optimism Takes Center Stage at This Year's Folklife Festival

The challenges are many, but evidence shows that positivity emboldens global conservation efforts

View of the Space Needle and the Century 21 Exposition fairgrounds in Seattle in 1962

The Rise and Fall of World's Fairs

Sixty years after Seattle's Century 21 Exposition, world's fairs have largely fallen out of fashion in the U.S.

Puerto Rico's unofficial national dish usually consists of fried green plantains mashed with garlic, chicharrón (deep-fried pork skin) and cilantro.

Puerto Rico

A Brief History of Puerto Rico's Beloved Mofongo

And how you can make the hearty, 'crunchy-soft' meal

Emily Erdos, Harvard, Massachusetts, United States  A map is supposed to symbolize travel, discovery, and possibility, almost all of which COVID-19 has suppressed. I don’t know what comes next, or which metaphorical life turn to take during this time of perpetual uncertainty. As a friend once wrote to me, a map has a quality of authority: Follow the directions, stick to the rules, don’t digress, and you will get to where you want to go. In this time, we all tried to follow the rules, to follow the map, and yet we still got (or are getting) lost in a new normal.  But maps can encapsulate virtual as well as physical realities. They can symbolize home as much as “awayness.” For me, home is a place, but it’s also people. During the pandemic, those people have been spread across the globe, and my only connection to them is through a screen. So my map is a series of mini, virtual, people-centered maps. Knowing that the person behind each map has their own world and journey gives me comfort. Even more so knowing that those journeys, though currently only virtually connected, will physically intersect again someday.

This Pandemic Mapping Project Shows How Covid-19 Transformed Our Worlds

Hundreds of homemade maps reveal how people from around the globe found their ways through crisis

Detail of a carpet of flowers and colored sawdust in Antigua, Guatemala

Good News

This Guatemalan City Rolls Out Colorful Sawdust Carpets for Holy Week

The longstanding tradition brings a dazzling display to the streets of Antigua each spring

The four-day Smithsonian Craft Show opens April 20 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., offering the works of 120 artists (above: an array of offerings).

Nine Artists on What It Means to Create

Forty years of bringing critical attention to the nation's best-known makers in the arts is celebrated at this year's Smithsonian Craft Show

Bon Ami Mine is located in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, about 50 miles northeast of Asheville.

Black Lights Turn This North Carolina Mine Into a Psychedelic Wonderland

The Bon Ami Mine’s deposits of the mineral hyalite glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum has organized the exhibition, “Sarah & Eleanor Hewitt: Designing a Modern Museum,” focusing on the lives of its founders.

The Trailblazing Sisters Who Founded the Nation's First Woman-Led Museum

A new exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, tells the story of founders Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt

This mural outside of an outfitter's office illustrates the snaking mouth of Mosquito Bay.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico's Bioluminescent Bays Are Brighter Than Ever

The nightly light shows have rebounded from Hurricane Maria's devastating blow

An aerial view of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Explore the history, culture and natural wonders of the United States territory

Chinchorrear, or the act of hopping between multiple chinchorros to eat, drink and dance, has become an essential part of Puerto Rican culture.

Puerto Rico

The Lure of Puerto Rico's Chinchorros

Eating, drinking and dancing between food stalls has become a popular way to experience the island

A full-scale replica of Notre-Dame’s Truss 6 in Washington, D.C. last summer.

How to Rebuild Notre-Dame Using 12th-Century Tools

In Washington, D.C., an innovative team of designers demonstrated how medieval techniques could be used to repair the Parisian landmark

Left, the 19th-century Church of Santa Lucia, in Longiaru, in northern Italy. Right, the largely abandoned southern village of Pentedattilo.

How Italy Is Bringing Its Rustic Villages Back to Life

Take a photographic tour through the country's effort to revitalize its rural towns

A vessel nears the commercial wind farm 3.8 miles off the coast of Block Island.

Planet Positive

This Historic Community Is Pushing the Nation Toward a Wind Power Revolution

Block Island, off the New England coast, overcame political strife to lead the way on energy independence

A museum patron enjoys Yayoi Kusama's latest work, Infinity Mirrored Room—My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe (2018), where paper lanterns and dots endlessly multiply inside the chamber.

Art Sensation Yayoi Kusama Wraps Visitors in Polka Dots, Pumpkins and a World Without End

A new Infinity Mirror Room with its forever-repeating lights and imagery opens at the Hirshhorn with other works by the iconic artist

Eileen McSaveney (left) and Terry Tickhill (right) use a hand augur to drill Lake Vanda, Wright Valley, Antarctica, during the 1969-1970 field season. Water collected during this effort was used to date the lake.

Ten Pioneering Women of Antarctica and the Places Named for Them

These coves, peaks, glaciers and other landmarks honor female explorers and scientists who have contributed to our understanding of the continent

Marlon Brando confers with director Francis Ford Coppola during the filming on Mott Street of a scene for the movie The Godfather.

A Guide to 'The Godfather' Filming Locations in New York City

To mark the 50th anniversary of the award-winning movie, here are seven scene-setting sites worth a visit

For many behind the so-called anti-vax movement, faith is the ultimate protection. At an anti-shutdown rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a protester painted the hood of his truck with the motto “Jesus is my vaccine.”

What the History of Science and Religion Reveals About Today's Divisive Covid Debates

A new Smithsonian book and exhibition explores the ongoing conflicts and reconciliations between faith and technology in American life

A typical Making the Road trip to South Africa includes a visit to Soweto, a township outside of Johannesburg that was the site of anti-apartheid organizing and violence for years.

Tourism Gets a Refresh in the Hands of Activists Seeking to Decolonize the Industry

Operators practicing 'solidarity tourism' push back against travel that can be environmentally and socially destructive

"Fathering" is a theme of the show, (above: Father and Son at Lake Michigan, detail, by Wayne F. Miller, 1946-1948) as crucial experience and wisdom is provided by fathers, uncles, teachers and coaches. 

How Black Men Changed the World

A Smithsonian traveling exhibition powerfully dismantles corrosive myths with triumphant portraits and the stories of African American men

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