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Travel

The rusted three-story hubcap- and bicycle-based Cathedral of Junk was created by Vince Hannemann, a South Austin guy who decided his backyard was as good a place as any to build a cathedral.

Keeping it Weird in Austin, Texas

Aren’t the residents of the proudly hip city of Austin, Texas, just traditionalists at heart?

The mountain lion is one of the most common large cats but also one of the hardest to see.

Best Bets to See a Big Predator

Get your grizzlies, polar bears, big cats, wolves and crocs here

Packing light for the new year

Traveling Light in the New Year

Don’t overpack is a rule to live by. So why not declutter on New Year’s Eve

Climbers are now using Twitter from the slopes and summit of Mount Everest. Does that seem wrong?

Climbing Mount Everest in the Internet Age

Are people playing games while climbing the world’s tallest mountain? That’s hard to say, but they’re definitely texting

Pitcairn Island provided the mutineers of the Bounty a haven from the world in the 18th century. Today, it offers much the same—along with a general store, a cafe and 50 permanent residents.

Seven Islands to Visit in 2012

Pitcairn Island is populated by 50 people, has a handful of hostels, a general store and a café and, frankly, could really use a few visitors

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Christmas Shopping Around the World

Lamps at the Chiang Mai market

Christmas Shopping Around the World

There are valuable discoveries, but at a German Christmas market all I could find was Third World junk that only looks good if you drink a lot of gluhwein

Don’t be caught drinking until this Georgian man is done toasting.

Faux Pas: Mortifying Missteps of the Innocent Abroad

It was only weeks later that I learned what a klutz I’d been. It’s a miracle I wasn’t thrown to the bears

A game of chess on a fold-up travel board can break the ice between strangers in strange lands.

Holiday Gift Ideas for the Adventure Traveler

A chess set, soccer ball, bear spray and other items, even dog food, make the list of gifts to give your favorite hardened traveler

Sites like Brussels' Place du Jeu de Balle are featured in the new Tintin movie.

Tintin is Everywhere in Brussels

The famed comic book character, now a Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson film, is a nifty way to know the Belgian capital

In Nepal, the Lambrecht family of Sebastopol, California is loving life and local transport.

Have Kids, Will Travel

“We were travelers. It was in our blood, and the idea that we would ever stop traveling just because we had kids never sat well with us”

Amundsen at the South Pole, one hundred years ago today

The Path of Exploration

Felicity Aston, shown here in Iceland, is currently attempting cross Antarctica alone.

Farthest South: News from a Solo Antarctic Adventurer

Aston is in no-man’s land, where schedules and responsibility carry little relevance, but she is bound by one logistic: “I can’t miss the last plane out”

Arezzo, Italy

Five Hundred Years of Giorgio Vasari in Arezzo, Italy

Lutefisk is both a delicacy and a tradition among Scandinavian-Americans.

Scandinavians’ Strange Holiday Lutefisk Tradition

People in the Old Country won’t touch the stuff, but immigrants to the American Midwest have celebrated it for generations

The craze for collecting toy soldiers began with the French in the 18th century. In this scene, British foot soldiers attack a French officer.

The Great Battles of History, in Miniature

At a museum in Valencia, Spain, over one million toy soldiers stand at attention, prepared to reenact the wars that shaped the world

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The Most Pungent Prize: Hunting the Truffle

“As a journalist working on a story about truffles, it felt like risky business. There’s a lot of cash flowing around, there’s a black market”

The "Roo de Loo" in Paris

Julia Child in Paris

Though the American chef popularized French cuisine, she hasn’t yet received her due in the city she loved

“We want them to think, ‘maybe science is something I could do,’” coastal geoscientist Rob Young said of tribal youths, who took part in a camp focusing on the area’s spiritual heritage.

Preparing for a New River

Klallam tribal members make plans for holy ancestral sites to resurface after the unparalleled removal of nearby dams

Maui's Haleakala volcano and the rest of the Hawaiian Islands formed out of molten lava as the Pacific plate drifted over the hotspot as three to four inches a year.

What We’re Still Learning About Hawaii

The fiery forces beneath the island chain still mystify geologists

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