Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Travel

Heirloom tomatoes will star at the Sonoma Heirloom Tomato Festival this September at Kendall-Jackson Winery.

Great Food Festivals of the World

To sample the best foods and flavors of a region, head for a festival

Desolate wilderness surrounds the giant Lake Baikal, the deepest, oldest and most voluminous lake on earth.

Lake Baikal and More of the Weirdest Lakes of the World

Set deep within the Russian subcontinent, Baikal is the deepest, oldest and most voluminous of all lakes

Hot, handmade corn tortillas may be among the simplest and tastiest staple food items of the world. Here, the author presses out a batch.

Best Vegetarian Foods of the World

Traveling and eating abroad, many diners discover that the world is a vegetarian’s oyster

I Put Ice in My Wine Because You Don’t Serve it at the Right Temperature

Is there one perfect temperature to serve red or white wine? Perhaps not, but here are some good guidelines

“Night At The Museum” For Adults Lets You Sleep Over With Dinosaurs

London’s Natural History Museum is challenging adults to channel their inner child in an upcoming grown ups-only slumber party

Seemingly benign bovines and other livestock eat soybeans from the deforested tropics, emit clouds of methane, pollute streams and gobble up 30 percent of the world’s grain production. It makes one wonder whether the world might taste better without them.

Is the Livestock Industry Destroying the Planet?

For the earth’s sake, maybe it’s time we take a good, hard look at our dietary habits

None

Packing List Series, Part 2: An Artist’s Illustrated Guide

With a watercolor sketchbook guide, Adolf Konrad drew on his talents to record his belongings

A list of more great books to read while traveling

More Great Books and Where Best to Read Them

A continuation of last week’s list of the author’s favorite reads

None

Why the Idea of Killing Sharks to Make Waters Safer Is Absurd

The recent fatal shark attack off Western Australia has ignited a debate there over whether the fish should continue to be protected

Today’s the Shared Anniversary of Ruin Porn Poster Children Detroit, Machu Picchu

July 24th marks double jackpot for the intrepid explorers of years past as well for as fans of the latest photographic trend, “ruin porn.”

None

Great Books—and the Best Places to Read Them

Reading while traveling can serve as a sensory supplement to one’s surrounding environment. Here are some of my favorite books and where to read them

A pack of street dogs naps on a traffic island in Bucharest, Romania. In spite of a culling program, the animals swarm the streets—and occasionally maul residents and tourists.

Man’s Best Friend or the World’s Number-One Pest?

With perhaps 600 million strays skirmishing for food on the fringe of the human world, street dogs are a common element of travel just about everywhere

Square Tower House at Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde’s Mary Jane Colter Collection (But Don’t Call it That)

Among the treasures that will be on display when the park’s new museum opens later this year are 30 pieces donated by the legendary architect

None

Return of the King Salmon

In the ocean waters just off California’s Central Coast, the fish are swarming this summer like they haven’t in years

None

Packing List Series, Part 1: Joan Didion

In 1979, “The White Album” gave smart women a straightforward guide to what to bring on a trip

Figs are a great prize of roadside foragers—a fruit unwanted by many landowners and as available as it is delicious. The green figs shown here are desert kings, a variety that produces a large first crop in July.

Hungry? Pull Over. Here’s Your Guide to the Best Bets of Roadside Foraging

All along the roadways of America—and the world—there’s figs, avocados and wild berries ripe for the picking

Monticello’s kitchen

Meet Edith and Fanny, Thomas Jefferson’s Enslaved Master Chefs

Monticello research historian Leni Sorensen offers an impression of what life was like for these early White House chefs

Makana Mountain, Honolulu

Flower Children on the North Shore of Kauai

In the late 1960s, a gorgeous stretch of beach in Ha’ena State Park was the site of a hippy haven called Taylor Camp

None

The Tallest, Strongest and Most Iconic Trees in the World

Where to see the greatest trees in the world

Page 88 of 132