While most of us in North America sweat our way through a late-June heat wave, the ski resorts south of the equator are getting buried with snow—so much snow that one ski area has delayed its opening day for a second time. Chile’s is sitting pretty with a total of 198 inches of snow on the year so far—two inches shy of its 200-inch average seasonal snowfall—before the resort has officially opened.

Originally scheduled to kick off the season the weekend of June 20, the resort located about a two-hour drive from Santiago received over 100 inches of snow leading up to opening day, forcing it to postpone to June 26. Another winter storm taking aim on the Andes this week has again compelled the resort to push the start of the season again, this time to June 29.

Suffice it to say that Portillo skiers will be able to celebrate the start of the 75th anniversary season with a much-anticipated powder day.

Ìę Ìę Ìę ÌęRelated:

The nascent 2024 South American winter has been eventful, to say the least. In May, several ski areas were able to due to generous early-season snow. Before the calendar was even flipped to June, resorts including Chile’s Valle Nevado, El Colorado, and La Parva began spinning lifts thanks to winter storms that brought 4 to 6 feet of snow. Argentina’s Cerro Catedral, at the country’s southern tip, saw a stunning eight feet of snow in mid-May.

And Las Leñas, set near the Argentinean city of Mendoza, got so much snow that its access road has been completely buried. was supposed to host a pre-opening celebration on June 20, but too much snow made that impossible. The resort will now open for the season on June 29 with a at its 11,000-foot summit.

All of this early-season bounty could equate to one of the longest seasons in recent history for South America’s mountain resorts. While they typically begin to wind down in September, a deep base could stretch winter through the better part of October—just long enough for the flakes to fly here in North America once again.

We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it a little louder for the folks in the back: If a ski trip to the resorts of the Andes sounds appealing, this might be the summer to heed the call. There hasn’t been an early season quite like this in recent memory, and our dollar goes pretty far down there. What’s more, Portillo is offering 15 percent off stays before July 26 for a traditional ski week, which includes lift tickets, accommodations, and meals. For the special offer, email reservations@skiportillo.com.

Check out SKI’s for the down-low on the must-visit resorts, the best times to go, how to get there, and more travel intel.

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Picture the Peruvian Andes: rugged peaks, 16,000-foot passes, remote landscapes, and adventure opportunities abound. But for two ambitious bikepackers, the area’s allure was about more than just its natural beauty. When athlete and photographer and endurance athlete and documentarian decided to traverse the Qhapaq Ñan from La Paz, Bolivia, to Cusco, Peru, they were following a desire to learn more about the locals and themselves. Over 37 days, the pair was immersed in heritage, culture, and history—an experience they agree was thanks to the slow simplicity of bikepacking. Here’s their take on the experience.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: What is the Qhapaq Ñan, and what inspired you to bikepack it?

Leonardo Brasil: I was born and raised in Brazil and was lucky to have lived in Colorado, USA, for ten years before moving back to my hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Since I never owned a vehicle, I found my passion for bikepacking while living abroad as a natural evolution of my curiosity to experience different cultures and see places. Exploring South America, the continent that I’m from, was the next obvious step. My goal was to understand a bit more about our Hispanic neighbors—since Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country over there—and to experience their way of life both as a human on this earth and as a photographer and storyteller.

Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz Mesa: Translated from Quechua, the “Royal Road” once united all Andean communities from Colombia to Chile in an intricate road system of more than 18,600 miles. Constructed by the Incas over several centuries—and partly based on pre-Inca infrastructure—this extraordinary network navigates one of the world’s most extreme geographical terrains. It links the snowcapped peaks of the Andes—at an altitude of more than 19,600 feet—to the coast. Along the way, it runs through hot rainforests, fertile valleys, and absolute deserts. In 2014, it became an UNESCO World Heritage site. As a bikepacker and documentarian, I wanted to celebrate this rich history and to celebrate this part of my identity and ancestry in a way that made sense to me.

What was your favorite experience on the Qhapaq Ñan?

Leonardo: For the most part, locals speak Aymara in the mountains of Bolivia and Quechua in Peru, and Spanish is their second language—just as is mine. Being able to share a bit about my life with the people I met and to learn about their culture in return was an invaluable experience. One particular moment comes to mind: It was around day ten, when we left Sorata and began the long climb on the Ruta de las Tres Cordilleras. We arrived at a town called Pocobaya around 4 p.m.—around when we normally began looking for a camp. We asked a local if we could camp on their soccer field. A few hours later, after we had set up our tent, all the kids began to show up to investigate us. They were curious about everything—our bikes, our tent, how we made food on our tiny stoves, and why I “didn’t talk properly.” But one common interest united us all: soccer.

Adam: One of my favorite experiences on the Qhapaq Ñan was about two weeks into the journey. We happened upon a few ranchers with their alpaca near the small village of Inca Capaturi. I noticed from afar that they were appearing to be shearing the fur of the animals. Eventually, we realized that they were actually processing the animals, right there in an open field. Curious, I wanted to engage, but since we were in such a remote area, we approached cautiously. It ended up being a family endeavor, and everyone welcomed us into the experience. Nelson, one of the ranchers, shared that in this part of the world, the natives save the blood of the animals and, later on, pour the blood at the entrance of the mines to bless passage and bring good luck to the miners.

How did you select your kits for such a long bikepacking expedition?Ìę

Leonardo: We carefully chose each piece of our gear with two important qualifications in mind: the durability to withstand the abuse of a monthlong traverse in desolated territory and the versatility to adapt to the ever-changing weather we expected to face at 16,000 feet. We carried very light cycling kits. For clothes, we relied on essential pieces:

• : Soft, breathable, and quick-drying, this hoodie was perfect for everyday wear.
• : Made from a breathable softshell fabric, these shorts delivered all-day comfort with thigh venting zips for further ventilation and saddle reinforcements for durability.
• : These packable waterproof biking pants offered unmatched comfort in the saddle and reliable protection whenever the weather would turn.
• : Insulated with 700 fill power 100 percent recycled down, this reliably warm jacket was the perfect layer for nights at camp.

We also carried the for comfortable warmth in the varying high-alpine conditions. Here’s a video of on our expedition.

Along your journey, what was the greatest challenge you faced, and how did you overcome it?

Adam: Our greatest challenge was the injury I endured at nearly 17,000 feet. About 30 miles from the finish of our planned route and just after summiting a rocky mountain pass, I crashed. We bundled up at the top as it began to hail. We were excited for a large descent after eight hours of pushing our bikes uphill. Leonardo was ahead of me as I photographed from behind. I excitedly started riding after him but quickly lost control and clipped a large boulder to my right. In an attempt to correct, I pulled the bike left and immediately flipped over my handlebars, landing in a field of scree—my left wrist absorbing the impact. I heard a crack, and a surge of pain radiated through my whole body. Leonardo rushed to me. And as we began to investigate, we realized that I had fractured my wrist. Over the next 48 hours, we pushed our bikes to the nearest path-turned-road until we arrived at a town that offered a bus to Cusco.

What advice would you give to someone who’s interested in planning a similar adventure?

Leonardo: Be open-minded. Things are not going to go as planned—they rarely do—and the best approach anyone could have in these situations is to adapt and move on. What would you do if you slash your tire beyond repair in the middle of nowhere on the fifth day of a monthlong expedition? What would you do if you unexpectedly ride for six days without finding a single tienda to resupply and you are running dangerously low on food? What would you do if your partner crashes and breaks his arm at nearly 16,000 feet and the next town is a day away? You can’t plan for all possible scenarios, and you need to be okay with that. That’s the beautiful nature of adventure.

Adam: Set an intention, but similar to Leonardo’s advice, remain flexible. The fuel for these adventures is the desire to learn more about yourself and the world around you. With that in mind, the “destination” or “goal” is rather flexible. As long as you grow from the experience, it’s a win in my book.

More than 40 years since our founding, continues to find inspiration in the untamed spirit of the mountains where we climb, the friendships we forge on the peak, and our enduring mission: to grow our community of mountain people and equip them for adventure.

We are committed to putting people at the heart of what we do. From our partners and athletes to our staff and everyone who has used and loved our gear, we are a global community that goes beyond mountains and crags, and it’s up to us to make sure it’s inclusive, diverse, and growing.

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The map that has become a meme first began arriving in text messages, emails, and social media tags at least four years ago. Maybe you’ve seen it online, too—a Google Maps screenshot of the globe with a blue line that curves nearly 14,000 miles northward from Cape Town, South Africa to Magadan, Russia, arcing like a launched rocket through zones of extreme geopolitical turmoil. It is, allegedly, “the world’s longest continuous walk,” a fact I’ve never bothered to vet despite the dozens of friends who’ve sent it my way. I’m not very interested.

It’s true that I love walking long distances, whether that means going from Mexico to Canada via the Pacific Crest Trail or traversing entire states like Florida and Arizona a month at a time. But for me, hiking is a means to an end, never the end itself. I don’t want to walk the longest continual path so much as the most impactful ones, the ones that show me nature and beauty, myself and others, the present and especially the past from some surprising vantage. I suppose this viral trek would do the trick, but I’m not sure if it’s the best or most efficient way to encounter the unexpected I crave, at least compared to these ten hikes I’m determined to do in my time.

Rakiura Track, New Zealand

Distance: 20 miles
Time to Tackle: Three days
Terminus: Near Oban

Look at a map of Te Araroa, a 1,900-mile path that splits both the North and South Islands horizontally. Notice the dot of land just beneath the trail’s southern terminus? That’s Stewart Island, or , home to an eponymous national park and perhaps the most enticing of New Zealand’s ten Great Walks: the Rakiura Track. Kiwis take “tramping” seriously, devoting so many public resources to developing, protecting, and maintaining their routes that Americans can only be envious—or at least visit. Consider the Rakiura, which winds along near a series of bays and inlets (head out at night to look for kiwi feeding) and heads into forests of towering rimu. Enjoy three days of slow walking and reverie on isolated beaches, and choose from multiple huts (think Appalachian Trail shelters, but sturdy and clean) and campsites, ranging from $5 to $60 per night. And while I do love hiking in ankle-deep mud, officials work hard to curb the bog’s creep by packing down the trail. Thanks to flipped hemispheres, you’ll want to trek Rakiura—or tack it onto the Te Araroa—between October and March, when stateside hiking opportunities dwindle.

Greater Patagonian Trail, Chile and Argentina

Distance: 1,900 miles
Time to Tackle: A lifetime
Termini: Santiago, Chile (north), and Navarino Island, Chile (south)

I often lament that much of my hiking life happens on established trails, following routes that can be navigated via maps on apps. But what would it be like to really explore, to feel the frontier of modern adventure? For the next several years, the Greater Patagonian Trail should provide some answers. Dreamed up by German engineer Jan Dudeck and his dauntless Chilean wife Meylin Ubilla over almost two decades, the GPT, despite its name, is less a trail than a confederation of cattle paths, tiny roads, and otherwise unmarked expanses that you must make your own way through. Sure, the Pan-American Highway and Chile’s Route of Parks can guide you deep into some of the least developed parts of the planet, but no journey questions and expands the philosophical underpinnings of hiking quite like this one does. Can you negotiate your way through private land in Spanish? Can you slow down and embrace local culture and astounding beauty without feeling the American compulsion to finish, let alone finish fast? Can you accept failure, the most common GPT outcome, as a variety of success? With its stunning diversity of terrain and dependence on diplomacy, the GPT might be my ultimate trail—the one that, when I’m ready to commit, could be my final trek. Good thing Dudeck and Ubilla have yet to settle on its ends.

Ocean to Lake Trail, Florida

Distance: 61 miles
Time to Tackle: Four days
Termini: Lake Okeechobee (west) and Hobe Sound Beach (east)

I’m cursed to be a completist. The trait becomes arduous with through-hiking, where the desire to finish every side jaunt quickly piles on the miles. If hiking is partly about minimizing what you need, maybe I can learn to let completeness go, too? Some winter soon, I’ll head south to the Ocean to Lake Trail, a fee-free, west-east offshoot of the 1,200-mile Florida Trail, a playground of swamps and sand, cypresses and pines. The Florida Trail is as fun and uncanny as American through-hiking gets, but it’s also a monthlong negotiation with alligators and grotesque, blistered feet. This sampler offers plentiful campsites, nearby restaurants (it’s South Florida—always go to the Mexican spot), and cell service, so you can post trail pics for your adoring masses to enjoy. Although Florida is infamous for ceaseless strip malls and ostentatious development, its woods and wetlands remain among the wildest places in the U.S. This lush little corridor proves it.

Route K, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Distance: 11 miles
Time to Tackle: Five hours
Terminus: Entrance Station 1

To glimpse —a chain of sapphire and emerald jewels cut into karst and connected by streams, many of them subterranean—is to wonder whether you’ve wandered into an AI-generated simulacrum of natural beauty. Not only are these gems at the core of Croatia’s oldest national park, but you can see many of them during day hikes on a network of serpentine trails. The longest one, Route K, is a circuit among the lower and upper lakes; it spools around the awe-inspiring Jezero Kozjak, like a Lake of the Ozarks retouched in Photoshop, and leads you across a series of boardwalks—ideal platforms to take in an unbelievable panorama of verdant forests, towering waterfalls, cascading seeps, and sprawling tufa embankments. Despite the place’s popularity (it’s affordable, and a quick trip from the Adriatic Sea, which separates this coastline from Italy), wolves, black bears, and wildcats prowl the landscape, a rarity in Europe. There’s a nominal entrance fee; otherwise, you’re free to roam.

Backbone Trail, California

Distance: 67 miles
Time to Tackle: Three to five days
Termini: Point Mugu (west) and Will Rogers State Historic Park (east)

Tell people you hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and they’ll wonder how many times you saw the ocean. (Answer: zero.) So here’s your chance to admire the big blue expanse from several thousand feet above Los Angeles. zigs and zags across the Santa Monica Mountains, just north of the lavish homes of Malibu, before descending to coastal coves. Slicing through a rare safeguarded stretch of Mediterranean ecosystem, this is arguably the country’s most anomalous trail—public land with ocean views, in an area where private interests buy up every scrap of acreage. During the pandemic, the Backbone became a hot spot on the fastest-known-time circuit, with runners racing it in ten hours. Assuming you’re not pursuing such a record, know that campsites are infrequent. So have a friend pick you up at day’s end, or recruit a guide via the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council to lead you and secure lodging, though it could cost upwards of $500. Otherwise, if night sets in and you’re out of options, you’ll need to burrow in among the chaparral; if anyone asks, you’re from Calabasas.

Chilkoot Trail, Alaska

Distance: 33 miles
Time to Tackle: Two to five days
Termini: Dyea, Alaska (south), and Bennett Lake, British Columbia (north)

From battlefield paths to Appalachian gaps, I love historic trails—journeys that foster a visceral connection with the past in ways books can’t. Exemplary in that regard is the , a Tlingit trade route across the Coast Mountains that bustled with prospectors racing from Alaska into Canada’s Yukon during the Klondike gold rush. Officials weighed their gear just below Chilkoot Pass to ensure that they were bringing enough food and supplies for the expedition ahead. Remnants of this American avarice litter the trail, which, if you’re heading south to north, climbs from a gold-rush ghost town to the Canadian border before descending to mountain-bound Bennett Lake. (“The world’s longest museum,” the National Park Service calls it.) You’ll need a permit ($60) to overnight at the many otherwise free campgrounds. The trail’s international border was closed in 2022, and the trail itself was damaged by floods in October, though the entire thing is expected to reopen in August of this year. If you want to attempt the entire trek, double-check the status before you start—you’re here for a Klondike gold bar, after all.

For more ideas on spectacular Alaska hiking, check out our recommendations in The Best Places to Visit in the U.S.

Trans-Bhutan Trail, Bhutan

Distance: 250 miles
Time to Tackle: 35 days
Termini: Haa (west) and Trashigang (east)

Apart from their traditional uses, historic trails fascinate me because they often involve a renaissance story that occurred long after they were supplanted by train tracks or highways. Case in point: the , used by royal couriers, soldiers, and religious pilgrims for half a millennium before parallel road construction led to disuse and disrepair in the 1950s. Last September, the eastern Himalayan nation reopened the route after substantial fixes by a small army of trail builders. Few places in the world offer an experience of a culture this distinct, especially on foot. When Bhutan, a Buddhist and matrilineal society, opened its borders to tourists in 1974, it revealed rich folklore, verdant expanses of uncut forests, and ornate temples and fortresses tucked into cliffside crags. As you make your way across sweeping valleys, through cramped passes, and into welcoming villages, you can look forward to sharing hearty meals like ema datshi—a stew of cheese and chilies—with the people who made them. The Trans-Bhutan Trail strings together such experiences (along with possible sightings of red pandas, Bengal tigers, and Asiatic black bears) like an ancient charm necklace. Save up, though, since a local guide is required. A five-day trek through a remarkable section near Paro is just $375, but a through-hike will run you around $20,000—cheaper at least, and less clichĂ©, than an attempt on Mount Everest.

Sinai Trail, Egypt

Distance: 340 miles
Time to Tackle: 50 days
Termini: Serabit el-Khadim (west) and Ras Shaitan (east)

“How many trails do you have left?” friends always ask. But how can I reach the proverbial trail’s end when new ones appear every year? To wit, in 2015 three Bedouin tribes on Egypt’s storied Sinai—the land bridge between Africa and Asia—banded together to introduce an amazing 140-mile route from the Red Sea to the country’s highest summit, 8,600-foot Gabal Katrine. With proof of concept and new revenue bolstering a region not frequented by tourists, organizers soon got five more tribes on board and expanded the trail by 200 miles. The Sinai traces an austere desert landscape beneath massive skies. What’s out there? Tiny chapels and abandoned mines, Martian-like rock outcroppings and near tropical oases, serrated mountains and slot canyons. Due to local custom, and an attempt to create an economic boom in an area that sees few of them, you’ll hike with Bedouin guides, your gear and water ferried by camels that, yes, you can ride. Each of the four sections takes about a dozen days to complete and costs a little over a grand, an absolute bargain in the realm of international accompanied treks. The first official through-hike is set for autumn 2023 with local outfitter . While the trip is high on my list, it’s going to have to wait, because terrorism remains a threat in the region; at press time the U.S. government advised against travel in the Sinai. Check with the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs before you book.

Hayduke Trail, Utah and Arizona

Distance: 812 miles
Time to Tackle: Two months
Termini: Arches National Park (east) and Zion National Park (west), both in Utah

George Washington Hayduke is the justifiably spiteful hero of Edward Abbey’s , a comical, canonical manifesto of guerrilla environmental resistance. I have a suspicion Hayduke would approve of now bearing his name. An unsanctioned route that rambles across the mighty sandstone mesas, canyons, and monoclines of the lower Colorado Plateau, the Hayduke traverses public land, including five national parks. With its river crossings, treacherous descents, barely-there pathway, dearth of resupply options, and general water scarcity, it may be the most demanding trek in America. The commensurate beauty, however, is a testament to the no-guts-no-glory credo that compelled Hayduke (and maybe got him killed). At least it’s free, as Hayduke would have wanted. This is the trail I most covet, but even as I near 10,000 total miles on foot, I don’t know that I’m ready yet. My motto, should the time come: Prepare to go through hell to see the Southwest’s heaven.

Olomana Trail, Oahu

Distance: 4.4 miles
Time to Tackle: Four hours
Termini: Olamana Ridge Trailhead (north) and Ahiki (south)

The City of Honolulu recently posted a pair of signs at the famed Olomana Trailhead in eastern Oahu, but these weren’t a polite guide to trail etiquette. “Six people have fallen to their deaths after hiking past the first peak,” read the top placard, a stern preamble to a second sign listing the dates and locations of the accidents. The trail, just ten miles from the capital, is part of the island’s incredible free recreational network—which is to say that, despite the signs, you can legally hike it. But it’s worth considering whether you’re up for the challenge. Named for the first of three steep and narrow summits, linked by a short but harrowing path lined with guide ropes, Olomana is one of the most polarizing trails in the U.S. It’s trumpeted by adrenaline junkies, who also champion the sweeping coastline views that such extreme exposure allows, but scorned by those who see it as a potentially fatal magnet for YouTube bros. Maybe it’s both.

Map It

Nothing gets us excited about a hike more than a good map

And there’s no better backcountry map out there than Gaia GPS. For the ten hiking routes featured here—many of them in places where cell service may be nonexistent and advanced beta on terrain and logistics could be a lifesaver—you can download detailed Gaia GPS trail maps for offline use, so you always find your way. Gaia Topo’s interactive maps set the standard for clarity and detail, and help you locate campgrounds, scenic overlooks, water sources, and summits. Precise weather forecasts are available by tapping the map, and you can leave a breadcrumb trail of your progress, in case you want to take that detour to a waterfall and still find your way back. Once you’re home again, relive the whole experience in 3D on . Bonus: șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ members get access to all these routes—and millions more trails worldwide—along with Gaia GPS’s safety tools, giving them everything they need to get after it with confidence. (Disclosure: Gaia GPS is owned by șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc., which also owns șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine.) —Tasha Zemke

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Envision a well-known band and the slosh-fest that typically ensues on tour. The traveling circus would include flowing booze, folding tables lined with greasy grub, and a revolving door of trippy characters getting lit backstage all night.

Well, that’s not how rolls. Formed in Sydney in 2010 and composed of the singer-guitarist Tyrone Lindqvist, keyboardist Jon George, and drummer James Hunt, the alternative electronic music trio has a touring regimen that is about as disciplined and health-centric as it gets. It wasn’t always that way, but things changed three years ago.

Today the group is at a career peak. In 2021, RĂŒfĂŒs du Sol’s latest album, Surrender, topped charts globally, and in 2022, its anthemic jam “Alive” took home the Grammy Award for best dance recording. As of late April, the guys have again, playing in Colombia and sites including Monterrey and Mexico City, Mexico; then major festivals in Europe; and, starting August 1, seven stops in the United States at locations ranging from Boston to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The heart of the tour, the group’s curated festival , scheduled to run May 4-7 and 11-14 outside San JosĂ© del Cabo, Mexico, will bring artists like DJ Tennis, Carlita, WhoMadeWho, and Dixon for two weekends of jams and health-minded options like yoga, meditation, and breath work.

RĂŒfĂŒs Du Sol has a vibe that can span two worlds. Its indie-electro beats with deep house undertones are a soundtrack for a head-bobbing, feel-good night at a dark club—but also, as I recently experienced during a multi-day trek in the Great Smoky Mountains, a cloudless hike in a pine-clad national park. The music is that adaptable and infectious.

In April just before the tour commenced, I sat down with the three band members, who Zoomed in from Austin, Texas, to talk travel and wellness, including their favorite spots, highlights from the road, and Frisbee golf.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: You’ve been touring for more than a decade. How has your regimen evolved?

James: We’ve made some really good changes, just to make things more healthy, more sustainable, and we want to come out of a tour feeling fitter than when we go into it. It used to be the other way around. We’ve brought in a lot of structure, wellness practices, and breath work. We do ice baths when we can after each show, we take ginger shots before we go onstage, we’re working out, and we have a trainer touring with us. So we have a really good sense of routine built into touring now.

What sparked it?

Tyrone: We’d been touring pretty hard. We’ve been a band for 13 years now, and we made a bit of a switch three or four years ago. Things got busier the more successful we got. We had success in Australia, then the U.S. Things were getting more exciting and the tour schedule more intensive, and we were writing at the same time. The balance of health and wellness with working was definitely not where we wanted it to be.

COVID, in some ways, was kind of a big gift for our mindset. It forced us to stop touring and gave us the opportunity to reconnect. We were actually in Joshua Tree [in Southern California], starting the writing process for Surrender, and we got to process a bunch of stuff that we hadn’t really talked about. We were trying out different things like meditating, exercising as a unit, doing saunas and little cold plunges. And we were building a structured work environment, where we would work for eight hours instead of working till an idea was done. We shifted and gave ourselves a clock-in and clock-out. It brought up a lot of fear and anxiety, like, Are we going to be able to make music like before without working around the clock? But we’ve made it.

Surely there have been some crazy workouts and wellness experiences over the years. Do any stick out in your mind?

James: Well, we just did one about two hours ago here in Austin. Our trainer put us through a pretty brutal leg session. There’s a sense of camaraderie of getting through that intensity together. It breeds a good sort of bonding. You’re lifting each other up.

Jon: One of those memories for me was the last Sundream Baja festival. We weren’t staying in a fancy hotel, but on-site [the venue is between the beaches and desert], which was really cool, with all the energy going on. We had a trainer there again, and we were in the back of one of the villas and just all trained really hard together, sweating it out in such a beautiful setting.

How do you recover after a long tour?

James: There’s always an adjustment period after so much overstimulation. You’re going between different environments, traveling, playing shows with tens of thousands of people, and having a pretty strict exercise routine. That adjustment always takes a few days, but it definitely helps to do some of the same wellness activities that we do on the road. And I always find that doing cold therapy, like the ice plunge, is a really good way to regulate.

For this tour, is there a particular place you’re really looking forward to exploring?

Tyrone: I’m pretty excited to go to Monterrey, in Mexico. We’ve never been there, and my wife’s father’s family is from there.

Jon: Yeah, I’d say Monterrey and Guadalajara [also in Mexico] are up there, along with Medellín [Colombia].

Let’s touch on tours past. What is your favorite place to play and why?

Tyrone: Recently, we went home to Australia and played a bunch of shows. I definitely have a newfound respect and appreciation for Australian crowds and being in Australia, especially having lived over in the U.S. for many years [with a home base in L.A.]. I missed the food for sure. Red Rocks [amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado] is up there. We’ve played there a lot and it has so much history. It’s just so stunning.

Jon: Red Rocks is an amazing experience from the stage. You’re looking up at the crowd rather than down, and they seem so close. It has a very special energy.

Is there a particular activity you’ve really enjoyed while on the road?

James: In 2016, just after we put Bloom out, we had tour dates through the summer, and we discovered Frisbee golf—this game we’d never heard of. We’d be playing [where we had] shows in places like Michigan and Colorado in the beautiful summer weather. We became obsessed—it is a pretty sick way to see different parts of the country.Ìę

Any specific place in the U.S. you enjoy?

Jon: Austin is pretty great. It was one of the first places we played in the U.S. Every time we come here, everyone is so nice. We’ve spent some time rehearsing here at the start of a tour, did South by Southwest, and spent about a week. Everything is just so fresh here.

James: During the pandemic, me and Jon and a bunch of our friends went to Big Sky Country—Montana—because we couldn’t go back to Australia. We had a sort of Friends’ Christmas, and that was sick. The mountain ranges in the U.S. are just unparalleled.

Looking ahead, what is it you want out of a travel experience?

Tyrone: I’m really looking for family-experience travel. I’ve really gotten the experience of seeing new places, having new memories, and eating new cuisines with the guys, and I’ve cherished that. I’m looking forward to a version of that with my wife and son in the future, too.

James: I definitely love meeting people in different parts of the world, connecting with people who live there or someone who’s been there for a little while, the people who know the places to eat and the local hole-in-the-wall spots.

Jon: We’ve developed a lot of friends all over the world while touring, so it’s really cool to be able to have that inside knowledge and a more local experience in different places. But I also love that there is still so much more to see.

Jesse Scott resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and covers the intersection of travel, food, and music. He’s interviewed Metallica, The Killers, and Steve Aoki, and written about outdoor adventures ranging from hiking in the Grand Canyon to exploring coffee farms in Colombia.

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When Jordan Salama was an undergraduate at Princeton University in 2018, he set out to travel the length of Colombia’s Magdalena River as part of his college thesis. The project turned into , a book about the four-week trip. It’s an interlocking series of stories about the people he encountered—from Indigenous groups at its headwaters to a man spreading literacy with a donkey-based mobileÌęlibrary—and a longitudinal look at how the history and geography of the country are intertwined.

Every Day the River Changes was the December-January pick for the newly relaunched șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Book Club, and we’ve been discussing it for the past two months in (which we encourage you to join). Recently, we talked to Salama about his debut release, specifically how he exploredÌęthe Magdalena from source to sea, the most interesting people he met on the river, and why he didn’t want to tell the same old story about Pablo Escobar’s hippos.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Where did the idea for a book about Colombia, and particularly the Magdalena, come from?
Salama: This project began when I was still in school. After my first year of college, I got to travel to Colombia in 2016Ìęas an intern for the Wildlife Conservation Society. When I told people I wanted to go, they were terrified. Colombia has this reputation and stigma in the U.S. It’s known one-dimensionally as a culture of violence, and in 2016, people were not excited about 19-year-old me going there.

But I had one family friend, Sandra Marlem-Muñoz, Ìęmy old piano teacher, who said I could stay with her grandma while I was an intern. Turns out her grandma was a 96-year-old who couldn’t get out of bed and wouldn’t let me leave the house after 7 P.M. But I became fascinated by this country of cultural and natural diversity, so at night when I was locked in, I kept journals of the people I met and the experiences I had. A few years later, when I was deciding on a subject for my college undergrad thesis, I looked back at journals and realized that if I wanted to understand Colombia, I had to travel the length of the river.

This is really a story about migration and immigration and the way people travel and move. Did you know it was going to be about that from the beginning?
I come from this family of wanderers and migrants. My family is the product of lots of different migrations—most of them involuntary. My mother was a Jew who had to leave Baghdad in the seventies, and my father’s family were Syrian Jews in Argentina. I saw in Colombia, and especially in communities of the Magdalena, many identities in one, many nations in one, and saw so many places where people had similar stories to my family, so it felt important to address that.

You mentioned the country’s reputation of violence, and that occasionally comes up in the book. How did you deal with that on the ground?
It took a lot of logistics to be safe for my 2018 trip.ÌęIt started with Sandra’s network of friends and family, which led to introductions along the Magdalena. When I set off, I had people willing to receive me almost everywhere I went. I was traveling by myself but was never really alone. Meeting all these people along the way, whether it was a friend of a friend or a friend of a professor, was how I created a line of trust along the river.

How did those connections translate into your reporting?
I didn’t go into the trip knowing what kind of stories I would find. It was kind of a moving surprise. I improvised, and a lot can happen on the fly. In almost every river town, someone would say, “You have to talk to this person or check out this story.” For instance, in Mompox, someone mentioned this 89-year-old silver filigree jeweler. I wasn’t planning to have that be a part of the story, but he ended up being the heart of the section there.

Did you ever feel like the trip wasn’t going to happen the way you wanted, or that the whole thing would fall apart? Four weeks isn’t a very long time to try to see an entire river.
Oh yeah, plenty. I will never forget my time in EstaciĂłn CocornĂĄ, which was one of the hottest places I’ve ever been in my life. I was in this room I was renting in the town, and I was laying there at 3 P.M., in the height of the heat of the day, just sweating with no idea of how I was going to traverse the next stretch of the river.ÌęI wanted to go with someone who could explain what I was seeing, but I didn’t have anyone, and I was thinking I was going to have to stay in EstaciĂłn CocornĂĄÌębecause I had no one to do it with. Then I got a message from Alejandra Mayorca, a friend of a friend, who has become a lot of people’s favorite character in the book because she lives the way a lot of people want to live their lives. She took a 20-hour bus to the river to meet me there, to take a seven-hour boat ride, to take another eight-hour bus ride. People stepped up like that in a lot of places.

What was your favorite place along the river?
.ÌęI can’t stop thinking about it. It feels like it’s out of a novel. He was there for a while, and a lot of people there said that his fiction felt like journalism that documented their lives. And in that town, I found traces of my own family, indirectly.

Mompox happens to be one of the main places Syrians and Lebanese and Palestinian people settled when they came to South America, like my family did, so that was really cool to see.

MĂĄrquez comes up frequently in the book. Who else were you reading, or influenced by, when you were working on this?
We could talk a lot about Márquez—anytime you’re talking about Colombia or the Magdalena, he comes up. I’ve also been lucky to have some really good mentors, especially during my time at Princeton. was the teacher who convinced me that this was something I could do as a career. He writes about canoes and people and nature, so our interests really clicked. I didn’t know what creative nonfiction could be, but he helped me see it. The other person at Princeton is . It’s interesting, the two of them write very differently. He writes a lot about himself and his identity and what he’s feeling, and I think my writing is somewhere in the middle of those two.

How did you think about telling stories about Colombia when you were writing the book?
I didn’t want to lean into the stereotypes about Colombia, and so many of the stories aren’t as nuanced as they should be. Look at drug lordÌęPablo Escobar’s . Escobar dominates so much of what’s written about Colombia in the U.S., so I didn’t just want to talk about him, but the hippos are really impacting the river. It felt important to go see how they’re terrorizing the fishermen, and to speak to the people who are impacted by the situation. Very few people have actually gone and seen those kinds of impacts. The locals said they’d been treated by the public as kind of, like, cartoons.

What do you want people who haven’t readÌęthe book to know about it?
The biggest challenge with this book is getting it into the hands of people who don’t realize they’re interested in Latin America or Colombia. I think it might seem far off and hard to grasp, but it’s filled with people who are bringing their communities out of decades of conflict,Ìęinspired by the river. And there’s a traveling-donkey library.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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From Hobbit-inspired abodes to secluded treehouses to beachfront cottages,Ìętravelers can live out their fantasy vacationÌęat an AirbnbÌęrental. However, a dream retreat can easily turn into a nightmare when your chosen property falls short of expectations. The last Airbnb I checked into was an adorable yurt tucked deep inside a rainforest on Hawaii Island (also known as the Big Island). The property itself was clean and quaint, but the road leading to the yurt was unpaved and nearly impassable in a rented convertible. Located at an elevation of 3,000 feet, it was a lot colder than I expected, and the yurt itself was not heated or soundproof, which meant three sleepless nights of hearing singing coqui frogs, crowing roosters, and distant sounds of gunshots. have run the gamut from moldy bathrooms and unsafe neighborhoods to aggressive hosts, neighbors, or even pets.

“Most of the complaints we receive about Airbnb come from travelers who have a misunderstanding about what Airbnb is and what it isn’t,” says Michelle Couch-Friedman, executive director at , a nonprofit organization that helps mediate consumer complaints. “Airbnb does not manage any of the properties it lists, nor have these properties been inspected by Airbnb,” she says. That means it’s up to consumers to do their own due diligence and properly vet the lodging and the host before booking. I asked eight frequent Airbnb users for their best advice on how to do that. Here are some of their tips.

Read the Listing

This might seem like a given, but people are often so charmed by a property’s photos that they overlook essential details in the listing. When you’re searching for accommodations, Airbnb pulls up a mix of results that include entire houses, private rooms, hotel rooms, and shared rooms. “You should carefully check what type of place you are booking before actually booking,” says , a travel blogger and Airbnb superuser. That way, you won’t accidentally book a shared rental space when you were looking for a place of your own. In addition to reading about the amenities and check-in and check-out times, you should also make sure you understand what the cleaning fee covers. When travel blogger first started using Airbnb, she assumed it was just like a hotel. “I found out that wasn’t the case after being charged a cleaning fee for not doing dishes,” she says. In fact, the host determines what’s included in the cleaning fees, and some , such as dumping dirty linens in the washer or putting away the dishes before departure; failure to do so can incur an extra fee.Ìę“Read the entire listing to avoid these types of issues,” Barwig says.

Don’t Skim Over the Cancellation Policy

Travelers should pay particular attention to the cancellation policy, which is set by the host. “There are Airbnb listings where you can cancel last minute, while there are others you can’t cancel at all. And sometimes you only get a refund for a percentage of your booking costs,” says Mensink. Couch-Friedman cautions that the listing is a legally binding contract. “Failing to review or completely understand the cancellation policy of an individual property is not a foundation to break the contract,” she says. “In my experience, especially during the pandemic, the one thing travelers overlook and then regret later is the cancellation policy.”

Go Through the Reviews

Reviews can help provide a fuller picture of the neighborhood, the quality of the amenities, the accessibility of hosts, and any other potential red flags. Travel blogger relies heavily on reviews when she chooses a place to stay on Airbnb. She looks for things that a host might not include in their description, such as street noise and strength of Wi-Fi. A listing with only a few reviews can be a red flag. “The one time I didn’t follow my own advice and booked a place with a solitaryÌęreviewÌęthatÌęlackedÌęany realÌęfeedback, the place turned out to be extremely sketchy,” says Chang. “I made sure my ownÌęreviewÌęon Airbnb would be more helpful to future travelers and tactfully ward them off.” Look for consistency in the reviews. “It’s normal to have an off review or two,” says family travel blogger . “But if several reviewers comment on something that would bother me, I move on.” It’s also worth noting that Airbnb reviews often do not appear in chronological order, so it’s important to scroll through all of them to make sure you’re finding the most recent testimony, says Couch-Friedman. If a property has changed owners, new guests might have complained of a subpar experience at what was previously a well-reviewed rental. Conversely, a formerly struggling Airbnb might have made improvements in recent months.

Talk to the Host

Travel blogger encourages travelers to get to know their hosts prior to making a transaction by clicking the Contact Host button and sending them a message. “You should ask the host all of your questions, and don’t be hesitant to inquire about the specifics of your stay,” he says. The way a host responds to your initial questions could clue you in on how likely they’ll be to handle any issues that might arise during your stay. Some hosts are hospitality experts, while others are just trying to earn a side income by renting out their property. Digital nomad and podcaster checks to see if the hosts are staying near the property. “I generally prefer the owner to be somewhere close, so the response time is quick if something is wrong,” he says. “It’s also good to have access to local help if anything comes up while you are overseas.” Suen prefers booking with , a designation given to those who fulfill requirements such as a 90 percent response rate and an overall rating of 4.8 or higher; he believes it “provides an extra layer of social proof that the experience will be a good one.” While a superhost badge is a plus, it doesn’t guarantee that your stay is going to be a trouble-free experience. “Travelers need to understand, the superhostÌębadge applies to the host, not a particular property,” says Couch-Friedman. “Many superhosts have multiple properties, and a host earns that badge by achieving a certain number of five-star reviews by former guests.”

Study the Photos

When Couch-Friedman books an Airbnb property, she looks at the photos carefully. “If they don’t look recent or appear to be screenshots, I scroll to another property,” she says. Family travel blogger takes the time to notice the details. “It might be a ‘family friendly’ listing, but does it actually look family friendly?” she asks. “Are there cords everywhere, are there glass tables, are there a lot of stairs, is there an open space [children] can play?” To avoid being scammed by a nonexistent Airbnb rental, Couch-Friedman vets the property by dragging the photos into a Google Images search, to determine whether the photos exist elsewhere on the internet.

Don’t Leave if Your Airbnb Has Problems

If the property is not up to snuff when you arrive, do not reject the property on sight or hastily find an alternate accommodation. “A common mistake of novice Airbnb users is they’ll arrive at the property, take a look at it, decide it isn’t what they hoped for, and leave, expecting a refund,” says Couch-Friedman. “This isn’t how Airbnb operates.” Travelers who decide the property is not as advertised should immediately alert both the host and Airbnb. Then they should document everything by taking photos and videos of the issues, such as stained bedsheets or an unhygienic kitchen. The host is typically given 12 to 24 hours to fix any problems that are correctable, for example, sending a cleaning service or replacing a mattress or broken TV. “If Airbnb determines that the problem is not fixable, then it will make an attempt to reaccommodate the guest with a comparable Airbnb property,” says Couch-Friedman. “Airbnb will only require a refund from the host to the guest if the property significantly deviates from the listing—for example, a property with three bedrooms instead of the advertised five—and there is no way to correct the problem.”

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In early 1833, during , Charles Darwin found himself in a corner of the world he didn’t particularly care for, an archipelago near the southern tip of South America called the Falkland Islands, whose windswept moorlands he described as “desolate and wretched.” The local birdlife didn’t help matters. An unusual species of falcon seemed to derive pleasure from tormenting him and the ship’s crew. “A large black glazed hat was carried nearly a mile, as was a pair of the heavy balls used in catching cattle,” Darwin wrote of the avian thieves, “and a small Kater’s compass in a red morocco leather case, which was never recovered.” Crew members complained about the birds’ “boldness and rapacity,” and a lookout was posted to prevent them from picking apart the ship’s rigging. Whalers who had visited the Falklands previously had likewise cursed the creatures as “flying devils” and “flying monkeys,” although science would ultimately settle on the name striated caracara, or, informally, Johnny rook.

Darwin was both repulsed and intrigued by this prankster, which resembles a cross between a hawk and a raven, with an orange face, glossy black plumage, and the ability to run with the speed and agility of a pheasant. Although he called them “false eagles” who “ill become so high a rank,” he couldn’t ignore their strange alertness, sociability, and curiosity. In , he wrote more about Johnny rooks and their shenanigans than any other bird. Why, the great naturalist wondered, was such a seemingly intelligent species scratching out an existence in this tiny, remote range at the bottom of the planet? Ultimately, however, he set this question aside and never returned to it.

Now, nearly two centuries later, Jonathan Meiburg has taken up the obscure task of answering Darwin’s question in . Although Meiburg, up to this point, has made his mark not as an ornithologistÌębut as a Texas-based indie-rock musician , the name of his band () and the titles of some of its albums (, , ) suggest that birds are never far from his thoughts. He first met striated caracaras 25 years ago during a postcollege that sent him around the globeÌęto study daily life in remote societies, and while in the Falklands, the birds gave him the full-on Darwin experience. They stole his cap, tugged the zippers of his backpack, and looked right through him in a manner both knowing and unnerving. The experience prompted Meiburg to get a master’s degree in geography, with a thesis titled “The Biogeography of Striated Caracaras (Phalcoboenus australis),”Ìęand he remains smitten to this day. “Calling them odd birds of prey,” he writes, “feels like calling the painters of the Italian Renaissance a group of unusually gifted apes.”

Early in the book, we come to know a striated caracara named Tina, who is a resident of a falconry center in England. Tina’s keeper, Geoff, shuffles three shells on a table in a bid to confuse the bird, but Tina always picks the one concealing a treat beneath. When Geoff asks for a particular colored ball from a tub of balls, she always retrieves the right one. Her enthusiasm for playing, solving problems, and wanting to know moreÌęis off the charts. In the world of raptors, this is unheard of. Most birds of prey, like peregrine falcons—one of the most widespread birds on earth, residing on six continents—are designed for one thing:Ìęhunting. Johnny rooks, like us, appear designed for thinking.ÌęAnd yet only a couple thousand remain on the planet, living on a handful of subantarctic islands that, due to sea-level rise, may soon disappear. This vexes Meiburg, whose subsequent quest for answers produces a lively mashup of evolutionary biology, travelogue, and biography, ushering us on an eye-opening romp through time and space. Meiburg journeys back millions of years to consider plate tectonics, mass extinctions, sea-level change, glacial movement, and the rise and fall of species.

Woven into this account is aÌę19th-century British naturalist who was equally captivatedÌębyÌęthe bird.Ìę was one of the first people, Meiburg notes, “to write a kind word about caracaras.” Hudson grew up on the ArgentineanÌęPampas alongside a type of caracara called theÌęchimango, and he admired them. They hunted when hunting made sense, scavenged when scavenging made sense, and otherwise explored, investigated, and took risks. Hudson, a lonely soul, also shared their outcast status. He’d moved to England seeking like-minded bird lovers, and while his books were praised by luminaries like Ezra Pound and Virginia Woolf, noted ornithologists like John Gould, who cataloged Darwin’s specimens, snubbed him as an uncredentialed amateur.

As science had shunned Hudson, so it shunned the caracara branch of family Falconidae.ÌęOrnithologists have referred to them as “aberrant falcons” and “a rather unimpressive lot,” with Falconidae’s so-called true falcons—including peregrines—hogging all the research. But the upshot of Meiburg’s sleuthing is that falcons are less related to other raptors than they are to a bird famous for its chatty intelligence:Ìęparrots. ThoseÌętwo share a common ancestor that survived the asteroid-triggered Cretaceous extinction by occupying then forested Antarctica. A land bridge subsequently allowed falcons to migrate to South America, where 64 species evolved, including tenÌętypes of caracara. (Parrots, meanwhile,ÌęlikelyÌętook another land bridge, to Australasia.) When North and South America joined up five million years ago, peregrines and other falcons migrated north, while the lineage that produced striated caracaras never left South America,Ìęmeandering the length and width of the continentÌębefore ending up back where theyÌęstarted, near the bottom of Argentina, on the doorstep of Antarctica. Meiburg schleps across the continent himself to trace this lineage and learn what he can from the Johnny rook’s caracara cousins currently dwelling inÌęGuyanese jungles, altiplanoÌędeserts, and remote Andean valleys.Ìę

The book is most compelling with Meiburg on the ground in these difficult places, discovering consistently fascinating caracara behavior. Deep in the rainforest of Guyana, he finds red-throated caracaras who survive primarily byÌęeating wasp larva. The birds have deduced that if they dive-bombÌęwasp nests as aggressively as possible, the shocked residents will choose flight over fight. In the Chilean altiplano above 12,000 feet, Meiburg spends one of the coldest nights of his life in a sleeping bag on the edge of a salt lagoon, staking out mountain caracaras known for working in groups to flip over heavy flat stones in search of edible creatures.Ìę

Meiburg’s goals are ambitious. In trying to pin down exactly why a single species occupies a particular range on earth, he explores an unwieldy assortment of planetary forces spanning eons, and if that isn’t enough, he throws in a biography of Hudson to boot. It’s a lot. He mostly keeps the narrative moving, although now and again he lingers too long in spots. We might not need the level of detail on Hudson’s novel Green Mansions, for example, or the blow-by-blow account of Sir Walter Raleigh’s efforts toÌęfind El Dorado in southern Guyana. He more than makes up for it, though, with consistently evocative writing, as in this delightful passage about a pair of sun bitterns one morning on the banks of the Rewa: “Their song was equally beautiful and odd: a set of hollow notes that ascended by quarter tones, so airy and diffuse that they seemed to come from everywhere. As the sun broke through the canopy, they were joined by a bird I couldn’t place, singing a descending countermelody in the same octave—then another, whose sparkling seven-note song was like a peal of tiny bells.” In moments like this one, Meiburg brings his deep musical knowledge to bear.

In the end,Ìęwe find out thatÌęthe polar vortex has keptÌęstriated caracaras pinned down in the FalklandsÌęand on a couple of nearby islands off Tierra del Fuego. They will remain stranded, Meiburg notes sadly, until some combination of ocean pollution, overfishing, and sea-level rise erases them forever. But that doesn’t keep him from dreaming of creative interventions. If peregrines can colonize dense urban centers, why not Johnny rooks? Meiburg imagines translocating some to Hyde Park in London and then letting them do their thing. Hell, they’re smarter than pigeons, and pigeons know how to use the Underground. “It’s not hard to imagine Johnny rooks following suit, running under turnstiles of the Circle Line at Paddington Station and riding out to Hampstead Heath, then returning home to roost at night,” Meiburg muses. We’re talking, after all, about a lineage of birds that successfully stole from Darwin, determined how to eat wasps without getting stung, and can organize a community rock-flipping to find dinner. London would be a piece of cake.

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When returned to the skies in January, the newly revived brand didn’t knowÌęthat a global pandemic would soon halt nearly all air travel around the world. Yet while COVID-19 has grounded most flights from major airlines, Eastern has found a way to keep busy, working in partnership with the State Department to help bringÌęstranded U.S. citizensÌęhome fromÌęCentral and South America.Ìę

For those who remember, the name Eastern Air Lines (formerly spelled as such) sparksÌęmemories of the golden age of air travel. A prominent player for most of the 20th century, the Miami-based airlineÌęhit its peak in the 1950s before bankruptcy grounded its fleet in 1991. An initialÌę, in 2015, was short-lived, but inÌęJanuary, Eastern returned with a flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to New York City, along with a whole new for the 21st century. The airline planned to introduce its next flight, from New York CityÌęto Georgetown, Guyana, in mid-March, and another route to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, later this year.Ìę

Then the pandemic hit, and Eastern had to re-strategize. As airports around the world began to close, thousands of American tourists became . The State Department reached out to Eastern to help get citizens home from Guyana after the airline successfully flewÌęchartersÌęto return medical students based in Grenada and Panama City to the U.S. in early March.ÌęThe airline then startedÌęa repatriation flight from Georgetown to MiamiÌęon March 13. This came just as the State Department launched a on March 19, ordering a plan forÌęgovernment-funded charter flightsÌętoÌębeÌęconducted by commercial airlines. Repatriated passengers wouldÌębe expected toÌęeventually Ìęupon their return.

Eastern saw an opportunity. Unlike that are repatriation flights and determining fares based on an agreementÌęwithÌęthe federalÌęgovernment, EasternÌęsets itsÌęown fares and only works with theÌęgovernment to determine how many passengers to expect on each flight. Its repatriation flights cost up to $2,000 one-way, which CEO Steve HarfstÌęsays is because the airline flies the planes from the U.S. empty, so passengers are essentially paying for a round-trip ticket. The cost is relatively comparable toÌęother airlines, with examples that include a $1,000 United from Lima, Peru, to Houston, and nearly $1,500 from Marrakech, Morocco, to any of tenÌęU.S. cities via various airlines, according to .Ìę

Since Eastern’sÌęinaugural flight, it has returnedÌę17,013 passengersÌęon 102 flights from 15 countries across Central and South America, including Peru, Argentina, and Nicaragua. It hasÌęalso flown 3,412 non-American travelers from the U.S. to their home countries.ÌęOn average, repatriation flights have been 68 percent full, and the airline hasn’t turned a significant profit. “On some of the flights, we’ve lost money. Some of the flights, we haven’t. On averageÌęwe’re probably just barely above breakeven,” Harfst says. “We make a commitment to fly the flight, so we’re somewhat taking a risk and believing that the U.S. embassy is being real with the numbers [of passengers] that they expect. But if 30 people showed up, we’d still fly the plane.”Ìę

Coming from a fledgling airline with fewer than 200 employees, this initiative is surprising. Before the pandemic, Eastern was banking on business from a specific demographic: adventurous millennials. Calling itself the “explorer brand,” it hoped that a combination of budget fares to underserved adventure locales, a liberal baggage policy (one bag of up to 70 pounds free of charge), and smart marketing would win over a generation that prides itself on spending money on experiences, not stuff. Eastern’s 2018 internal study deemed Guayaquil, Georgetown, and Cabo San Lucas up-and-coming South American adventure destinations.

But some weren’t so convinced that the approach of tapping into such a specific market would work. “It could be tough to sustain a business with such a narrow focus,” says Lori Ranson, a senior analyst at the Sydney-based . She points to Air France’s attempt in 2017 to target younger travelers with its now defunct subsidiary,Ìę,Ìęthrough things like budget fares, colorful seats, and casual flight-attendant attire.ÌęHowever, Harfst says these are “airline frills”Ìęthat don’t add value to a traveler’s experience, adding that Eastern wants to provide “hassle-free service”Ìęfor its passengers.

In February, before the pandemic hit, Harfst told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that he anticipated Eastern’s flights would be 50 to 70 percent less expensive than other airlines, citing cost-cutting measures like operating wide-body aircraft that allow for more seating and luggage. (JetBlue does not have wide-body aircraft, though other airlines, like American and United, do.) The company also owns its fleet. (According to a 2018 Ìęby the Centre for Aviation, half of the world’s commercial planes are leased.)ÌęRanson noted that the company’s spending costs would need to be “well below its competitors” in order to meet its proposed fares.ÌęBut over the course of February and early March, Eastern’s fares were comparable with itsÌęcompetition.Ìę

When we contacted HarfstÌęagain this month and asked if thoseÌęcheaper fares would still be possible following the pandemic, Harfst says he didn’t know, though he expects all airline fares to increase after a complete return to travel. While there may be initial deals to attract fliers back, airlines will eventually have to make up for lost revenue. “The costs [of flying] don’t change,” he says. “It’sÌęfair to assume that, regardless of what does happen, fares are going to be more expensive.”Ìę

As for the future, Harfst believes that Eastern could come out ahead of other airlines post-pandemic. As a small business, it received support from the CARES Act, but Harfst says its low-cost structure makes the company more resilient. He notes that as a startup company with fewer—and newer—employees, it doesn’t have to cover the higher compensation of tenured members (though he adds that Eastern pays its employees a competitive wage). In addition to lower labor costs and the fact that it owns its own planes, Harfst saysÌęthe shrinking travel industry will result in more underserved markets, allowing for Eastern to pursue its original business model. “We think that there’ll be domestic opportunities that will be open to us, as routes and markets are either abandoned or left with less capacity,” he says, citing the airline’sÌęrecent application for a domestic nonstop flight from New York to San Diego. “There are still people all around the world who will need to or want to travel that now won’tÌęhave that opportunity—or if they do, it’s a two- or three-stop flight. Those small markets are still very attractive to a company like Eastern.”

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As a neurotic 27-year-old New Yorker with a cocktail of mental-health issues—aČÔłæŸ±±đłÙČâ, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and hypochondriasis—travel seemed impossible for most of my life. I grew up desperately wanting to see the world, but any time I’d get close to planning a trip, I’d chicken out before booking the flight. I soon grew tired of letting my anxiety confine me to an increasingly small comfort zone, and knew I had to make a drastic change. So at 23, I quit my job and took a two-month trip to Southeast Asia.

When I first set foot on the plane, I was convinced that everything bad that could happen to me would happen. I thought I’d get kidnapped, mugged, or trapped in a foreign country, that a single mosquito bite would mean a malaria diagnosis. Four years later, I’ve been to 21 countries and don’t plan to stop traveling any time soon. Along the way, my perspective wasÌęcompletely rewired to the point that anxiety no longer dictates my life at home. I’ve learned that I’m far more daring and independent than I ever thought possible.

Last yearÌęI started theÌęwebsiteÌęÌęas a way to show others with mental-health issues that travel is not only accessibleÌębut far less intimidating than you think. Here are my five go-to methods toÌęmanaging my anxiety on the road.

Plan—But Don’t Overplan

When you have anxiety, heading into an unknown environment means your brain works overtime to prepare for the worst-case scenario. It’s important to remember that this isn’t inherently badÌębut an evolutionary skill meant to help you avoid danger. Unfortunately, this means pre-trip anxiety wants to stop you from leaving, because your brain equates the uncertainty inherent in going to a new place with an imminent threat. While there’s no cure-all for preventing this, I find that plenty of preparation eases the fear of the unfamiliar.

Start with your route. I always plan a rough itinerary ahead of time that includes my entry and exit points for the trip and the sites I want to see along the way. This is based on my time frame, with a breakdown of approximately how long I plan to spend in each place. I also make a budget using the average costsÌęof one night of accommodation, three meals, and one activity per day. In addition to researching what to see and do, I look into smaller but important items such as the currency-exchange rate, visa requirements, and health information. Despite having the details nailed down, I usually only book my flights in and out and my first hostel, so I have the option to change course. Having a solid point A and point B gives me a sense of control and direction, while the overall flexibility removes the pressure of sticking too closely to a plan and the stress that comes when it inevitably goes off course. It’s usually easy enough to find domestic flights or hostels at the last minute.

Over the years, I’ve learned that the best advice comes from fellow travelers, not the internet. Talking to others who have been where I’m going offers me peace of mind, knowing that they came back in one piece, along with valuable recommendations on what to see, do, and eat. Whether they’re friends, family, friends of friends, or a friend’s ex-girlfriend’s brother, personal accounts always get me much further than any Google search.

Once on the ground, I use a select few travel apps to make communication and planning easy. My must-haves usually include for easy and reliable accommodation booking, for international calling and texting via the internet, and for offline directions.

Pack Your Essentials and Don’t Worry About the Rest

Packing gives me a lot of anxiety, and for good reason. The items in my backpack represent the familiar things I can bring with me from home, sort of like a child’s teddy bear. For most people, this leads to a tendency to overpack. But keeping track of too many things can be more of a burden than the risk of not having something you need, especially when most things—from clothes to toiletries to earbuds—will be easy enough to findÌęregardless of where you go. The things that are more difficult to replace thatÌęI alwaysÌękeep on me are my contact lenses, passport, wallet, and phone.

Of all my essentials, my contact lenses are what cause me a comical amount of stress when I travel, because I’m functionally blind without them. I always pack at least tenÌęextra pairs of contacts as well as my backup glasses, just in case I happen to rub my eye and lose one along the way. Give yourself more space for aÌęfew extras of the important things,Ìęeven if you likely won’t need all of your supply. This is especially the case with medication—talk to your doctor about getting enough to last you for your trip and then some.

Believe It or Not: Socialize

I was surprised to discover that social interaction is paramount to keeping my anxiety in check while I’m on the road. Making friends with other travelers is a great way to create a makeshift comfort zone when I’m so far outside mine. It’s also an excellent grounding tool, because it forces me to step outside my ruminating mind and be in the present.

Some of you are probably thinking, But I have social anxiety!ÌęWell, so do I. However, I’ve found tremendous camaraderie with other travelers after finally gettingÌęthe courage to break the ice. In fact, duringÌęmy 61-day solo trip to South America, I spent less than one day by myself because I took the initiative to chat up strangers every step of the way, starting with my firstÌęhostel. I’ve found that the benefits of these friendships are worth the five minutes of discomfort at the outset. Never underestimate the power of a simple hello; it can change the whole trajectory of your trip.

It helps to remember that the standard rules of socializing don’t always apply during travel. People are friendlier because they often don’t want to do things alone and welcome the company. Hostels, group tours, and hiking trips are built around fostering this sort of interaction.ÌęDespite what your brain might tell you, people want to talk to you. Because you are all in similar circumstances and will likely share experiences, you have preprogrammed icebreakers. They can be as simple as “Where are you from?” or “Where have you been so far?” to asking for local recommendations.

Be Your Own Therapist

On your trip, you won’t have your usual support system on speed dial. It’s easy to get overwhelmed in moments of stress, and it’s just as easy to get mad at yourself for feeling that way. Instead of crumbling, use this opportunity to practice some of the techniques you’ve learned in therapy. For me, that takes the form of daily meditation, sitting quietly by myself and listening to a five-minute guided recording. While doing your usual full-on meditation, workouts, or yoga to decompress would be ideal, it’s not always possible on the move. So make mini models of your typical coping techniques, and don’t beat yourself up when you can’t stick to your routine.

Occasionally, however, these practices may not feel like enough. For those moments of panic, I keep these remindersÌęin the notes app onÌęmy phone toÌęhelp me reframe my perspective when the stresses of travel start to feel like too much:

Travel in today’s world is not a complete cutoff from your life at home.

Regardless of how remote a place might seem, odds are that it’s possible to find an internet connection that will allow you to stay in touch through apps and social media.

Your trip isn’t permanent.Ìę

Any time I start to feel overwhelmed, my obsessive brain tries to make me think that my trip is a lifelong adventure that will certainly end in disaster. It’s important to keep in mind that your trip is a temporary discomfort, and that you will be back home again soon.

The point of a trip is to enjoy it.Ìę

While it might not always feel like it, your trip is meant to be fun and exciting. If you find yourself hating it, it’s not fulfilling its purpose and you’re not obligated to continue. If that means going back to a city where you felt more comfortable, you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so. Remember that the only one forcing you to stay is you.

There is no shame in feeling scared.

There’s this misconception that beingÌęscared while abroad is in some way a negative reflection on you. If you ever begin to feel shame about that fear, remind yourself that you’re doing something that many people are too afraid to do. You’ve already done the hardest part—getting on the plane in the first place.

Have an Exit StrategyÌę

Whenever I travel, I make sure that I have enough money in my bank account to book a flight home at a moment’s notice. I’ve never actually had to return before my planned departure date, but it’s extremely comforting to know that I have a panic button I can pushÌęat any time. Yes, it’s an expensive safety net, but at the end of the day, your mental health should always take precedence.

Despite that, I implore you to try to stick around. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost booked a flight home. But I always give it a few more days and find that the patterns of my mind change with time. Force yourself to talk to one new person and explore one new place each day. Single, small steps out of your comfort zone eventually add up. In my opinion, travel is immensely worth all this fuss, because as someone with anxiety, I’m going to worry anyway. Why not do it on a beach in Thailand?

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