Could Your Vacation Change the World?

Tourism Has the Power to Shape Politics, at Home and Abroad

As the United States sends stockpiles of weapons to Ukraine, another transatlantic mobilization is underway. Freed from two years of COVID restrictions and testing requirements, Americans are once again traveling in large numbers. Market observers have predicted a six-fold increase in American tourism to Europe compared to summer 2021.

If you’re wondering what shipments of weapons and planeloads of tourists have in common, the answer is: quite a bit. Tourism has long had a way of getting mixed up in international politics.

It is easy to overlook tourism’s political importance. After all, …

by Christopher Endy | August 15, 2022

Where I Go: Hiking the Mountain That Almost Killed John Muir

Finding an Adventure Story and a Portal to the Past Beneath Mount Shasta

by Tim Holt | September 20, 2021

The great outdoor adventurer John Muir—who had skipped over glaciers in Alaska, surfed an avalanche, and gleefully rode a wildly swaying tree in a storm in the Sierras—lay in a …

Hawai‘i Doesn’t Need More Tourists, It Needs Better Tourists

From Kaua‘i to Croatia, the World’s Increasingly Crowded Vacation Spots Seek Visitors Who Spend More Money—And Actually Talk to Locals

by Joe Mathews | February 22, 2019

Rapidly rising tourism in Hawai‘i and around the world poses new and complicated economic, environmental, and cultural challenges that in turn will require better management and well-designed restrictions on visitors, …

The Postcards That Captured America’s Love for the Open Road

From Mid-Century Until Today, “Greetings From” Postcards Have Combined a ‘Fantastical View’ of the Country With Car Culture Obsession

by Anne Peck-Davis and Diane Lapis | November 20, 2018

The most prolific producer of the iconic 20th-century American travel postcard was a German-born printer, a man named Curt Teich, who immigrated to America in 1895. In 1931, Teich’s printing …

Are You Cursed If You Steal Rocks From the Petrified Forest?

A Photographer Ponders Beauty, Truth, and the Guilt of Visitors Who Pilfer Souvenirs From the Arizona National Park

by Ryan Thompson | November 7, 2018

In 2011, I was traveling in Arizona photographing meteorites and the misidentified meteorites known as “meteor-wrongs.” My work with the meteor-wrongs went quicker than expected and my wife and I …

Could California’s Coldest Place Blaze a Path to Better Development?

Up in the Sierra, the Town of Truckee Is Embracing Dense Urban Growth

By Joe Mathews | April 16, 2018

One of California’s hottest development projects can be found in one of its coldest towns.

In an era of bitter neighbor-bites-neighbor fights against big developments, perhaps it’s fitting that an antidote …

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