It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and that means it’s time for romance. The folks at Ubuy.com looked at TripAdvisor data to score each European capital city for romance. The criteria included the number of fine dining restaurants, 5-star hotels, and romantic tours. A romantic tour only gets one point, which I don’t understand. I also would put more emphasis on a five-star hotel than an expensive restaurant, if only because you’re likely to have more time to enjoy a hotel than a restaurant. It’s a tad arbitrary, and it doesn’t take the look or feel of a city into account. But Read more
Spain
A couple weeks ago I published my list of top 10 places to go in 2024. It seems the people at AFAR magazine and I think a lot alike. I put Toronto, Paris and Detroit in my top 10, and both cities are in the AFAR top 24. I also am high on, and have written in the past about, several other destinations on the AFAR list, including Sydney, Los Angeles, Texas Hill Country, Valencia, Manchester (England) and St. Kitts. Here is the top 24 from AFAR: Fiji Sydney, Australia Tangier, Morocco Texas Hill Country Rome Macchu Picchu Martha’s Vineyard, Read more
Thinking of a trip to Europe this fall? Try flying into Oslo, Edinburgh or maybe Madrid if you want to save money. With help from Expedia, Travel + Leisure magazine has issued a list of 11 European airports and computed the cost of an airline ticket today, compared with during the peak summer months. Here’s what they found, with the percentage decline in ticket prices from summer to today in parentheses. Oslo (-40%). Stockholm (-35%) Hamburg (-35%) Ibiza (-35%) Copenhagen (-30%) Madrid (-30%) Dublin (-25%) Brussels (-25%) Geneva (-25%) Edinburgh (-25%) Florence (-20%) That’s a fun list. Not to rain Read more
Seoul has been rated the top city in the world on TikTok, with Paris and Barcelona right behind. Here are the top ten cities in the world ranked by key TikTok hashtags. Research conducted by JeffBet has crunched the numbers to see which city has the most hashtag views on TikTok and is, therefore, the most popular to visit this summer. The following hashtags were combined with each city as the prefix: #travel, #travelguide and #travel2023. Rank City Hashtag Views 1. Seoul 1,000,931,500 2. Paris 481,305,224 3. Barcelona 101,882,604 4. Amsterdam 72,201,405 5. Singapore 62,890,900 6. Bangkok 34,386,100 7. Read more
After a summer 2022 air travel season filled with delays and disruptions, NBC News says air travelers should prepare for what could be more of the same this summer. In an interview with CNBC, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said customers are more interested than ever in getting out of town this summer. Air travel “is something the consumer’s prioritizing,” he said. “They may be pulling back in other areas … but I don’t see it in our credit card data, I don’t see it in our bookings.” The New York Times recently reported that three of Read more