Dear Tripped Up, In September 2022, I booked a 17-day Arabian Sea cruise through Vantage Travel Services to celebrate my 80th birthday with my wife. The cruise was to set sail in October 2023. I used my credit card to leave a $2,000 deposit and paid the remaining $17,905 shortly afterward by bank transfer. I…
Rooms With a North Sea View Last year, when Micha Pycke, 40, and Albane Paret, 39, bought an apartment in Ostend — a once run-down Belgian seaside town that, in recent years, has become a favorite of artists and designers — they knew they wanted the place to be, says Pycke, “something more than an…
European Union regulators on Thursday opened investigations into the American tech giant Meta for the potentially addictive effects Instagram and Facebook have on children, an action with far-reaching implications because it cuts to the core of how the company’s products are designed. Meta’s products may “exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors” to create behavioral…
As a teenager, the Viennese food stylist and baker Sophia Stolz, 29, was often befuddled by the fancy, prim desserts served at her friends’ birthday celebrations. Despite all the money spent on outfits and party décor, the cakes tended to be “so boring!” she says. Now, she’s baking cakes that are, in her words, “a…
Leave it to the Parisians to ace the “Canadian tuxedo.” Taking to Instagram recently with a series of street-style posts, the French photographer Ludovic Pieterson (@thestylearchivist) posted a reel titled “How people style total denim in Paris” and proved beyond any reasonable doubt that a style last in favor during the Rolling Stones’ “Voodoo Lounge”…
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. A surgeon in Rochester, Minn. A TV-news traffic anchor in Chicago. A church organist in Ellwood City, Pa. For a recent issue of The New York Times Magazine themed around retirement, the writer Charley Locke…
About two weeks after Marcell Leon Viragh moved into the Park Santa Monica, a Los Angeles building where residents can sweat in a Himalayan salt sauna or gaze at the Pacific Ocean from the expansive roof deck, he took the elevator down to the spa, where a registered nurse slid a needle into a vein…
Carbon neutrality, zero waste and serving seafood solely from responsible suppliers: Many boutique eco-tourism destinations — particularly those catering to small numbers of luxury travelers — can reach or come close to sustainability goals such as these, but what about a decades-old resort company operating 97 properties across 14 countries? As the global director of…
In 1976, Johnny Cash released a song called “Strawberry Cake.” It was a bit of an outsider tune, not altogether popular. But to me, it falls well within the canon of simple yet great Americana storytelling. In an interview, Cash talks about walking past a man sleeping on a New York street while on his…
In January, the travel and fashion influencer Devin Halbal decided to take a trip to Kurashiki, a city in the Okayama Prefecture of Japan. Ms. Halbal, a Queens-born 26-year-old who goes by the username “Hal Baddie” on TikTok, had spent four years traveling around Europe with an extra-long selfie stick and a dream, sharing videos…
