Browsing: Atlas

There is a version of Halloween tourism that involves a man in a rubber mask jumping out from behind a plywood wall. It has its pleasures. It is not this.

Every winter sun list is the same list. Somewhere with a beach, ranked by average January temperature, with a paragraph about resorts. The only variable is the number, and the number is available on any weather site for free.

You book a week in a country you chose because it appeared on a list of the best places to see the northern lights. You arrive. It is cloudy for six nights. You go home having seen nothing, and you conclude the country was wrong.

Every European Christmas market sells the same mulled wine out of the same wooden hut. This is not a criticism — it is a very good hut, and the wine is warm. But it is not a reason to choose one country over another, and the “best Christmas markets” lists that dominate December travel writing…