Travel category, Page 18

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Elvis Presley’s Graceland is now offering live online tours for fans around the world, including those who can’t travel to the Tennessee tourist attraction during the coronavirus pandemic. Graceland said the two-hour guided tours will take virtual visitors into Presley’s former Memphis home, which has been turned...

NEW YORK — Airbnb says it will be blocking and cancelling reservations in the Washington, D.C. area during the week of the presidential inauguration. The decision, announced Wednesday, came two days after it said it was reviewing reservations in the area ahead of next week’s presidential inauguration and said it...

Travelers hitting the road during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak are concerned about overcrowding, but TripAdvisor has launched a new platform to help avoid those issues in cities around the United States. Engineers with TripAdvisor, Slack, Amazon Web Services and nine other technology companies developed the platform, dubbed Crowdfree.me, to help...

Passengers flying from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport may be limited to Orlando as a destination for the immediate future, part of the continuing hit air travel is taking from the covid-19 pandemic. While Spirit Airlines flights from the Unity airport to Myrtle Beach, S.C., are expected to resume Feb. 12,...

The National Park Service is shutting down public access to the Washington Monument until Jan. 24, citing threats surrounding Joe Biden’s inauguration. The agency said Monday that it was implementing the temporary closure “in response to credible threats to visitors and park resources.” Park officials say that groups involved in...

NEW ORLEANS — A subdued Carnival season began Wednesday after the coronavirus pandemic put an end to the crowd-heavy balls and street parades that draw thousands of people to the city every year. The Mardi Gras season always starts on Jan. 6 and ends on Fat Tuesday, which this year...

American Airlines flew a Boeing 737 Max with paying passengers from Miami to New York on Tuesday, the plane’s first commercial flight in U.S. skies since it was grounded after two deadly crashes. American flight 718 carried 87 passengers on the 172-seat plane, and the return flight from LaGuardia Airport...

ROME — A fast-food eatery at Pompeii has been excavated, helping to reveal dishes that were popular for the citizens of the ancient Roman city who were partial to eating out. Pompeii Archaeological Park’s longtime chief, Massimo Osanna, said Saturday that while some 80 such fast-foods have been found at...

TAMPA, Fla. — Some are elderly and figure they don’t have many Christmases left. Others are trying to keep long-distance romance alive. Some just yearn for the human connection that’s been absent for the past nine months. Millions of Americans are traveling ahead of Christmas and New Year’s, despite pleas...

“I saw it delivered in the morning. A bulky package, quite heavy, carefully packed.” So begins the story in the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero. When the package was opened, staff at the National Roman Museum discovered a “large fragment of millenary marble.” A note was included with it: A woman...

Travelers screened at U.S. airports on Thanksgiving Eve were the highest since coronavirus shutdowns began in mid-March, as many Americans bucked warnings by health officials. More than 1.07 million people went through airport screening on Wednesday, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration. That’s still only about 40% of...

NEW YORK — In souvenir shops from Times Square to the World Trade Center, shelves full of T-shirts and trinkets still (heart) New York. But the proprietors wonder when their customers will, again. The coronavirus pandemic has taken a voracious bite out of a slice of New York life as...

Dutch Wonderland may have closed their amusement park for the year, but a festive seasonal attraction is starting up in December. The park’s Holiday Lights attraction will allow guests to drive through a ⅕ mile long trail, decorated with hundreds of thousands of electric Christmas lights. The drive-thru destination will...

GILLSBURG, Miss. — Lynyrd Skynyrd, the rock band famous for “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird,” now has highway signs pointing to the site of the Mississippi plane crash that claimed the lives of some of its members. Fans gathered Sunday as the Mississippi Department of Transportation unveiled exit signs...

Is it safe to stay in hotels during the pandemic? In a recent travel update, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes it clear: Staying home is the best way to protect yourself against the coronavirus. If you do travel, the CDC says, sharing a rental home with...

The cruise industry has jettisoned hopes of restarting operations this year. Days after both Carnival and Norwegian extended a halt on cruises through the end of the year, the group that represents cruise lines with 95% of global ocean-going capacity said Tuesday that its members have agreed to extend the...

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s a boy — a big boy. A 150-pound white rhinoceros was born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida over the weekend. The as-yet-named rhino was born to Kendi, who was the first white rhinoceros born at the animal theme park...

DALLAS — A Spirit Airlines employee performed CPR on an unconscious Dallas woman during a July flight that made an emergency landing in New Mexico, where the woman was pronounced dead. The woman’s death was later determined to have been caused by covid-19, and Dallas County officials included her in...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will let fans back in outdoor stadiums for pro sporting events in counties with low coronavirus infection rates but isn’t ready to allow Disneyland and other major theme parks to reopen, the state’s top health official said Tuesday. San Francisco and neighboring Alameda and Santa Clara...

About 8,000 people landed in Hawaii on the first day of a pre-travel testing program that allowed travelers to come to the islands without quarantining for two weeks if they could produce a negative coronavirus test. Angela Margos was among the first passengers in San Francisco to get on a...

Transportation Security Administration agents caught a Texas man with a handgun at Pittsburgh International Airport on Saturday, which was the third gun found on passengers in five days. Last Tuesday, TSA agents stopped two passengers with guns at an airport checkpoint. “What would make someone think they could bring a...

Carnival Cruise Line said Monday it was canceling its remaining cruises scheduled for November out of two Florida ports, as well as five cruises from Australia at the beginning of next year. The cruise line had previously announced it was canceling for the rest of the year all U.S. cruises...

The pristine, azure waters lapping at the skirts of uninhabited Varosha contrast sharply with the dilapidated, crumbling buildings lining the beachfront of this abandoned suburb of Famagusta. For the first time in 46 years, members of the public were permitted on Thursday to access the beach of Varosha in the...