The Carnival Dream, currently stranded on St. Maarten thanks to a generator failure, is just the latest ship in the cruise line's fleet to be crippled by prolonged exposure to sea water. In the wake of the Carnival Triumph debacle and the sinking of the Costa...

The largest mansion in the gated community abutting J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is an unappetizing, beige wedding cake with a statue of a cherub out front and a series of non-load bearing columns providing the critical phallic touch necessary to achieve true tastelessness. This building sums...

Though Fort Myers, Florida, is a hub for neither creativity -- on an art world map it would like sit beneath the words "Here Be Watercolors" -- nor athletics, the newest museum in town pays tribute to both and, it certainly could be argued, neither. It may be both America's...

Graham Hawkes can't quite put words to the feeling. It's like jumping off a cliff, but more peaceful. It is like sinking, but more purposeful. It is like flying but exactly the opposite.

"Fun is an inadequate word for playing with technology the Navy doesn't have in a part of...

Over the weekend an engine room fire aboard the Carnival Triumph shut down the massive cruise ship's motors, leaving it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident was neither particularly singular nor particularly dangerous, but it illustrates the fact that no matter how luxurious boat...

After the Vatican announced Pope Benedict XVI's decision to abdicate as the head of the Catholic Church on Monday, front-page headlines across the world grew a few type sizes. The decision was surprising both for the faithful and for the guides and tour operators of Rome, a

Winter is coming. Again.

As New Englanders and New Yorkers batten down the hatches in preparation for the nor'easter sweeping what could be several feet of snow up the coast, travelers in the region are beginning to get worried. Buses will likely be canceled,...

In January, the salvage companies responsible for the removal of the Costa Concordia from the water of the Italian island of Giglio announced that they might have the wreck cleaned up by early summer. The announcement allayed the fears of some locals concerned that the dismantling process might distract visitors...

The modern travel industry is a product of the Baby Boomer generation. Like crop-topped pioneers or "Love Story"-toting conquistadors, boomers blazed trails out of Paris and Rome towards the rest of Europe, hiked the Hippie Trail and held the outstretched hands of Maharishis. That they opened the door...

Until Kayak Explore debuted in 2011, rapidly comparing the prices of various trips was all but impossible. Since then it has -- thanks to the app's questionable functionality -- been merely difficult. Now, Google has googlified the whole thing, making it possible for travelers to dynamically...

Checking into Cairo's Fairmont Nile City hotel requires passing through a metal detector but is otherwise a glamorous affair. The floors are shined to a gleam, the upholstery plumped and the staff clad in thoughtfully tailored sport coats. On the roof there is a pool and a sweeping...

A little after eight o'clock in the morning, crowds of young professionals and older men in knit hats bundle down the docks at the edge of Istanbul's Kadıköy district and watch similar herds of busy gulls swirling across the Bosphorus, obscuring the panoramic view of the Byzantine city walls and...

Cancun - On December 21, the eyes of the world turned towards the ruins of the Maya Empire and the eyes of those amid that megalithic rubble turned heavenward. For many here, the end of the 13th baktun and the beginning of a new cycle of the Maya calendar --...

VALLADOLID, MEXICO -- On the eve of what will be known as the apocalypse that wasn't, every hotel room in the town of Valladolid -- known as Zaci during the Maya empire -- is filled and no one seems to be panicking. Only 25 miles from Chichen Itza,...

TULUM, MEXICO -- Tulum was once an important Maya trading post and the years have done little to decrease its economic significance. On the afternoon I visited, the line of tourists waiting to hand over their pesos and enter the ruins was exactly 97 people long. Between them, those 97...

As a stalagmite blocks the cave mouth from view, I find myself sinking into the noduled gullet of Sistema Sac Actun, the cave system running some 135 miles through Yucatan limestone that helped shape the Maya's Boschian vision of the afterlife. I'm here because, after hearing so much about the...

San Juan de Dios, Mexico is an unremarkable town 10 kilometers into the forest south of the ruins at Coba, where tourist buses park next to a shallow, crocodile-infested lagoon. There are no buses here, just a main square with a gazebo and the sound of soft Mayan consonants swishing...

A thin cement pier juts out into the warm waters of Chetumal's bay toward a small island dominated by a mysterious structure. Though fences have been erected to make sure no one is tempted to walk out over the waves, the chain links have been pulled aside and footprints in...

The repainted school buses that run from Belize City up to Mexico fill with old white men in coveralls, young creole girls in beachwear and Garifuna in straw hats before disgorging their contents across the border into a crowd of Mestizos hawking their goods and offering rides into Chetumal. There...

The museum began 29 years ago when Luis Colmenares, then just a boy, spotted a sliver of pottery amid the dirt as his father dug a new foundation for their home on an island in Lake Peten. The sliver turned out to be a whole cup, and an uncle at...