Lina Zeldovich

The only thing hotter than Cartagena’s afternoon sun is the cooking oil sizzling in the pots of the city’s street food vendors. The sun in Colombia can burn you in less than 15 minutes, but that oil turns a flattened slice of a green plantain into a fried crispy patacón in just a few seconds. Frying an empanada takes a bit longer. Then the woman gives me the empanada wrapped in a thin napkin from which hot oil drips...

Jackson Madnick, a 76-year-old resident of Wayland, Mass., rarely mows, waters or fertilizes his lawn, and he never sprays it with weed killers. Even so, his grass looks like a thriving, emerald-green meadow year-round. It emerges green from under the snow, and it keeps its vibrant hue in summer droughts...

It’s barely 8 o’clock on a crisp spring morning and my tour guide, Denis Laberge, is full of energy and excitement. A Québécois for more than 60 years, he knows every corner of this provincial capital in eastern Canada and every bit of its history. We start at Place Royale in the Lower Town of Old Québec, right in front of the Notre-Dame des Victoires church

This sparsely populated Wild West frontier effectively kick-started women's suffrage by granting women the right to vote before they could elsewhere in the US.

On 6 September 1870, Louisa Ann Swain, a grandmother in Laramie, Wyoming, put a clean apron over her house dress, donned a knitted bonnet and got ready for her early morning walk. Swain was 70 years old, still agile and strong, and she had recently moved to Laramie with her husband to live near their son. She took her little bucket and...

Jesse Katz, owner of Aperture Cellars, a California vineyard, removes the plug from a Malbec barrel and listens intensely. “Can you hear the wine talking?” he asks me. I shake my head, thinking he’s joking, but Jesse suggests I hold my ear closer to the barrel. I do as he says and finally discern a gentle crackle, fainter than Rice Krispies snapping in milk. “That’s the sound of malolactic fermentation—the lactic acid bacteria making wine,” he tells me.
“Do you listen to your wines often?” I ...

Our plan was to spend a few days in the Eternal City before heading to Palermo, Sicily’s capital. A plane would get us there in two hours, but all we’d miss the rolling hills of the countryside and the seemingly endless vineyards disappearing into the horizon. Driving would take two days and wear us out. But, trains? Trains—especially sleeper trains—were a great option.

Nearly 200 years before slavery was abolished in the US, Black freedom-seekers journeyed south instead of north to a place that promised freedom.

In October 1687, a dugout canoe arrived at the shores of St Augustine, then a settlement in Spanish Florida and now the oldest continuously occupied city in the mainland US. The canoe carried eight men and two women, one of whom was holding a toddler in her arms...

When the world went into lockdown, Andy Katz, a 70-year-old camera pro, pursued his lifelong dream of photographing all 63 of America’s National Parks. The result was a book that embodied the healing powers of nature

The polar bear approaches slowly, its huge paws leaving massive footprints in the fresh snow — closer and closer, until we can almost feel it breathing. Face to face, the bear stares at us with an inquisitive look. We hold our breaths and wonder if maybe we’re too close....

It’s a crisp Saturday morning and Naschmarkt—Vienna’s famed food market that dates to the 16th century—is bustling with life and provisions. Here, more than 100 stands brim with pastries, breads, cheeses, cured meats and fresh produce. I am hungry, so I eagerly follow my tour guide, to the stand that serves kaiserschmarrn—a light and fluffy shredded pancake eaten with plum and apple…

Walking into guest apartments of St. Augustine’s Three Stories Inn feels like entering a healing sanctuary. The ornate wallpaper featuring sprawling trees and flying birds creates a feeling of strolling through a fantasy forest. Colorful couches and comfy throws usher in a sense of peace, a home away from home. Books are everywhere, on shelves, cocktails tables and kitchen counters, each telling a story. So do the three guest apartments, aptly named the Forward, the Prologue and the Epilogue...

How a veterinarian with a green thumb turned a junkyard into a palm paradise

Walking through the St. John’s Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve in Hastings, Florida, feels like exploring an Amazonian jungle—except that the four hundred species of palm trees that grow here have been collected from all over the world. Here a tall Stone Gate palm from China neighbors a petit Bismarck one from Madagascar, and a bushy Papuan Fishtail palm brushes against fan-shaped branches o...

Many come for the sun, sand and surf—but stay for the exceptional French and Creole cuisine.

It’s about noon on a Saturday and tables at La Terrasse already are filling up quickly. This rooftop restaurant with outdoor and indoor spaces overlooks the ocean and the bustling center of Marigot, the capital of the Caribbean island of French St. Martin. Owner Dylan Wagner, a transplant from Southeast France, serves me a classic French dish: slow-roasted duck, garlic butter snails and egg cocotte...

With no cities or courts, the formidable and nomadic Xiongnu kingdom sent princess emissaries to control its frontiers.

The raiders came from the north. They came on horseback, the skilled bowmen shooting powerful arrows with expert precision. They ruined and burned the crops, which the Han Chinese villagers living on China's northern frontiers in about 200 BCE tended to with great attention. The Han Chinese called the invaders "Xiongnu", which meant...

Villainised, stigmatised and still officially outlawed, the indigenous beverage chicha has been making a comeback.

"You know you're breaking the law by drinking this?" teased my tour guide Andrea Izquierdo, as she placed a pitcher filled with a frothy, pale peach-coloured drink on the tasting table in front of us. We were at Casa Galeria, a restaurant in Bogotá's Candelaria district, the historic and colourful centre of Colombia's capital. The illegal substance she was about to serve me was ...