Gap years: are they worth it?
August 15, 2015
Teaching English in Battambang? Kite-surfing in Jericoacoara? Rhino darting in South Africa? Learning Spanish in Sucre? Or passed out on the beaches of Koh Tao? How did you spend your gap year? Traditionally a gap year has been taken between school and university by so-called ‘gappers’, usually around eighteen years of age [...]

Sail away
March 17, 2012
Hone your sailing skills on a cruising course off the California coast. As a child, my choice of bedtime reading was not about fairies or princesses but instead about great women sailors. One of my favourites was Naomi James's At One with the Sea; she was the first woman to sail single-handed around the world via the Cape Horn route, a voyage that lasted 272 days. [...]

Hollywood glam with a dose of friendliness at Mr C Beverly Hills
August 20, 2011
Parked in the hotel's forecourt were open-topped Bentleys and Aston Martins but the valet attendants were masters of discretion. In spite of my very ordinary hire car - littered with empty crisp packets and well-thumbed newspapers - they could not have been more obliging when they took the keys. [...]

Splash out -- without smelling the chlorine
January 29, 2011
Flailing limbs. Kicking feet. I swallowed several pitchers of East River water and took a few knocks to the head. But I did not forget to glance up at the towering skyscrapers glinting in the sunlight [...]

Building the future
October 31, 2007
LONDON, England -- As the climate change debate rages, smart businesses are quietly studying its effects on our future lifestyle. High on the agenda is building more sustainable spaces for us to live and work in. [...]

Intelligent playgrounds
September 26, 2007
LONDON, England -- Pick me! Pick me! The weakest children may no longer be left out of playground games. New technology may help to put kids on a more level playing field, which may in turn motivate them to learn and encourage competitiveness. [...]

A giant leap : Robots or astronauts ?
September 3, 2007
LONDON, England -- Can everyone be an astronomer? It certainly seems that way, especially with some of the latest tools at our fingertips, like Google Sky, which allows Internet users to navigate through a digitized map of space. [...]

Far, Far Away From Home
June 23, 2007
Buying a villa in Tuscany is so cliché. These days, luxury consumers want their holiday refuges to be off the beaten path. Buzz Dow, 58, who runs a family business in Cincinnati, Ohio, already had a second home in Vail, Colorado, and was looking for a third by the sea. [...]

Pick the world's new wonders
June 16, 2007
An ancient list is being updated, through a modern worldwide poll. Michelle Jana Chan looks at the 21 contenders. On July 7, there will be a new version of the Seven Wonders of the World, a list that has always captured the imagination of travellers. [...]

Identity in a virtual world
June 14, 2007
LONDON, England -- There's more to someone's identity than a social security number, passport photo and set of fingerprints but it's difficult to define exactly what else it is. Is it what the public sees or the inner self ? [...]

The New Inn Crowd
May 20, 2007
Why celebrities like Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Redford and Richard Branson are getting into the hotel business. He may be more famous for directing "The Godfather" film trilogy, but Francis Ford Coppola has another trio of esteemed creations to his name: three boutique hotels hidden in the Central American jungle. [...]

In the footsteps of freedom
November 19, 2005
The tea party is long over, but the celebration of independence carries on in Boston. Beside the Old State House in downtown Boston, an oversized gold teapot hangs outside a shop that once sold sacks of Darjeeling bought from the British East India Company. It's a memento of another era. Now the shop is a Starbucks. [...]

Q&A : 'This Is A Dream I Have'
October 9, 2003
Nobel Laureate Joseph Rotblat Talks About How The World Can Rid Itself Of Nuclear Weapons And Find Its Way To Global Peace. At 94, Joseph Rotblat isn't letting age slow his razor-sharp mind. [...]

Off The Wall ?
March 7, 2001
Meet The New Michael Jackson. The Wacky Star Is Now The World's Latest-And Perhaps Most Unlikely-Spokesman On Family Values. Michael Jackson is calling himself the icon of a generation-a generation, he says, that "no longer knows what it means to be a child". [...]

Love Them, Hate Them
February 19, 2001
The Strange Marriage Of Baseball And Football Titans. It was as if long-lost English cousins had come to town. Last week executives from the richest, most successful sports team in the United Kingdom arrived in Manhattan. [...]

A tale of twin babies
January 29, 2001
An adoption gone bad has caused an international scandal -- and heartbreak for two anguished families. The way the London tabloids told it, the story of how two adorable, U.S.-born infant girls got to Britain was a shocking tale of baby-selling on the Internet--even Tony Blair got into the act, saying he found this type of e-commerce "absolutely deplorable." [...]

The NY-LON Life
November 13, 2000
More people are working and playing in New York and London as if they were one city. Ron Kastner is a classic New Yorker: first off the plane, first out of the airport. Carrying a single small bag, he breezes through immigration and customs. [...]