Say WOW

Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
Triple Bridge in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Winding through Ljubljana following a trail of Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik’s structures, like stars in a constellation, is a great way to explore the city. While Ljubljana began as an ancient Roman town called Emona, it was never of particular importance until the 20th century. In fact, Plečnik called his hometown a “cultural backwater” and made it the mission of his career to elevate it through architecture.  He lived during the Modernist era, when the idea was afloat that...

Read More

Museo de la Caricatura (Caricature Museum) in...
Established in 1987 by the Mexican Society of Cartoonists, this museum celebrates the country’s rich cartooning tradition. Political cartoons have long been popular in Mexico, reflecting its tumultuous history and the people’s relationship with the authorities. Some of the oldest works here are by the famed José Guadalupe Posada, whose skeleton cartoons illustrated political and parodistic broadsides in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of these would become the Calavera Catrina (Female Dandy Skull), now an icon...

Read More

Old Alexandra Bridge in Fraser Valley, British...
The Fraser River played a critical role in the history of British Columbia. It was the site of the gold discoveries in the 1850s that led to the creation of the province, and became a transportation corridor to the rest of Canada. Steamboats could travel as far as Yale, a gold camp downstream from this point, and then a set of precarious roads continued upstream to the Cariboo gold fields. These roads were largely obliterated when the Canadian Pacific...

Read More

 
Shinodanomori Shrine in Izumi, Japan
Once upon a time in present-day Izumi, Osaka, there was a mystical forest called Shinoda-no-mori, home to many kitsune—mischievous, shapeshifting foxes of Japanese folklore. According to legend, these magical creatures lured a hunter named Akuemon to the forest. His wife was severely ill and he had been advised by his sorcerer brother Ashiya Douman to hunt a kitsune and collect its liver to make medicine for her. Akuemon was about to kill a white fox named Kuzunoha when Abe...

Read More

Tennessee Williams’ Home in Columbus, Mississippi
The Tennessee Williams Home & Welcome Center in Columbus, Mississippi offers a glimpse into the early life of the iconic playwright. Now transformed into a charming visitor center, this beautifully restored Victorian home offers insight into the writer who gave us A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. Period furnishings from the early 1900s, evocative photographs, and thoughtfully curated exhibits celebrate both the local heritage and the dramatic influences that shaped Williams’ storytelling. Whether you’re a devoted fan of Southern...

Read More

Causland Memorial Park in Anacortes, Washington
Causland Memorial Park boasts an amphitheater, beautifully established ornamental vegetation and plenty of places to sit and have a nice picnic or a stroll. The unsual park sprawls over two acres in the center of the city of Anacortes, Washington. Originally designed and built in the 1920s by artist/architect John Baptiste LePage, it is a registered historic place featuring a great deal of stone mosaicwork. A good portion of the park is dedicated to local veterans who served the U.S....

Read More

 
Sao Bras Church in Gandaulim, India
Around 4 kilometers east of Old Goa, in the village of Gandaulim, India, on a hilltop, is an old church that has a fascinating connection with Croatia. The Church of Sao Bras (Saint Blaise) was a chapel built by Croatian sailors and traders in 1541 and was later elevated to the status of a parish church in 1563. The church is a replica of Sveti Vlaho (St. Blaise) Church in Dubrovnik. It is believed that Croatian traders from that...

Read More

Top 5 Unusual Places Near Dubai: Hidden...
Dubai is often associated with extravagance, soaring structures, along with busy commercial hubs. While these locales are undeniably charming, many sightseers find they crave something beyond the typical tourist’s experience. The attraction of Dubai’s ostentatious facade can sometimes overshadow the plentiful aggregation of culture and nature that thrives just beyond its limits. If you yearn The post Top 5 Unusual Places Near Dubai: Hidden Gems Worth Exploring appeared first on Revfine.com.

Read More

Dear Atlas: How Do I Actually Meet...
Dear Atlas is Atlas Obscura’s travel advice column, answering the questions you won’t find in traditional guidebooks. Have a question for our experts? Submit it here. * * * Dear Atlas, I love meeting locals when I’m traveling, but I’m never quite sure how to go about it when I’m in a completely new destination. Do you have any tips? We travelers all have the same fantasy. We arrive in a foreign city and head to a bar. Or...

Read More

 
Whitman Mission National Historic Site in Walla...
In 1836, missionary couples Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and Henry and Eliza Spalding accompanied a trapper caravan to what was then the Oregon country. Narcissa and Eliza were the first European-American women to make this trip. The Whitmans established a mission at Waiilatpu, on the Walla Walla River, about five miles west of the site of the eponymous modern city. They were initially welcomed by the Cayuse, the dominant Native American tribe where the mission lay. A daughter, Alice...

Read More

Hotel CRM System: The Ultimate Guide to...
A hotel CRM system is a software solution designed to assist hotels with customer relationships management. It can be used to gather contact information, past customer interactions and guest preferences. By centralizing data, CRM systems make it easier for hotels to access important information about guests. This data can then be used to improve personalization, The post Hotel CRM System: The Ultimate Guide to Customer Relationship Management appeared first on Revfine.com.

Read More

Where the Savior Fish Still Swims
This story was originally published in bioGraphic and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On the Nass River, in the lands of the Nisg̱a’a Nation along British Columbia’s northern coast, the ropes holding two aluminum skiffs strain as the ocean yanks back its tidal waters. Hidden beneath the turbulent surface, thousands of smelts known as eulachon, each about the size of the blade of a chef’s knife, jostle in the rushing water. If the night ahead...

Read More

 
Ljubljana Central Market in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Located near the Triple Bridge, the part open-air, part covered Tržnice Central Market in Ljubljana is another of architect Jože Plečnik’s designs. A sign of his forward-thinking, the market needed no renovations since it first opened in 1939. It includes a winding column-lined portico (Plečnik loved columns and sometimes stuck them places where they didn’t support anything, just because he liked them) and separate areas for butchers (one the ground level) and fishmongers (the lower level, nearer the river...

Read More

A Guide to the Peppers of the...
This article is adapted from the March 8, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. As an undergrad Classics major, I first heard of long pepper as something the Ancient Romans ate. Scientifically known as Piper longum, this elongated cousin of black pepper tastes more complex, but carries a similar zing thanks to piperine, a different compound from the capsaicin that gives chilies their heat. Roman elites imported it from its native India...

Read More

What Makes Heritage Livestock So Important? AO...
AO Wants to Know is an ongoing interview series where we ask experts in extraordinary subjects to share their knowledge with us. When I first meet Jeannette Beranger over Zoom, she’s getting ready to deliver fresh eggs from her chickens to her coworkers. But the glossy black birds that Beranger raises on her home farm in North Carolina, with hornlike red wattles and fluffy crests obscuring their eyes, are not just any chickens. They’re Crèvecœurs, a rare French breed...

Read More