Hello Reader,

🧭 Where in the World?

There’s a shift in the air – which in our case means slightly less smoke. The Minnesota State Fair is upon us, Fall travel plans are coming into focus, and our gardens are looking like they may need a long rest. (Cue the garage cleaning.) While we savor these last summer days, we’ve finalized our travel plans to Sicily and Spain in October. Read on!

✏️ Our Latest Posts

Between trips, we've been doing some quieter work behind the scenes cleaning up a few blog posts that needed it, and giving one of our most useful checklists a proper refresh. Here's what's new:

🗺️ Good Habits to Tune Up Your Travel Mindset​
We asked travelers around the world what keeps their curiosity alive between trips, and the answers ranged from geocaching to language exchanges to cooking their way back through old souvenirs. It's less about killing time until the next trip and more about staying a traveler even when the passport's in a drawer.
​[Read more →]​​

🧳 International Travel Safety Tips: The Complete Checklist​
Kris pulled together everything we've learned the hard way over 16 years and 85 countries — home security before you leave, passport and visa details, travel insurance basics, digital security on the road, and what to actually do if your passport goes missing abroad. If you only read one of these links, make it this one.
​ [Read more →]​

🔌 Why You Need a VPN When You Travel​
We combined our two VPN posts into one, because you shouldn't have to read the same advice twice to get the full picture. What's left is the useful part: what a VPN actually protects you from, why hotel and café Wi-Fi deserves some healthy suspicion, and the time switching our VPN's server location saved us several hundred dollars on flights to Buenos Aires. Plus, the VPN we actually use ourselves, and a couple of budget-friendly picks if you'd rather spend less.
​ [Read more →]​

📱 Best Apps for Travel — Now With eSIMs​
We added a new section on eSIMs — Airalo, Holafly, Saily — so you can sort out mobile data before you land instead of hunting for a SIM card kiosk at midnight in an unfamiliar airport.
​ [Read more →]​

🇬🇧 Maritime Greenwich​
A refresh of our Greenwich, England guide — the Cutty Sark, the Royal Observatory, the line where East meets West — with a few extra details to make planning your visit easier.
​ [Read more →]​

And speaking of planning your next trip — there is space left on one of our own. See below.

🛫 Get Going: Tours We Recommend For You

Palermo, Sicily: 8 days, October 4 – 11, 2026

In just over a month, we’re returning to Sicily – one of the ancient world's most extraordinary crossroads of cultures – both ancient and (relatively) modern. Join us on a deep dive into Palermo and the city’s continual adaptation under successive cultures – from Phoenicians and Greeks to Arabs, Normans and Spanish. With Elective Study Abroad, we’ll enjoy learning from the experts while staying in 4-star accommodations and taking in the food, wine and culture of the region.

NOTE: Travel Past 50 readers save $250 with the code TP502026. There’s no single supplement. Plus, we’ll happily help with suggestions for any of your pre- or post- travel extensions

​REGISTER HERE. Space is limited.

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🗞️ Travel News From Around the Web

• We always love looking at great photos, and here's a photo contest with a bit of a twist. All photos were taken with iPhones. Some really nice ones in here – ones that inspire us to make better use of our own phones. Have a look.
• The Odyssey Effect. Since the release of the movie The Odyssey this summer, Essaouira, Morocco, is joining Greece in capitalizing on interest in the movie locations. Essaouira, where the beached Trojan horse scene was set, was also voted #3 on the ‘Best Cities in Africa & the Middle East’ list, by readers of Travel+Leisure magazine.
• According to Euro News, Spain, which is currently the second-most-visited country in the world, will overtake France sometime before 2040 to become number one. Not sure that's good news for the Spaniards, but it is testament to the enduring attraction of our favorite country and erstwhile home. If you want to beat the rush to Spain, start with our Spain travel guide.​

💸 This Week's Best Deals in Travel

• We really rely on Thrifty Traveler for flight deals – both for cash and points – that we've been able to take advantage of on numerous occasions – such as that time we flew round trip to Spain, in Comfort Class, for the equivalent of about $500 in points. The latest news we've been following especially closely is the deals for superior class flights on Delta. There have been lots of them lately, and Thrifty Traveler Premium is a great deal at $129 per year. And, it's even better when you get $20 off as a Travel Past 50 reader just by signing up via our link.

📖 What We're Reading

Kris recently finished The Audition by Katie Kitamura, a short novel with enough perplexing characters and scenes and scenarios to make for an especially fun book club discussion. She’s now taking a break with a fine detective story by Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery, enveloped in Gregorian chants and otherwise tight-lipped monks.

Tom has just read a rather disturbing historical novel about a very dark time in American history: the Salem witch trials. The Heretic's Daughter, by Kathleen Kent is a horrifying story of that time written by a descendant of one of the women who was hanged as a witch. The descriptions of the prison where the accused witches were kept is probably enough to give you nightmares – never mind the mass hysteria which led to the trials. Next up for Tom is the long delayed reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez.

Find most of our recommendations at our Amazon book shop — or, if you prefer supporting independent booksellers, Bookshop.org is excellent. Art book lovers: Taschen's catalog is a rabbit hole worth falling into.

If you buy a book through our links, we make a small commission at no additional cost to you.

❝Travel Quote of the Week❞

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. – Oscar Wilde

See our list of amusing, insightful, and pithy travel quotes here.

Read past editions of our newsletter here.

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Have any feedback? Ideas for future posts or email topics? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at feedback@travelpast50.com.

Happy travels,

Kris and Tom

Tom Bartel and Kristin Henning ​Travel Past 50​ Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. Join our Facebook community.

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