Hello Reader,

🧭 Where in the World?

We’ve been home one week since our South America travels, and have moved on from laundry to spring cleaning, from a blizzard to a major thaw, from unpacking to planning our next trips to Spain and Alaska. Everything turns on a dime in March; it’s the nature of the season.

🔐 Travel security updates: free online event

Next week, wherever you are, we hope you’ll join us along with other travel experts for the DIY Trip Security Spotlight. Listen in or ask questions as we discuss “Prepared Travel for Today’s World,” sponsored by Intentional Travelers. We’ll cover practical safety tips, ways to reduce digital and financial risks, plus updates on the current travel environment and how Americans are being received abroad. This is designed to be a calm conversation, not a scare-tactic click bait approach.

​Register now to join the live Zoom session March 26, 2026, 7:30 p.m Central Time.

The recording of this call will be available for 48 hours to all who register. Extended replay access is available to all Intentional Travelers Toolkit members and Security Spotlight pass holders.

🧳 Our Latest Posts

As promised, we’re following up Tom’s beautiful photo posts from the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago with this new post about our week in central Chile. Yes, Patagonia and the Atacama Desert get the bulk of international travelers’ attention, but we’d encourage anyone to choose historic Santiago de Chile, with its central valley wine regions and nearby Pacific coast, as an excellent alternative to touring Europe.

🛫 Get Going: Tours We Recommend For You

We’ve had a chance this week to fine tune details of our November 2026 trip to Spain, centered on the Elective Study Abroad course, Architecture and Cuisine of Andalucía. You can read all about it on our Travel Past 50 Tours page by clicking here.

We can’t wait to explore Granada and Córdoba in depth, a rare opportunity with expert instructors. Travel Past 50 readers save $250 with the code TP502026. There’s no single supplement, and just for the asking we’ll help with any of your pre- or post- travel extensions in Spain, our home away from home.

🗞️ Travel News From Around the Web

• The National Park Service announced it recorded more than 323 million recreation visits in 2025, including over 13 million overnight stays, with 26 parks setting new visitation records. That despite a 43-day partial government shutdown. The most visited National Park by far is Great Smoky Mountains NP, with more than twice as many visitors as #2 Zion NP. Including all National Park Service sites, however, don’t overlook the popularity of both Blue Ridge Parkway and Natchez Trace Parkway. These are the most visited US National Parks: 1. Great Smoky Mountains NP 11,527,939 2. Zion NP 4,984,525 3. Yellowstone NP 4,762,988 4. Grand Canyon NP 4,430,653 5. Yosemite NP 4,278,413.
• From our friends at Thrifty Traveler, this handy guide on how to check your TSA wait times at many US airports. This will give you an idea of how long you'll be waiting in line for your security check, especially now during the government shutdown.
• From the NYTimes, a fairly comprehensive list of apps that will aid your travels in other countries. We use several of their recommendations ourselves when we're out of the US. Hint: Freenow is the rideshare app to use in much of Spain.

💸 This Week's Best Deals in Travel

• Or very favorite merino wool travel socks, Point6, is having a 45 percent off sitewide sale this weekend only. Use the code SPRING26 at checkout. Don't dawdle, this deal is good only through this Sunday. Trust us, these are great socks.

📖 What We're Reading

Somehow Kris hasn’t found a whole day to read, uninterrupted, to finish The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, as she was hoping. But she did cook up a lot of soups and dinners over the snow days. Eat or read?

Tom finished two books that had been on his list for a long time, Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell, and Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Both books center around the tragic death of a child. He especially recommends Hamnet as one of the best books he's read in the last few years. Next on the list of the books that have piled up for years on the bedside table (and floor) is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

You can see most of the books we recommend in one place at our Amazon book shop. If you'd prefer an alternative to Amazon, there is Alibris.com, where we frequently buy used books, and Bookshop.org, which supports independent booksellers. And, if you're into art books, like we are, check out the catalog at Taschen, the world's foremost publisher of art books.

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

❝Travel Quote of the Week❞

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. – Dorothy Parker

Read past editions of our newsletter here.

If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here.

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.

​

Are you planning to book a trip soon?

• See our favorite travel resources​
• Check out our recommended travel accessories​
• Read all our Travel Skills tips posts​

Some other recommendations from our partners:

• See the travel gear and books we recommend at our Travel Past 50 Amazon shop​
• Shop our favorite place for outdoor gear and travel clothing at REI Co-op​
• For your Spain travel, check out suggested itineraries at Spain's official tourism site​

Travel Past 50 is part of affiliate sales networks and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. If you buy something from one of our links, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.