Hello Reader,

🧭 Where in the World?

Welcome to July, wherever you are. Chances are you are gathering with friends or family, maybe getting outdoors a bit more than usual despite the weather conditions around you. Allow us to play the motherly role and remind you to pack for safe and healthy travel. Remember water, hat, and sunscreen…whether it’s a road trip, a day hike, or a backyard bar-b-que. You’ll find our latest sun hat and other suggestions in these posts:

• Day Hiking Essentials: What to Pack in Your Day Pack.
• ​The Ultralight Packing List for Women

🧳 Our Latest Posts

Alaska is a big place, and our coverage is getting bigger. This week we published the story of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve — the Little Ice Age, the Huna Tlingit history, and a landscape that was solid ice just 250 years ago. As Kris writes: "It's as if we are all new here. Because we are."

In case you missed it, here's Tom's post about the Sitka National Historical Park we posted last week.

Coming soon: our full account of the Inside Passage cruise experience.

🛫 Get Going: Tours We Recommend For You

Looking for ideas for your upcoming travels? Vist our Travel Past 50 Tours page and gather up your friends to travel with us. Or contact us for custom travel consulting. Either way, you'll be the first to learn about tour opportunities with us and wtih our partners.

🗞️ Travel News From Around the Web

• There was certainly a lot of news about the difficulties faced by soccer (football to the rest of the world) fans in coming to the US for the World Cup. But, for those who did navigate the high prices, visa restrictions, and other impediments thrown up based on where you're from, the visitors who made it found Americans to be welcoming, and not just because of the barbecue and ranch salad dressing.
• If you're tired of how long even TSA PreCheck lines have become, look into TSA Touchless ID. Register once with each airline you fly (a valid passport and existing PreCheck enrollment are required), and the face-scan process at security takes seconds. Lines are shorter and the whole thing is faster. We've been using it for a while and it's genuinely worth the small setup effort.

📖 What We're Reading

Tom is still working on Middlemarch. George Eliot's prose requires some patience, but she rewards you so regularly with brilliant observations about human nature that you forgive the length entirely.

With a houseful of family and a near 24-hour kitchen, Kris has taken to hiding out for a half hour here and there to finish Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. The line-up of books next in line is getting taller after a visit to our neighborhood bookstore, Birchbark Books. Owned by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, Louise Erdrich, the little shop of big ideas recently hosted Ann Patchett and Kate DiCamillo. Birchbark has a great children’s section and reading loft, so stop by this landmark next time you visit Minneapolis.

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❞

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. – Mark Twain

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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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