Frontier Airlines: The Spirit of the American West, Now Available in a Middle Seat Near You By: Our Man in the Departure Lounge DENVER—Somewhere over the North Atlantic, a Lufthansa A350 glides toward Frankfurt like a well-funded social-democracy, sipping fuel and serving Riesling. Ten thousand feet below, an Airbus A320 with a raccoon on the…
Hotel Babylon: A Global Tour of the Last Refuge Before the Apocalypse By Your Correspondent, Fresh from the Minibar and Existential Dread PARIS—At 2:14 a.m. in the Hôtel des Grands Boulevards, a Saudi prince is arguing with the night concierge about the ethical sourcing of his pillow mints. Three floors below, a climate-science post-doc from…
The Global Motel: A Passport to Nowhere, Everywhere From the neon vacancy sign flickering like a dying star in Tucson to the fluorescent corridor in Ankara that smells of boiled cabbage and secrets, the motel is humanity’s most honest embassy. It claims no flag, demands no visa, and yet every nation has one—usually wedged between…
LAS VEGAS WEATHER: WHERE THE WORLD COMES TO MELT By our correspondent who has filed stories from actual deserts that were more hospitable Las Vegas—that glittering monument to human optimism in Nevada’s Mojave Desert—has been experiencing weather that makes one wonder if the city finally negotiated an exclusive deal with the sun. While temperatures flirt…
Sky vs Fever: The Planet’s Newest Past-Time, Sponsored by Everyone’s Panic By Our Man in the Departures Lounge The match-up began quietly enough—one of those slow-motion grudge fights that only epidemiologists and airline CEOs bother to track. On one side: the literal sky, 510 million square kilometres of once-pristine nothing now hosting 45,000 commercial flights…
Victoria Station: The World’s Most Overqualified Waiting Room By Our London Correspondent, nursing a tepid flat white and existential dread London, UK – Somewhere beneath the ornamental pigeons and the low, grey sky that passes for weather here, Victoria Station yawns open like a bored Leviathan. Every minute, 2,000 fresh pilgrims—armed with wheelie bags, misplaced…
