This week’s edition of Travel Videos Worth a Damn is about atmosphere. There are times in life when the mood, the light, and the timing is just right to put you at ease and allow you to engross yourself in a moment. These videos are glimpses of just such moments, providing a sense for place that is at once timeless and fleeting. “The Golden Sea,” Infinity List: While there are a number of... Read more >

Chris Hopkins, the mixologist at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas recently spent 17 days in Australia consulting the new gastro pub the Merrywell, at the newly revamped Crown Perth. Hopkins, a Perth native, managed to find time to hop over to Melbourne and check out the city’s dynamic bar scene. “The last time I was there I wasn’t really involved in the cocktail world,” he says. “So it was cool... Read more >

NAME: Sir Russell Coutts AGE: 51 BORN IN: Wellington, New Zealand RESIDES IN: San Francisco, California JOB DESCRIPTION: CEO of Oracle Team USA, the American sailing team defending the America’s Cup trophy in September 2013. Coutts has won the prestigious yacht race four times. TIME SPENT ON THE ROAD: Two to three weeks a month PLACES VISITED IN THE LAST YEAR: China, England, France, Italy,... Read more >

  When I was 18, I had a job mapping power lines, on foot, across Texas. During that walking tour from Texarkana to Amarillo, Paris to Corsicana, I had lunch in hundreds of cafés, some in towns so small the restaurant was just somebody’s porch. Everyone had a chicken-fried steak special on the menu, and invariably I ordered it. I can’t recall a single proprietor who didn’t swear it was “the... Read more >

Anastasia Miron is a traveler with a social mission. As the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of GlobeIn, an online marketplace that connects local artisans with global buyers, Miron travels to remote stretches of the world seeking out talented creators of handicrafts in order to share their work with a broader audience. Leveraging a dedicated group of Artisan Helpers and regional... Read more >

“Yes Please; Party of One,” T Magazine My friends are often baffled when I tell them I’m taking a trip alone. But I think traveling solo is the ultimate indulgence. Andrew O’Hagan backs me up in his convincing essay, “Party of One,” in T’s Summer Travel Issue. “I believe that traveling alone is the last great test of who you are in a world where everyone aches to be the same,” he says. I... Read more >

Seeking the wonderfully disorienting effect of travel, Taras Grescoe ventures to Budapest, where bewilderment ensues. I thought I had my addiction under control. I always considered the travel bug one of those socially acceptable vices—akin to an obsession with word games or Tuscan reds—that contains hidden virtues. Doing the Saturday New York Times crossword can train your mind, and... Read more >

This week’s Travel Videos Worth a Damn is all about nature and adventure. From extreme sports to the extreme beauty of the natural world, these videos are not short on visual appeal, as well as derring do! First, walk the tightrope with a group of fearless Frenchmen, then get ready to celebrate the best of the best at the 2013 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. Next, walk across China with... Read more >

Don’t be surprised by the Southern subtleties on the menu at Solage Calistoga’s Solbar restaurant (below) in Napa Valley, California. Executive chef Brandon Sharp attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and worked at Restaurant August in New Orleans. His obsession with California produce came from stints at the French Laundry, and Gary Danko. Here, Sharp shares the North Carolina... Read more >