NAME: Kahokule‘a “Hoku” Haiku AGE: 37 OCCUPATION: Educator, volunteer coordinator, and hiking guide at Waimea Valley, a park and cultural center devoted to preserving native Hawaiian traditions and lands. NEIGHBORHOOD: North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii The North Shore is the cultural heart of the island of Oahu. If you cut the region in half from north to south, Waimea Valley would be at the center.... Read more >

“Out in the Great Alone,” Grantland Mirroring the format of the New York Times’ multimedia masterpiece “Snow Fall,” this epic narrative by Brian Phillips unravels the story of Alaska’s daunting Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race. Phillips, who says of himself, “I hate snow, do not play winter sports, keep the thermostat at 65 on a good day, and haven’t logged out of Spotify since 2011. I’m not even a... Read more >

In this age of electronic communication, snail mail falls by the wayside—along with the sometimes outrageous, colorful, and iconic stamps that mark the letters as postage paid. Postage stamps embody history, geography, science, culture, and charity. From royal personages to pop icons, stamps celebrate people, places, myths, legends, arts, transportation, and the natural world. As William Butler... Read more >

On a luxurious journey from Singapore to Bangkok, Chris Colin lifts the veil on the magic of rail travel. We had crossed from Singapore into Malaysia, but to all aboard, this was one land, the country of heat. It was thick, permanent heat, the furnace blast. Everything was somehow about the heat: the acrid smell of hot steel in motion, the sheen of warm grease on old gravel, the simple thrill... Read more >

In a plaza by the Brandenburg Gate, near the center of Berlin, lies a field of gray concrete slabs, each about eight feet long and three feet wide, some as little as eight inches high, others reaching just over 15 feet. The space between them forms a grid where visitors wander in somber remembrance, for this is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. On a gray, cold July day in 2005,... Read more >

AFAR chooses a destination at random—by literally spinning a globe—and sends writer John T. Edge on a spontaneous journey to Kazakhstan. Our horses are lean and healthy,” Orinbasar Kuatov said when I told him that the first bite I took in his town, earlier in the day, was kazy, a sausage made by stuffing a deboned horse rib into a garlic-smeared horse intestine. “What fat they have is just... Read more >

Fabio Viviani, the chef-owner of two Italian restaurants in California and the new Siena Tavern in Chicago, makes Amsterdam his layover stop whenever he travels through Europe. The Florence native has outgrown his youthful curiosity about the city’s red-light district and “coffee shops,” and now seeks out off-the-beaten-path eateries that serve no-frills dishes to rooms full of locals. Here are... Read more >

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 >