Weekly travel reads: An icy hike to Europe’s highest overnight stay

[The Travel Wire #104] I hiked two volcano-mountains overnight in Java, what is travel good for, how ‘Ted Lasso’ turned a charming London suburb into a tourist hotspot, and more travel reads.

Travel reads

• Rifugio Capanna Regina Margherita: An icy 4,554m hike to Europe’s highest overnight stay (archive) [BBC Travel]
“You can sleep over at this historic mountain refuge straddling the Italy-Switzerland border – but only if you’re willing to undertake a days-long, high-altitude icy mountain trek.”

• I hiked two volcano-mountains overnight in Java, alone, with a fairly useless headlamp [The Renaissance Traveler]

• What is travel good for, actually [Fialka Unpacked]
“a non-exhaustive list.”

• Why is Frank Zappa watching over Vilnius, Lithuania? [Intrepid Times]
“After stumbling upon a bronze statue of Frank Zappa in Vilnius, Lithuania, a traveler begins his quest to discover how it got there, which leads him on a crash course in Soviet history and the plight of artists, who often give cities a creative soul before being priced out.”

• Trieste before the heat: a morning walk through a city of espresso and ghosts [Wander, Wonder, Write]
“On fallen empires, lasting flavors, and the unwritten future.”

• When travelling, we see something of ourselves in different others [Carissa Véliz]
“Why do we travel?”

• The limitations of travel writing [Jack Montgomery Writer]
“Why travel articles have limited value.”

• Genova on my mind [Without Maps]
“Genoa didn’t just produce the man who bumped into America — it held his bank statements. That’s not a plaque-and-postcard fact. That’s a whole species of old money I didn’t know existed until I was standing in front of the palazzo that housed it, slightly stunned, doing the mental math on how long ago 1407 actually is.”

• Where the hell am I? Mexico looks like this? [Carl Camembert Henn]
“Most Americans take the low road, but I took the high road, and it’s beautiful up here.”

• Stop gatekeeping places you went to [Scott Monaco]
“On travel, social media, and pulling the ladder up behind you.”

• What I love about traveling alone [The Fast Track]
Why I find traveling alone so rewarding—and where I’m dreaming of going next.

• How ‘Ted Lasso’ turned a charming London suburb into a tourist hotspot [CNN Travel]