The Travel Wire: best travel reads #21

Mardi Gras the Balkan way, tracing a travel writer’s legacy in Taiwan, Japan’s abandoned industrial island of Hashima, in search of a legendary skiing village

Jan 31, 2025

Welcome to The Travel Wire, where I curate the best travel reads of the week.

Travel reads

• In Taiwan, tracing a travel writer’s legacy—alongside my mother's own

“On a research trip to Taiwan, writer Kat Chen studies late Taiwanese memoirist Sanmao and gains a new understanding of her mother.”

• Twenty-five years ago, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed. I could have been on that plane.

“I was an Alaska flight attendant working another flight that day. But two of my friends died.”

• The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back on the map

“After unearthing a rare collection of highly prized Silk Road artefacts, a family in the Himalayas has opened a museum dedicated to one of the fabled route's final traders.”

• How to handle a tourist tsunami (free subscription required)

“As of 2024, the world is back to pre-pandemic levels of international travel—and not everyone is happy about it. What to do?”

• Mardi Gras the Balkan way – alternatives to Venice carnival

"In Croatia, Montenegro and Albania, the legacy of Venetian occupation lives on in a series of spectacular carnivals that these days have a local twist."

• I traveled across the world in search of a legendary skiing village

“High in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia has some of the world’s best slopes, untouched by overtourism or outside investor.”

• Reach for the sky

"Ahead of monsoon season farmers in Thailand’s northeastern provinces swap crop tending for propellant mixtures as the annual Rocket Festival launches."

• Badaling, ba da boom

“The Great Wall has been commodified, but even so, I cannot help but marvel at its scale.”

• I took the Shinkansen every week for 6 months: This is my experience

“A train-lover's dream come true? Maybe, but with some caveats...”

• Exploring Japan’s abandoned industrial island of Hashima, 50 years after its closure (archive)

• First Vietnamese female biker conquers world's highest motorable pass