If Angkor Wat — Cambodia’s fantastic ancient temple complex — were in Europe, it would be one of the most famous, most celebrated places in the world.

That’s what we thought in 2023 when we visited Siem Reap, the city closest to the ruins.

Our visit exceeded our expectations in every way. We loved everything about the area: not just the ruins, but also the terrific food, the beautiful scenery, and the friendly people.

But Cambodia is not a rich country, with millions near or in poverty. The economy depends heavily on foreign tourism.

“Tourism is the main industry here in Siem Reap,” says Sophea Ting, the officially registered guide and expert we hired before visiting Angkor Wat. “We can’t afford to lose tourism here — tens of thousands would have no jobs.”

Unfortunately, Cambodia is currently seeing a massive drop in visitors: down 44% from last year at this time. Ticket sales to the Angkor Wat temple complex are down 32%.

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The drop is mostly due to the ongoing border conflict with neighboring Thailand, which last year led to a series of military skirmishes.

A rise in airfares due to the Iranian War is also discouraging visitors.

Finally, Cambodia has acquired a very bad reputation in Vietnam and China, which have accounted for 37% of its foreign visitors. International syndicates have trafficked some residents of these countries, forcing them to work in cyber-scam compounds in Cambodia. Both Vietnam and China are now discouraging citizens from visiting.

All that said, for Western tourists, most of the country is still very safe. Tensions with Thailand remain, and the land border is still closed, but there has now been a cease-fire for five months.

The U.S. State Department currently rates travel to most of Cambodia as Level 2 on a four-point scale, meaning: “Exercise increased caution.”

(But please note that anything within 50 kilometers of the Thailand border is rated Level 4: “Do not travel.” Many travel insurance companies void coverage on travel to such areas, and this could even apply to travel anywhere in Cambodia, depending on your policy.)

“Our government is doing everything it can to make sure tourists can wander around safely,” says Ting, pointing out that daily life in Siem Reap continued normally before, during, and after the conflict. “My kids still go to their classes, and my wife teaches in the public school. Hotels and restaurants are open. Tourists who were on tours with me had no problem — they just enjoyed the temples and flew home safely.”

Besides, he says, “The border is around 150 miles from the temples. This is not a war to invade lands and target civilians. It is a conflict over our 800-kilometer-long border.”

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“Thailand has nothing to gain by bombing Siem Reap,” says travel writer James Clark, who specializes in Southeast Asia. “Indeed, doing so would be hugely controversial.”

Angkor Wat is technically just one main temple complex, although many people also use the name to refer to the entire Angkor Wat Archaeological Park — the site of the former city of Angkor and home to dozens of other ruined temples. They were built by the Khmer Empire, which flourished from the 9th to the 15th centuries AD.

The area is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Clark says, and damaging it would result in worldwide condemnation.

Such an attack would also seriously damage Thailand's tourism, which is already down, though not nearly as sharply as in Cambodia.

There’s another reason why Thailand will almost certainly never target Angkor Wat or Siem Reap: antiquities.

“Thailand was, for decades — and some would say still is — the primary international clearinghouse for relics looted from Cambodia,” says Stuart McDonald of the Travelfish travel newsletter, which also covers Southeast Asia.

His advice to potential travelers? “Don’t worry.”

Meanwhile, recent visitors report no problems whatsoever.

“I never felt unsafe,” says Marcus Benecke, who just returned from the country. “The people were amazingly friendly and genuine, the food is incredible, and for us, everything seemed to be really cheap and affordable.”

“Overall, we felt safe and sad for the major hit on the economy there,” says Kathy Ray, who visited just weeks after the December cease-fire was announced. “Our registered guide at Angkor Wat said he was lucky to still have his job, since so many had to be let go due to the lack of visitors.”

“It seemed very safe,” agrees Heather Hamel-Velascor, who also visited this year. “Smaller crowds make the sites very accessible, so it could be a great time to go.”

In 2023, even after spending years in other Southeast Asian countries, we were shocked by how affordable Cambodia is.

When we visited, we stayed in a full suite in a lovely hotel with possibly the best breakfast buffet we’ve ever had — all for $42 USD per night, including tax.

As of June 1, 2026, rooms at the same hotel are available for as little as $28.

We hired our guide, Sophea Ting, for three days. This included a driver and an air-conditioned van, for a total cost of $370 (and this included some more expensive backcountry exploration).

I also spent one day touring and photographing the Angkor Wat Temple Complex on my own. For that, the going rate for a tuk-tuk driver was $25 for the entire day.

(We generously tipped all our guides!)

Here’s a breakdown of costs for budget, mid-range, and luxury travel in Cambodia:

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The greater Angkor Wat Archaeological Park is an astounding 400 square kilometers in size, and during our visit, we made a point of visiting many of the more remote temples, which required a fair bit of driving — and were often buried deep in dense jungle.

And in the end, while we were impressed by the famous main temple, we loved these other temples even more.

Since we were in the area, we also visited Tonlé Sap, Cambodia’s vast central lake, and the “floating village” of Kampong Phluk.

Shortly after our visit to Siem Reap in 2023, Cambodia opened a new international airport. Unfortunately, it’s much farther out of town — up to an hour depending on traffic.

You used to be able to take a simple tuk-tuk into town, but that’s no longer a good option. Whichever transport option you choose, it’s best to research it — and perhaps book it — before arrival:

We never made it to Cambodia’s largest city, Phnom Penh, or the coastal area with its offshore islands, but we’ve heard good things about both areas, and definitely plan to visit them eventually.

(Phnom Penh, unlike Siem Reap, has a reputation for petty crime.)

Keep in mind that most Western travelers enter Cambodia by air, but the land borders between Thailand and Cambodia remain closed.

Meanwhile, check out visa requirements here.

We think that this is currently a fantastic time to visit Cambodia. With one visit, you can accomplish two important goals:

You can see some of the most amazing places and sites the two of us have ever visited.

And you can help a group of lovely people who could really use the business.

We highly recommend our local guide, Sophea, who can be reached via WhatsApp at +855 12 501 377. His rates start at $50 a day, but he also offers more extensive packages.

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Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For a newsletter with more of my photos, visit me at www.MichaelJensen.com.

Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book below.

A freakin’ mosh pit! That’s what the seaside town of Split, Croatia, was like when we first visited in the summer of 2019.

It was beautiful, sure, but the crowds were so insane that we felt like slices of local pršut ham crammed into a baguette.

We’d come just for a day to visit two friends, Gillian and Tyler (and to meet Tyler’s new partner, Kris), and it really was wonderful to see them.

But afterward, we said, “This place is awful! We’re never coming back here again!”

And yet, a few years later, in 2021, we’d run out of time in the Schengen Zone — the 29 European countries that all share a common border and operate under a common visa policy — and we needed someplace outside the Schengen to hole up for the winter.

Croatia was not yet part of the Schengen — it joined in 2023 — and Brent and I were already in the general area. We’d heard the crowds were much lighter in winter, and when we checked weather forecasts and the cost of living, it seemed like a good option.

We booked for a single month to see what we thought — and ended up extending to stay for the full 90 days of our visa.

In other words — as you can guess by our headline — we loved it.

What a difference the season — and lack of crowds — made.

You might even say that Split has a “split personality”!

And it’s puns like that that have made us your favorite travel writers, right?

RIGHT?!

How about a little history?

Split, with a population of 152,000 — or 310,000 in the greater metro area — is Croatia’s second-largest city after Zagreb, the capital.

Split was founded in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC by Greek colonists. Shortly thereafter, it was taken over by the Romans, and it became a forgotten backwater for nearly 400 years.

Then in 295 AD, Emperor Diocletian decided to build his retirement villa there — and Diocletian’s Palace is still the fantastic centerpiece of this amazing little city.

After the fall of Rome, Split got passed around like a football in a World Cup series played by barbarians, Slavs, Hungarians, Ottomans, Venetians, and Austrians.

And there was more tussling after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Serbian forces, determined to maintain control of the city, sailed into the harbor and began shelling it.

But thanks to a surprisingly robust defense by Croatian forces, the Serbian Navy was driven away, sparing most of Split from devastation and securing Croatian independence.

Now Split is too busy — at least in summer.

If you’ve visited any of Western Europe’s most famous places in summer recently, you know that crowds can make even the most gorgeous places unbearable.

But in winter, Split was empty. We had the city almost entirely to ourselves.

Sure, some restaurants were closed, but there were still plenty to choose from, and we never had a wait. Prices were better too.

And the local farmers’ market was as large and vibrant as ever — just without gawking cruise ship passengers.

I especially loved the city’s narrow streets — many too narrow for most vehicles (except for specially designed tiny garbage trucks, and even they need deft handling by the drivers).

It was easy to feel like we’d gone back in time.

Then there was the Riva, Split’s world-class promenade. Here’s what it looked like in summer:

In winter? Photos barely do it justice:

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Much of the old town is inside the emperor’s villa.

I mentioned Diocletian’s Palace before? It was so large that the eastern half of Split’s Old Town is inside the walls of the former villa’s grounds.

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A lot of my American friends now have kids who are adults themselves, and one of these empty-nesters recently said to me, “I don’t expect my kids to take care of me when I’m older. I don’t want to be a burden!”

Not long after, another friend with kids said something similar, even using the same phrase: “I don’t want to be a burden.”

Since then, virtually every one of my American friends who has kids has said the same thing using that exact phrase.

On one hand, I think this is a noble sentiment. It’s good to consider the impact you’re having on those around you.

And I’m especially impressed by my friends who are taking steps to make themselves as healthy and financially independent as possible, reducing the likelihood of actually being a burden on their kids.

Also, many of my friends are reacting to the fact that taking care of their own aging parents was often really hard. I get that.

On the other hand, I think kids ABSOLUTELY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR AGING PARENTS!

How’s that for a spicy take?

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You might think this is just something they’re saying — like when someone at a dinner party is having chest pains, and they say, “Don’t mind me — I don’t want to spoil your party.”

And you, of course, don’t say, “Yes, yes, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Would anyone like more Lobster Thermidor? And Gwyneth, may I top up your wine?”

Instead, you say to your friend, “Are you okay?” Then you turn to the closest other guest and say, “Timothée, call 9-1-1!”

Both sides are trying to be considerate, but one side is immediately overruled because they’re vulnerable and in need.

Likewise, no one says about kids: “That three-year-old with a respiratory infection really shouldn’t be so much of a burden on her parents!”

No, kids are expected to be burdens. They’re kids!

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Well, guess what? At some point, the trajectory of life reverses itself, and old people need help too. The older they get, the more of a “burden” they become.

The problem is, my friends are saying, “I don’t want to be a burden!” so often and so forcefully that they’re acting like they really don’t want their kids to take care of them.

It’s like they’re trying to create a new ethos in which kids don’t have any real responsibility in this area.

I think this is a biiiiiig mistake.

Elderly folks absolutely need someone younger looking out for them. Having taken care of multiple aging parents, I can say there’s simply no substitute for an emotionally invested caregiver.

It doesn’t have to be an old person’s own kid doing the caring, but it has to be someone. But if not the kid, then who? I mean, we all agree it’s a burden, right?

This take I keep hearing from my friends also strikes me as so quintessentially American: that the most important thing in life is the individual’s wants and needs, with much less concern for the big picture.

If they did look at the big picture, they’d see that we’re all better off when we consider everyone’s wants and needs together.

In fact, in these conversations I’ve had with my friends who have kids, some have also admitted, “I don’t think my kids will take care of me. Maybe I did too good a job teaching them to be independent.”

Yes, that’s the problem: you were too good a parent.

After traveling the world for nine years, I’ve seen that it isn’t like this in most other cultures. One Italian friend made us smile — and also drove us a little crazy — because he was constantly checking in on his elderly parents.

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Look, I have no dog in this fight. I don’t have kids, and while my parents are both dead now, I did help take care of them, including my mom, who had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Hopefully, karma will reward me, and when I’m older, there’ll be someone younger to look out for me too. But who knows?

I do know helping to care for my parents was often frustrating and exhausting — and also sometimes profound and incredible.

It was sometimes a burden. But it was also sometimes a great privilege.

I think I’d be less of a person if I hadn’t experienced it — and frankly, much less prepared for my own death when my time comes.

Of course, there are caveats and exceptions to a kid’s responsibility to their parents: serious abuse, total parental irresponsibility, conflicting life-obligations — things like that.

And I was lucky in that my parents had the resources to provide for a lot of their own care.

But in general, when I was helping my parents, it seemed very clear that this is the way things have always worked.

It’s also the way I think they always should work.

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book below.

Forty years ago, my parents bought a timeshare condo in a complex on a Puget Sound beach. I came up here a lot when I was younger, and when my parents died, I inherited the place.

Nine years ago, Michael and I left America to travel the world as digital nomads, but whenever we return to America, we stay in the condo.

This year, we’ve rented extra time, and Michael and I will be in different units through the summer and fall, about six months total.

And the whole setup has worked out perfectly for us.

I know timeshare developments have a bad reputation, but I think this one predated all the scams. Anyway, this one has long been fully independent and controlled by owners like myself.

The units are a bit dated, but they’re comfortable, and they give us space to host overnight guests. Plus, the complex has a gym and hot tub, a fantastic beach, and a friendly, unassuming vibe.

Our timeshare unit has become our “home base” — the closest thing we have to a permanent home.

And part of the reason why it’s worked out so well for us is the manager of the complex, Brenda, who has run this place for twenty-seven years.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know Brenda well. We always share friendly chatter: life updates, restaurant recommendations, and local gossip.

And boy, has she been helpful in scheduling our various stays here, arranging different units if need be and juggling housekeeping schedules to make any transfers between units as seamless as possible. If we’re ever arriving late, she even leaves the door to our unit unlocked.

I like to think I’ve made her job easier too, being as responsible and accommodating as possible. I’m always careful to never presume anything, and to occasionally check in with her to make sure I’m never asking too much. But she always laughs and says she’s just doing her job, that she’s happy to help.

Of course, I also acknowledge her kindness with occasional gifts.

Last week, Brenda retired.

I’ve since met Brenda’s replacement, and I’m sure she will also do a wonderful job. The complex is very old school and extremely sleepy, and I fervently hope things continue exactly the way they’ve been for as long as I’ve been coming up here.

But given the direction of the rest of America, I can’t help but wonder: what if things did change?

What if they replaced Brenda with an automated check-in kiosk?

On the one hand, it could make things more efficient. Policies would be strictly enforced. And maybe this would save money, although the price is already shockingly affordable compared to anything else in Washington State.

But it would also ruin almost everything that makes this place so special. And it would make Michael’s and my life a lot more difficult.

It would turn this warm, people-centered community into a series of anonymous transactions. If I sensed no loyalty to me, I’d probably be a lot less loyal to it.

Even if this condo complex never changes, I do worry that America has already changed, dramatically, over the last forty years.

Over and over again, “Brenda” has been replaced with the “automated kiosk.”

And I don’t just mean the literal kiosks like at Starbucks or McDonalds. When it comes to business transactions, long-term personal relationships have mostly been replaced by some kind of corporate machine.

This has been terrific for companies’ bottom lines. But it’s been terrible for the broader community and overall quality of life.

There’s even a term for the phenomenon: the Annoyance Economy.

This describes how so much of the modern world has become so incredibly frustrating: hours spent on hold trying to reach someone in customer service, endless legalese and unreadable fine print, convoluted cancellation policies, byzantine appeals processes, outdated regulations, and never-ending scams, both legal and otherwise — not to mention all those hidden fees and surprise surcharges.

In short, if you’re going to make me download the app, can you at least make sure the damn thing works?

The Annoyance Economy costs Americans — very conservatively — $165 billion a year in wasted time and money.

And I haven’t even mentioned the emotional costs.

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Nice try, Seattle. You’re a sly dog, aren’t you?

You know that Brent and I used to live here, and that once upon a time, I was madly in love with you. Which is why, during our most recent visit to the city, you really pulled out all the stops trying to lure me back.

You came striding out of Puget Sound sporting James Bond swim trunks, flashing your glistening pecs, and looking as seductive as I’ve ever seen you.

Brent wasn’t fooled. Me, though? I confess, you caught my eye just like you did all those years ago when we first met.

Even though Brent and I visited in the first week of May — when the highs should be in the mid-60s with plenty of clouds and a fair bit of drizzle — you dazzled us with clear, sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s.

And yes, I know your nickname is the Emerald City, but you were even greener than usual, weren’t you? I saw Washington State’s famous evergreens everywhere we turned. The deciduous trees had leafed out too, their branches glowing in the spring sunlight.

And there were so. Many. Damn. Flowers. It looked like someone had tossed colorful confetti all over the city.

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And all the water! And the mountains!

With those impossibly clear skies, I could see the granddaddy of them all, Mount Rainier, standing guard in the distance, watching over the city like a benevolent god.

We even had a lovely evening picnic along the shores of Lake Washington.

In early May!

Look, I appreciate all the work you’ve done on yourself: the remodeled Space Needle, the expanded Pike Place Market, the Chihuly Glass Museum.

You’ve obviously been working out. Downtown is looking pretty fit. There was almost no sign of the damage Covid did to you.

You had other work done too, didn’t you? The redeveloped waterfront area looks amazing. Removing that hideously ugly elevated highway might have been painful, but now that the swelling has gone down, it was worth it.

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I’ll admit it: I was tempted to get back together with you.

But I still love Brent, and we have no interest in being in a “throuple” — at least not with you.

For one thing, Seattle, you still have baggage. We left you, and the United States, in part because of your in-laws — especially your toxic president.

Yes, we know it’s not fair to blame you for that — only eight percent of Seattle voters supported Trump in 2016 and 2020. But even you have to admit that he’s worse than ever.

That aside, when we broke up, it wasn’t me. It was you.

It was so much you.

Because while I’m glad you’ve worked on yourself, you were also lying to me when we met in that week in May, weren’t you?

You haven’t really changed. You can’t change, at least not in the ways I would need you to.

You think I don’t remember the summer of 2017? That’s when all Seattleites were forced to accept you now had a new season: “smoke season” — from all the forest fires in the Cascades and Canada.

Week after week, a yellow haze cloaked the city, making it hard to breathe and leaving everything feeling vaguely post-apocalyptic.

Yes, yes, again, this isn’t your fault — you’re incredibly health-conscious. But you won’t — or maybe can’t — leave your neighbors who now often smoke like chimneys all summer long.

And what about the rain? Remember that last winter we spent together, also in 2017? Almost 45 inches fell! By March, Seattle had already received more than its average rainfall for an entire year.

In one 206-day period, there were only five dry days.

Five!

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Sure, if we got back together now, there would be more beautiful summer days — at least when the forest fires aren’t burning.

But come November, we both know you’d treat me like the Count of Monte Cristo and toss me into your cold, damp, wet dungeon where, in an ordinary year, I wouldn’t see the sun until July.

I admit it: you looked great during our visit, but the longer we stayed, the more it became clear what else you were hiding under those sexy blue swim trunks.

• Truly insane housing prices, with median home prices now well over $900,000. The rest of the cost of living is just as bonkers.

• Social problems like record homelessness, a drug crisis, and petty crime.

• And the traffic! The day we left Seattle, I-5 was so jammed that it took nearly an hour to go five miles.

So nice try, Seattle. I’m not falling for your old tricks.

But, well, since you’re obviously making such a big effort, I could sneak away from Brent for a bit and pop over for the Fourth of July…

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Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For a newsletter with more of my photos, visit me at www.MichaelJensen.com.

A friend had mentioned a town called Sibiu, and we decided to give it a try.

But we knew less about this place than usual. I’d seen pictures of some great medieval town squares, and apparently, many of the buildings were famous for their strange dormer windows on sloped rooftops that look like “eyes.”

And Brent was excited because it was in the part of Romania known as Transylvania, and he’s a big dork.

Sibiu has long been a favorite destination for Europeans, especially from nearby countries. But it’s much less well-known to Americans. In fact, in 2024, only 115,000 Americans visited all of Romania.

Spoiler alert: we absolutely fell in love with the place, especially how walkable it is.

Here are all the reasons we loved it:

A fascinating history

As Brent noted, Sibiu is in Romania’s Transylvania region, which is, yes, famous for vampires.

And that’s the last time you’ll read that word in this article. We now think it’s the least interesting part about this area of the world — and the people who live here are really sick of that connection too.

The Romans established a fort in the area in the 1st century BC. Transylvania was never a “country” in the modern sense, but rather a semi-independent “principality.” That said, it definitely had — and has — a strong regional culture.

A big part of that culture developed in the 12th century, when the King of Hungary, who ruled the area, invited German-speaking settlers — then known as Saxons — to help protect and develop the region.

The invitation worked, and for hundreds of years, Sibiu — and nearby Brașov and Sighișoara — had a majority-German population that spoke German and identified much more with Germany than with the country in which they lived.

Sibiu still bears a strong German influence, including Lutheran churches, a distinctly medieval German town layout, and Germanic fortifications.

But there aren’t many Germans living in Sibiu now. That’s because after WWII, when Romania fell under Soviet control, many were shipped off to the Soviet Union for, er, slavery. The rest were severely discriminated against.

Germany later paid for some ethnic Germans to move back to Germany. And when communism collapsed in 1989, almost all of the remaining Germans fled the country.

So a city that had once been 70% German — with a peak of 25,000 German residents — has fewer than 1,000 remaining.

But there are plenty of German tourists. In fact, local restaurants are just as likely to have German menus as English ones.

The buildings all have “eyes”

After the German influence, Sibiu may be best known for an architectural quirk on many of its buildings: dormer windows that look like eyes.

In fact, the city has a nickname: the City With Eyes.

And almost everywhere you are in the city, it feels like you’re being watched.

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It’s caused, of course, by America’s war with Iran and the subsequent closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which is used to transport a significant portion of the world’s oil and natural gas.

The price of gasoline has risen between 30% and 50%, depending on where you are in the world. Airfares have risen as much as 40%, depending on the length of the trip. And the cost of electricity and natural gas is exploding, in some cases more than doubling.

As a result, many people are suffering, especially in poorer countries. If the war continues much longer, the world may slip into a global recession, and this too will hit poorer countries — and poorer folks in rich countries — the hardest.

Suffering is always bad — I’d never minimize that.

The Iranian government was and is a malevolent force in the world, but the war was poorly conceived and may ironically end up making them stronger. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround, it would have been far better if the war had never happened.

That said, the world is a complicated place, and almost nothing is ever completely black and white.

We’re a travel newsletter, so here are some ways that skyrocketing energy costs could help travelers — and also the world at large.

It could provide relief to overtouristed locations and degraded ecosystems.

The world currently faces a major problem with overtourism, which occurs when a destination receives more visitors than it can sustainably support without negatively affecting locals, the environment, and even the visitors themselves.

Four years ago, when Michael and I visited Rome in November, we were shocked by the crowds — until a restaurateur told us, sadly, that the city no longer has a “low” season. And when we returned the following summer, we were stunned again to see just how insanely crowded the high season now is.

Likewise, we’re also often saddened by how degraded the environment seems in popular tourist destinations. Don’t get me started on coral reefs.

Over the last few decades, worldwide tourist rates have exploded, more than doubling since 2000. This is partly due to rising disposable income, especially in America, but it’s also the result of cheap airfares, which in 2025 were almost half of what they were in 1985 (when adjusted for inflation).

A return to higher airfares could finally start to reduce overtourism.

This could be a good thing for overwhelmed communities and degraded ecosystems. As with COVID, it could be a kind of “reset.”

But this is definitely a be-careful-what-you-wish-for situation, because many local economies are now very dependent on tourist dollars. If tourism slows, these communities could turn to industries that are even more harmful to locals and the environment.

Likewise, wealthy folks have always traveled for leisure — and always will. If airfares continue to rise, the people forced to cut back on travel will be those who were never able to afford leisure travel before the last few decades: the poor and the middle class.

It may finally cause the undoing of Donald Trump.

Regular readers know I think Donald Trump has been a toxic force in America and the world, undermining democracy, the rule of law, the liberal world order, and basic human decency.

I’m also one of those folks who has a hard time understanding the strong allegiance of his most faithful followers.

But if recent polls are any indication, that loyalty may finally be faltering. Better still, Trump’s party is up for reelection this November.

I confess that it frustrates me that many Americans were apparently fine with Trump’s corruption and lawlessness, the incredible cruelty, and all the rest — but now that the cost of gas is going up, these same folks are losing their shit.

But hey, a win is a win. And a loss for him and his party would make the whole world much better off.

It could hasten the switch to renewable energy sources.

When it comes to energy prices, environmental costs are rarely factored in. That’s because governments almost always prioritize short-term political and economic gains over long-term or “hidden” costs.

Climate change is already driving up insurance costs and increasing the frequency of expensive natural disasters. It could cost the world an eye-popping $38 trillion per year by 2049.

But when it comes to hurting the planet, not every government is equally bad.

When Trump took office as President of the United States for a second time, he embarked on an extremely regressive platform of heavily subsidizing harmful fossil fuels and essentially declaring war on renewable “clean” energy sources like wind and solar. He also dramatically rolled back environmental protections.

So it’s incredibly ironic — and kind of satisfying in a “schadenfreude” way — that the rising fossil fuel prices resulting from Trump’s war with Iran may actually end up reducing carbon emissions and increasing the speed with which the world transitions to renewable energy sources.

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It could cause folks to rediscover their own communities.

Michael and I recently explained how we’re spending the next six months in the Seattle area, our home before we became digital nomads. It’s partly because of the international chaos, but mostly due to preexisting plans.

And we’ve been delighted to revisit favorite local destinations and even discover new things about this area that we’d never known before.

If airfares and gasoline prices stay high, expect local folks to discover the same thing all over the world.

It could provoke urban improvements that will make cities much more livable, especially in America.

I confess it’s a pet peeve of mine when Americans travel internationally and say, “These cities are so charming and walkable! Why can’t we have this in America?”

I always think: You could! But you — and your government and your captains of industry — are just choosing something very different.

When fossil fuels are heavily subsidized by the American government, people choose big houses, big cars, and an automobile-based lifestyle.

Why not? They’re not paying the actual costs.

But when fuel prices rise, the economic incentives change, and a car-based lifestyle becomes much less desirable. As a result, interest in all the things that make cities so much more “livable” outside America also rises: mixed-use neighborhoods, walkability, bike infrastructure, and safe, efficient public transportation.

As an added bonus, walkable, mixed-use cities also promote social cohesion, which I think we can all agree America really, really needs right now.

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And it could provide some incredible travel bargains, especially for slow travelers.

Experts predict that airfares aren’t going down anytime soon. For the time being, consumers have continued to book expensive airline seats anyway.

But if the world economy slips into recession, it could result in an unusual situation: plunging demand at many tourist destinations but continued high airfares.

This means many travel expenses other than airfares would fall — especially for businesses that take some time to transition to other sectors, like lodging.

For short-term leisure travelers, this might still mean higher overall costs.

But for nomads or long-term travelers — especially “slomads” like Michael and me — the savings could be considerable.

For Americans, the situation is complicated by the fact that anti-American sentiment is also dramatically rising around the world. If the United States really does cause a global recession, I predict things would get very ugly very fast.

To be clear, rising energy costs are not a “mixed bag” situation. So far, the Iranian war has been an outright disaster for the world, creating a humanitarian crisis and an economic shock that is creating regional and international instability. And it’s almost certainly strengthened America’s biggest rival, China, and its ruthless dictator, Xi Jinping.

Still, history never moves in a straight line. Even disasters can reshape the world in ways no one intended.

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book below.

Eighteen years ago, my mom died unexpectedly at the age of sixty-two — the same age I am now. As of a few months ago, I’m officially older than she ever was.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Not: Oh my god, I’m going to die one day! More: Well, this is a strange milestone.

I’ve always been aware of my mortality, but now that I’m in my sixties, it’s a lot less theoretical.

Recently, a Substack article took the world of expats and retirees by storm: “Your 12 Good Years.”

The premise was simple: if you’re in your early sixties and healthy, you likely have about twelve more years where you can take on new challenges, be spontaneous, live independently, and, yes, easily travel.

After that, physical and mental deterioration will almost certainly slow you down.

I’m well aware that my time on Earth is finite, but having a number, no matter how arbitrary, assigned to my remaining “good” years was jarring.

And how exactly will this affect my life of travel? For the last nine years, I’ve been a digital nomad, continuously traveling the world with my husband, Brent.

Brent and I are still fit and active, but I already see hints of what’s to come. My left knee complains more than it used to. My lower back wakes up most mornings very cranky.

In my seventies, transoceanic flights will almost certainly be harder, bad beds more challenging, and climbing Machu Picchu probably ain’t happening, even if my spirit is willing.

Sadly, in the last year, illness has struck some of our closest friends, so the future is even less theoretical now.

Which brings up a related issue: when it does happen — when we do have to start dealing with serious health issues — we don’t want to be on our own in dealing with them.

Our sick friends have all had fantastic support systems — both friends and family.

But Brent and I are childless. And while we have lots of friends, many of them are spread all over the world.

If we got sick now, our support system would be: It’s complicated.

So if we don’t put down roots soon, will it eventually be too late?

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On the one hand, we don’t need to keep traveling. We’ve been on the road for almost a decade, and it’s been incredible. Maybe asking for twelve more years of travel is getting greedy.

On the other hand, we really love our current life. We both agree that becoming nomadic was the best decision we ever made.

In nomad circles, older folks talk about these issues a lot. Some people insist they’ll travel until health issues force them to stop. Then they’ll find a country where they can join an expat community and settle down for the last time.

There’s a grim term some folks use for this place: a “death destination.”

Brent says it’s naive to think you can wait until you have a serious health problem to settle down — and after watching our friends deal with major health issues this year, I agree with him.

If you’re dealing with a major health issue, the last thing in the world you’d want to do — or even have the energy for — is also figure out the process of emigrating to another country, much less finding a permanent apartment and, oh yeah, integrating into a foreign culture.

Other older nomads say that when the time comes, they’ll return home. And if they have children and a strong, existing support network, this seems like a much more reasonable option.

But without kids, Brent and I would have to rely on friends — and even our old circle of friends back in the Seattle area is spread out all over Puget Sound.

So if we really do want a supportive community for when we’re older, we need to start building one relatively soon.

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See the problem? We want two incompatible things: to keep traveling as long as we can, and to ensure we’re not alone and vulnerable when we can’t.

If I were on my own, I think I’d risk a harder ending to avoid giving up years of a life I love. But Brent disagrees. He wants to start putting down roots soon, so we’re not trying to frantically build a support system at the exact moment we need one.

We have options, but they all come with a cost.

We could return to the Pacific Northwest for at least part of the year, to develop that support network. And when the time came, we would move back here full-time. We’d be in a familiar culture, and we’d also have access to Medicare.

But we’d also be moving back to America, which would mean being totally dependent on a car again, and giving up the more people-centered communities we’ve both grown to love. Instead, we’d be stuck back in the American sprawl we both detest.

We’d also take another hit on the quality of life issue due to the “affordability” issue, since almost anywhere in the world seems a lot cheaper than America right now.

Brent is very interested in building some kind of “intentional” community with existing friends, which would at least partly improve our quality of life.

But our friends have competing interests too — in the form of kids, grandkids, weather, and their own affordability issues.

And, of course, we think it’s still an open question whether America collapses completely into fascism.

The other option is for us to permanently settle somewhere outside the U.S. — Mexico or Europe but also maybe Thailand — and try to build a life among the locals and expats.

I’m more drawn to this, but Brent argues that it would essentially mean severing our existing friendships back home. After all, how often would we see them? Once a year for a week until we become too old to travel at all?

Plus, he says, we’d have to navigate foreign cultures and bureaucracies at an age when that becomes increasingly difficult to do. So if this is our choice, we’d have to start sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, trying to permanently settle in another country almost always includes some kind of “residency” requirement — often at least ten months out of every year. So we’d be in a foreign country, true, but we’d also have to stop nomading.

At least the U.S. gives us the option to be there only part-time. We could live there for four or five months and travel the rest of the year.

Every path comes with drawbacks and complications — and both mean we won’t be traveling full-time for all that much longer.

Then again, we’re trying to balance two competing truths: that our immediate phase of life is still full of possibility and shouldn’t be wasted, but that the future version of ourselves will depend on us making choices now that keep them safe.

Most likely, it will be the “part-time in America” option that we’re doing this year.

After all, twelve more years of this wouldn’t exactly be terrible.

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Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For a newsletter with more of my photos, visit me at www.MichaelJensen.com.

One more edition of our unusual travel hacks.

For other travel hack columns, go to Part Fifteen and Part Sixteen and Part Seventeen and Part Eighteen and Part Nineteen and Part Twenty and Part Twenty-One and Part Twenty-Two and Part Twenty-Three and Part Twenty-Four and Part Twenty-Five and Part Twenty-Six and Part Twenty-Seven and Part Twenty-Eight and Part Twenty-Nine and Part Thirty and Part Thirty-One and Part Thirty-Two.

Onto the latest hacks!

Actually contact Booking.com

Booking.com is a frustrating platform: they have a fantastic number of listings, including the indie or “boutique” properties we most enjoy, and they also have some really great prices and perks — especially if you’re a “Genius 3” loyalty member (which you get after using the platform fifteen times). But their customer support is terrible: it’s impossible to speak to an actual person, and they almost never side with the customer anyway.

But know this: when you do become Genius 3, you are given access to “priority support,” which means you can talk to an actual human being. Even better, we think they’re much more likely to resolve a dispute in your favor.

Their priority support number is: 1-888-850-3958 (U.S.). (The UK support number is +44 20 3320 2609, but you don’t need to be Genius 3 to access it.)

Get 20% off your total grocery bill

If you transfer a prescription to some American supermarket chains — including Safeway — they’ll give you a coupon for an impressive 20% off your next grocery bill, no matter how large.

And just because you’re “transferring” a prescription doesn’t mean you can’t then transfer it back to your original pharmacy.

Buy the best pre-cut fruits and veggies

When you buy pre-cut fruits and vegetables, the price is higher because you’re really buying convenience — and I respect that, especially when traveling.

But here are the pre-cut fruits and vegetables that I think are the best value: spinach (which is difficult to wash), carrots (to encourage healthy snacking), and especially broccoli (which, given that most people discard broccoli stems anyway, is actually twelve percent cheaper when bought in bags).

And here’s what isn’t worth it: pineapples (which spoils too fast), melons, and mixed berries.

Check out a handy chart I put together:

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When Michael and I travel, I’m always looking for bargains. I’m on record as saying that the more you have someone “hold your hand” on your trip, the more you’re going to pay — sometimes two or three times as much.

But there are risks to my approach.

When we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2021, we booked a hotel in the city center for ten days to see the city’s most famous attractions.

But my plan was that once we were there, we would look for an apartment somewhere where we could stay long-term for two more months. And by being “on the ground,” we would find a real bargain.

I posted a couple of online inquiries, and a few days later, a local man named Farouk contacted me to say he had an apartment in the Beyoğlu neighborhood, right across the Golden Horn.

He didn’t have any photos of the apartment, but I took that as a good sign, bargain-wise, because he wasn’t a slick operator used to renting to “rich” American tourists.

And the rent was five hundred U.S. dollars a month, he said — considerably less than half what it seemed like similar apartments cost.

Would we be interested in seeing the place?

I told him we would, and the following day, we took a cab to see the apartment.

But we hadn’t yet realized how truly horrendous Istanbul’s traffic is, and it took us over an hour to go a mere four kilometers.

Worse, the neighborhood was pedestrian-only, so we had to get out and wander a crazy-complicated warren of narrow streets and winding alleys before we finally found the right building.

I admit the neighborhood looked incredibly charming. The street was cobblestone, and the buildings dripped with what looked like grapevines. Even better, it was right off bustling İstiklal Avenue, a famous, pedestrian-only shopping boulevard.

But we were already forty-five minutes late for our appointment, so I mostly just wanted to find Farouk and, hopefully, still see the apartment.

We rang the buzzer on the building, and Farouk came down to see us. He was a handsome Turkish man and so well dressed that he made me self-conscious. He smelled great too.

“I am so sorry we’re late!” I said, still flushed. “We’ve only been in town three days, so we took a cab, but we didn’t know how bad the traffic would be.”

He smiled, seemingly not annoyed at all. “Yes, the traffic is terrible here, and the subway is a much better choice. But it is fine, and I am excited for you to see the apartment.”

He led us up a darkened marble staircase, the steps deeply grooved from years of use. I confess I was already in love with this grand old building, which had to have been built at least a century ago.

The apartment itself was charming too — well decorated, with a big bed. It was a studio, but big enough to include a dedicated sitting area and a dining room table.

True, it didn’t have much of a kitchen, and there was no washing machine, but the rent supposedly included a laundry service for anything we needed washed.

There was even a little balcony half-engulfed in those lovely grapevines, although up close, I could see that the grapes had only just begun to ripen.

“This is Yusuf,” Farouk said, introducing us to a young man sitting off to one side, someone I hadn’t noticed before. “His family owns the building, but he doesn’t speak English, so I’ll have to translate.”

Yusuf stood up smiling. He said something in Turkish and handed us a box of the country’s famous Turkish Delight candy.

“He says this is for you,” Farouk said.

“Oh,” I said, taking it. “Thank you very much.”

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“And what do you think of the apartment?” Farouk asked.

Michael and I looked around again — and also at each other. It was clear we both thought it was an amazing place at an incredible price.

“It’s great,” I said at last. “I think we’ll take it. Can we move in in a week?”

Farouk smiled again. “Sure.” Then Yusuf spoke, holding up a piece of paper, and Farouk said, “Yusuf has a rental agreement for you to sign.”

Farouk took the paper from Yusuf, and I took it from him. I noticed it was all in Turkish. This made sense, since the whole point of this arrangement was to deal with locals, but it still made me uneasy. What exactly were we signing?

“And Yusuf will need some kind of deposit,” Farouk went on. “To hold the apartment.”

“Deposit?” I said, even more wary. “How much?”

“Well, what do you think is fair?”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this didn’t seem unreasonable either. So I said, “How about two hundred dollars?” He had said during the online chat that he preferred to be paid in U.S. currency — that it was considered more desirable than the Turkish lira.

“That would be fine,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, realizing. “Except we didn’t bring any dollars with us.”

“You can get them from most of the nearby cash machines.”

I looked at Michael, and he shrugged.

“Okay,” I said to Farouk. “We’ll go do that.”

We left the apartment, but not necessarily to visit an ATM. Mostly, I wanted to talk everything over with Michael.

“What do you think?” I said when we were out in the street.

“What do you think?” Michael said.

I looked up at the balcony of the apartment, where Farouk had stepped out, looking down at us. He smiled and waved.

I forced out a smile and waved back.

As we walked down the street, I said to Michael, “Well, it’s a great apartment, a fantastic neighborhood, and a really good price. But… what if it’s a con?”

“You mean what if that’s not really their apartment?” Michael said.

“Yeah. They rented it for the day, or borrowed it from a friend, and we’ll come back in a week, and they’ll be gone? After all, Farouk contacted me. He wasn’t vetted in any way.”

Michael thought for a second. “I think we can trust them. If this is a con, wouldn’t they have asked for more money? The total rent in advance?”

“Well, maybe they’re trying to seem reasonable, to dupe stupid tourists like us. So they ask us how much of a deposit we want to leave. I mean, in Turkey, two hundred dollars is still a lot of money.”

“But if it’s a con to dupe tourists,” Michael said, “why would the rental agreement have been in Turkish? Farouk clearly speaks excellent English.”

This was a good point. Except maybe they were doing that to look more reasonable too. But did con artists really play 12th dimensional chess?

“We don’t have to take the apartment if you don’t want to,” Michael said. “We can just leave now, and you can text Farouk to say it wasn’t right.”

“But aren’t you suspicious at all? Farouk wasn’t even annoyed that we were forty-five minutes late. And a box of Turkish Delight? Really?”

“It is only two hundred dollars,” Michael said. “If it’s legit, we have a great apartment. And if you’re right and it’s a con, we’re not out that much money.”

This was a good point too.

“Okay,” I finally said. “Let’s get them that deposit.”

A week later, suitcases in tow, we returned to the apartment building and rang the buzzer.

No one answered.

We rang again, and still no one answered.

“I knew it!” I said. “It was a con just like I said! Now we have exactly eight hours to find somewhere else to stay.”

“If you knew it,” Michael said patiently, “why did you agree to give them the deposit?”

“Okay, I didn’t know it. But I strongly suspected.”

“Maybe they’re just late. Why don’t you call Farouk?”

I scoffed. “Like he hasn’t already blocked me. This was a con, remember?”

“Just call, okay?”

So I called.

To my surprise, Farouk picked up.

“Farouk? This is Brent. Where are you?” I was trying hard to keep the irritation out of my voice.

“At the apartment, waiting for you,” he said. “Where are you?”

I hesitated. Was this part of the con — a way to somehow extract more money from us?

“We’re standing outside,” I said. “Why didn’t you buzz us in?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

I pushed the button again. “How about now?”

“Still nothing. Hold on.” I heard something creak. “I don’t see you.”

“What do you mean? We’re right outside!”

“I’m on the balcony, and I don’t see you.”

I looked up, but I didn’t see Farouk.

I also didn’t see, um, a balcony.

Which made me realize that Michael and I had come to the wrong street. That crazy-complicated warren of narrow streets and winding alleys? Many of the streets and buildings looked similar.

“I think we’re at the wrong apartment,” I said to Farouk. “What’s the address again?”

He gave me the address, and we found the right building one block over.

We met Farouk and Yusuf, paid them the $300 we owed, and moved into the apartment.

And we loved it so much, we ended up staying two and a half months. We would have stayed longer, but our visa ran out.

We had an absolutely magical time. We moved into that apartment when the grapes on the balcony had just begun to grow, and we didn’t leave until after they’d ripened.

And oh, how sweet they were.

Both Farouk and Yusuf also lived in the building, and we got to know them well, frequently joining Farouk for tea — and once we all took a fascinating excursion to the ancient hammam in the Istanbul neighborhood where Farouk grew up.

We also got to know the other colorful residents of the building, who were all weird and different, like the characters in some classic Graham Greene novel.

As for Istanbul, we lived the hell out of that amazing city, getting to know it as intimately as you can in that short amount of time and falling deeply in love with its many charms.

In our nine years of travel, our time in that Istanbul apartment building was easily one of our best experiences ever — and also one of the greatest bargains I’ve ever found.

All that worry about our being conned by Farouk and Yusuf was for nothing — we could absolutely trust them.

Then again, I’d told Michael that from the beginning.

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book, below.

Even being physically uncomfortable while away from home can make travel much less fun. Who wants to be out experiencing the world when you’re tired, constipated, or just out of sorts?

Fortunately, I’ve been traveling continuously for nine years now, and I’ve learned a few things about staying healthy on the road.

The most important lesson is that, when it comes to health, everything is related. Getting a good night’s sleep helps you stay physically active, which helps you eat better, which helps your digestion, which helps you get a good night’s sleep!

This is true everywhere, of course, but it’s especially important while traveling.

Here’s how I stay feeling good no matter where in the world I am.

How I get a good night’s sleep

The single most important aspect of staying healthy while traveling might also be the most difficult: consistently getting a good night’s sleep.

After all, you’re in unfamiliar locations and climates, often in noisy city centers, on a variety of different — often crappy — beds (with equally crappy pillows). And you might also be dealing with jet lag!

But even with all this working against you, it’s not hopeless.

Here’s my strategy:

• I turn off any media devices an hour before I go to bed, and I read a book for at least 15 minutes every morning before I look at my device.

• When booking a room or apartment, I pay close attention to the size and quality of the bed, searching reviews and asking questions of the host, and also asking about any noise issues.

• If the pillows are bad, I simply buy new ones, especially if I’m staying longer than a week.

• On difficult nights, I used to use sleeping aids like Unisom and melatonin — and this is still an option before a particularly early flight.

• But these days, if I don’t fall asleep right away, I do ten rounds of four-seven-eight breathing: inhaling for four seconds, holding it for seven and exhaling for eight, counting out the numbers. Then I count backward from 300 by threes. I might have to do this twice, but I almost always drift off.

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How I eat well

Okay, sure, you might be on vacation, and part of vacation is enjoying yourself. But exactly what part of the vacation do you most want to enjoy? Because if everything is related, health-wise, then you’re going to pay for eating too much rich food — or simply too much food.

Here’s how I pace myself:

• If I know I’m going to have a “decadent” meal, I eat lighter and healthier the rest of the day. And honestly, I never waste that decadent meal on breakfast, because I find fresh fruit, oatmeal, and cheese better than boring ol’ bacon and eggs anyway.

• Since restaurant food is usually fairly rich, I never eat more than one meal a day out (and hopefully not even that). And rather than a restaurant salad (with nutrient-less lettuce and a rich dressing), I order a side of veggies — preferably steamed. Also, if I don’t like a dessert, I simply don’t eat it, saving my occasional “sweet” allotment for something wonderful.

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I don’t believe in God, and I’m very skeptical that there’s any kind of afterlife.

I used to debate these issues with my friend Laura who I met in college when we were both teenagers.

“Something had to create the universe!” she’d argue.

“Okay, so who created God?” I’d push back. “Don’t you see? Saying ‘God’ created the universe doesn’t answer the question — it just pushes it back a bit.”

“You really think that when we die, we just cease to exist?”

“I have no memory from before I was born,” I’d respond. “Why should there be anything after I die?”

In the end, Laura and I came up with an idea how to settle the argument: whoever died first would try to contact the survivor from the afterlife — like the arrangement the great escape artist Harry Houdini made with his wife, Bess.

Now that I’m older — and less of a jerk — I’ve become more humble on the question of God and the afterlife. I mean, come on: no one knows anything for sure.

Plus, now I can see that one really strong argument in favor of these concepts is the comfort they provide the living.

And God knows, we can all use more of that — including me.

Last November, at the age of 59, Laura died.

Harry Houdini died before Bess, but she claimed he never did contact her.

Before Laura died, when she was in hospice, I said, “This is probably completely inappropriate, but you haven’t forgotten our agreement, have you?”

She smiled and said she hadn’t.

I no longer judge other people’s beliefs in God and the afterlife, but I’m still personally very skeptical about both. I’ve been open to hearing from Laura, and I’ve been trying hard to be receptive.

But I’ve also been expecting to be as disappointed as Bess Houdini.

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Then two weeks ago, Michael left for the day, and I went for a walk on the beach below our condo on Puget Sound. It was cold and overcast, and I was the only one there.

I was thinking about Laura, and before I knew it, I started talking to her.

For forty-five minutes, I poured my heart out, telling her that I missed her and how fondly I looked back on the many years we lived together. I was also brutally honest with her, talking about things I’d never told anyone — confessing the ways she’d disappointed me and the ways I suspected I’d disappointed her.

At one point, I laughed and said, “Since you’re dead, you know all this already, right?”

Laura mostly just listened, but when I asked her to share what she now knew about the mysteries of the universe, she said, “I can’t tell you. And would you believe me even if I could?”

It was true. This was all happening in my head, right? I was having a conversation with myself.

But it was still incredibly emotional.

In the end, Laura said she had to go and that she wouldn’t be coming back again. So I said goodbye to her for good — a second time.

Afterward, I felt better than I had in months, like something off-kilter had been put back in place. The world suddenly made sense again.

At this point, I was heading back to the condo, but I stopped and looked back the way I’d come.

There were two sets of footprints side by side in the sand: my own footprints coming and going.

But they looked more like the footprints of two friends taking a walk together.

It was only at this point that I remembered Laura’s and my agreement — that whoever died first would try to contact the other from the afterlife.

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Later, I mentioned the encounter to this therapist I've been seeing, and also the agreement Laura and I made all those years ago. I told her how powerful the experience was — talking to Laura, but also afterward, seeing those two sets of footprints in the sand.

“Do you think it was really Laura?” she asked me.

I thought about it for a long time. Then I said, “I honestly don’t think it matters. What matters is what I felt, which was as real as it gets. And what I still feel.”

My therapist smiled. “I think it was really her.” She’s a lot more woo-woo than I am.

So did Laura contact me from the afterlife?

In the end, I really don’t think it matters.

Then again, I’m never going to forget those two sets of footprints in the sand.

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book below.

Last week, in a massive strike for liberal democracy, Hungary’s authoritarian dictator Viktor Orbán lost his election in a landslide.

All the news coverage reminded me of Brent’s and my 2021 trip to Hungary, especially our visit to Budapest, the country’s historic capital.

But I confess, Brent was the one who really wanted to go there — in large part because he loves hot springs, and he’d heard of the city’s famous thermal baths.

Me? I wasn’t really feeling it.

Budapest was originally three cities: “Buda” and “Óbuda” on one side of the Danube River, and “Pest” on the other. The cities were all unified in 1873, but the areas of Buda and Pest are still referred to by their original names.

Interestingly, the islands in the Danube River weren’t — and still aren’t — part of either Buda or Pest (although they are now considered part of Budapest).

Budapest has long been — and still is — one of Europe’s most affordable cities, 40-50% cheaper than most of the continent’s other capitals.

It also turned out to be extraordinarily beautiful and interesting.

Here’s exactly how the city won me over.

Those famous thermal baths

Brent wanted to come to Budapest to see the famous thermal baths, and over the course of our week-long visit, we visited three of them.

First up was Rudas Baths, which dates back to the 16th century, when the city was under Ottoman rule.

The centerpiece is a Turkish bath chamber with a central octagonal pool and a domed ceiling. Steam rises up from the pool into the shafts of light from the colored windows above.

We also visited the city’s largest and most famous baths: Széchenyi Baths. The massive complex includes both indoor and outdoor pools, everything built in the early 20th century with a grand neo-Baroque look.

But remember to bring your own towel and sandals, because the ones for sale at the entrance are outrageously priced.

Finally, we visited Lukács Baths, which was free with Budapest’s “City Pass” ticket. But there’s a reason why it’s free: it was far and away the least interesting.

That fabulous parliament building

Much of the coverage of last week’s Hungarian election showed shots of the country’s fantastic Parliament Building right on the banks of the Danube River.

The building includes 691 rooms and 10 courtyards, and its façade famously features hundreds of sculptures.

But just as famously, the original architect used exterior tiles made from a very soft limestone, which began to crumble almost immediately, and the country has been forced to restore and replace them ever since.

Orbán’s government had greatly reduced the number of visitors allowed inside the building, so we never did get to see the interior. But with a new government in place, that could soon change.

A system of adorable subways and trams

I’m a public transportation junkie, so I was surprised that I’d never heard of Budapest’s incredible system of public transportation. There are subways — including the M1, Europe’s oldest continental subway line, which looks like something out of a Wes Anderson movie.

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And there are also cute little trams all over the city, including Tram Line 2, which is often deemed Europe’s most scenic urban journey. The famous yellow trams trundle along the Pest-side Danube embankment past many of Budapest’s most famous attractions, including the Parliament Building.

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Michael and I are back in the United States for a bit, and he recently wrote about how he and I visited Seabrook, a “planned” vacation town on the coast here in Washington State.

He liked it, but I didn’t, and it took me a while to figure out what I found so off-putting about it.

After all, it’s an objectively charming place: a collection of quaint seaside houses and a picturesque little downtown, all built according to the principles of “new urbanism,” where everything is supposed to encourage interaction with your neighbors and build community.

This is all stuff I heartily support.

But when I looked up the rent on a small house or cottage at Seabrook for this summer, I was shocked to see that everything started at $5,000 USD a week — more than $700 a night. For a larger place, it’s twice that (or more).

I realized what was bothering me: Seabrook is essentially only available to the rich.

Being back in the United States after nine years away, I’m discovering that America is increasingly being divided up according to wealth.

Basically, there are three Americas: one for the rich, one for the middle class, and one for the poor. And no matter where you are in this country, you almost always immediately know which “America” you’re in — whether it be a neighborhood, mall, restaurant, or supermarket.

If you shop at gourmet shops and high-end specialty markets (or have someone do it for you), you’re rich. If you love Costco or Trader Joe’s, you’re middle-class. And if you’re a patron of Walmart or the food bank, you’re probably poor.

America is, of course, an extremely wealthy country. Despite having a little over four percent of the planet’s population, it controls more than 30 percent of the world’s wealth.

But the wealth here is distributed in a wildly unequal way.

There’s a small group of really rich folks, with the top one percent controlling more than 30 percent of the country’s overall wealth, and the top ten percent controlling more than 70 percent. And these rich people are getting richer really fast.

There’s also a sizable but shrinking middle class.

And there’s a growing underclass that is seriously struggling. America’s bottom fifty percent only control two to three percent of the country’s total wealth.

Everyone in every class is richer than they used to be, even when adjusting for inflation. But the wealthier are much richer now.

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To some degree, America has obviously always been divided by wealth. But the scale has changed. And these days, the businesses of America are increasingly catering primarily to wealthy folks.

Whether it’s airline seats, cars, fashion, or home design, “affordable” is out and “luxury” is in.

And why not? The rich are the ones with all the money to spend, so this is now where the profits are. In our “K-shaped” economy, this is becoming even more true as the poor and middle class cut back and the rich continue to spend.

This might all be less obvious to foreigners who have only visited the United States once or twice, or to Americans who have lived in this country their entire lives.

But as someone who lived most of my life in the United States, left for nine years, and has now returned, the change is stark and incredibly obvious. It’s literally all around you now, everywhere you turn.

If you’re rich and taking one of your many annual flights, you wait in one of the country’s increasingly opulent private airport lounges, and on the plane, you sit in one of the ever-more-lavish first-class cabins. If you’re middle-class, you sit in business or economy. And if you’re poor, you’re rarely on the plane at all.

If you’re rich and visiting one of the Disney parks, they let you in early, plus you get to skip the insane lines entirely. If you’re middle-class, you mostly endure the hordes. And if you’re poor, you don’t go at all.

If you’re rich, you don’t hesitate to shell out $1,500 on concert tickets to your favorite artist, or $500 for a good seat at a hit Broadway show, or $50,000 for a VIP suite at your local sports stadium, which was probably recently rebuilt specifically to include more such seating. And if you’re middle class…

Well, you get the idea.

In many of these cases, the experience is technically still available to the middle class (if not to the poor). But you’ll have to pay through the nose to get it — or you’ll have to endure the increasingly miserable non-“premium” version.

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Almost every country has its rich, of course, and openly catering to the wealthy is definitely a worldwide phenomenon.

It’s also worth noting that even middle-class Americans like myself are essentially “rich” when we travel outside the United States: almost every other country in the world is much more affordable.

But America still seems more segregated by wealth than most places — in part because there are simply more rich folks here. Also, America celebrates “excess” in a way that most places don’t.

I once had an American say to me, completely without irony, “I’m not materialistic — I just like nice things.”

And cities play a different function in America than elsewhere: less about all classes of society mixing together and more about being playgrounds for the ultra-rich and holding pens for the desperately poor.

Meanwhile, in most of the sixty-four other countries I’ve visited, people seem more content — because their governments provide better social support, the families are tighter, or both.

In Switzerland, for example, prices are even higher than in the United States, but the wealth is much more evenly distributed, and there’s a strong government safety net. And Mexicans know they can’t rely on their government for much, so they have cultivated incredibly strong familial relationships and social networks.

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To be fair, the rich in America do pay a premium for their luxury lifestyles.

Michael and I are middle-class, so we’ll be spending our summer not at Seabrook but in a condo in a different town on a different Washington beach. We’ll have access to a gym and hot tub (and an arguably better beach), plus weekly housekeeping, but it’s only costing us $2,700 a month — not the $20,000 that a similarly sized unit at Seabrook would cost.

Our condo is a bit dated, and the town is kind of ragged — Seabrook is definitely more charming.

But Seabrook is not seven times more charming.

To me, the insane prices that the wealthy pay don’t seem nearly worth it.

On the other hand, I’m not worth ten million dollars. If I were, I probably wouldn’t even notice prices.

The thing about all this is that America really didn’t used to be this way — at least not since the Gilded Age. Almost every American knows or senses that health care and housing costs have recently risen far faster than inflation.

But so has the cost of Disney parks, and Broadway shows, and concerts, and sports events, and restaurants, the prices at most of which have risen at least double the rate of inflation — and much more than that for the premium spots.

Michael and I used to be much less wealthy than we are now, and Seabrook was always a bit pricy, but we could still afford it every once in a while. Not now.

These crazy price increases have come about precisely because the rich in America have become so much richer, and they’re willing to pay these prices — especially as the experiences themselves become ever-more-decadent and exclusive.

Incidentally, if some Americans are now so rich that they can afford $1,500 concert tickets and airport lounges that serve lobster and offer massages, it seems to me that they can also afford to have their taxes raised — not dramatically lowered, as Trump and the Republicans have done. But maybe that’s just me.

Also, I’m frankly tired of Americans giving themselves so much damn credit for being so wealthy. When you travel a lot, you quickly realize that wealth is, yeah, partly about talent and hard work, but it’s mostly just a function of where you happened to have been born.

Anyway, if the American rich have it so great, the cost of living in the United States is also survivable for those of us in the middle class, like Michael and me. At least we have Costco and Trader Joe’s, even if we now also have an unsubsidized $26,000 health insurance premium, again thanks to Trump and the Republicans.

In other words, in Rich America, life is fantastic. In Middle Class America, it’s at least manageable.

But what about the “third” America: Poor America? How is the bottom forty percent supposed to survive all this? They face all the challenges the poor do in any country, but they also live in a place with weak communities and inadequate government support.

Then again, that’s why most of us go out of our way to avoid Poor America, isn’t it?

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book, below.

It was last spring, and I’d gotten up before sunrise to wander about taking photos while Brent slept in.

I’d already taken hundreds of pictures of Mexico’s “most colorful city,” but this morning I headed for a neighborhood I’d seen mentioned online. It was working-class, said to be “off the beaten track” and less visited by tourists like me.

Guanajuato is located in a valley, and I walked along the upper edge. Buildings climbed the valley’s sides like bougainvillea up a trellis. The colors were stunning: rust-red, mustard yellow, ochre, and every possible pastel.

I reached the top of the neighborhood I wanted to explore. Narrow concrete lanes and steep staircases snaked downward between the densely packed buildings.

This early in the day, everything was quiet except for the occasional bark of a dog. Even better, it was golden hour, perfect for photography.

What neighborhood was I exploring?

Actually, I’m not going to say. As a travel writer and photographer, I often worry about the impact I have when documenting various places.

I don’t have delusions of grandeur. I know my impact is minimal — that I’m not personally sending waves of tourists anywhere.

But my influence also isn’t zero.

Or is my not identifying this place just an empty gesture on my part — a way to reassure myself that I’m a “thoughtful” traveler? God knows, Brent and I still get criticized for contributing to overtourism.

This early, I’m the only one moving about the narrow alleys. I can take my pictures without making anyone feel awkward — or feeling awkward myself.

I wander around, delighted by the pastel colors, even the cracked and peeling paint that I see as “character.”

But do the people in this neighborhood find character in its peeling paint?

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It was January 1988, and my college buddy John and I, both in our early 20s, were backpacking around Australia until mid-April, when my new job started as a tour guide at the World Expo in Brisbane.

At the moment, we stood hitchhiking on the side of the road in rural New South Wales, somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne, desperately waiting for a driver to give us a lift.

But on this lonely stretch of road, potential rides were few and far between. And none of the handful of cars we’d seen had stopped.

We weren’t surprised. We’d already learned that some drivers didn’t want to pick up two men. Sometimes, when the wait got too long, we’d split up and then meet up again later in the next town.

But with so few cars passing by, splitting up didn’t seem like a great idea. So we waited together, the summer sun beating down on us, the heat radiating off the sticky black tarmac.

In fact, this was the day John snapped one of the few pictures I still have of our trip together.

Finally, a car stopped. I’m not a car guy, but I do remember it was an older four-door car of some kind.

The driver was a white man, as nondescript to me as his car. He had dark hair and was somewhere in his thirties or early forties.

He nodded us in without asking where we were headed. Then again, it didn’t much matter to us, as long as it got us farther down this lonely road. John hopped in the back while I climbed in the front.

The man started driving, staring straight ahead, silent and intense. The radio was off as the road ticked by beneath us.

This felt strange. Every other driver had been friendly, asking us questions like, “Where are you from, mate?” Or, “American, eh? What do you think of Australia?”

An uneasy feeling dropped into the pit of my stomach, a seed taking root.

Now I stared straight ahead too, looking at his cluttered dashboard. It reminded me of a junk drawer, covered with stickers and littered with knick-knacks — some religious in nature. There was a statue of the Virgin Mary glued to the dashboard and a cross dangling from the rearview mirror.

And there was also a VHS copy of The Hitcher, the 1986 movie about a man who picks up hitchhikers and, uh, murders them.

Seriously.

I glanced back at John, but he was in the backseat, staring out the window. If he’d noticed anything off, he gave no sign of it.

That feeling in my stomach grew, uneasiness snaking outward. If fear were a plant, its tendrils would’ve been spreading out into my chest, my arms, and my head.

The car rumbled down that empty stretch of road, the driver still staring straight ahead as if we weren’t there.

My eyes scanned ahead, too, looking for oncoming traffic. Seeing another car wouldn’t necessarily change whatever was happening here, but at least I wouldn’t feel as isolated as I did right then.

But there were no other cars and now, the fear blooming into full-grown panic, my gut shouting: This feels bad. Very, very bad!

So when we came to the first stop sign less than ten minutes later, I immediately said, “This is great! Come on, John! Let’s go!”

Before the driver could react, I opened my door and leapt out. I also opened John’s door, urgently motioning him out, while I grabbed my backpack.

The car sat there a moment, the engine idling, while I willed the driver to pull away. Finally, he did.

John, who hadn’t seen what I had, didn’t understand what was going on.

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But the encounter stayed with me. And when twenty years later, I learned about a man named Ivan Milat — the so-called “Backpacker Killer” — who had been convicted of murdering seven young hitchhikers in the late 80s and early 90s, my mind flashed back to that day.

All were backpackers in their late teens or early twenties. All had been hitchhiking between Sydney and Melbourne. And all of them disappeared in New South Wales, the area where John and I had also been hitchhiking.

Milat’s first confirmed victims, James Gibson and Deborah Everist, both 19, vanished in December 1989. In the years that followed, five more backpackers disappeared under similar circumstances — all of them picked up along the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne.

He might never have been caught if not for a British hitchhiker named Paul Onions. In early 1990, Milat picked him up along the highway. At first, everything seemed normal. Then Milat pulled out a gun.

Onions managed to escape and reported the incident to the police. At the time, nothing came of it.

But years later, after the bodies of the missing hitchhikers were discovered in nearby Belanglo State Forest, Onions saw the news and contacted authorities again. His testimony helped lead to Milat’s arrest and conviction. (After the trial, police were roundly criticized for not having done more and possibly prevented at least some of the other murders.)

Keep in mind that travel was very different forty years ago. There was no internet, no smartphones — not even cell phones.

Using payphones, I called my parents back in America once a month, if that. If I’d disappeared, they would’ve had little idea where I’d been. Often, I only had the vaguest idea where I was going. There’s a lot of space between Sydney and Melbourne.

Travelers like me made it easy for this serial killer to get away with his crimes.

Is it really possible that the man who picked us up was Ivan Milat?

There are reasons to think it wasn’t.

For starters, we hadn’t been picked up on the Hume Highway, but on a more rural road in the same area. Also, when Milat picked up Onions, he’d driven a truck, not a four-door car. And our driver had seemed anything but “normal” right from the start.

But the main reason it might not have been him is that Milat didn’t murder his first victims until 1989, almost two years after John’s and my encounter.

That’s a pretty big gap to explain away.

And the truth is, there were a lot of hitchhikers between Sydney and Melbourne in the 1980s. And most of us had stories of the occasional “strange driver.”

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But there are also reasons to think it could’ve been Milat.

John and I were backpackers in our early twenties, hitchhiking from Sydney to Melbourne — exactly the kind of victims he targeted in the exact area where he hunted them. And four of his victims were abducted as duos.

I’ve seen photos of him, and it’s been too many years for me to say with any certainty that Milat was our driver, but his age and general appearance are the same. And I’ve since learned he was Catholic, which might explain the religious iconography.

Yes, Onions said he seemed “normal” at first. Then again, maybe Milat moderated his behavior after people like me got spooked by his earlier demeanor — no copies of The Hitcher on the dashboard, for one thing.

And while Milat later drove a truck, he had previously driven, yes, a four-door Ford Fairmont.

But here’s the kicker: police are now almost certain Milat had killed before he murdered Gibson and Everist.

After Milat’s conviction, police began investigating cold cases in that part of Australia, including the murder of 18-year-old hitchhiker Peter Letcher. Police now believe that Milat murdered Letcher in November 1987, just months before John’s and my encounter.

Just like that, the two year gap vanished, putting our encounter squarely within the dates of Milat’s confirmed killing spree.

And while all the other known victims were picked up on the main Hume Highway, Letcher was picked up on a rural road — just like where we had been.

I’ll never know for sure whether I rode next to a serial killer on a lonely road in rural Australia.

The logical part of me says I probably bolted from a strange, religious, but ultimately harmless man with an interest in slasher films.

But the reptilian part of my brain?

It’s really, really glad I got out of that car so fast.

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Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For a newsletter with more of my photos, visit me at www.MichaelJensen.com.

But now the anti-overtourism movement is spreading to some surprising places: fantasy realms like Narnia and Middle-earth.

“Tourists have completely ruined Narnia!” said Reepicheep, the formerly dignified talking mouse from that fictional realm, sputtering with outrage over the recent deluge of visitors. “Turkish Delight is now so damn expensive we locals can’t afford it anymore!”

“Yes, yes, you got here because you had a ‘wardrobe malfunction,’” added a surly Mr. Tumnus. “We’ve never heard that one before!”

Overtourism has become a growing problem at all kinds of enchanting fictional locations.

“I really regret creating those damn Golden Tickets,” said Willy Wonka, the proprietor of the Wonka Chocolate Factory, which has lately seen entry wait-times of up to six hours. “Three of those five kids ended up badly deformed, and, yes, Veruca Salt was killed in the incinerator. Everyone still thinks they’re going to be ‘Charlie,’ but guess what? He ate so much chocolate that he died two years later from Type 2 diabetes!”

Ironically, the isolationism and xenophobia in these fictional places is rising just as travel to actual tourist destinations is dramatically lessening — the result of America’s war with Iran, which is causing rapid increases in airfare and making travelers fearful of chaos.

But travel to fantasy realms has remained unimpeded, experts say, because it only happens in your imagination.

Furthermore, people may be retreating to these fictional worlds because the real world is currently so stressful. Searches for the term “happy place” have increased eightfold since the start of the war.

“Oh, grow a pair!” said Elrond, the 6,478-year-old elf-lord who oversees the formerly peaceful sanctuary known as Rivendell, now crowded with gawkers that residents say have trashed the place. “I had to help defeat Sauron — twice! — and you can’t handle a three-hour wait at the airport?

“The more you make Rivendell your ‘happy place,’” he added, “the less happy it is for the people who actually live here.”

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Mr. Lundie, one of the residents of the mythical land of Brigadoon, had an even more basic complaint: “Tourists pee everywhere. So much for the heather on the hill!”

Imaginary travel to fantasy realms seems increasingly out of control, but there is one thing that could shift the trend. In the real world, locals have grown aggressive in their protests against overtourism, harassing visitors and even brandishing squirt guns at them.

But the residents of fantasy realms have access to magic.

“I’ve used an animation charm to animate all the suits of armor and statues at Hogwart’s, commanding them to brutally slay any incoming tourists,” said Professor Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress at the fictional wizarding academy.

“Then again,” she added with a smirk, “I’ve always wanted to use that spell.”

HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY

From Brent and Michael

See our previous April’s Fools Day articles:

Council of Fools Declares April Fools’ Day Officially Canceled

“Airbnb Experiences” to Include New Feature: “Airbnb SEXperiences!”

ChatGPT Will Never Take Over Travel Journalism — or Anything Else Either

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Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at www.BrentHartinger.com. And order my latest book, below.

Michael and I are back in the United States, and we’ll be staying here at least through the fall.

But it’s not for the reason you might think — because we’re worried about all the chaos and uncertainty caused by American foreign policy.

When we wrote about this topic last month, most people agreed that this is a serious problem, but a significant minority argued:

• That the chaos is still very isolated and is being irresponsibly exaggerated by the media — including Michael and me.

• Or that they’re personally choosing to continue traveling anyway, refusing to give in to fear.

We think the folks in the first group are just flat-out wrong. We have traveler-friends and contacts all around the world who are telling us that things are already pretty chaotic, with the potential to get much worse.

But we think the people in the second group have the right to choose whatever path they feel is right.

And, of course, being the King of Travel Discounts, I also recognize that the increasing chaos and uncertainty around travel are exactly the kinds of thing that will produce incredible travel bargains and opportunities, especially for international travelers.

For much of the COVID pandemic, Michael and I rented a fantastic villa in Mexico at a ridiculously low price. And right after vaccinations became available, we immediately made a beeline to Istanbul, Turkey, long before the hordes returned — and we had the entire city almost to ourselves, at prices that were even lower than what we’d seen in Mexico.

I see similar possibilities now. And honestly, all our friends in the travel industry can certainly use the money.

But for the time being, we’re still staying put here in America.

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Another edition of our unusual travel hacks.

For other travel hack columns, go to Part Fifteen and Part Sixteen and Part Seventeen and Part Eighteen and Part Nineteen and Part Twenty and Part Twenty-One and Part Twenty-Two and Part Twenty-Three and Part Twenty-Four and Part Twenty-Five and Part Twenty-Six and Part Twenty-Seven and Part Twenty-Eight and Part Twenty-Nine and Part Thirty and Part Thirty-One.

Here are our latest hacks!

Get the best airline food

When traveling by plane, what are your best choices for meals?

• Airport meals are, of course, very expensive — and the offerings also tend to be loaded with fat and salt.

• Onboard airline meals are almost always cheaper than airport meals and usually healthier. Plus, they’re specifically designed to taste better at high altitudes. Ordering ahead usually gives you more options.

• Your cheapest, healthiest option is almost always to bring a homemade or deli meal from outside the airport. Yes, prepared meals of solid food are allowed through security (but yogurt is considered a liquid, and any sauces or dressings need to be kept at under 100 milliliters — and this also applies to your total allotment of liquids that need to fit in one quart-sized bag). But make sure it isn’t stinky, okay?

• Finally, have you considered simply fasting — especially if you’re on a 5:2 diet where you regularly fast anyway? High altitudes actually decrease appetite, and you can bring your own trail mix or other healthy snacks to keep your energy up.

Actually get in and out

Michael and I recently spent time in California where we discovered that In-N-Out Burger is just as good as we remembered — but the backup at the drive-through window is a thousand times worse!

But since everyone uses that drive-through, the secret to fast service is to park nearby and walk in. That way, you’ll soon be, er, in and out.

h/t Mathew Nelson

Always opt for the video chat

When buying travel insurance, always get the “video health chat” option, even if it’s an add-on — the cost is usually negligible. Then, of course, save the link in a place where it’s easily accessible.

As long as you have internet access, you’ll be able to get your medical questions quickly answered, possibly saving you a trip to the emergency room. And if you do need to see a doctor, they can often suggest a nearby medical facility that serves tourists and, more importantly, is definitely covered by your policy.

Consider medical tourism to China

Speaking of medical care, I’ve written a lot about our experiences with “medical tourism” in Turkey, Thailand, and elsewhere. But this new(ish) company connects Americans to medical treatment in China — for prices that are 60-70% cheaper than in the U.S.

Learn nomading

Our friends Matt and Lisa have a pretty great beginner’s guide to nomading.

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