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Travel + Leisure
5 hours ago
- Business
- Travel + Leisure
Southwest to Add a New Route to This Caribbean Island Famous for Its Crystal-clear Waters
It just got easier to get a dose of vitamin sea. Southwest Airlines is launching new service to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands next year, adding the Caribbean destination to its roster. The new flights to St. Thomas' Cyril E. King International Airport (STT) are expected to kick off in early 2026 and will mark the carrier's ninth island destination in the Atlantic Basin, according to the airline. However, the new flights are subject to government approvals and it was not immediately clear where Southwest would operate the flights from. 'We want to make Southwest Airlines the easy and obvious choice every time, and this is another meaningful step in our ongoing transformation,' Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement, adding the airline was "listening closely to what our Customers want." In addition to St. Thomas, the airline teased it planned to add two more new destinations, which it said would be announced this summer. The carrier did not offer any insights about where these destinations would be. For travelers who don't want to wait until 2026, they can book flights through several other airlines currently serving STT, including American Airlines, Cape Air, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines. The St. Thomas airport is also a hub for inter-island and regional travel. Passengers can book flights to San Juan, St. Croix, and other destinations from there. The U.S. Virgin Islands continue to be a popular destination among air travelers and cruise passengers. More than 930,000 people traveled to the region by air in 2024, according to the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, representing a 16.5 percent increase compared to 2023 and a new record high. The region is also a popular stop with cruisers, with Disney Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Virgin Voyages all docking there. More than 1.7 million passengers disembarked and explored the region, according to the tourism department. "As a destination, we continue to explore, elevate, and improve, which further supports the ongoing goal to build upon our commitment to be a premier Caribbean destination," Joseph Boschulte, the commissioner of the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, said in a statement.
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Travel + Leisure
6 hours ago
- Travel + Leisure
Wildfire Forces Full Closure of Grand Canyon's North Rim for Summer 2025
Each year, nearly 5 million visitors are drawn to the staggering vistas of Grand Canyon National Park—many arriving during the heart of summer. But on July 13, the park's remote North Rim closed for the remainder of the summer 2025 season due to a wildfire that consumed Grand Canyon Lodge, the only in-park lodging on the North Rim, and several other structures. The fire has also led to the closure of all the park's inner canyon corridor trails and campgrounds. Officials have not yet announced when access will be restored. A July 13 news release from the National Park Service reported both the complete loss of the lodge and the closure of the North Rim, including popular inner-canyon trails like North Kaibab Trail, South Kaibab Trail, and Bright Angel Trail below Havasupai Gardens. Phantom Ranch, a historic lodge at the base of the canyon that many visitors hike to, is also closed until further notice. The more visited South Rim part of the park remains open. According to the Grand Canyon National Park website, the North Rim is visited by only 10 percent of all park visitors. The fire, called the Dragon Bravo Fire, began on July 4 as a result of a lightning strike within Grand Canyon National Park. It was originally well confined and contained, but on the evening of July 12, it progressed rapidly due to 20 m.p.h. winds and gusts reaching up to 40 m.p.h. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the fire grew by nearly eight times within a day and has currently consumed over 70 structures, including several historic cabins, employee housing, administrative offices, and visitor facilities. The North Rim's only lodge, the now destroyed Grand Canyon Lodge, was originally built in 1928 before being burned down in 1932 and reconstructed in 1937. A water treatment facility on the North Rim was also damaged, releasing chlorine gas the afternoon of July 12, according to the U.S. government's wildland fire information portal. No injuries or loss of life have been reported and everyone has been evacuated. 'The fire is being managed with an aggressive full suppression strategy. Fire behavior is still very active, driven by hot temperatures, low relative humidity, and continued strong wind gusts,' stated the July 13 press release. At the time of publication the fire has spread across 8,570 acres and is 0 percent contained, according to
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Travel + Leisure
6 hours ago
- Business
- Travel + Leisure
This Asian City Redefines 'Heritage'—With Beautifully Restored Hotels, a Luxury Train, and the World's Coolest Cocktail Bars
A little over two centuries ago, British capitalist Stamford Raffles planted a trading post at Malaysia's dangling tip and named it after Singapura, ancient Sanskrit for 'lion city.' Laborers from China, India, and greater Malaysia heaved mountains of earth into the muddy estuary of the Singapore River to create new land for developers to lay the city-state's foundations. The investment paid off, at least for the capitalists. Singapore, today about the size of New York City, is a global commercial center—a safe, efficient, English-speaking, litter-free outpost for Western companies in search of Asian markets, and vice versa. Sure, jaded leisure travelers might find it a tad dull compared with regal Bangkok or clamorous Hong Kong, but the business of Singapore is business, and always has been. The national mindset is pragmatic, unsentimental, and profit-oriented. In a place where space is forever at a premium, the churn of property development—build, tear down, rebuild higher, repeat—is what plowing the land is to a great agricultural nation: a cyclical harvest, even a patriotic destiny. Real estate speculation and its twin, banking, have offered the generations the surest way to sow ambition and reap prosperity, making faith in future growth almost a geographic feature. From the top of One Raffles Place, once the tallest skyscraper in all of Asia, the economic outlook is almost invariably sunny. From left: A bronze sculpture by KAWS outside the Mondrian Singapore Duxton hotel; soup at the Yì by Jereme Leung restaurant at the Raffles Singapore hotel. 'Singapore is future-positive,' is how the Australian architect Richard Hassell put it to me when we met at 21 Carpenter, a hotel designed by his firm, WOHA Architects. Our conversation came midway through my stay in the city, which was to be the point of departure for a train journey through Malaysia on Belmond's Eastern & Oriental Express . Before setting off, I wanted to explore the city itself. Above all, I was curious about what a relentless focus on progress might mean for visitors drawn to history and culture—visitors, like me, who typically avoid bright, shiny, ultramodern cities. On my wanderings so far I'd seen low-rise neighborhoods of mom-and-pop shops, Anglican churchyards, and manicured parks, all dwarfed by glass-and-steel skyscrapers. I'd seen architectural doodads of delirious invention and vine-hung eco-utopian prototypes for the climate-change future. Each phase of the past had its own vision of tomorrow. 'Singapore is very pro-change,' Hassell agreed, explaining that when change equals investment and investment equals profit, people can't wait to move on to the next thing. The newest next thing is symbolized by 21 Carpenter, where Hassell fitted 48 rooms into a tower wrapped up in a perforated, heat-deflecting aluminum sun canopy. The novelty is at ground level, where the tower's base rises not from land scraped clean of its past but from a restored 1936 remittance house—an early financial institution used by Chinese laborers to send their earnings home. From left: New Bahru, a mid-century school building that now houses restaurants, serviced apartments, and stores; Malaysia's Peranakan cuisine is on the menu at Candlenut, a restaurant in Singapore. Hassell preserved the original stucco façade and tiled roof. He also read workers' letters home to their families and gathered poignant phrases—bits of found poetry—to inscribe on the sun canopy. The new building bears witness to the old city, preserving the stories of forgotten immigrant workers, the people who built Singapore. After its opening last year, the Singapore Institute of Architects named it the 2024 design of the year. Heritage was the buzzword of my trip, shorthand for the pendulum swing away from a raze-and-replace mentality toward one of restore and refurbish. The movement began in the 1980s with adaptive-reuse projects in Chinatown's historic shop-houses, then grew to include major sites like New Bahru, a former high school converted into an eat-shop-stay campus. The meaning of heritage has also continued to expand. Raffles Singapore, once a symbol of British colonial snobbery, reopened in 2019 after an estimated $200 million restoration with new décor and a new self-image. 'Heritage is also stories,' in-house historian Nazir Yusof told me. Raffles trained a next-gen team to diversify its storytelling, bringing overlooked voices into its account of the colonial era, which in this part of the world has too often represented only the British experience—the colonialists' point of view. From left: Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple, in Singapore; Raffles Singapore's exterior. In 2023, Raffles awarded its writing residency to a Singaporean for the first time. Poet Madeleine Lee's resulting collection, How to Build a Lux Hotel, is a native daughter's intimate and funny view of the grande dame—a peek up her skirt, as it were. The next residency went to Taiwan-born, Paris-trained, Singapore-based chef André Chiang, who produced a book brimming with stories and recipes; its recent publication precedes the opening of a new Chiang restaurant at Raffles later this year. Elsewhere in town, savvy entrepreneurs are feeding the heritage trend by making history from scratch. Witness the neo–Art Deco bar Atlas, a fixture on the World's 50 Best list, or the brand-new old-timey eating spot with the on-the-nose name of Great Nanyang Heritage Café. Meanwhile, the E&O Express is a celebration of the region's artistic legacy and natural biodiversity. I booked a three-night journey through the Malay Peninsula, departing from Singapore. The trip offered stops to hike a rainforest filled with gibbons and to tour George Town, the pre-Singapore British entrepôt where an elite strata of Chinese-Malay families known as Peranakans built elaborate mansions. I laid the invitation on a tea table set with porcelain and silver, ran my hand over an emerald velvet armchair, and petted a dragon-embroidered pillow. When I got back to Singapore, I learned that August 2025 would mark 60 years since the city-state declared its independence and placed leadership of a melting-pot people in the hands of Lee Kuan Yew, its first prime minister. From 1959 to 1990, LKY, as he's known, engineered the country's rise from postcolonial poverty to first-world prosperity. Today he is regarded as a national hero, a founding father as visionary as FDR and shrewd as LBJ. What I observed on the eve of the historic milestone was a country actively reassessing its remarkable rise, not only focused on a headlong rush into the future but also discovering the power of its own diverse history. Boarding the stately hunter-green-and-Devonshire-cream Eastern & Oriental Express at Singapore's Woodlands train station, the third thing I fixated on—after the high crew-to-guest ratio and the acres of interior marquetry—was the boarding pass. The ultra-thick paper was fit for a royal invitation, and the Art Deco design featured an elongated tiger, as if frozen midway between the past and the future. 'The lure of Malaysia in motion,' read the motto. I laid the invitation on a tea table set with porcelain and silver, ran my hand over an emerald velvet armchair, and petted a dragon-embroidered pillow. Minor details, perhaps, given the cinematic three-night trip ahead, but the fine paper and fabrics caught the spirit of the refurbished E&O : analog, fancy, and fun. Architecture in Singapore. As the train sped into the gathering dusk and a piano-sax duo played Jazz Age ditties, 40-odd passengers, some dressed in black tie and formal dresses, mingled over cocktails like guests at a country-house weekend. One fellow produced a deck of cards from his dinner jacket—the onboard magician. He asked the woman nearest him to pick a card, look, and return it, face down, to the deck. Then the magician pulled a fresh lime from his pocket and sliced it open to reveal a folded card. She unfolded it: the queen of clubs, the same card she had picked from the deck. The next morning, the train came to a halt in the middle of wild Malaysia, right alongside Taman Negara National Park. The trainload of passengers, now kitted out for a jungle excursion, stepped out into tropical heat and loaded into a caravan of open-air jeeps to explore the park. Our introduction to Malaysia would begin with the backstory—way, way back. The rainforest that soon enveloped us has been evolving for some 130 million years. At our first stop in the park, our guide showed us the jungle canopy from above, from a platform with spectacular views of primordial forests and distant mountain peaks. Farther in, we followed a hiking trail beneath the orchid-hung canopy. Keening gibbons in the valley to our left were answered by a troop to our right. The region's few remaining elephants and tigers, we were told, moved unseen through the park's hidden reaches. We returned for lunch on the rails and watched endless miles of palm-oil plantations roll past the windows, former wilderness traded for profit. From left: Ephemera aboard the E&O the train's exterior. Of course, it was the fat of this land—wealth from nutmeg, then rubber and palm oil—that drew the British to Malaysia. More than 30 years before Singapore's founding, the Union Jack flew over the state of Penang, across a narrow strait from where the E&O eased to a stop at Butterworth station. The British East India Company's urban plan for George Town, the capital of the state of Penang, remains intact, and I toured the gridded streets from a recumbent position, laid out like a bunch of bananas on the basket-chair of a bicycle rickshaw. Its driver, Mr. Lim, pedaled me past the blindingly white Eastern & Oriental Hotel—opened as the Eastern in 1884 by the Persian-Armenian Sarkies brothers and unaffiliated with Belmond's E&O Express —and delivered me to two colorful heritage houses. The first was an indigo-blue mansion built in the late 19th century by merchant-prince Cheong Fatt Tze and styled as a mah-jongg parlor in the movie Crazy Rich Asians . Its complement, formerly the home of tycoon and philanthropist Chung Keng Quee and now the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, was painted the precise food-coloring green of Malaysian pandan cake. The grand Peranakan families represented a rapid social ascent: from immigrant labor to merchant class to tycoons in a century. They spoke the Queen's English, venerated Buddhist deities, served Malay curries on porcelain, and filled their houses with a mix of Chinese antiques, French enamel, and furniture in the Georgian style—here richly decorated with dragons and phoenixes. 'We are a fusion country,' Mr. Lim explained. From left: Raffles Singapore's Tiffin Room; shutters on Maxwell Road. The E&O was Singapore-bound again when train manager Wolfgang Eipeldauer dropped by my cabin to connect a few dots. Before the recent revamp, he told me, the train harked back to 'a British hill-house veranda in the tropics.' For the current incarnation, he said, 'we purposefully tried to pay attention to the regional and the local.' The idea was to correct the tendency, common in luxury hospitality, to see colonial opulence only through British eyes. The new E&O, like the old Peranakan elite, spans two worlds. On his way out, Eipeldauer suggested I find time for a coffee with Kishen Muruganandan, the bar manager. I made an appointment and met him in the plush caboose. Muruganandan was Malaysian, he told me while brewing a cup, as was most of the young crew. The coffee beans were Malaysian, grown by a neighbor in his home village. The stylish crew uniforms, he replied when I asked about them, were Malaysian, created by a designer in Kuala Lumpur. I caught Eipeldauer's drift: to learn about heritage, talk to someone for whom it is a birthright. Malaysia in motion, indeed. Singapore refutes the old adage about land—here they are still making it. It was the day after the E&O rolled back into Woodlands station, and I was luxuriously billeted at Raffles Singapore. After breakfast in the Tiffin Room, I joined a hotel tour led by Yusof, the in-house historian. 'This was a beach house,' he told us, launching into the story of the Sarkies brothers. From left: Lunch at Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, in the Maxwell Food Centre; the lobby of 21 Carpenter. Flush with cash from the success of their Eastern Hotel in George Town, they opened Raffles in 1887 with 10 rooms across from the beach, perhaps taking Sir Stamford's surname to suggest a starchier British pedigree than they themselves possessed. Today the waterfront is 2½ miles away: Singapore has added approximately 25 percent more land since Independence. Raffles has grown at a considerably higher rate. Its 10-acre hospitality-retail complex now contains 115 suites, seven restaurants and bars, and a platinum-card-melting shopping arcade. Looky-loo tourists with selfie sticks constantly stream past the white-on-white high-Victorian façade of pediments, pilasters, and cast iron. The building has been an official national monument since 1987, Yusof told me with the indulgence of a father whose child is often complimented by strangers. It is, in fact, something more than that. Like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, Raffles is a symbol of the city, even a flagship for the nation, explained a Singaporean wine importer I met for drinks at the Long Bar, home to the rather-too-sweet Singapore Sling. He likened Raffles to a state weather vane: it always points toward the future. A tropical haven for travelers in the imperial 'golden age,' the hotel later hosted LKY's wedding reception (the city's first prime minister returned annually for anniversary dinners) and now is a gilt emporium for the global rich. As Raffles goes, so goes the nation, the wine importer said. I was surprised, then, that the concierge sent me straight away to the Intan, a private museum in a distant residential quarter where the curator-docent-occupant-in-chief was a voluble Peranakan storyteller named Alvin Yapp. He showed me his 1,500-piece collection of decorative arts, then over tea he expounded a theory. Singapore's cosmopolitan business savvy, Yapp proposed, can be attributed to the cross-cultural fluency of its Peranakan citizenry. About three-quarters of Singapore's residents claim Chinese descent and, at the same time, English is its mother tongue and business lingua franca. In other words, the city-state's intellectual framework consists of a language, legal code, parliamentary system, and free-market orthodoxy, all left behind by the British when they vacated their columned administrative buildings. The result has been profound. 'We think like Westerners,' Yapp said with an ironic smile. From left: Cocktail hour on the E&O the Blue Mansion, in George Town. After tea at the museum, I had drinks with a poet. Madeleine Lee was waiting for me in Raffles's Writers Bar, dressed in the edgy black avant-garb of a contemporary art dealer. The title of her book, How to Build a Lux Hotel, suggested an instruction manual. The elegant poems inside presented this conclusion: you build it with people. Lee told me she studied the changeable dramatis personae at Raffles during a dozen stays by talking to bartenders and observing maids and gardeners making their rounds and guests drifting through the spangly lobby. Lee said she tried to capture the emotional feel of the place because so much had already been said about 'the founders, the architecture, the whole colonial thing.' I was curious what a poet, with her sensitivity to language, would make of the word heritage, which by this point in the trip had thoroughly occupied my mind. Lee thought for a moment and described the 'family dialect' of blended Malay, English, and Mandarin spoken in many Singaporean homes. 'We throw everything in a pot and speak 'Singlish.' ' At a literal crossroads of culture, heritage will have nuances, she continued. There are the sturdy facts of textbook history; then there are family stories and an individual's own emotional biography—a grandfather's tale of arriving in Singapore with one small suitcase, for example. Heritage is the past, Lee said, but it must be kept fresh. 'If you don't know where you came from, you can't appreciate today and the future.' From left: A modern apartment building behind the shop-houses of Singapore's Keong Saik Road; shop-houses in George Town, Malaysia. I started to wonder: how old does something have to be to qualify as heritage? The responses I got from others were inconsistent. Someone said the cutoff was 1900, another said 1965. 'It's heritage if it's entwined with our city's past,' replied a Gen Z Singaporean. What about a skyscraper from 2000? 'That's the present,' she said. Architect Richard Hassell proposed that heritage is a building old enough to tear down. Twenty-five years after construction, when materials get tatty and tastes change, is the danger time. If the building survives longer, someone will embrace its vintage cool and perhaps a consensus will consolidate around the 'authenticity of its times,' winning it government protection. Hassell cited a 1982 concrete ziggurat near Orchard Boulevard by American architect John Portman, inventor of the atrium hotel. His innovation swept the world—glass elevators were to hotel architecture what Juice Newton was to Top-10 radio—and then, just as quickly, became unspeakably outdated. Renovated and reopened in 2024 under the name Conrad Singapore Orchard, Portman's design now defines the cutting edge of heritage. Heritage doesn't have to be stuff, however. No less an authority than UNESCO conferred on Singapore's hawker culture—the tradition of eating at public markets and food halls—the status of 'intangible heritage.' (In the name of reportage, I went out for a plate of tangibly satisfying Hainanese chicken rice.) From left: A staff uniform at the Atlas Bar; the Conrad Singapore Orchard hotel's atrium. The whole picture came together for me at Candlenut, a restaurant in a restored British army barracks across from the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The waiter explained that the dishes by chef Malcolm Lee, who identifies as Peranakan, were inspired by family recipes his mother and grandmother taught him and made using local ingredients because early Peranakan families, formed through a Chinese-Malay union, had to work with what little they had. 'That's the story of Peranakan cuisine,' said the waiter. I asked if the style of cooking was popular with Singaporeans. 'It is part of their heritage,' he answered. The meal was certainly delicious—the restaurant has been awarded a Michelin star. The experience stayed with me not because of the chef's technical skills but because the meal told the story of a nation. When I touched down at Singapore Changi Airport 10 days earlier, I had wanted to learn what a future-forward society like Singapore does with its own past. Candlenut had the answer, and it goes something like this: the Lion City has taken the measure of its success and, in glancing back over its shoulder, has rediscovered what's new again. A version of this story first appeared in the August 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Time Travel ."
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Travel + Leisure
7 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- Travel + Leisure
This Black Friday in July Sale Has So Many Travel Sneakers on Sale Up to 48% Off
If you typically prefer to wait until November to shop for clothes, accessories, and shoes, consider this your sign to get an early start this year. QVC is running a Black Friday in July sale right now, and the savings on items like travel-ready shoes are just as good as end-of-year deals. This sneaker sale has picks from so many top brands, including Vionic, Dr. Scholl's, Dearfoams, Skechers, and more, and prices start at $31. Below, shop the 10 best deals on comfortable sneakers that reduce foot pain, offer support, and are designed for walking while they're up to 48 percent off. New York & Company Raphaela Low Top Platform Sneakers, $31 (originally $52) Skechers Sneak Peek Summits Washable Knit Slip-On Sneaker, $51 (originally $75) White Mountain Lace-Up Sneaker, $42 (originally $60) Vionic Presley Suede and Mesh Walking Sneaker, $122 (originally $133) Dr. Scholl's Be True Casual Sneakers, $64 (originally $70) Ryka Walking Sneakers, $60 (originally $73) Dearfoams Lightweight Slip-On Lace Up Sneaker, $45 (originally $57) Skechers Slip-Ins Go Walk Travel Bungee Sneakers, $78 (originally $85) Skechers Go Walk Rosa Linda Arch Fit 2.0 Knit Slip-Ons, $80 (originally $90) Skechers Bobs Sport Arc Waves 2.0 Glidestep Now In Sneakers, $54 (originally $65) For a pair of shoes that are designed for summer, snag these walking sneakers from Ryka that have a breathable mesh exterior to keep your feet cool. The sneakers feature a padded heel tab that makes them easy to slip on and off and an ActivFoam gel insert to provide cushioning and support. One shopper with arthritis had a hard time finding sneakers for their '4- to 6-mile daily treks' until they found these 'lightweight, well-cushioned, and supportive shoes.' If you find yourself always on the go, these sneakers are an ideal pick, particularly when you're exploring a new city or running errands. The casual style features a cushioned foam insole for arch support, and they have a lightweight and flexible outsole for added comfort. One person called them a 'great travel shoe for walking through Europe," adding that they are 'so comfortable.' While most sneakers have a lace-up style for stability and comfort, this Skechers pair achieves the same result with an easy slip-on design. The casual sneaker has a mesh exterior that comes in mauve, black, navy, and white, and a scalloped collar that makes them an especially stylish pick. They're the 'most comfortable shoes' one reviewer has ever worn, while another noted that they are great 'for dress-up occasions.' These sneakers offer an ideal balance of support and style that is necessary for a travel shoe. They have a sleek mesh exterior that comes in blush, navy, tan, and black, and a memory foam insole for ensured comfort. The shoes are machine washable for easy maintenance, and 'they go well with everything,' according to one review. Keep scrolling to shop more on-sale sneakers during QVC's Black Friday in July sale. Love a great deal? Sign up for our T+L Recommends newsletter and we'll send you our favorite travel products each week.
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Travel + Leisure
7 hours ago
- Travel + Leisure
11 Genius Accessories Wheelchair Users Swear by for Easier, Safer, and Much More Comfortable Travel—From $12
Traveling always offers the possibility of problems, but for those who face the challenges as a wheelchair user, the process could be a bit more daunting. The tourism industry is making great strides to improve accessibility for travelers with disabilities, such as wheelchair-friendly beaches and major hotel chains that prioritize accessibility features. This does provide some peace of mind, but planning for the possibility of unforeseen events is key. Whether it's a gel seat cushion for a more comfortable experience or a universal adapter to ensure your wheelchair battery stays charged no matter what country you're in, there are a few key products that will make traveling smoother and more enjoyable. I spoke with three accessibility travel experts who drew upon their own experiences to share helpful products for other wheelchair users: Jordana Izzo, Director of Accessible Travel with Travelmation; content creator Chelsea Bear, who shares her personal experiences of living with cerebral palsy; and travel agent David Lyons-Black, who is a wheelchair user and specializes in accessible travel. Here are the top travel products they recommend, along with some advice for preparing for possible mishaps. For long stretches of travel time, Izzo recommends packing a gel seat cushion. 'For those longer periods of time in a chair, proper support is needed,' she shares. '[A gel cushion] is a great breathable option, especially in hot climates.' The honeycomb design of this cushion allows air to circulate throughout the thick mattress, keeping it cooler for longer, which will help with overall comfort. The detachable seat cover is easy to clean and provides a protective barrier to help the cushion last longer. 'For my own peace of mind while traveling, I like to keep an Apple AirTag in the pocket of my mobility scooter and any checked luggage I have, so I can make sure it all boards the plane,' Bear explains. 'There have been a lot of issues with airports mishandling mobility devices or even misplacing them, so being able to track my mobility scooter's location helps ease my anxiety.' If you have multiple bags that could use an AirTag, consider a four-pack of Apple AirTags at Amazon for under $75. These handy devices work by connecting with your iPhone's Find My app to show you exactly where your items are, and reviewers praise how easy they are to set up. If you're not an Apple user, there are Android-friendly Bluetooth trackers to shop as well for tracking your belongings. For convenience and organization, add a side seat bag to any outing. Izzo chose this five-pocket model that works with wheelchairs, walkers, and electric scooters. 'These side bags are super incredible for easy access to immediate necessity items, phone, tickets, sunglasses, wallet, water bottles, and more,' she notes. A best-seller at Amazon, this bag is available in a variety of patterns and is made from heavy-duty nylon with adjustable straps so you can get the perfect fit. At less than $20, this side bag will keep your essentials close by for easy convenience. Bear considers compression socks, like her go-to Bombas compression socks, a necessity when flying. 'These are a must with air travel to help keep swelling down in my legs from the pressure and being seated for a long time,' she shares. Reviewers also swear by these Charmking compression socks at Amazon that reduce swelling by providing 15 to 20 mmHg of compression with a stretchy, flexible design for all-day comfort. In order to keep a hotel door open while adding luggage, a door stopper can be a good substitute for those solo travelers. This foldable, long-handle door stop can be a lifesaver. Lyons-Black relies on this product during his trips. 'This helps keep the room door open when traveling alone and bringing luggage into the room,' he shares. The long, adjustable handle eliminates the need to bend down and position the door stop, and the non-slip base works on a variety of floors like carpet, hardwood, and tile. There's always an uneasy feeling when a cell phone's battery is low. While some travel locations might have courtesy charging outlets, it's best to be prepared with a portable power bank. No matter where you are, these are ideal for charging phones and other electronics while on the go. Small enough to fit in a purse, backpack, or a chair's side seat bag, these little boxes provide big power. Bear never leaves home without her Anker portable charger. 'I use my phone a lot when traveling, whether it's to research whether or not a restaurant is accessible, getting directions, making phone calls to coordinate accessible transportation, or taking photos,' Bear says. 'I heavily rely on my phone, especially in the event of an emergency.' Traveling with the portable power from Anker gives her the peace of mind to know she won't ever have to worry about a dying cell phone battery. Small enough to be stowed away in a suitcase but strong enough for any needed support, these portable shower handles are ideal for entering and exiting a tub shower combo at the hotel—or any other time you need a little extra support. They simply suction onto the wall, so they can be placed next to the toilet, bed, or any other location. 'These hand bars are great for situations where you might need extra support other than what may or may not be provided in an accessible room or a standard hotel room,' Izzo stated. 'The suction cups cause no damage and can be reused.' This adaptive JanSport backpack has been a game-changer for Bear while traveling because of its smart design. 'It's very spacious, and I love the accessible zippers and dual side grab handles with additional attachment points,' Bear says. 'It allows me to easily hang the backpack in different areas of my mobility scooter without having to readjust.' With backrest loops, anchor straps, and spacious interior organization, this adaptive pack is spacious to hold essentials and then some, and it comes in a variety of colors. 'I can safely keep all of my essentials with me, whether I use it as my carry-on for a flight or for a day of sightseeing,' Bear adds. If you need electricity for charging your mobility device, Bear suggests packing a universal travel adapter, like this best-selling one from Epicka. 'This is essential when traveling internationally,' Bear states. 'I always make sure to double-check my mobility scooter's label to see if it's dual voltage or not to ensure I pack the right combo.' The Epicka adapter has four plug types that can accommodate the socket plugs of over 200 countries. However, you'll need to double-check your device's voltage and that of your adapter to ensure there aren't any issues when charging abroad. Lyons-Black also suggests being prepared for potential setbacks like a flat tire or needing to replace a tire inner tube. Basic tools, like this 25-piece folding Allen wrench set, will help if you need to conduct some maintenance. Make sure you have spares on hand, like an extra inner tube, 'as not all shops will have your specific size in stock,' Lyons-Black shares. A small portable pump will also help fill low tires or inflate a tire after an inner tube replacement. Additionally, Lyons-Black offers some travel tips to help keep travel trips running smoothly. For times of traveling over loose gravel or sand, a freewheel attached in front will help it roll through loose gravel or sand. Additionally, he recommends carrying a few spare parts, such as front casters and/or a joystick for a power chair. Finally, you'll want to conduct a quick Google search to find wheelchair repair shops in the destination that you are heading to, in case you need them. This will give you peace of mind in case something happens, and you need a repair shop service. Love a great deal? Sign up for our T+L Recommends newsletter and we'll send you our favorite travel products each week.
