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New Year’s in Finland

In Finland, New Year’s starts with a little fortune telling. Miniature tin horseshoes are melted over a fire on a special type of spoon and tossed into the snow or into very cold water, where they freeze instantly into unusual shapes. Those shapes are said to be harbingers of the year to come.

“You look at the shadow, not the tin itself,” explains Reijo Pentikainen, a Helsinki resident who grew up with the tradition.

Once the reshaped tin has been plucked out of the water, you hold it in front of a light next to a wall and you interpret the shadow. While Pentikainen doesn’t pretend to be an expert on all of the possible interpretations, he says the best known one has to do with money.

“The one with money and wealth is the obvious one,” says Pentikainen. “It has a rough surface or a bubbly surface.”

A shadow that looks like a wave is supposed to mean that changes are on the way, while an anchor means stability, says Pentikainen. The shapes can be interpreted literally or symbolically.

A ship is said to signify movement, while a key hints at good luck in your career. Although a shape like a horse means you may get a new car, any other animal is said to mean you have a friend who you can’t trust. In a nod to the country’s agrarian roots, a basket means that you’ll have a good mushroom harvest next year. It’s best to pour the tin quickly, as a metal that breaks up into little pieces forebodes a rough year ahead.

Photo: Mari-Johanna K/Shutterstock

While the above are some of the historically best known interpretations, Pentikainen doesn’t believe it’s critical to know them all.

“I think you can just wing it,” says Pentikainen. After all, it’s usually a tradition done with your family or maybe a small group of friends, he says. They may not mind a little creativity.

The idea of melting metal and seeking to learn truths from it goes back thousands of years, and you can see it done in different northern European countries on New Year’s Eve. One of the places where it’s most central to the last night of the year, however, is in Finland.

“If you are staying at home, it’s obviously part of the tradition,” says Pentikainen, noting that if you are out to dinner on New Year’s Eve, you may not have the opportunity to melt metal and pour it into cold water. “You do it in the family when you have kids. Younger adults, they may do it with friends,” he says.

Generally, the tin casting occurs after dinner and before the fireworks, says Pentikainen. Although there’s no specific rule about it, the sequence of events tends to be melting tin, then lighting fireworks or watching a city’s fireworks display, followed by popping Champagne. After that, like everywhere, you kiss and hug your family and friends.

Tin casting has become such a part of Finnish New Year’s that the volunteer firemen in the Finnish city of Loviisa set a world record by dumping a 90-pound lump of tin into 2,000 liters of cold water on December 31, 2009 — and producing not just a huge amount of metal to try to interpret but also massive plume of steam.

The whole custom, however, came under fire from the European Union two winters ago.

It turns out that the tin used in the making of the tiny horseshoes wasn’t only tin, and in some cases contained hardly any tin at all, since it’s an expensive metal. Rather, the metal that’s melted had always contained some percentage of lead — a chemical that’s toxic to the environment and people.

Lead was used because it is cheap, it makes the metal easy to melt and shape, and, in fact, was the original metal used for this purpose. The practice of divining the future from thrown metal is actually called molybdomancy, based on the Greek word for lead, molybdos.

Not only did the ancient Greeks practice this art, but it can still be seen in Turkey, where it is called kurşun dökme, or “lead casting.” There and in Bosnia-Herzegovina it’s used not to ring in a new year but to try and predict the future. In Germany, where the practice also exists — but on New Year’s Eve, as in Finland — it’s called bleigiessen, which translates to “lead pouring.”

Photo: MakroBetz/Shutterstock

Today the casting of metal of different shapes is done on New Year’s Eve in the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark), as well as in Germany and Austria. It arrived in Finland via the Swedish monarchy, which ruled Finland until the early 19th century. As metal was expensive, melting it was a practice originally enjoyed only by the nobility around the 1700s. Finnish officers who had served the Swedish king and were rewarded with land were the first to bring the habit to their home country.

It became known in Finland as tinan valanta, tin casting, or uudenvuodentina, New Year’s tin. Despite calling it tin casting, the little horseshoes sold to melt contained as much as 95 percent lead, according to the Finnish news site Yle.

The EU banned any lead use in 2018. In Finland, this resulted in a last-minute run on the old horseshoes and tin melting kits sold in stores, as people feared an end to their year-end tradition. Yle reported on customers “hoarding the banned tin” in late 2017 in anticipation of the coming ban. Facebook groups popped up as would-be metal-melters searched out where to get their hands on some leaded horseshoes.

Rather than using metal that contains tin, the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency has recommended melting sugar or beeswax. Even heating up old candles has been offered up as an alternative. But newspapers were quick to warn that beeswax needn’t be heated at such a high heat and that, in fact, it can ignite if overheated. One Yle journalist who tested all the options found that the sugar disintegrated and the melted beeswax resembled “eggs or vomit” more than something you’d like to divine your future with.

The Safety and Chemical Agency does still permit the use of tin itself, as long as it doesn’t have lead in it. Fortunately, a replacement for lead has been found. A metal combination that is about 97 percent tin combined with three percent of the element antimony is said to produce the same kind of hardness or structure as the old lead-containing tin.

The tin-antimony option isn’t cheap though. Although an internet search through Finnish websites didn’t turn up tin-antimony horseshoes, we did find some tin-antimony rods, each weighing just over two ounces and selling for 41.63 euros (or $50) for a package of ten.

That may seem like a lot of money, but maybe it’s not so much when the future is in question. And if you get some good news, that isn’t a bad way to start the new year. You could even look back on your melted tin prediction throughout the year if things start to look grim. After all, good news should be held onto.

“You’d keep it for a while,” says Pentikainen of the melted tin. “Especially if it’s a good one. You’d keep it on your desk or in your cupboard.”

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Luxury villa in Greece giveaway

Working from home might sound like a dream come true, until you compare it to working from a Greek villa. CV Villas is launching a competition to allow two people to make a luxury villa in Corfu, Greece, their home office for four weeks, with round-trip flights covered from the UK.

The company is looking for people who have been scraping by with less-than-ideal work-from-home setups who could really benefit from the comfort, convenience, and luxury of a villa.

Photo: CV Villas

The winners will travel to the five-bedroom Indiana villa on Corfu, just a short walk from Coyevinas Beach. The villa has a private pool, hot tub, outdoor working area, and terrace with stunning views. It’s also walkable to the village of Kassiopi.

Photo: CV Villas

Pete Brundell, the head of marketing for CV Villas, said, “We know that up and down the country people have been struggling with home offices that aren’t up to scratch, and after a number of months of working remotely we wanted to offer the chance to have a change of scenery. With far more remote working options now available for employees, we certainly foresee groups using our villas as short-term offices in beautiful locations. Who wouldn’t want to do a Zoom call from a hot tub?”

Photo: CV Villas

To enter, you’ll have to explain why you think you deserve a change of scenery. The stay will be from April 5 to May 3, 2021, with your flight departing from Gatwick Airport in London.

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Cities transforming public spaces

One silver lining of lockdowns and isolation on cities worldwide is that many are converting outdated urban spaces to better serve the citizens. The process is known as “tactical urbanism.” Popularized in a 2015 book by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia, this concept refers to a city that optimizes a public space for the benefit of, well, the public. In most cases, this refers to pedestrians, cyclists, and small gatherings of people rather than cars or vacant buildings. In fact, many instances of tactical urbanism involve taking over a space that was formerly used by cars, whether for parking or for driving, and giving it back to people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced cities around the world to rethink everything from outdoor dining to cycling and walking — and some have gotten quite creative. Now, leaders of the following cities plan to make these changes permanent. Once travel is safe, US cities from coast to coast will welcome visitors back to a better urban experience, from art to dining to mobility. These three are leading examples.

Fayetteville, Arkansas, develops massive arts corridor and curbside drink zone.

Photo: Experience Fayetteville/Facebook

Tactical urbanism begins with what’s known as the “parklet” — an increasingly common staple in urban cores that repurposes parking spots and unused curb spaces into chilled-out zones for congregating or relaxing. The National Association of City Transportation Officials defines a parklet as a “physical intervention that takes over one to three parking spaces, widening the sidewalk and creating places to sit, talk, play, dance, eat, read, nap, observe, or park your bicycle.”

Fayetteville, Arkansas, has taken this concept and run with it. Early in the pandemic, a citywide emergency measure allowed businesses to apply for parklet space in order to better accommodate customers while maintaining social distancing. Following that, work began in July on the development of a new Cultural Arts Corridor to be located in the heart of the city. The corridor will link local theatres, arts centers and galleries, and the Fayetteville Public Library to the University of Arkansas’ already established Art and Design District. The 50-acre outdoor space will be pedestrian-friendly and connected by a bikeway that will bridge the two phases of the project through the popular Fay Jones Woods, a large urban park complete with trails. It will also provide easy access to another tactical urbanism development that came to life this year and that has caused quite a buzz around town.

Photo: City of Fayetteville Arkansas

To support local businesses struggling through the pandemic, the city created an Outdoor Refreshment Area encompassing multiple city blocks in the urban core from downtown west to the University of Arkansas. Patrons of businesses including restaurants and bars can possess and consume alcohol at leased parklets within the defined area, as long as it was purchased from one of the establishments. The test appears to be well received, in part because it doesn’t allow imbibers to simply roam the streets. Consumption happens in the areas monitored by the businesses, which have applied for space at which to operate their parklets. Businesses are charged a day rate for the parking spots that their parklet occupies, ranging from $2.50 to $5 per spot.

Parklets in the area have also served as meeting points for those out walking or cycling through town, as well as spaces for outdoor, socially distanced conversation by those not wishing to enter a cafe. Artists have also popped up at parklets across town, displaying and selling work to passersby. Based on an overall positive experience to date, Fayetteville’s city council has discussed making these changes permanent, with formal decisions still pending, according to the Fayetteville Flyer.

Denver is making Shared Streets permanent.

Photo:
Denver Streets Partnership

Early in the pandemic, Denver closed 15.9 miles of streets in its urban core and an additional 10.2 miles in its parks to vehicles and opened them to pedestrians and cyclists in an effort to provide space for socially distanced exercise within the city. The roads were promptly taken over not only by outdoor recreators but by socially distanced coffee meetups, musicians hosting impromptu gigs, and, of course, local dogs who had a newfound reason to lure their owners outside for a walk along what used to be car-clogged roads. What’s more, the streets were decorated with art representing everything from hearts to koi fish to the video game Space Invaders.

Photo:
Denver Streets Partnership

This month, Denver became one of the first cities to announce that at least some of these changes, known as the Shared Streets program, will become permanent. In December, it was announced that the Shared Street on Bayoud, a stretch of road through the densely populated Capitol Hill and Cheesman Park neighborhoods just south of downtown, would remain closed to traffic, allowing the non-motorized walking and curbside revelry to continue. Additional permanent changes are expected to be announced by the city in January, according to Jill Locantore, Executive Director of the Denver Streets Partnership.

What’s most exciting about this is that the permanent transition of Bayoud Street — and any closures announced in the future — stem directly from public input following the popularity of Shared Streets during the pandemic. Locantore told Matador that the area “was actually already planned to be a ‘neighborhood bikeway’ and the community support for the Shared Street expedited this process.”

San Francisco harnesses street art and European-style outdoor dining.

Photo: Larry Zhou/Shutterstock

Among US cities, San Francisco has been a parklet pioneer for the past decade, having installed more than 50 since 2010. But the famously progressive city has ramped up its efforts even further this year. Following indoor dining restrictions stemming from the pandemic, the city launched a program that allows local restaurants to apply to convert street parking in front of their business to a parklet or outdoor dining setup. Here, though, in a city with an already walkable urban core and a largely international cultural influence, outdoor dining has become a bridge between neighborhoods. Walk the streets of Lower Polk, Fillmore, and Lower Pacific Heights, and you’ll see many cafes and restaurants that have effectively taken over unused parking spots to allow for outdoor dining that is both socially distanced and socially stimulating.

A crop of new street art has taken hold across the city as well. The Paint The Void program, launched by the city to lift spirits and support local artists during the pandemic, drove the creation of 100 new public murals on 84 buildings throughout the city, which you can browse on an interactive map on their website.

Photo: Paint the Void/Facebook

Perhaps San Francisco’s most popular development has been the closure of its iconic Great Highway — a stretch of beachside road running along the Pacific coast — to cars this past spring. Originally closed due to an overflow of sand on the road, cyclists and pedestrians took over, and the city decided to keep it closed to cars to provide a space for outdoor exercise. The San Francisco Recreation and Parks department has looked after the space, with many local residents continuing to advocate for it to be permanently kept as a park.

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Eurail pass discount for 2021

Eurail passes have been a staple of European travel for 60 years, allowing passengers to easily and flexibly book trips throughout its network of 33 countries. After all those decades helping travelers take epic trips and make memories, the passes are finally getting a makeover and going digital. Now, Eurail passes will be available online, and to kickstart this new digital age, Eurail is offering 20 percent off on Global Passes and select One-county Passes through January 4, 2021 — valid for travel throughout all next year.

Eurail travelers can now access the passes through the Rail Planner App, which also has features that help travelers throughout their journey. It has offline train schedules, an advanced search function to make train reservations ahead of time, and helps you find discounts on buses, ferries, and other attractions. Partner company Generator Hostels is also offering a 20 percent discount on stays booked through December 31 for travel in 2021.

Eurail passes can be used any time within 11 months of purchase, and you don’t have to set an exact date for your trip in advance.

According to the sale website, “We know thinking ahead is tricky at the moment, so we don’t want you to rush — do your research, plan things out and pick the safe and flexible option that works for you! The only rush you should feel is the rush of excitement that comes with arriving to new places when you travel through Europe in the new year.”

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Grapes for New Year's in Spain

When Javier Vallès Osborne was a boy in Barcelona, he struggled to cram, chew, and swallow 12 grapes, one every two seconds, at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

“It was una p—a,” says Vallès, speaking in Spanish and using a word best left unprinted, which essentially means it was effing hard. “The grapes were super big and with seeds. I didn’t want to eat the seeds, but it had to be the whole thing.”

Vallès was simply following in the tradition, celebrated across Spain, of eating one grape with each chime of the clock tower of the Royal Post Office in Plaza del Sol, a central square of Madrid. Much like Americans might watch the ball drop at midnight in Times Square, Spaniards tune to the country’s capital for the 12 chimes of the clock.

Tradition has it that each chime represents a month of the year, and that consuming all 12 grapes at each chime of the clock on nochevieja — which means the night of the old, outgoing year — will bring good luck in the year to come.

“You have to swallow everything,” Vallès says. “If you end up with grapes left in your mouth, you will have bad luck.”

Eventually, Vallès says his mother, who hails from a wine producing family in southern Spain, relented, allowing the kids to take the seeds out from the grapes beforehand. Not long after that, Vallès said his brother started peeling the grapes in preparation for the first stroke of midnight.

Truth be told, it wasn’t until I found myself trying to jam 12 hefty, seed-packed grapes into my mouth on a New Year’s Eve in the mountains outside of Barcelona a few years ago that I understood why anyone would ever want to peel a grape.

Spain’s year-end grape of choice is the green Aledo variety that’s harvested in November and December. While it may resemble the seedless green grape with tissue-thin skin that you find in all US supermarkets, it is anything but. Although not as thick as the peel on the purple grapes you find in Spain — it’s covered in paper while on the vine to slow maturation, a process that gives it a sweeter taste and a slightly thinner skin — the Aledo is still a mouthful.

Gloria Balil, another Barcelona native, says that it’s a matter of personal preference for people to peel their grapes.

“I personally don’t think it’s necessary, but I respect everyone’s taste,” she says diplomatically. Balil says she doesn’t suppose a person’s decision to peel a grape or not would affect their luck for the coming year, but rather it’s a question of comfort.

Nowadays, you can actually find tiny tins of 12 seeded and peeled grapes sold at the grocery store in Spain in the late days of December. That, Balil opines, is going a bit far.

“Of course we Spaniards are how we are and if we see that someone says, ‘No I want them peeled, I want them without seeds,’ we think they are being fussy,’” says Balil.

Photo: pmartinasi/Shutterstock

But where did this idea of eating grapes come from in the first place?

Common lore was that just over a hundred years ago, in 1909, grape growers in the Alicante region of Spain had a bumper crop and invented the concept of December 31 grape eating to encourage sales.

A few years back, the Spanish media started debunking that theory — or at least part of it. In 2012, Spain’s national paper,ABC, found written accounts of New Year’s grape eating in the late 1800s, and even pointed to a 1906 article in ABC itself about Madrid residents eating the grapes at the twelve strokes of midnight.

“According to the adherents of the system, eating them at that precise moment augurs the possession of money,” the 1906 article reads.

They were apparently copying the Spanish upper class trend of eating grapes and having Champagne at midnight, a tradition they learned from the French. The part that was new was trying to eat them timed to the tolls of the clocktower.

Where the Alicante growers come in, apparently, is in successfully bringing this New Year’s custom to a broader audience. And success they had. Today, according to ABC, up to two million kilos (4.4 million pounds) of grapes are eaten every year in Spain on December 31.

It just isn’t New Year’s in Spain without the grape munching. “It’s inconceivable not to do this tradition at New Year’s,” Vallès says.

He notes that it is such an integral part of ringing in the coming year that even in the regions that seek more independence from Spain, like Catalonia and the Basque Country, everyone still eats the grapes at midnight on December 31. They may time their grape eating to a different clock in a local town being aired on a channel in the Catalan or Basque languages — rather than watching the clock tower in Madrid on the main broadcaster — but they are still going to eat those grapes.

Vallès says there is even an option for those who are diabetic, as his father was. He used to eat twelve olives at midnight, so he wouldn’t have to worry about a dozen bites of sugary fruit in rapid succession.

Either way, it’s only once the grapes are eaten that everyone grabs their glasses of Champagne to ring in the New Year.

“For us, when you have the last grape, you drink Champagne and toast one another and it concretely begins the process of celebrating the new year, giving everyone kisses, calling grandma, and so on,” he says.

Vallès does remember, though, the time a few years back when the announcer forgot to tell folks at home that the chiming had begun. Even worse, says Vallès, was the year they rang the bells too fast.

“It was a national drama. No one could eat the grapes at each chime” Vallès says, laughing.

And Vallès likes to laugh. As he sees it, frantically trying to eat twelve large, seed-packed grapes as the bells are relentlessly chiming, one by one, is “a fun kind of stress.”

“As you are doing this, you are all laughing, ‘Oh yes. Oh no!’ Then you end up with everyone laughing to see who missed it and joking about who will have bad luck,” he says.

“That way,” says Vallès, “you start the year laughing.”

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Living in Taiwan during COVID

Last April, I was bar-hopping around Taipei when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was a push notification reporting that the United States had just logged 1 million cases of COVID-19. I locked the screen and looked around, stunned by the weight of the news and slightly guilt-ridden on behalf of my absurd privilege; there I was, surrounded by strangers, living in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and the pandemic had barely crossed my mind all day.

During my year in Taiwan, the world turned on its head. As cases skyrocketed and my family and friends holed up in lockdown in the US, the little life I had carved out for myself in Taiwan remained largely untouched.

Even with Wuhan, the center of the pandemic back in early 2020, just a short flight away, Taiwan managed to become one of the nations least touched by COVID-19. According to the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, as of December 21, 2020, there have been fewer than 800 confirmed cases in the country.

During the last few sessions with my Chinese tutor, she repeatedly tried to talk me out of going home. “America is so dangerous!” she would say in Mandarin. “Stay in Taiwan, it’s so much safer here.”

She had a point, but I had already promised my family that I’d be back after completing my work contract at the end of August. So, I packed my bags and flew home.

My return to the US was a shock.

The first of many red flags occurred when I landed at LAX. As I made my way through immigration and customs, not one airport employee told me to stay home for 14 days or to get tested after traveling abroad.

At that point in August, over 183,000 Americans had lost their lives to COVID-19. In Taiwan, the death count was 7. Since the spread of the new coronavirus was so much worse in the US, I’d expected that one of the busiest airports in the world would take things a bit more seriously.

Before boarding any plane heading to Taiwan, you need to get tested three days prior. Once you arrive in Taiwan, you need to present your negative test results, register your cell phone GPS with the police, then check into a quarantine hotel for 14 days. Breaking the rules will get you into some real financial trouble.

And Taiwan is not messing around when it comes to quarantine. A migrant worker from the Philippines was fined $3,500 for an eight-second quarantine violation.

It was rigorous contact tracing, widespread mask-wearing, mandatory travel quarantines, and a well-funded epidemic response program that helped keep the country safe.

Despite the small national caseload, Taiwan still embraced face masks. Even before the virus, it was considered common courtesy to wear a mask if you felt under the weather. So, when my workplace, an English cram school with hundreds of children, made them mandatory in January, no one batted an eye.

At the Taipei Lantern Festival in February, I stood among hundreds of other mask-wearing event-goers as we waited for a dance performance to begin. Before the dancers got started, the mayor of Taipei hopped on stage to remind people to dài kǒuzhào (wear a mask) and bǎohù zìjǐ yě bǎohù tārén (protect yourself and protect others). Even then, these two phrases were ubiquitous, plastered all over buses, trains, and billboards around the city.

It’s memories like these that make life in the US plain bizarre to me now. In Taiwan, I grew comfortable in a culture that deeply valued community health and mutual respect. In the US, the sight of a face mask is enough to set some teeth on edge.

Talking to Americans about my experience in Taiwan, I’m often met with suspicion or doubt. I recently mentioned to an old friend that Taiwan’s case count is practically nonexistent. They responded, “Well, that’s probably because they’re not testing, right?”

Over the past few months in the US, I’ve found myself repeatedly defending Taiwan against biases. I’ve seen people underestimate Asian healthcare systems and blame Chinese wet market culture for American deaths. (Wet markets aren’t harmful — unregulated wildlife markets are.) These arguments are often riddled with unchecked anti-Asian bias.

“It must feel good to be back in the US after a whole year in Asia, of all places” a neighbor called out as I headed out for an afternoon walk in my Southern California hometown.

“It’s great to be with family, but honestly, I wish they could’ve just joined me in Taiwan,” I replied.

I’m grateful that I managed to avoid a good chunk of this nightmare. No panic, no sudden lockdown, no ridiculous toilet paper shortage. As friends back home canceled their concert plans, I got to play gigs in crowded bars, singing and plucking my banjolele without fear of infection. As my family self-isolated, I explored new cities and wandered through busy night markets.

Soon after I returned to the US, I opened up the Sunday paper to see a massive ad that read “Taiwan Can Help.” It was a plea from Taiwan to have a place in the World Health Organization. I’ll admit, I started tearing up. China’s looming power over Taiwan has excluded the island nation from its rightful place on the global stage. Taiwan has been barred from the most powerful public health platform in the world, despite the fact that its contributions could potentially help struggling countries.

When I was applying for jobs in 2019, I had high expectations for my life in Taiwan, but I never could have predicted just how those expectations would be blown out of the water.

In 2020, I was lucky enough to reap the benefits of one of the world’s most effective COVID-19 responses. If I wasn’t already a fervid defender of Taiwan, I definitely am now.

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Travel trends predictions for 2021

Reading the “travel predictions for 2020” stories that were posted toward the end of 2019 is both sad and comical. It’s a lesson that, no matter how much information we have, we never truly know what lies ahead. With that understanding, the leaders of some major travel companies got together for a big, virtual roundtable discussion to talk about how the travel industry landscape will look in 2021 and beyond.

Brian Kelly — aka The Points Guy — mediated the conversation on December 3. The panel consisted of VRBO president Jeff Hurst, RVshare CEO Jon Gray, Hipcamp founder Alyssa Ravasio, Campendium CEO and cofounder Leigh Wetzel, and Viator president Ben Drew. Each had their own take on how the travel world will change — and how things we’ve discovered this year mean it will never go back to “normal.”

Travel flexibility is here to stay

Now that people have discovered a world where hefty change fees and stiff cancellation policies aren’t necessary, there won’t be any going back. This will hold true for airlines – most of which have already announced they’re getting rid of change fees altogether. A no change fee policy will also apply to the rest of the travel industry, covering everything from home rentals to city tours.

Drew said Viator’s research showed three quarters of people wouldn’t travel without flexibility. The tour and attraction booking site has also seen massive growth in bookings that could be reserved now and paid for later.

“The future of travel is more flexible, period,” added RVshare’s Gray. “People aren’t going to book without the flexibility to cancel if they need to. Part of this is health and safety, part of it is consumer expectation.”

So now that the expectation is complete flexibility and less risk when booking, people won’t accept going back to the way things were.

“I don’t think you put the genie back in the bottle after this,” Hipcamp’s Ravasio added.

Last minute trips will become far more common

Pre-COVID, “you-can’t-pass-this-up” weekend airfare discounts seriously tempted us to blow off our Saturday date with Costco. But with so much uncertainty regarding lockdowns, travel restrictions, and the general health of everyone flying, it’s not just spontaneous travelers who will be planning stuff with little to no lead time.

“The overwhelming majority of bookings we get are within the next 30 days,” said Gray. “Last year, that would have been 60-[plus] days.”

Viator’s Drew added that bookings within seven to 10 days have become a far larger proportion of the site’s bookings, as people are taking last minute opportunities to travel. He sees a huge shift toward short-term and flexible travel.

The tendency to stay closer to home has also boosted interest in last minute travel.

“People are traveling more last minute,” said Ravasio, whose company connects people with private and public land on which they can camp. “People are staying closer to home, so we’ve always seen that more in travel last minute.”

Booking via mobile apps will be the norm

Photo: Maria Savenko/Shutterstock

As anyone who has ever impulse shopped while sitting at a red light knows, quick decisions are better made on a smartphone. And this goes for booking vacations too.

“Flexibility is tied to mobile when you have the ability to make these last minute decisions,” said Drew. “Booking on mobile platforms is up 82 percent versus last year. These trends are quite interlinked.”

Wetzel, the CEO of Campendium, an app that helps people research campsites across the country, added that her site had seen an 800 percent increase in app sessions versus a year ago, marking a huge shift from traditional web bookings to mobile.

More people are taking longer trips, and spending more at their destination

With working from home becoming more the rule than the exception in 2020, people have been tacking extra days onto their weekends, turning the traditional Friday through Sunday trip into a far more leisurely Thursday-Monday. VRBO’s Hurst said people are taking advantage of the fact they can fulfill their professional and academic obligations from anywhere, and the average booking length has increased.

“Budgets didn’t change as much as behaviors,” he said. “People are getting a nicer house and staying for longer. A lot of people are coming to southern states where they can work remotely. And they’re getting a nicer place than they’d have spent a few days in because they’re living there for a few weeks.”

He added that because people aren’t spending as much on airfare – or anything at all – they can afford to splurge a little on accommodations.

Gray said he’s also seen more people taking longer trips, led mostly by the work from home shift.

“People will stay the entire workweek if connectivity is there,” Wetzel added.

Outdoor spaces are going to have to up their Wi-Fi game

Until very recently, part of the camping allure was disconnecting from the world and finding a place where no one could find you. And while that still may draw some, the move to working from anywhere has led many to set up their offices at campsites. This may be a bit dismaying to some, who foresee a future of overhearing Zoom calls and speaker phones from people two campsites over. But as demand for connectivity rises, outdoor destinations are hustling to improve their Wi-Fi.

“If you want people to come during the week and stay longer and spend more, you have to make sure they can work,” Gray said. “This is new for campgrounds, and really, I think, a call to arms.”

Campendium’s CEO Wetzel agrees, saying she’s found people staying longer and spending far more in places with connectivity.

“It’s not just Wi-Fi, people can get online with their phones if you have a good AT&T or Verizon connection,” she said, adding that even lacking good internet service campgrounds could capitalize on clear cellular connections. “People are getting comfortable getting away and out more into nature.”

There will be a glut of RVs to rent next year

This year’s discovery of RVs and the outdoors isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But exactly how much it’s caught on might surprise some people. Gray said RVshare’s business tripled over this booking season, driven mostly by a mobile workforce and a traveling public that overwhelmingly is looking to avoid crowds.

“Ninety-three percent of people said their plan was to avoid crowds,” he said. “That led them to RVing.”

That discovery made for a banner year in RV sales. The RV Industry Association reported about 424,000 RV units would be sold in 2020, and anticipated half a million to be sold in 2021. This year’s total is 4.5 percent higher than 2019, with two fewer months to sell. But Drew warned that people investing tens of thousands of dollars in their new mobile vacation homes may realize they aren’t using them as much as they thought they would.

“The average [RV] is used three weeks a year,” he said. “Those people will realize they can take their RV and turn it into a second source of income. Half our people who rent cover all their RV payments. I expect great supply to be available.”

Traveling outdoors is the new “experiential travel”

Photo: sirtravelalot/Shutterstock

As overseas explorations of culture, food, and experiences become far more difficult to come by, the definition of “experiential travel” has shifted. The panel of industry leaders agreed that parks, nature, and the great outdoors will be the experiences people seek over the next few years, much of which will be close to home.

“We’ve done about a five year fast forward on travel that is outdoors and experiential,” says Gray. “It is the next iteration of experiential travel. Camping is an under-talked about category — three million households went camping the year before the pandemic, and it’s a growing category.”

Wetzel concurred, pointing out that this was the first year over half the people who camped for the first time were people of color.

“I’m a huge believer in the concept we all have an inherent love of nature,” she said. “Once you’re out there and see the stars and smell the trees, you can’t help but fall in love with it. You won’t want to go back [to other experiences].”

Ravasio said Hipcamp has seen so much demand, it often runs out of places to send potential customers. That growth extended far past the typical peak summer season and well into late fall.

People will learn more about where they live

Though the frequency and duration of trips have increased, the distance traveled has decreased. This will continue into the future and will lead people to discover more of the cool stuff within driving distance rather than jumping on a plane to a far-off land.

“The biggest trend is people are traveling closer to home,” Ravasio said. “There was 45 percent less distance traveled this year. People don’t want to go too far, don’t want to get on airplanes. So they want to understand their local region. Know more about ranchers, what’s better for the environment.”

Gray said RVshare has seen the most growth in northeastern states, with people in large cities picking up RVs and exploring state parks and other wilderness in that region. State parks, he said, had become some of his customers’ most coveted destinations.

VRBO’s trends held the same to its outdoor counterparts, as Hurst saw more people staying close to home, traveling to rural areas, and staying in private accommodations instead of large hotels and resorts.

“People are going to explore more where they live,” he said. “People are never not going back to New York or Vegas, but I hope they’ll spend less time in their home as they realize how much awesomeness is within three hours.”

There won’t be a “return to normal”

“The idea there’s gonna be a binary end to this and head back like nothing ever happened is far-fetched,” said Gray. “We’ve all positioned the vaccine as the point that fixes everything, but I don’t think this is going to be a switch flip thing.”

The topic of immunity passports was brought up, as a potential way for people to get back to traveling like we did in 2019. But most on the panel thought they probably wouldn’t have the far-reaching effect some had anticipated.

“It’s culturally ambiguous,” said Hurst. “I’d be surprised if immunity passports happen in the US. But people in Singapore, who are used to getting out of Singapore and have now been there ten months, they may be willing to do something out of their comfort zone to get out.”

The phrase “genie out of the bottle” became a theme of the roundtable, with all leaders citing some aspect of travel — whether it be working from home or travel flexibility – as a change that’s going to be irreversible. But most of the changes, they pointed out, are positive. So, more silver linings to look forward to in 2021.

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Winter rum cocktails

In the cold winter months that accompany the holiday season, a spiked libation can bring an atmosphere of cheer and celebration to your home. Rum is the ideal spirit for this time of year: It can signify a tropical vibe — after all, the spirit was first produced in the West Indies, in particular Barbados and other Caribbean islands. Rum can also easily blend into warming, cool-weather cocktails thanks to its spiced, earthy, almost buttery flavors.

Today, rum is produced around the world, from the Philippines to Martinique and back. The cocktails made from rum are just as varied, and some have origin stories that date all the way back to pre-colonial America.

Spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg accompany winter citrus like oranges and tart cranberries for a festive feel in rum punch or rum-spiked cider. There are creamy options, too, like Puerto Rican coquito and the whipped, frothy Tom & Jerry cocktail. Others embrace rum’s tropical reputation by incorporating ingredients like blue curaçao — perhaps reminding those of us shivering under blankets that summer will come again. Festive rum cocktails can be served warm or cold, but on a snowy night, a simple cup of warm rum topped with a pat of butter — yes butter! — will melt your winter blues.

Whether you’re making a big batch of cocktails for a tight-knit group of loved ones or nursing a drink for one during a quiet night at home, holiday cheer is easily captured in a warm mug or a cocktail glass. All you need to do is add rum.

1. Ponche crema

Photo: Nataliya Hora/Shutterstock

Sometimes also known as Venezuelan eggnog, this creamy rum (which features a citrus twist) drink is traditionally served around Christmas. It can also be purchased in a premade jug, first introduced to Venezuela by a chemist named Eliodoro Gonzalez in 1904. Another version, called ponche a crème is also popular in Trinidad and Tobago, though you’re likely to find riffs on it throughout the Caribbean. It’s so beloved in Trinidad and Tobago that there’s even a song about it: “…We passing through Picadilly / Everybody dancing and singing the same melody. / Drink a rum and a punch-a-crema, drink a rum…”

What’s in it: One can of sweetened condensed milk, one cup of rum, six egg yolks, one cup of whole milk, lime zest, and nutmeg

2. Coquito

Photo: Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock

Coquito translates to little coconut, and the cocktail is traditionally enjoyed on Christmas in Puerto Rico. Recipes vary from family to family, but the one constant is that a bottle of homemade coquito is a presence on the table throughout the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. It’s hard to pin down the origins of coquito, but it could spring from Puerto Rico’s history of slavery and colonization: Spanish colonists drank possets (hot milk curdled with alocohol) to which they probably added rum. They also began cultivating coconut plants on the island in the early 1500s, which were brought to Puerto Rico, alongside enslaved people from the West African islands of Cape Verde. These imported flavors hold the key to coquito’s enduring popularity in Puerto Rico.

What’s in it: One can cream of coconut, one can of sweetened condensed milk, one can of evaporated milk, 12 ounces white rum. Spice with ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg.

3. Hot milk punch

Photo: Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock

Did you ever drink a glass of warm milk, maybe spiced with some nutmeg or cinnamon, to help you relax and fall asleep before bed as a kid? Well, this is the grown-up version of that drink. Warm enough to help you get cozy on a cold night with a touch of sweetness and spice, this creamy cocktail is a classic in the South. It’s especially popular in New Orleans, where the rum is combined with bourbon for an extra kick. A version with just brandy and bourbon (no rum) originated at Brennan’s Restaurant in the French Quarter.

What’s in it: One ounce of dark rum, one ounce of brandy or bourbon, enough milk to fill your glass, and nutmeg for garnish.

4. Hot buttered rum

Photo: Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock

In the 1770s, New England had 159 distilleries. A large percentage of these made rum from Caribbean molasses, according to the New York Times. With an abundance of rum in their pantries, the colonists invented a multitude of creative variations on the rum cocktail — including whipping it together with egg whites or cream. They also added hot butter. David Wonderich suggests in his book Imbibe that this was the origin of hot buttered rum in the United States, and he writes that it’s appeared throughout the annals of American cocktail tradition in books like The Bartenders Guide, published in 1887. Hot buttered rum saw a revival in the 1940s with the publication of Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink. The legendary tiki bar chain framed hot buttered rum as a tropical cocktail, serving it inside a skull mug with a so-called batter of butter, spices, and brown sugar.

What’s in it: Four ounces of butter, half a cup of light brown sugar, two ounces of aged or dark rum, six ounces of boiling water, and one teaspoon of spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and vanilla (makes a pitcher).

5. Christmas rum punch

Photo: Liliya Kandrashevich/Shutterstock

There are many variations on Christmas rum punch, but most incorporate tart cranberries (which you’ll often find on the dinner table on Thanksgiving and Christmas in the form of cranberry sauce) alongside rum and sparkling wine or Champagne. This fizzy beverage is often served in a punch bowl or a pitcher, making it ideal for holiday parties where the atmosphere is celebratory. Other winter fruits like oranges, pomegranate seeds, and limes are often used for garnish, too.

What’s in it: Five cups of cranberry juice, five cups of sparkling wine, two cups of apple cider, 1.5 cups of rum, and fresh sliced oranges and whole cranberries for garnish (makes a pitcher).

6. Mulled apple cider

Photo: Boiarkina Marina/Shutterstock

Hot apple cider is delicious on its own, but the addition of rum adds to the spice of the apples. Cider is an ancient drink, and adding more booze to the mixture goes back just about as far. There’s evidence that people living on the British Isles were drinking hard apple cider, and they made a mulled cider with spices and honey called wassail during a celebration of the same name. The Romans enjoyed it enough that they spread it throughout their empire. And of course, as Smithsonian magazine points out, when European colonists began settling in North America, they discovered that apple trees thrived in New England, which started a love affair with cider in that region, too.

Like with mulled wine, spirits were eventually added to the mix, building on this long history of drinking mulled cider with a rum-spiked mulled apple cider. Many classic recipes call for rum, but you can add bourbon or brandy, too.

What’s in it: One gallon of apple cider, one orange, whole cloves, star anise pods, 1.5 cups of rum, and orange slices for garnish.

7. Jack Frost

Photo: Julia Mikhaylova/Shutterstock

Who could blame you if you’re missing the sunshine in the dead of winter? That might explain the appeal of the Jack Frost — a tropical twist on the traditional Christmas cocktail. It combines blue curaçao and coconut cream, two ingredients you’re more likely to find in a tiki bar in Hawaii than the North Pole. In fact, though there is no known origin story behind this cocktail, it’s reminiscent of the iconic Blue Hawaiian cocktail. You might find it served in bars where the weather is still warm in the winter months, perfect for revelers who want to be festive but don’t enjoy the taste of the earthy, warm spices that appear in most other holiday cocktails. Coconut flakes around the rim are reminiscent of snow.

What’s in it: Half a cup of cream of coconut, half a cup of blue curaçao, half a cup of light rum, one cup of pineapple juice, and coconut flakes for rim (makes about six servings).

8. Tom & Jerry

Photo: Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock

British journalist Pierce Egan created the Tom & Jerry cocktail in the 1820s, perhaps as a way to promote his book, Life in London, which features two characters of the same name. However, Jerry Thomas, a New York City bartender credited with popularizing mixology in the United States, also laid claim to the cocktail, insisting that he was the first to record the recipe in his book How to Mix Drinks. Regardless of who made it, this rich, frothy concoction is super sweet and thick — a decadent Christmas treat to reward yourself for wrapping all those presents.

Tom & Jerry bowls and mugs have inspired cult-like collectors who pick up the inscribed cups, designed specifically for this cocktail, at antique shops. According to Punch, “companies from Japan to England to Ohio” produce the ceramic or porcelain bowls, and the first recorded mention of one appears in an account of an 1864 bar fight in New York.

What’s in it: First make a batter from 12 eggs; one teaspoon of cream of tartar; one teaspoon each of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and vanilla; one cup of sugar; two ounces of rum; and one stick of butter. Add the batter to one ounce of dark rum, one ounce of cognac, and four ounces milk.

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2020 UNESCO intangible heritage list

In December 2020, 32 cultural practices from around the world have been added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)’s list of intangible cultural heritage. Since its creation the committee has inscribed 534 traditions from 131 countries on the list.

Some of the best-known cultural practices recognized this year include Finland’s sauna culture, Singapore’s open-air food courts (AKA hawker centers), and South Korea’s lantern lighting festival (Yeondeunghoe).

“Sauna culture in Finland is an integral part of the lives of the majority of the Finnish population. Sauna culture, which can take place in homes or public places, involves much more than simply washing oneself. In a sauna, people cleanse their bodies and minds and embrace a sense of inner peace,” UNESCO says. There are 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million inhabitants.

Photo: Frolphy/Shutterstock

South Korea’s lantern lighting festival is a Buddhist tradition that takes place every year in the spring. To celebrate Buddha’s birth, towns and cities around the nation are decorated with colorful lanterns and parades of lantern floats, as well as processions of members of the public carrying homemade lanterns, take over the streets. “The festival is a time of joy during which social boundaries are temporarily erased. In times of social difficulties, it plays a particularly important role in integrating society and helping people overcome the troubles of the day,” UNESCO explains.

2020 marks the first time Finland and Singapore, as well as Malta and Paraguay, made it to the UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage lists.

Malta was recognized for a culinary tradition that became very trendy in 2020: sourdough bread. Ftira, a flattened sourdough bread with a thick rust and large holes, is often filled with olive oil and tomato, tuna, capers and olives.

The 32 cultural practices inscribed this year span an extremely wide range of traditions, from the making of glass beads in Italy and France to Budima dance in Zambia, tree beekeeping culture in Belarus, and the making and eating of couscous in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania.

Photo: Curioso.Photography/Shutterstock

Some of most surprising and lesser-known traditions highlighted by UNESCO this year certainly include the annual grass mowing competition that takes place in Bosnia and Herzegovina every July. The event takes place in a meadow called Strljanica in the town of Kupres, and there’s no gas or electric lawn mowers involved: Everything is done using a scythe. Traditionally competitors are men, and the practice is passed from father to sons.

For a complete list of the 2020 entries on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage practices, visit the official website.

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Prehistoric shark tooth in Florida

The last thing a diver wants to see underwater is shark teeth. When the shark has been dead for thousands of years, however, it’s a whole different story. Michael Nastasio was diving off the coast of Venice, FL, last week, when he found a massive shark tooth — thought to have belonged to a megalodon — on the ocean floor.

Nastaio, the owner of Black Gold Fossil Charters and an aquatic fossil hunter, had been finishing an excursion with three customers when they asked him for one final dive. That’s when Nastasio discovered the tooth.

He told the local WFLA news station, “It took a minute to even register that it was real, just because when you are looking at stuff through your goggles it makes everything look bigger underwater, so seeing that size tooth exposed as it just absolutely took my breath away.”

Photo: Michael Nastasio/Facebook

Venice is actually known as the “shark tooth capital of the world” because 10 million years ago the area was underwater and filled with sharks. When the waters receded over time, these sharks died off and their fossilized teeth remained.

Photo: Michael Nastasio/Facebook

Nastasio posted photos of the tooth on Facebook, with the caption, “Check out this BEAST of a tooth! I recovered it yesterday in Venice. It measures just over 5 7/8 but not quite 5 15/16. I had to cut my dive short because I could not catch my breath after snatching it up.”

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