Norwegians are a great lens to teach us about some healthy longevity practices. The Norwegian diet is a significant factor. It's been described as the cold-weather cousin to the Mediterranean diet.
Imagine waking up on a ship surrounded by icebergs, camping in the snowy wilderness and kayaking among the exhalations of humpback whales. You can also take part in a polar plunge, board small zodiac boats to search for leopard seals and collect samples for science research.
Travelers to Alaska have a lot of ground to cover; the state holds 665,000 square miles of land that includes volcanic islands, Arctic tundra, glaciers, and temperate rainforest. Yet in winter, some of the state's most compelling scenery can be experienced in a week aboard the Alaska Railroad. The railroad's weeklong Aurora Winter Train "showcases the best of winter in Alaska," including easy access via Anchorage, a sled dog tour with an Iditarod champion,
The Northeast Passage was expected to open first due to the Coriolis effect. As the world turns to the east, in the Northern hemisphere, flowing water will veer to the right. Warm, salty Atlantic water flows into the Arctic Ocean through the Barents Sea Opening between Norway and Svalbard, and the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland, then bends right along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia.
Polar bears are the poster children of climate changeand for good reason. These giant bears hunt, mate and spend their days hanging out on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing as the climate warms. But some polar bears, it seems, are far more resilient than we realized: new research suggests that in one region, the bears are adapting to the declining sea ice.
A week's hiking in Jotunheimen national park (230 miles north of Oslo) last summer brought me tranquillity and peace. During four days of challenging hiking and wild camping through the area we saw hardly anyone else, having entire lush green valleys and still glacial lakes to ourselves. We were fortunate to have stunning weather throughout and, despite it being July, still had a reasonable amount of snow to traverse.
The sport is unique in that it asks for prolonged endurance on the uphill, then explosive strength and stability on the way down. Most gym routines do not train both. This one does. The five exercises Bell recommends are the single leg Romanian deadlift, the standard and multiplanar step up, the renegade row, the deep split squat, and the single leg hip flexor raise with band resistance.
Having settled on where to ski in Norway, I found myself packing up the Kvikk Lunsj wafers and sweet brown brunost cheese sandwiches at the glassy Juvet Landscape Hotel, deep in the Sunnmøre Alps. Then the slow ascent, with skins on our splitboard skis, up to the peak at Mefjellet: torturous in some ways, looking at all that glinting Care Bear snow all the way up, but also a deliciously tantric act of meditation and delayed gratification.
Warm lights shine from the houses that dot the wintry slopes of Mount Flyen and a cold wind blows as I stand in a swimming costume trying to talk myself into joining my friends in Bergen harbour. Stars are already appearing in the inky mid-afternoon sky. Life-changing moments are easy to spot in retrospect, but at the time they can feel so ordinary. I didn't know then that my wintry swim would lead to a year of adventures.
Thanks to increased solar activity, combined with clearer winter skies and longer hours of darkness, there have already been numerous reports of sightings throughout January across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. In light of this, travel specialists Japan-101 have analysed 100 UK towns and cities to identify the best locations for viewing the phenomenon. Each was scored out of 100 based on artificial light levels, air pollution and cloud cover, and totalled to determine an index score out of 100.
AllTrails, a hiking app with trail maps and reviews, dug into insights from their 90 million-plus members and team of trail experts to spotlight lesser-known places where the trail alone is worth planning a trip around. Their guide, Travel-Worthy Trails for 2026, spotlights eight unexpected destinations around the world where the trail is the destination.
Cody Cirillo and Matthew Tufts set out to do something that sounds simple until you picture the map, the season, and the wind. In the dead of winter, they bike-packed and skied their way around Iceland on a 1,000-mile, 35-day, human-powered loop. Their new film, A Hundred Words for Wind , released December 18, tracks the whole push, from ice-choked roads and sideways rain to those rare, hard-won windows when the mountains finally opened long enough to climb and ski.
Recently, Anchorage, Alaska's largest city with nearly 400,000 residents, has just recorded its snowiest January on record. Tucked in between the mighty Cook Inlet and pushed right up against the Chugach Mountains, Anchorage sits in prime location for some serious snow totals. Moisture from pacific storms builds up over the inlet, and thanks to orographic lift caused by the mountains, forces that moisture to drop over Anchorage. Thanks to Alaska's northernly location, that moisture often falls in the form of snow.
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