Michelle Gross

As the legend goes, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands were created by the goddess Amamikyo, who is believed to have descended from the heavens and into the sea, just off the southern coast of what is now known as the main island of Okinawa.
The Ryukyu Islands, located in the East China Sea, flourished for some 450-years as the semi-independent Ryukyu Kingdom. The islands served as a center of trade between Japan, China, and Southeast Asia until being officially designated a Japanese territory and rename...

For 450 years, the little-known Ryukyu Kingdom thrived in what is now Japan. Now, after nearly vanishing, its unique fusion cuisine is being revived.

"You can learn a lot about a person by looking at their tongue," Yukie Miyaguni tells me in the kitchen-classroom of her second-storey apartment in Uruma, a city on the Japanese island of Okinawa. I've taken a few cooking classes over the years, but this is the first time anyone's ever asked to examine my tongue.

With my mouth agape, Miyaguni – ...

In an age when green is the new glam of the hospitality world, and the sight of single-use plastics feels like a relic of the past, (at least across most in the know eco-forward hotels these days) one hotel brand is raising the sustainability bar even higher with the opening of a new ‘carbon-positive’ hotel called Populus Seattle this week.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the next chapter of Populus Hotels with the opening of Populus Seattle,” real estate developer behind the project and Presid...

Miami Beach is no stranger to opulent restaurants and luxury hotels. Opening in a former 1920’s bungalow in the heart of the city’s historic Art Deco District, Donatella Boutique Hotel & Restaurant will be upping the luxury ante when it opens its modern meets Mediterranean style doors in May.

From the inside, it's hard to imagine that my Japanese-meets-Scandi-clad room at Cova Kakuda in Ise Shima, Japan, 190 km (about 118 miles) from Osaka, used to be anything other than a luxury boutique hotel room. The outside of this salt-licked, 94-year-old wooden structure tells a different story.

April 1st marks the official start of Earth Month. It’s as good a time as any to stop and reflect on how we can be better stewards of the environment, and in a newly released video statement t...

HOW DO YOU DEFINE sustainable travel in 2025? It’s complicated. In a nutshell, it comes down to respecting the environment and the local culture and economy. The idea of altruism in tourism has historically been pretty niche, a nice add-on for a certain type of traveler (often accompanied by a price markup). Lately, though, it’s become a must for many Americans.

Travel trends come and go, but when it comes to sustainability, these hotels are all in.
By choosing accommodation providers with strong sustainability practices, such as those supporting local conservation efforts or engaging in community initiatives, travelers can ensure their stays align with their personal values while positively impacting the environment and the communities they visit.

It was just after midnight by the time I arrived at my hotel room in Okinawa, and there was little to see from my oceanview balcony, with the exception of a few twinkling lights bobbing in the distance. I've traveled far and wide across Japan's 47 prefectures, but March 2023 marked my inaugural visit to the country's remote island archipelago, and I couldn't wait for daylight to see if the island's reputation as "the Hawaii of Japan" lived up to the hype.

Travel has the power to connect, inspire and even transform us. Peering over the edge of a crashing waterfall in Newfoundland and ascending sawtooth spires in the Italian Dolomites reveal how wondrous the world can be. But while travel should be a force for good, the past year has reminded us that it also has the potential to overwhelm and even harm the...

As immersive, purpose-driven trips take center stage in the year ahead, here are 25 extraordinary and eco-conscious ways to see and explore the world in style.

Tequila taps into a wide range of thoughts and opinions. Whether you love it or have sworn it off for all eternity, there’s no denying that tequila—and its smoky, increasingly popular cousin, mezcal—has stood the test of time. Agave-based spirits continue to be one of the most accessible and in demand categories in the cocktail space, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.

When the Waldorf Astoria opened its opulent, art-deco-inspired doors on New York City’s Park Avenue in 1931, it was, by and large, the grandest hotel the country had ever seen.
In the near century since the Waldorf first made its historic debut, New York’s grande dame has hosted a decadent buffet of elegant guests and A-listers from the Windsors to The Who, along with every sitting U.S. President since Herbert Hoover famously took up residence in suite 31A of t...

Set some 40km off Iceland's northern coast, this windswept sliver is home to one of Europe's most remote settlements and a thriving seabird population.
Even on a sunny day in late August, the wind on the island of Grímsey cut through our waterproof layers with so much force that one bad gust felt as if it could wipe us clean off the map for good.
My husband and I arrived on Grímsey's beautiful, blustery shores carrying a couple of wooden walking sticks – not so much to help us keep our balanc...

Like a great book that you just can’t put down, some small towns are filled with so much personality that their stories jump off the page. And there’s perhaps no town where local lore and larger-than-life characters are begging to be told than Beaufort, South Carolina.
Once upon a time, Beaufort was the home of a former slav...