We’re incredibly lucky to be living in an era in which you can start your day in North America and end it—after a ride in a big metal tube in the sky—in Europe, or South America, or Asia. But even in this golden age of travel, there are pitfalls (and no, we’re not talking about the demise of Spirit Airlines). Whether it’s wrangling a too-full bag, trying to find a great place to eat in a city where you don’t know a soul, or simply staving off jet lag for a little longer, travel can be challenging. We want to make it easier. So, for the latest edition of our biannual Big Black Book guide to luxury and style, we enlisted the advice of 30 travel pros and pulled their words of wisdom together in one spot. Read them all, take the relevant notes, and book that next trip with confidence.
—Jonathan Evans, style director
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From packing the perfect carry-on to finding a great spot to eat in a new city, here’s how to get out of town like a pro.
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Traveling is one of life’s great pleasures—until it isn’t. Wrangling an overpacked suitcase. Realizing you’ve got no idea where to get a decent dinner in a city full of tourist-trap restaurants. Trying (and failing) to beat a nasty case of jet lag. We’re lucky enough to live in a time when seeing the world is more open and accessible to all, but getting out there and exploring still comes with its own set of challenges.
We want to help you overcome those challenges in style. That’s why we reached out to a bunch of travel pros from all sorts of industries to tap into their collective knowledge. How does a creative director of a major fashion brand score a reservation at a local hot spot when he’s not a local? What does a veteran actor do to properly revitalize himself after a red-eye? And how does a globe-trotting magazine editor manage to fit everything she needs for a trip into a carry-on bag?
If you want to travel like an expert, consider this your indispensable cheat sheet.
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When I started reporting on the lives of linemen late last year, I quickly discovered that although linemen are on the front lines of maintaining the power grid—our connection to medical care, drinking water, cell phones, the Internet, emergency services, lights, heat, you name it—no one knows much about them. Most people assumed I was writing about football. But the people who did know what a lineman was kept telling me to talk to the same person: Pack Power’s owner, Jerry Pack. Colleagues told me that he was the quintessential lineman—an Army vet and a biker; rough around the edges, sure, but loyal to a fault. But he was also more than an archetype. Jerry had helped revolutionize the trade and ridden its ups and downs for years.
When I got in touch, Jerry, who looks a bit like the actor Brendan Gleeson if Brendan Gleeson had a graying ZZ Top beard and tattoos down his forearms, invited me to come visit on a Thursday—“That’s when we drink,” he said—and greeted me at the warehouse door with a lit Marlboro Red between his fingers. He had also invited a few other linemen with stories to tell, including Nick Mansfield, from East Texas, who quickly pulled me aside and asked if I wanted to see the “real shit” about being a lineman. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit play on a copy of the Seminole video. I lasted only a few seconds before I had to look away.
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We’re not even halfway through 2026 yet, and it’s already been a banner year for new books. From sumptuous novels by Ben Lerner, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Tayari Jones to blockbuster works of nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, Chuck Klosterman, and Namwali Serpell, we may have already seen many of the books that will wind up on 2026’s end-of-year lists and contend for the National Book Awards, Man Booker Prizes, and Pulitzer Prizes.
A few debut novels have also made a splash, including Daniyal Mueenuddin’s beautiful epic set in Pakistan, T Kira Madden’s intense thriller set in the Pacific Northwest, and Imani Thompson’s inverse slasher set in the halls of Cambridge. History buffs will dig Mike Pitts’s new excavation of Easter Island, while short story fans will devour new collections by Amal El-Mohtar, Louise Erdrich, and Camille Bordas.
With a list this star-studded and diverse, finding a great book is easy—but keeping up with a literary calendar that refuses to slow down is getting harder every week.
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