Over the mountain and through the woods — typically a four-hour drive from the Bay Area, depending on weather and road conditions — you’ll find the Village at Northstar near Truckee, some 6,330 feet above sea level. The Northstar California Resort offers ski slopes, of course, as well as a lively village lined with eateries and shops.

But the centerpiece is the ice rink, where skaters from novice to expert show off their moves from noon to 9 p.m. The lively rink is free of charge (rent skates and a helmet for $21), and the atmosphere provides a major draw. A DJ is often on hand, spinning records to keep the party going on the ice. And hot drinks flow at the rink bar, with hot chocolate for the kiddos, as well as adult-only sips to enjoy around one of the nearby fire pits.

The kid-friendly Village Tube experience ($26) lets the younger set explore, while parents sip coffee and fireside cocktails at the Overlook. The setup is simple: Grab a tube, find a snowy lane and soar downhill as fast as you can. Adjacent lanes make racing your friends easy and fun.

And, of course, skiers and snowboarders will find slope action easy to find. Northstar’s gondola system, complete with outdoor gear hooks, offers adventure seekers easy access to all the lifts.

When you’re ready to warm your toes by the fire indoors, escape to the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe, a quick drive — or gondola ride — away. If you’re heading up from the Northstar Village, grab the Highlands Gondola to the resort, which sits at a 6,941-foot elevation, and offers food and drink options for guests and visitors.

Among the new winter offerings: Flaskology, a curated cocktail creation class ($75) that lets participants mix their own tasty elixirs. The brainchild of food and beverage director Maurice Tax, the class includes expertinstruction on cocktail-making basics, one-on-one help crafting a palate-pleasing beverage and a leather-covered Ritz-Carlton flask filled with your drink of choice. The reservation-only course is offered Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Each Flaskology station is set up with everything guests need, from bar tools to syrups, bitters, fresh citrus and juices. A fully stocked bar at the front of the room allows novice bartenders to mix up just about any drink they desire. Feeling stuck? That’s what the mixologists are there for.

If making your own drink sounds like too much leg work — all that stirring and shaking! — mosey over to the resort’s Luxury Lounge instead. It’s open from 1 to 6 p.m. Friday-Sunday, and the setup — an outdoor bar, warm fireplace, plush blankets draped over cushy seats — is an apres-ski vision. Even when it’s nippy out, the lounge stays cozy, with plenty of warmth from fireplace to heaters.

But the biggest surprises are inside the menu, which isn’t really a menu at all. Instead, you’re handed a tray with five elements: leather, stone, crystal, gold and wood. Choose the item that speaks to you, and you’ll be given the corresponding craft cocktail to sip by the fire, each with its own spectacular presentation, a smoke box, perhaps, or gold ice cubes set off by clear vodka and bright strawberries. (Pssst, if surprises aren’t your jam, a paper menu detailing the cocktails is available upon request.)

If you’re spending the night here, you’ll be able to take advantage of another hospitality offering, this one included with your overnight stay and only available to guests. A custom tea service is held in the hotel’s Living Room from 4:30 to 5 p.m. on select afternoons as an antidote to winter’s chill and a way to warm your soul and treat any mountain-related ailments. Hot Herbology is not your typical tea though. Local herbalist Sara Tadjeran uses her gift for combining flavors to create soothing, healing teas for whatever ails you — including sore joints from all that snow play.

You’ll find the usual winter perks here, too, from s’mores kits to a heated outdoor pool surrounded by snowy landscapes. And some activities launched during the holidays will continue on through the end of the season including snowshoe stargazing treks on Wednesdays and Fridays and special spa treatments. Apres indeed.

If You Go

Skate rentals, which include a helmet, are $21 at The Village at Northstar, 5001 Northstar Drive in Truckee. Find details on the ice rink, as well as lift tickets, lodging and dining and other details at www.northstarcalifornia.com.

Rooms at the Ritz Carlton Lake Tahoe start at $881 per night. 13031 Ritz Carlton Highlands Court in TruckeeCost: Rooms start at $881 per night; www.ritzcarlton.com.

Between massive snowfall and torrential rain, Northern California has already seen some extreme weather this year. Travel safely, and check Lake Tahoe’s weather, road conditions and chain requirements at www.gotahoenorth.com/weather-report before you hit the road.

The Desolation Hotel opened in South Lake Tahoe last spring with a Japanese-meets-Scandi reimagining of the studios, suites and town houses of the old Tahoe Villa Motel on Poplar Street. And Maggie’s Restaurant and Bar opened in August on the hotel’s third floor, offering 360-degree mountain views and a menu that ranges from brunch fare to dinner options including fresh pastas, game meats and more. Find details, including booking details, at www.desolationhotel.com.

When the grand Edgewood Tahoe opened in Stateline in 2017 with 154 guest rooms and suites, it was promptly named the top U.S. resort hotel by Travel + Leisure Magazine. This fall, it added a slew of new luxury, lakeside villa suites with two, three, four or six bedrooms each. Find more details, including booking information, at https://edgewoodtahoe.com.

And Hilton just announced that it will build a new Waldorf Astoria resort on Tahoe’s north shore on the site of the former Tahoe Biltmore on Lake Tahoe’s north shore. The Biltmore property, which includes a casino and hotel, is set for demolition this year. Rising in its place: A 15-acre resort — with 76 guest rooms, a 3-acre beach club, shops and a poolside restaurant — is slated to open on Crystal Bay in 2027. There will be a lounge — the Peacock Alley, which pays homage to New York City’s original Waldorf Astoria — and a mountain club at the Northstar ski resort.

The trip was a nightmare. Amtrak delayed our first train by seven hours. It failed to provide all the meals on our 26-hour trip. I had paid for a sleeper, but Amtrak seated us in the wrong section of the train. An employee yelled at me for “taking his seat” on a coach train where there were no assigned seats.

So I canceled our return trip and paid almost $1,000 for airfare to get home. The airfare wiped out my savings.

When I canceled our Amtrak return trip and explained why, a representative assured me that I’d receive a “full refund for my purchase.” That promise was six weeks ago, and now they’re saying I’m not eligible for a refund.

In my view, I purchased services that were never delivered (i.e., meals and bedroom accommodations for three days), and as a result of Amtrak not providing the services promised with my purchase, they forced me to spend money I don’t really have in order to transport my daughter and myself back home.

— Kimberli Eicher, Bend, Oregon

ANSWER: I’m sorry you had such a difficult trip to Oklahoma. Amtrak should have done better — no delays, putting you in the right section of the train and treating you with dignity.

None of these issues rises to the level of qualifying for a refund. Amtrak doesn’t provide refunds for late trains. It does refund part of your ticket for an involuntary downgrade. But it does not offer your money back because of rude employees.

But taken together, these complaints add up. You also furnished me with a detailed trip report that you sent to your bank when you disputed the charges for your train fare. You were not exaggerating when you called it a traumatic nightmare. I would have fought for a refund, too.

Technically, Amtrak was entitled to keep your money. After all, it had provided you with transportation from Oregon to Oklahoma. But a representative had already agreed to refund half your fare, so it’s reasonable to expect Amtrak to do what it promised. Instead, Amtrak reneged and insisted on keeping your money.

As I already mentioned, you filed a credit card dispute to recover your money after Amtrak told you it would not refund your ticket. You can file a chargeback for a service that you paid for but did not receive, so I think you had a case. You contacted me before the dispute was resolved, asking me to intervene.

I think you may have missed a step. When a company says “no,” you can always appeal to an executive. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of the Amtrak executives on my consumer advocacy site at www.elliott.org/company-contacts/amtrak/. I would have tried that before disputing your charges.

I reached out to Amtrak for you. A representative reviewed your file and agreed that your trip did not go as it should have. Amtrak refunded your ticket and offered you a credit for a make-good trip — just in case you want to try Amtrak again.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at elliottadvocacy.org/help/.(c) 2023 Christopher ElliottDistributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Today, a Morgan Hill couple is sharing their icy adventures in Antarctica, polar plunge and all.

WISH YOU WERE HERE

ANTARCTICA: Morgan Hill residents Edward and Linda Gurtler took a two-week expedition to Antarctica last month, flying to Buenos Aires first and then Ushuaia, Argentina, where they boarded a cruise ship for the final crossing.

“Since it is now their summer months, this is the best — and really the only time — for tourists to go there,” Linda says. “We crossed the infamous Drake Passage for two days before arriving at the Great White Continent. The scenery was breathtaking and the mammals and birds amazing, especially when seen so close up while kayaking. I even braved the frigid waters of Antarctica and took a Polar Plunge!”

The water temperature, in case you wondered, was 2 degrees above freezing.

TRAVEL TIPS: “Our advice to anyone considering exploring this land is to make sure you bring some anti-nausea medication for the two days there and back across the Drake Passage, which is considered one of the most treacherous oceans in the world, with 20 to 30 foot waves not uncommon. We wore a Scopolamine patch (available by prescription) to help prevent any motion sickness. Wear sunscreen, since the sun and reflection of the snow and water is quite strong!”

Join in the fun! Send a photo of yourself on your latest adventures — local, domestic or international — to jburrell@bayareanewsgroup.com. Tell us where you are, who everyone is and where they’re from, and share a travel tip or two to help fellow readers go there, too.

Located just north of Antioch and south of Rio Vista, Brannan Island State Recreation Area is part of a maze of waterways and marshes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta long popular for boating, fishing, swimming and camping.

And though its picnic tables and campsites surrounded by mighty oaks and towering eucalyptus trees sit empty now, Clint Elsholz, state Diablo Range District acting superintendent, knows that the park will soon be filling up.

“(Since the pandemic), parks have seen a big spike in attendance,” said Elsholz, who oversees the 336-acre site. “People want to be outdoors, so I expect the campgrounds to be very popular over the summer.”

Last March, American Land & Leisure, which operated the park since 2013, opted not to renew its lease with State Parks, effectively shutting down the park much to the dismay of its longtime users. Elsholz said park officials scrambled to reassign workers and reopen the popular boat launch last June, but only on weekends, while they looked for a concessionaire to replace the Utah property management company.

Elsholz thanked the public for its patience while waiting for a new operator. He added that he was “excited for the new partnership” with Park Delta Bay of Isleton to bring camping and day-use opportunities back to Brannan Island. Reservations for the 136 campsites – both tent and RV hookups in five different areas and a rustic cabin – were being taken as of the first of the year.

Park Delta Bay operates an RV and tiny house resort just down the road, about six miles from Brannan Island State Recreation Area, and Esholz said he believed the company would do well restoring the state recreation area, which first opened in 1952.

“He (owner Eric Chiu) has vision,” Elsholz said, noting that adding a bait store – the first ever at the site – should be a welcome amenity for visitors.

Hap’s Bait and Tackle, a longtime Rio Vista store, was forced to close recently and will be reopening at the park.

“He (Chiu) is going to put it in as part of the experience at the park, and that’s the kind of vision that will bring people out,” Elsholz said. “It’s pretty exciting. It’s something that’s important to the locals.”

Chiu could not be reached for comment but his park managers Chris and Billie Logan, who are doing much of hands-on work sprucing up the park, were optimistic about its future and said getting the bait shop up and running was “the first order of business.” Chris Logan estimated it would open “in a couple of weeks.”

The couple managed the park for three years before leaving last spring, but were excited to return when the new operator was found.

“I came back because I know so much about the park and I knew it was the right time to come in to try to get things done that I thought needed to be addressed,” said Chris Logan who now lives with his wife inside the park. “I knew I could get a fresh start and get things going.”

Besides cleaning up debris, landscaping and other minor maintenance, Logan said the park will have to clean up the beach in the Seven Mile Slough area for the summer, when operators expect to add lifeguards and paddle boats for rent. The beach will be a big draw, he said.

“People always come in and say, ‘Where’s the beach?’ ” Logan added. “It’s tide-oriented. When the tide is in, there’s no beach, when the tide’s out there is.”

Elsholz said over the years the beach has become overgrown with weeds but park officials will work to clear it.

“We have some Himalayan blackberry that’s crept in there that we want to take out and expand it,” he said of the beach. “It’ll still accommodate swimming – I don’t think we’re going to have to dredge – but we’re going to do some vegetation management on the site.”

“Boaters drive 60 to 100 miles to come here because it’s one of the nicest boat launches (in the delta area),” Logan said, noting they can launch up to 10 boats at a time.

“It’s nice and wide, and the parking is plentiful,” Elsholz added.

You don’t have to convince longtime boater Doug McArthur of Stockton about that. McArthur has run charter fishing boats out of Brannan Island for more than a decade and was delighted when the park fully reopened in December.

“There’s a lot of private boat launches, but this is one of the few public ones in the area,” he said. “There are days on the weekends during the prime fishing season when you can’t find anything less than probably 80 to 100 boat trailers in the parking lot.”

Even on a busy day, though, McArthur said he’s never had to wait for a launch “because there’s so much space.”

“That’s what we love, and the fact that it (the park) sits between the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers,” making it easy to fish either one depending on conditions, he said.

“I can pull out of that spot and go left or right and I’m pretty much right on top of where I want to fish without having to go burn a bunch of fuel down the river,” McArthur said.

If you don’t have a boat, like to camp or hang out at the beach, Elsholz noted Brannan Island has a network of trails, bird watching and “many ways to connect with nature.”

“I just think it’s overlooked,” he said. “I think that the delta is overlooked by a lot of people.”

Online camping reservations for Brannan Island State Recreational Area are available on ReserveCalifornia.com.

Capitola has been a storm target since its early days as the privately owned “Camp Capitola” seaside resort, long before its incorporation as a city in 1949. And the wharf that lost a 40-foot section Jan. 5? It’s been there before. And not just once.

Capitola Village, long a beloved coastal getaway for Bay Area residents and a destination for visitors from all over the world, sits along a south-facing beach on a broad cove just down the coast from Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay. A 2017 City of Capitola report notes that “significant storms, with associated damage, strike the Monterey Bay communities with a frequency of one large storm every 3 to 4 years,” and that, “This equates to a 25% to 33% chance of a large storm occurring within Capitola in a given year.” Climate change effects on the Pacific Ocean, and on Soquel Creek that flows between Capitola Village’s colorful Venetian apartments and its beachfront restaurants as it meets the ocean, “could increase the probability and intensity of flooding in Capitola,” the report says.

Capitola Historical Museum curator Deborah Osterberg dug back into the past 100 years and compiled a litany of weather-wrought catastrophes befalling the Capitola village and wharf.

In 1913, a surging ocean full of debris swept across the beach, into the village and up Capitola Avenue. “Huge waves smashed against the wharf, taking out a 200-foot section,” Osterberg said. A fisherman named Alberto Gibelli, who had gone out to the end of the wharf to secure his boats and equipment, was left stranded until a rescue boat arrived and a rope and life preserver were tossed. Gibelli “tied the rope under his arms and leapt into the ocean and he was pulled to safety,” Osterberg said.

That storm destroyed a section of the wharf in the same area as the portion washed away lasts week. According to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, during episodes of very high surf, a sandbar develops near the Capitola Wharf in roughly the same spot. “This influences where waves will crest and unleash their force,” the museum tweeted Saturday, with photos of the damage in 1913 and 2023. “Hence, history repeating itself.”

Thirteen years later, Mother Nature struck again, with the same kind of double-whammy delivered to Capitola last week: giant waves on top of a high tide. Again, the village was flooded as far as Capitola Avenue, a block from the ocean. And as occurred last week, the Venetian apartments — the picturesque row of habitations starring today in many a social media post — suffered damage. So high were the waves that they slammed into the Hotel Capitola’s second floor. A bathhouse and boathouse with distinctive arches in its beachfront facade made it through, but its wooden dressing rooms were splintered apart.

In 1931, another major tide-and-storm combo hit, trashing vacation cabins and wiping out a newly built miniature-golf course on the waterfront esplanade.

Four years later, during another cataclysm, the ocean washed a playground off the Capitola waterfront. A historical photo shows that beside the former playground site, a wooden platform held up several beachfront businesses. Osterberg believes that platform, built in the 1920s, is the same structure that currently supports the restaurants badly damaged in last week’s storm, including Zelda’s, The Sand Bar and Paradise Beach Grill. This week, Capitola city manager Jamie Goldstein said an engineering assessment determined that the wooden platform, which sits on pilings above the sand and water, was “structurally safe” for crews to start fixing the buildings, but would require expensive repairs. Also this week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stood on an undamaged portion of the platform and told news media the state was not “walking away” from the damage to Capitola, but he declined to specify what assistance might be forthcoming.

The Venetian apartments got slammed again in 1937.

In 1958, storm-driven seawater hit the esplanade so forcefully that it knocked the horses off a merry-go-round.

Then 25 years later, the wharf took major blows from a series of storms that broke 35 feet off its end and destroyed a 30-foot section.

Newsom and Capitola officials said this week it was too early to tally the financial damage from last week’s storm. The city lifted no-entry orders for the three waterfront restaurants most severely damaged, and restaurant owners now have crews working to rebuild. Josh Whitby, co-owner of Zelda’s, has removed the seawater, kelp and broken trees that filled his dining room after waves pushed a large beam from the wharf through the waterfront windows and wall. The beam, however, remains. “It’s probably going to end up as part of our decor,” Whitby said.

From legendary nightlife hotspots to volcanic outposts far off the continent’s mainland, Europe has islands in spades. But for every Mykonos, Ibiza or Santorini, there’s someplace lesser known and equally lovely to escape to where you can ditch the crowds and get closer to nature.

Here are some of the best islands in Europe for getting away from almost everyone:

Schiermonnikoog, the Netherlands

The Netherlands is better known for canals, dikes and tropical Dutch Caribbean Islands like Bonaire and Curaçao than the sandspun isles along the country’s North Sea coast. But one of Europe’s most peaceful island escapes awaits on Schiermonnikoog in the West Frisian Islands, located off the Netherlands’ northern coast across a shallow inlet of the North Sea called the Wadden Sea.

Home to just 950 people and a lone town, Schier, as locals call their island, is primarily national parkland, covered in dunes and forests and with some of Europe’s most pristine beaches.

“Besides the beautiful nature and the vastness of it, there is not much to do on the island. And that is precisely the charm,” says Annemarieke Romeijn, who has a holiday home on Schiermonnikoog and has been visiting all her life.

Only residents are allowed to drive cars on the island, which you can get to from the mainland Dutch village of Lauwersoog by hopping a 45-minute ferry. Once there, visitors can spend their time hunting for pieces of amber washed ashore on the island’s wide white sand beaches, take kitesurfing lessons along natural sandbanks and cycle and hike the island’s miles of lonely trails.

Heimaey, Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland

Home to more puffins than people, the island of Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) off Iceland’s south coast looks straight from a story book, with emerald green cliffs dotted with sheep, a sweeping black sand beach and sea caves yawning from its rugged coastline.

“The view alone coming into Heimaey takes your breath away,” says Eyrún Aníta Gylfadóttir of Hotel Ranga, a hotel on mainland Iceland that regularly sends guests on day trips by ferry to the Westman Islands, a 40-minute crossing. “The harbor is surrounded by high cliffs and home to seabirds of many kinds such as puffins, northern gannet, northern fulmar and Manx shearwater,” she says.

A cataclysmic volcanic eruption on Heimaey in 1973 covered the area in 200 millions tons of ash and lava but miraculously just one death was reported. Today, utter peace reigns, with lonely hiking trails to explore and vast ocean views.

Only about 4,500 people share Vestmannaeyjar with nearly a million puffin pairs that make up the largest Atlantic puffin colony on the planet. The breeding season, between April and late summer, sees birds careening from the cliffs and carrying fish to their young in cliffside burrows.

Flores Island, Azores, Portugal

One of the most remote islands in an already remote archipelago, Flores Island in the westernmost stretches of the Azores is a nature lover’s dream.

Deep blue crater lakes, vivid green slopes, plunging valleys, waterfalls and boiling hot springs are among the otherworldly sights on the 55-square-mile volcanic island home to roughly 3,400 people, where you can arrive via flights from other Azorean islands

“On this island you have the sensation that you are in another world. No pollution, no stress, no noise.” says Gabriela Silva, 69, who was born on Flores and still lives on the island near an Airbnb she rents to guests. “The sea all around is very clean, deep blue and you can dive in and feel the sensation of being in the house of gods.”

One of the most magical sites on Flores is Rocha dos Bordões, a geological formation of basalt columns draped in vegetation that looks like the backdrop of a dinosaur film.

With just 26 rooms, Hotel das Flores is Flores’ largest hotel, located in the island’s main harbor town, Santa Cruz das Flores. Vacation rentals are scattered throughout the island.

Naustholmen, Norway

Visitors must fly into Bodø in Northern Norway then continue north by boat to reach this private island owned by Norwegian adventurer Randi Skaug, the first Norwegian woman to scale Mount Everest.

Naustholmen guests stay in rooms spread across three houses on the island and spend their days kayaking to white sandy beaches lapped by deep blue waters or hiking nearby peaks for views of the Lofoten Islands to the north. They can also simply swing in a hammock (or even sleep overnight outside in one) and do nothing at all, surrounded by the silence and beauty of this remote place.

“Have lunch over the fire on a beach, go hiking across the spectacular Nordskot Traverse or hear a mini concert in a local cave,” says Torunn Tronsvang, CEO of travel company Up Norway. “This is a place which will give energy and inspiration.”

Isle of Tiree, Scotland

One look at the turquoise and deep sapphire waters and perfect surf waves rolling onto its shores and it’s clear why the Isle of Tiree is sometimes referred to as the Hawaii of the North.

The most westerly island in the Inner Hebrides archipelago, off mainland Scotland’s west coast, 12-mile-long Tiree is known for its mild climate, clean air and beautiful white sand beaches that could easily be mistaken for the Caribbean in photos if not in person (August water temperatures are in the brisk upper 50s Fahrenheit, or about 14 Celsius).

Intrepid surfers know Tiree for its uncrowded beach breaks, and the eight-room Reef Inn caters to the board-riding crowd. The annual Tiree Music Festival draws up to 2,000 attendees every July for a Scottish folk music extravaganza, but you’ll most often have the island’s mostly flat walking and cycling trails and 46 miles of gorgeous beaches to yourself. Visitors arrive on Tiree via four-hour ferry rides from Oban or flights from Oban or Glasgow on Loganair.

Berlengas archipelago, Portugal

One of Portugal’s most surprising island destinations awaits visitors arriving by boat for day trips or to camp overnight in the Berlengas archipelago, three groups of mostly uninhabited islands within the UNESCO-listed Berlengas Biosphere Reserve.

Roughly six miles offshore from the mainland Portugal town of Peniche, the archipelago is best known for the Fort of São João Baptista, a fortress dating back to the 1600s that commands an imposing presence atop a rocky outcropping on Berlengas Grande, the largest island in the chain. Rooms can be booked at the fort’s inn during the summer for overnight stays.

Berlengas Grande has campsites open during the summer where visitors can sleep overnight and feel all alone under the Milky Way.

“The landscape is arid but beautiful, and the sight of the Atlantic Ocean crashing around the islands is impressive,” says Arlindo Serrao of Portugal Dive. Serrao says the archipelago is one of the best places for scuba diving in Portugal, thanks to unique currents and a climate influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean.

Mola mola (ocean sunfish) can sometimes be seen in the waters, and the islands are one of the most important places along mainland Portugal’s coast for breeding seabirds.

Alicudi, Sicily, Italy

Leave the “White Lotus”-inspired crowds to Taormina and make for the westernmost and most remote of Sicily’s volcanic Aeolian Islands for an experience apart.

Wild and rugged, Aliduci is the least inhabited of the seven islands in the chain off Sicily’s northern coast that include Stromboli and Lipari, among others.

“It’s the most wild island in Sicily. They still use donkeys to transport goods around on Alicudi,” says Sicilian Francesco Curione. “If you’re looking for quiet and a castaway feel, this is the place.”

Alicudi’s distinctive volcanic cone rises from the Tyrrhenian Sea to dramatic effect, with colorful fishing boats bobbing along the shoreline completing the postcard look. Buying fish straight from the fishermen in Alicudi is not to be missed.

There are no cars here and only around 100 residents, so finding a quiet spot all to yourself is never an issue. The higher you walk along lava stone steps leading up the volcanic slopes, the deeper the silence and escapism.

There are no hotels on Alicudi, but villa rentals and Airbnbs make it comfortable to settle in and stay awhile.

Skyros, Greece

Greek islands like Santorini and Mykonos in the Cyclades can get so sardined with tourists during the summer months that you might be left wondering what all the hype is about. For a more isolated experience in the Greek islands, set your sights instead north in the Aegean Sea to the island of Skyros.

One of 24 islands in the largely uninhabited Sporades chain in the northwest Aegean Sea, Skyros is reached via flights from mainland Greece as well as by ferry from the mainland and other nearby Greek islands.

Once there, there are secluded beaches to explore, a Byzantine castle towering over the main town and sea and even an ancient breed of miniature horse, the Skyrian horse, that lives in the wild only on this island.

With the exception of the lead up to Lent — when Skyros’ famous carnival puts the island into nonstop party mode with parades and costumed revelry and an inundation of Athenians — it’s a supremely peaceful place.

Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland

Stretching six emerald-hued miles long and just one mile wide, Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland is home to only about 150 permanent residents.

Visitors who arrive via a quick ferry crossing from Ballycastle on the mainland are transported to a wilderness of dramatic sea cliffs home to thousands of nesting birds that include puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes and razorbills. Colonies of harbor seals and grey seals line Rathlin’s remote inlets.

Hiking trails crisscross the ruggedly scenic island and experienced scuba divers are drawn underwater to explore the scores of shipwrecks just offshore that include the HMS Drake, torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War I.

Don’t miss a visit to Rathlin West Light, a lighthouse built upside down on the rocks to better cut through the low, dense fog that often descends on the island.

Fasta Åland, Finland

An autonomous region, the islands belong to Finland but are only 25 miles from Sweden, with Swedish as the official language.

Fasta Åland is the largest island in the archipelago and a good base for explorations. Tour by bike to nearby islands linked by ferries and bridges or just settle into a vacation rental or hotel with a sauna and sea views for a relaxing reset.

HavsVidden offers a secluded escape on northern Fasta Åland with villas with their own saunas overlooking the rocky shoreline.

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I rode the augmented reality dark ride several times on Thursday, Jan. 12 on the first day of technical rehearsals at the movie theme park and found the new attraction in the Super Nintendo World video game-inspired land to be delightfully fun and creative.

The soft opening will continue at random times on select days until the land officially opens on Feb. 17 with passholder previews starting on Jan. 29.

SEE ALSO: You can’t see in or out of Universal’s new Nintendo land, which sucks you into a video game world

I was most impressed by how Universal blended physical sets and massive video screens with gameplay and augmented reality on the cutting-edge new Mario Kart ride.

If you’ve never played around with AR, you’re in for a treat. Digital race cars and video game bounty magically appear on the track in front of you thanks to the AR glasses every rider wears.

Take off the AR glasses mid-ride and the digital cars and bounty disappear. I did that on my second trip to admire the practical sets and mega video screens without the distracting video game action.

Unlike Disney’s Toy Story Midway Mania that turns the entire ride over to video screens, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge would be an amazing ride without all the AR and video game bells and whistles. The sets are richly detailed and built at a scale that makes it feel like you are racing through a video game.

I’m not a video game junkie, but I love a challenge and never miss a chance to play — especially when someone’s keeping score. I scored under 100 points on each of my rides — OK for a novice, but pretty poor for anyone that has a well-worn game console at home.

Universal Creative Vice President Jon Corfino has ridden the new Mario Kart attraction more than 200 times and knows all the high-scoring secrets. His best score: 199.

The top score of all time — at least on the first day of officially keeping track at Universal Studios Hollywood — was 299. Expect that to go up as serious players get in repeat rides.

And that’s the point of Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge — to get you to come back again and again. And bring your gamer friends along for a showdown.

What will surprise most riders is the glacially slow pace of Bowser’s Challenge. It is a dark ride after all that moves at a leisurely Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters pace.

I appreciated the slower speed, which lets you take in all the scenery and gives you time to rack up more points. There’s a lot going on in Bowser’s Challenge and any faster pace would make it hard to absorb it all.

The race car ride also lacks a traditional head-to-head race against other riders. You are competing against a virtual Bowser — and a winner is crowned at the end. If you’re expecting a high-speed Radiator Springs Racers finale you will be disappointed.

Even without the maximum RPMs, I thought the finale was the best part of Bowser’s Challenge. The Rainbow Road finale makes it feel like you’re suddenly going twice as fast — even though you haven’t stepped on the gas at all.

Traditionalists who prefer old school dark rides versus the video game-style shoot-’em-up attractions that dominate the marketplace can enjoy Bowser’s Challenge too — by simply taking off the AR glasses. The elaborate and creative physical sets are drop-dead beautiful – and Universal was modest in its use of the ubiquitous giant curving video screens that are seemingly now part of every modern dark ride.

I took my AR glasses off for a bit during one ride — just to check out the scenery — but likely won’t do it again. You miss out on half the fun by sitting out the gameplay. By and large, most riders will be getting in the Mario Kart line for the AR wizardry — which is cleverly done, easy to learn and doesn’t disappoint.

The goal of the game is to collect as many gold coins as possible by tossing shells at AR targets throughout the ride. The novel innovation: You use the visor on your head to aim and buttons on the steering wheel to fire.

Easy to learn doesn’t mean easy to master, though, which makes the ride irresistibly repeatable. Like any good game, Bowser’s Challenge is littered with Easter eggs worth plenty of bonus points.

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed Wednesday after a system that offers safety information to pilots failed, and the government launched an investigation into the breakdown, which grounded some planes for hours.

The Federal Aviation Administration said preliminary indications “traced the outage to a damaged database file.” The agency said it would take steps to avoid another similar disruption.

The breakdown showed how much American air travel depends on the computer system that generates alerts called NOTAMs — or Notice to Air Missions.

Before a plane takes off, pilots and airline dispatchers must review the notices, which include details about bad weather, runway closures or other temporary factors that could affect the flight. The system was once telephone-based but moved online years ago.

The system broke down late Tuesday and was not fixed until midmorning Wednesday. The FAA took the rare step of preventing any planes from taking off for a time, and the cascading chaos led to more than 1,300 flight cancellations and 9,000 delays by early evening on the East Coast, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told a news conference that the problems “led to a ground stop because of the way safety information was moving through the system.”

After the failures were fixed, he warned that travelers could continue to see some effects “rippling through the system.”

Buttigieg said his agency would now try to learn why the system went down.

Longtime aviation insiders could not recall an outage of such magnitude caused by a technology failure. Some compared it in scope to the nationwide shutdown of airspace after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Periodically there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically,” said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and now a consultant in Minneapolis.

Campbell said there has long been concern about the FAA’s technology, and not just the NOTAM system.

Many of those systems “are old mainframe systems that are generally reliable, but they are out of date,” he said.

John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety expert, said the aviation industry has talked for years about trying to modernize the NOTAM system, but he did not know the age of the servers that the FAA uses.

“I’ve been flying 53 years. I’ve never heard the system go down like this,” Cox said. “So something unusual happened.”

According to FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Tuesday, preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline to keep departures flying overnight, but as air traffic picked up in the morning, the phone system was overwhelmed.

The FAA ordered all departing flights grounded early Wednesday, affecting all passenger and cargo flights. Some medical flights could get clearance, and the outage did not affect military operations.

President Joe Biden said that he was briefed by Buttigieg.

Buttigieg said the ground stop showed that “safety is going to be our North Star, as it always is.”

“We are now pivoting to focus on understanding the causes of the issue,” he said.

Pilots and safety officials have complained about NOTAMs for years, saying there are too many of them and that some are unnecessary and written in cryptic abbreviations.

The National Transportation Safety Board highlighted the large number of notices in its investigation of a near-disaster in 2017 in San Francisco. An Air Canada jet whose pilots had overlooked a NOTAM about a closed runway nearly landed by mistake on a parallel taxiway. They skimmed just over the tops of four other airliners waiting to take off.

The safety board’s chairman at the time, Robert Sumwalt, noted that the closed runway was mentioned on the eighth of 27 pages of notices for the San Francisco airport, and the entry was written in an arcane fashion.

“That’s what NOTAMs are. They are a bunch of garbage that no one pays any attention to,” he said.

The FAA said in a 2020 report that it modernized the distribution of the notices through a standardized digital format that was to be completed in July of that year.

As the extent of Wednesday’s breakdown became clear and airlines delayed more flights, passengers scrambled to rearrange trips. Many said they had trouble finding out how long the delays would last.

“There is just a lot of frustration, a lot of confusion,” said Ryan Ososki, who was trying to fly from Washington, D.C., to California for a conference.

Julia Macpherson was on a United flight from Sydney to Los Angeles when she learned of possible delays.

“As I was up in the air, I got news from my friend who was also traveling overseas that there was a power outage,” said Macpherson, who was returning to Jacksonville, Florida, from Tasmania.

Passengers at airports in Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere reported similar experiences.

European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected.

It was the latest headache for travelers in the U.S., who faced an even larger number of daily flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday due to a severe winter storm and a breakdown in crew-scheduling technology at Southwest Airlines.

___

Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Tara Copp in Washington, Kelvin Chan in London, Tom Krisher in Detroit and Freida Frisaro in Miami contributed to this report.

Let’s start our imaginary road trip in San Diego, where SeaWorld continues its transformation into San Diego’s roller coaster capital with the opening of Arctic Rescue this spring. This triple-launch coaster from Intamin will feature seats that you straddle, like on a snowmobile. The concept is that you are rescuing animals in the Arctic, and the coaster won’t rise over 30 feet from the ground as the ride emphasizes twists and turns over big drops and airtime.

San Diego’s weather won’t fool anyone into believing they’re riding in the Arctic, however, so I am more curious to see how the same type of coaster plays at SeaWorld’s sister park Busch Gardens Williamsburg. DarKoaster will feature four launches and run indoors, in the former Curse of DarKastle building at the Virginia theme park. That old dark ride offered an original story and characters, which I am looking forward to revisiting on this new coaster.

Up at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania, the wooden roller coaster Wildcat is getting a Rocky Mountain Construction steel-track makeover into Wildcat’s Revenge this summer. RMC did wonders with Twisted Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain and last year’s Iron Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa in Florida, so Hersheypark is hoping that its new RMC will be a hit, too.

Families with younger roller coaster fans will want to check out Big Bear Mountain, a multi-launch Vekoma roller coaster coming to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., this year. With a height restriction of just 39 inches, this 66-foot tall, 3,990-foot-long coaster through the park’s Wildwood Grove land will be accessible to some preschoolers.

READ MORE: Top 10 of 2023 best new theme park rides and attractions in the United States

Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom also is opening a coaster this year with TRON Lightcycle/Run, a clone of the successful ride first installed at Shanghai Disneyland. Meanwhile, rival Universal Studios Florida is going with a new interactive attraction rather than a coaster. Villain-Con Minion Blast will anchor a newly designated Minion Land in the Orlando park.

Heading back toward the west, SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas is building what it is calling a “flume coaster” with Catapult Falls. The unique eight-passenger water coaster will feature a 20 mph launch, a 55-foot vertical lift and a 53-degree splashdown drop when it opens later this year.

Returning to Southern California, Knott’s Berry Farm will open its refurbished Fiesta Village in 2023, featuring MonteZOOMa: The Forbidden Fortress. This rebuild of the former Montezooma’s Revenge looping coaster will feature a randomized launch sequence, and its queue will get story upgrades about doomed treasure hunters searching for gold.

It’s way too early to tell which of these will be the best new attraction of the year. But I am certain that theme park fans will have a lot of fun “researching” that decision this year.