My day trip to Hudson Yards was meant to be a sojourn filled with schadenfreude. After having read numerous derogatory reviews of the commercial, residential, and cultural complex that opened on the far west side of Manhattan in March, I was eager to see the debacle up close.

A softness in people’s eyes and a gentleness of gesture. This was my travel brief, along with a bit of adventure. I didn’t mind the details, but I was craving warmth of spirit above all else, something in direct contrast to the clamor of my orbit in Manhattan.

Head northwest from Santiago for 73 miles -- practically cross-country in the world's narrowest nation -- and arrive in this port city, best described by its famous former resident, the Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda: "Valparaíso, how absurd you are . . . you haven't combed your hair/ you've never had time to get dressed/ life has always surprised you." Yet, it is Valpo, as locals call it, that does much of the surprising.

The cargo ship La Evangelista embarks weekly from Puerto Montt, charting a 1,400-mile course through the fjords and coastal channels of southern Chile, past archipelagos of uninhabited islands to Puerto Natales, a town tucked in the foothills of the famed Torres del Paine National Park.

If you’ve ever flown in or out of Kennedy Airport, you’ve probably seen the Trans World Airlines Terminal, or the TWA Flight Center as it was called. Built in 1962, the shapely building was designed by the legendary architect Eero Saarinen to usher in the Jet Age, but has been unused since 2001, when the airline went bankrupt.

Sure, people normally traipse off to tropical paradises in the dead of winter, when the dry, hot days and brilliant beaches are most appreciated. But in Central America, nature and the travel industry offer some compelling reasons to visit the area in the off-season. Between May and November, travelers are likely to encounter an absence of crowds, a significant drop in prices, and unique experiences in its flora and fauna — hence, “the green season.”

I always pictured my first trip to Italy as a romantic getaway, maybe to celebrate a milestone anniversary after two children and a certain number of years of marriage.

Cruising west along Highway 80, between Montgomery and Selma, my kids and I sang along loudly to “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” over and over, to get our off-key harmonies right. We were on a weeklong pilgrimage to the holy sites of the civil rights movement.

Dollar, a beautiful white tiger around 2 years old, was serene, lazily lounging on the ground as I stroked her flank and gently rested my head on her 400-pound body, blissed as could be, all senses sharper than at any other time in memory.

Without warning, Dollar lifted her massive head and turned directly around. Eyes locked, our faces inches apart, time, the earth, and my heart stood completely still. We looked into one another’s eyes for a long, long moment. Terrified and exhilarated, I tried to will any lingering fear from my consciousness.

Travelers flying out of London’s Heathrow this summer will be able to check in and board their flight without showing a passport or boarding pass.

The United Kingdom’s largest airport has announced plans for an immediate and full-scale roll out of a facial-recognition system costing approximately $65 million. In a press release, airport officials claimed this revolutionary biometric technology could reduce the average passenger’s journey time by up to a third.

People joke that it’s ‘the new Sag Harbor,’ but the North Fork’s premier destination is still a world away from the Hamptons hustle.

You can do something in Bhutan generally inadvisable elsewhere in Asia: inhale deeply.

This tiny Himalayan kingdom, squeezed between notoriously smoggy India and China, is said to be the only country in the world that is carbon negative, meaning that its forests are able to absorb more carbon dioxide than is emitted. Forests cover over 60 percent of this land and are sacred, as are mountains, rivers, and the earth. The population is small (about 800,000), but the power of nature is enormous. Humans know their place.