1 . Do you like museums? Have you been to the Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City or any of those other “must see” museums? Well, now it’s time to go off the beaten path. There are some museums that try to be a little different.

The Kimchi Museum, Seoul, South Korea

If you don’t know about kimchi, a trip to the Kimchi Museum is an eye-opening experience. The museum was founded in 1986 to highlight South Korea’s rich kimchi culture. The show includes displays of cooking utensils and materials related to making, storing, and eating the famous pickled vegetables. The museum also provides details about the history and nutritional (有营养的) benefits of South Korea’s most beloved side dish. Finally, stop by the souvenir (纪念品) shop to try various types of kimchi. Don’t forget to buy your favourite kind to bring home for dinner!

The Museum of Gold, Bogota, Colombia

If you want to see beautiful objects, the Museum of Gold is the place. It holds one of South America’s most amazing collections. Because the exhibits (展品) shine so brightly, you can take photographs without using a flash on your camera! Not everything is made of gold, though. Among the exhibits are ancient pre-Columbian items. Many of them are made from a mixture of gold and copper, known as tumbaga. The museum also features coins, jewelry, and pieces of rare art.

The Chocolate Museum, Cologne, Germany

The Chocolate Museum will teach you everything about chocolate-from cocoa bean to candy bars. You’ll learn about chocolate’s 3,000-year history and discover how it was once used as money in South America. Did you know that it wasn’t popular in Europe until the nineteenth century? A real chocolate factory shows you how chocolate is made. After you’ve finished the tour, you can have a free drink of rich, sticky pure chocolate-perfect for those with a sweet tooth.

2 . Visitors often choose homestays as budget-friendly and secure accommodations, while also benefiting from language practice and local insights. The following are some appealing destinations with homestay options ideal for enjoying a fulfilling stay abroad.

Lake Titicaca, Peru

Peru is home to some of the greatest archaeological treasures in the world and exhibits some truly fascinating history. A homestay experience in Peru offers a vacation with a ton of insight into one of the most culturally and historically prosperous countries in the world. There are several homestays around Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in existence, providing authentic accommodations with the added value of a look at pre-Inca ruins and centuries-old agricultural terraces.

Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

If you’ve ever had the desire to explore the deepest reaches of the Amazon Rainforest, a Brazilian homestay could be a peaceful experience. Easily planned in Manaus, you can book a trip and be paired up with a local family. Friendly guides offer a healthy insight into the rainforest ecosystem and teach guests survival tips in a natural environment.

Yuvacali, Turkey

In Turkey’s southeast region, in the village of Yuvacali, visitors receive a raw experience of what daily life is like for local Kurdish families, a break from the busy urban life. A handful of families in the small village offer accommodation under the starry skies of Yuvacali in a tent decorated with colorful paintings or in a traditional, mud house.

Tighza Valley, Morocco

Throughout Morocco, there are abundant opportunities to experience a homestay with a local family. One particularly magical place is within the breathtaking Tighza Valley. The bare valley, dusted with cacti (仙人掌) and leafy green leaves, is within the high-reaching Atlas Mountains, far from the chaotic, busy cities of Casablanca and Rabat. This is rural Moroccan life at its finest: simple and scenic.

3 . Alaska’s Mendenhall glacier (冰川) is about 20 minutes by car from Juneau, the state capital. It is one of the area’s most popular sites for tourists. But climate change has caused the ice to melt and the glacier to retreat (消退). That means it is losing more snow and ice than it gains. Researchers say the Mendenhall glacier retreated about 800 meters between 2007 and 2021.

Mendenhall pours down from rocky land between mountains and into a lake filled with icebergs. Special signs mark the glacier’s retreat, showing where the ice once stood. Experts estimate that by 2050, people will not be able to see the Mendenhall glacier from the visitor centre that was built for it. That is already the case at some other glacier visitor centres in Alaska.

The melting glacier leads to questions for the Alaskan tourism industry. How can tourism leaders help protect the glaciers for visitors to enjoy? And should there be limits on the number of tourists to the area?

Tourism is an important part of Juneau’s economy. About 1.6 million cruise ship (游轮) passengers are expected to stop in Juneau. On especially busy days, 20,000 people arrive each day to a city that has only 30,000 full-time residents.

Manoj Pillai is a cruise ship worker from India. He recently got off his ship and went to see the Mendenhall glacier. “The glacier is so beautiful now,” he said. But he wondered what it must have looked like 10 or 20 years ago and what it would look like in the following days.

People have many reasons to want to visit Alaska, and all the visitors help the state’s economy. But in Juneau, tourism officials are questioning whether the city and surrounding areas can deal with so many visitors each year. City leaders and major cruise lines have agreed to a daily five-ship limit for next year. But critics worry that may not do much to reduce tourist numbers because the ships themselves keep getting bigger. Some Juneau residents say they would like one day a week without ships.

4 . Students of United States history often learn that Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts and Jamestown in Virginia were the earliest settlements in North America. But more than 50 years earlier, the Spanish had settled in the far northeastern corner of Florida in what is now the city of St. Augustine.

The Spanish controlled St. Augustine from 1565 until 1821, except for a brief period of English rule between 1763 and 1783. St. Augustine became part of the United States in 1821when Spain turned its Florida territories, which were too costly for Spain to keep, over to the United States.

Today, St. Augustine is a small town, covering 27.7 square kilometres and has a population of about 15,000. And even with centuries of Spanish rule, it is difficult to see Spain’s influence on St. Augustine because most of the buildings from that time are long gone.

The oldest structure in St. Augustine is Castillo de San Marcos. It is a fort (要塞) built by the Spanish in 1695 to protect against English attacks.   The fort is now a national monument.

The city was once a popular place for wealthy Americans to escape the difficult winters in northern US states. In the 1870s, businessman Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil, decided to build three world-class hotels for rich visitors. They were Hotel Ponce de Leon, Hotel Alcazar, and Hotel Cordova. But the rich did not stay long. Within 20 years, the rich discovered that Palm Beach on the other side of Florida had even better weather.

Today, Hotel Ponce de Leon is Flagler College and Hotel Alcazar houses city offices and a museum. Only Hotel Cordova, the smallest of the three, is still a hotel but is now called Hotel Cas a Monica.

Still, visitors remain a main source of income for the city. More than three million people visited the St. Augustine area between July 2021 and June 2022. Many stay for just the day, but the city hopes to bring in even more visitors as St. Augustine becomes more widely known as the oldest continuously occupied US city.

6 . After returing from his job as a cultural relics protection worker 10 years ago, Wang Yongxian kept his love for ancient Chinese architecture (建筑) through teaching.

Now aged 73, he still teaches a course named “Conservation and Restoration of Ancient Chinese Buildings” at a University in Shanxi province. His main interest is Dougong, a construction method that uses interlocking (紧密连接的) wooden pieces to form structures. The method is one of the most important features of ancient Chinese architecture.

Wang also started online classes to better explain Dougong to those who showed a strong interest in his course. Following a suggestion from his students, he became a vlogger using the account name “Dougong class”. The account is regularly updated with short video clips Wang produces himself. He is surprised that his classes are so popular on social media. The first six lectures on ancient Chinese buildings that he uploaded over a six-month period have received 1.6 million views.

To make it easier for newcomers to the subject to understand, Wang made a wooden Dougong model. Each part is marked with a number or name, and the model can be taken apart and put together, a process that Wang filmed and put online. Some viewers said that they had long been puzzled by Dougong structures, but finally understood how they work after watching the video of “Dougong grandpa”.

Wang said when he was young, the beautiful ancient temples in his hometown had ignited his interest in ancient wooden buildings and finally led him to turn his interest into a lifelong career. What makes him happy today is not only that the government set aside more money for the research and protection of cultural relics, but also that society is more aware of the importance of such work.

To his surprise, about 90 percent of his more than 100,000 viewers online are below age 30. That fact makes him more confident that as long as the story of Chinese ancient architecture is told in the right way, it can attract more people.

Diaojiaolou is a masterpiece of Chinese traditional construction. It’s said that when the first ancient pioneers set out from northern and central China in the hope of    1     (settle) in southern China, they came upon difficulties. In the forests of southern China, they met with beasts, poisonous snakes and insects. They managed to settle a colony and set fires to drive away beasts.    2    , they were still troubled by snakes and insects, until one leader,    3     distinguished wise old man in the community at that time, came up with an idea of putting up a building hung on wooden stilts (支柱). The colony then agreed on the idea and such buildings     4     (construct) with joint efforts did help the early settlers stay safe from the dangers. These buildings    5     (gain) popularity among several minorities since then.

Diaojiaolou typically has two to three floors. The upper floors are held up by stilts,     6     appearance makes the building look unsteady. But these stilts    7     (strengthen) by some stone blocks at their base so as to make Diaojiaolou still.

The ground floor is    8     (primary) made up of stilts without walls. This floor tends to be used    9     a place for keeping farm animals or putting firewood and farming    10     (equip). The upper floors are mainly living spaces.

9 . We’ve collected some of the greatest royal (皇家的) palaces and castles to visit in Britain. Here are our picks.

Windsor Castle, Berkshire

Windsor Castle is the oldest castle in the world. It used to be an official accommodation for Her Majesty the Queen and was the place where the wedding of Prince Hary and Meghan Markle was held. The site of Windsor Castle was chosen and built by William in around 1070 to guard the western ways to London from a possible attack.

Open all year round to the public.

Buckingham Palace, Westminster

The official accommodation of the King and Queen and one of Britain’s most recognized historic sites, Buckingham Palace is often used for national celebrations and events. It was bought in 1761 by George II for his wife Queen Charlotte.

Buckingham Palace is open to the public during the summer months and for a limited number of tours in December, January and at Easter each year.

Kew Palace, Richmond-Upon-Thames

Sitting on the banks of the River Thames in London, Kew Palace might be the smallest of the royal palaces. With the big Kew Gardens around, the palace was built in 1631 for the London silk businessman, Samuel Fortreas.

Kew Palace is open for the summer season.

Hampton Court Palace, Surrey

Set on the edge of the River Thames, Hampton Court Palace in Surrey was a Tudor palace created by Cardinal Wlosey in the early 16th century and was once home to Henry VII over the years. There are beautiful gardens nearby and the palace was opened to the public in 1838 by Queen Victoria.

Open all year round, except 24-26 December.