2 . I recently visited California’s most-visited national park—Yosemite. Turns out, there is a lot you can do and see over a couple days. Here’s my suggested route, if you decide to make a quick weekend trip to see Yosemite’s wonders.

6 a. m. : Hike the Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point. The 9. 6-mile round trip will take six to eight hours with rest stops, so plan accordingly. Leave early to beat the heat and enjoy the sunrise.

1 p. m. : Hike to Vernal Fall. If you’re looking for lunch, a tasty and efficient spot is Curry Village Pizza Deck. Plus, your next adventure is on the Mist Trail from nearby Happy Isles for a quick 1. 6-mile round-trip visit to Vemal Fall. It’s a nice cool-down hike after your morning workout and offers easy access to year-round falls.

4 p. m. : Learn some history at Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. Every national park visit requires a stop at the visitor center to learn about park’s history and main features. Here, you can check out the Yosemite Village as well, but the real secret is the free bike share program. Download the app and grab a pair of wheels here for your evening exploration.

6 a. m. : Drive up the picturesque Tioga Road. While your feet are recovering from yesterday’s mileage, take a leisurely drive up Tioga Road. Along the 45 miles to Tenaya Lake, take photos at the many viewpoints, but especially at Olmsted Point, which has a less-visited but very cool perspective on Half Dome. Have breakfast or lunch alongside the blue waters of Yosemite’s largest lake before heading back toward the valley.

3 p. m. : Complete your trip with a visit to Yosemite Climbing Museum in Mariposa. At a last stop, visit the charming historical town of Mariposa to check out the long-overdue Yosemite Climbing Museum opened in 2021. The famous climbing history displayed in the museum gave me a new appreciation for Yosemite, a place I can’t wait to return to.

3 . The Friend Trip: Fun Without Conflicts

Anyone who said a friend is a friend forever has clearly never experienced a group trip where you will get into trouble arguing over plans and restaurant bills.     1     Here are some ways to do it without anyone getting unfriended.

Invite with care

“You cannot travel with everybody. All your friends are not travel friends,” says Irvin on her popular TikTok account. She suggests picking travel partners who share similar interests, and deciding ahead of time what kind of trip you will be taking—relaxation, partying or adventure.

Brainstorm as a group

    2     Some people prefer to use familiar spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel to organise the plan and share it with friends. And creating an Airbnb wish list lets friends suggest accommodation options for the whole group to see.

Exchange the captain’s hat

Use a classic teacher’s trick to keep everyone engaged and share the planning burden: schedule a group leader to take ownership of each day’s activities.     3     By making everyone the driver, everyone also gets the chance at some point to sit back and be a passenger.

    4    

Tracking expenses for a whole group can expose a lot of pain points. “I have seen so many friendships break down because dissatisfaction builds when one person suspects other friends are taking advantage of her financially or not pulling their weight,” says friendship coach Jackson.     5     Jackson says he liked Splitwise to help groups manage everyone’s bills, so there’s no confusion about who owes what.

4 . In the time before air-conditioning, southern China’s sky wells played a key role in keeping people’s homes cool. Could they do it again today?

A skywell, or “tian jing”, is atypical characteristic of traditional homes in southern and eastern China. Different from a northern Chinese courtyard, or “yuan zi”, a skywell is smaller and less open to the outdoor environment. Its size and design differ from place to place.

Skywells were designed to cool buildings at a time well before air-conditioning existed. When wind blows above a skywell house, it can enter the indoor space through the opening. Because outdoor air is often cooler than indoor air, the incoming wind travels down the walls to the lower stories and create airflows by replacing warmer indoor air, which rises and leaves through the opening.

Although skywell buildings have existed in China for hundreds of years, in recent times they have often been forgotten by people who prefer modern buildings. Over the past two decades, however, skywell buildings have been making a comeback.

Yu Youhong, 55, has spent more than 30 years restoring (修复) skywell homes in Wuyuan county of Jiangxi province, apart of the old Huizhou. One of the skywell homes restored by Yu is in the village of Yan, in Wuyuan county. The deserted 300-year-old house was bought by Edward Gawne, a former marketing director from the UK, and his Chinese wife, Liao Minx in, in 2015. The couple turned the three-storey house into a 14-room hotel with the help of Yu. They kept the spaces surrounding the sky wells in their original state: open and with natural airflow. Gawne says that even without air conditioning the skywell areas are very comfortable in summer.

Yu says he expects sky wells to be more and more popular among younger generations especially as sustainability (可持续性) becomes an important element for new buildings.

5 . Travel is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get, especially when using a mystery box plane ticket. Earlier this year, mystery box travel purchases increased and became trendy among China’s young people. In normal trips, people often plan their vacations well in advance. After buying a mystery box at a low price — usually 100 or 200 yuan — however, the travelers using this method will select their departure airport and receive several destination options to choose from. After the destination is decided, their trip begins.

Liao Liangyu, 16, has turned his eagerness to go on a mystery box trip into reality. He took a mystery box trip to Changsha with a couple of friends months ago. Right before their departure, a friend told Liao that Changsha was a super hyped-up (被炒作的) Internet sensation (网红). But he still decided to go and see it for himself.

“My biggest discovery is that Changsha is a city full of contrasts,” Liao explained to China Daily. “You can see skyscraper (摩天大楼) and old houses in the same view.”

Since the destination options include many less popular cities, travel mystery boxes also bring energy and economic benefits to these destinations. For example, Dehong city is a beautiful city in Yunnan province, yet has few visitors due to a lack of promotion. Following its inclusion as a mystery box travel destination, however, it has gained a lot of attention and is now thought of as a solid location for tourism.

But even so, a large number of people feel disappointed with travel mystery boxes because they can encounter many problems after purchasing one, such as inappropriate travel time, sudden flight cancellations, or even challenges with refunds. Su Weili from Ctrip suggested in an interview with Haibao News that visitors should choose reliable platforms and sign contracts to guarantee their interests.

6 . Rich in culture and rooted in tradition, winter in Budapest here not only feels like a fairytale, it looks like one, too. Here are four top things to do in Budapest during the winter.

Budapest’s City Park Ice Rink is by far the most famous skating destination in the region. Skaters flooded to the rink each winter between late November and mid February. First opened in 1870, this ice rink is one of the oldest and largest in Europe. It’s filled up with water during the summer months. It serves as a boating lake for tourists looking to bike around while bathing in the sun.

Budapest is quite rightly nicknamed the “City of Spas”. The baths of here are astonishingly beautiful, which are famous for their relaxing and medicinal benefits Taking a dip in the famous baths during winter is an experience like no other. Jumping from one indoor pool to the outside bathing area is a memorable and pleasurable experience.

The Hungarian State Opera House is closed for renovations (翻新). However, visitors can still see parts of it via (通过) guided tours. The Hungarian State Opera House, which was completed in 1884, remains exactly the same as that when it was constructed. Each year thousands of visitors arrived in Budapest to take in the sheer (十足的) beauty of the opera house, while the lucky ones are able to secure a ticket for a show.

Shopping in Budapest during winter is a magical experience. Andrassy Avenue and Fashion Street are two of its most popular tourist destinations at any time of year. Covered with thousands of lights, the tree-lined avenue comes to life during the winter months, offering up many attractions. The shops here are usually open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the winter months.

7 . California is home to some of the most beautiful botanical gardens in the country. Suppose you want to appreciate unique landscapes and native plants, this post has what you need to experience in the Golden State.

Located in the Golden Gate Park, this garden is home to over 9,000 types of plants. It has 55acres of walking paths and streams where families, couples, and solo travelers can escape from the noise of the city. It offers attractive florals (植物群) during every season of the year.

It’s the largest botanic garden devoted to California-native plants. As a living museum, the California Botanic Garden features over 22,000 California-native plant species, many of which are endangered species. The garden offers guided walks and tours for visitors who want a behind-the-scenes look at the garden and its many beautiful species.

This garden features the most diverse landscapes in the world. It has over 10,000 types of plants. The plant collections here are impressive; visitors can wander for hours and still find new plants to admire. Special events are hosted there throughout the year, including plant sales and summer camps for kids.

This coastal California botanic garden has 4 miles of trails and ocean views and features over 5,000 plant species. Among 29 uniquely themed gardens on-site, the bamboo garden collection is a must-see. With over 100 species within the living collection of bamboo, guests can experience many distinctive eco-friendly plants up close.

If exploring the botanical gardens in California is on your to-do list, don’t wait any longer! We’re confident this collection of must-see outdoor gardens will entertain, amaze, and inspire you.

8 . Of all the ways to define (定义) a challenge, the simplest works best: a call for special effort. It applies to everyone. It’s not enough to say that skiing a black diamond is a challenge; or that snowshoeing a 10-kilometr e route is a challenge. For some, neither may be. For others, both are unimaginable.

A call for special effort means only you know when you’re being challenged. If you’re red-faced and out of breath, it’s probably a challenge. If you have to focus and work hard to complete the task, consider yourself challenged.

This season, we sourced 10 of the most exciting winter challenges around Canada. Sure, there are some that even the writer has no intention of trying, but they all excite the imagination. They’re all about inspiring outdoor experiences at Explore^TM. We encourage adaptation as well as adoption.

When you read the feature (专栏) on page 28, you may give up the 6633 Arctic Ultra as well as the Ice Mile—but the Wapta Traverse, the famous Rocky Mountain ski tour, or the Pentathlon des Neiges, in Quebec City, may fit the bill nicely. Or maybe it’s a day-tour in the Rockies and sampling just one of the Pentathlon sports in a more relaxed setting. It’s up to you.

We wrote this article because we want you to see the possibility of winter: to look beyond a simple, though satisfying, day on the ski hill or skate on a nearby lake; to see winter as every bit as colorful as summer.

The 2023-24 Hohhot (呼和浩特) Ice and Snow Festival     1    (kick) off at the Mazongshan Ski Resort in Hohhot, capital city of North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Dec 22.

The festival features a series of New Year activities, the third Hohhot Happy Ice and Snow Carnival, and the Hohhot Spring Festival and Lantern Festival celebrations.

The third Hohhot Happy Ice and Snow Carnival combines North China’s culture and local customs, showcasing 80 activities,    2     (include) ice and snow architecture, ice and snow sports, artistic    3    (perform), and New Year’s markets. Additionally, Hohhot’s cultural and exhibition venues will host 57 cultural activities.

    4     (locate) in the “golden latitude belt” of ice and snow, Hohhot boasts excellent natural conditions    5    winter sports, with a winter season lasting over four    6    (month) and average temperatures ranging from -2 C to-13 C.

In recent years, Hohhot     7     (boost) its winter tourism by cultivating    8    (diversity) product offerings and launching a range of distinctive winter tourism activities.

This year, Hohhot will host the 14th National Winter Games,    9     as a result of its geographical and transportation advantages, it forms a “2-hour transportation circle” with Beijing. With the opening of the “Beijing-Hohhot” ski train, more skiing enthusiasts can come to Hohhot     10    (experience) its unique ice and snow culture.