In northeastern Australia at the Fraser Coast Wildlife Sanctuary (79 Mungar Rd., Maryborough, Queensland, Australia; phone +61 07 4122 2080, http://frasercoastwildlifesanctuary.org.au), visitors can interact with dingoes, wallabies, kangaroos, kookaburras and more. Visits are guided, and animal interactions are supervised by staff.
In Toronto, visitors to the highest freestanding structure in the Western Hemisphere can walk outside along the circumference of the tower’s restaurant’s roof, 1,168 feet above the ground, on the EdgeWalk.
During the 20-minute EdgeWalk at the CN Tower (301 Front Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 2T6, Canada), trekkers are strapped into safety harnesses, allowing them to lean over the roof’s edge. For the mobility impaired, EdgeWalks utilizing a specially designed wheelchair are available.
Between the North Holland towns of Hoorn and Medemblik, visitors can ride a historic, coal-fired steam train built in 1914, the Museum Stoomtram (Van Dedemstraat 8, 1624 NN, Hoorn, Netherlands; www.stoomtram.nl/en).
The Stoomtram is seasonal, running April through November, with days of operation depending on the month. When operating, it leaves Hoorn at 10:40 a.m., arrives in Medemblik at noon, departs at 1:20 p.m. and returns to Hoorn at 2:40.
Spanning the Beipan River valley, connecting the provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan in southwestern China, the Beipanjiang Bridge opened to traffic on Dec. 30. The valley floor, at its lowest point, is 1,853 feet below the roadway, making the bridge the highest in the world.
The 4-lane, 4,400-foot-long bridge connects the capital cities of the two provinces: Kunming and Guiyang.
British cruise operator Voyages of Discovery, operating the ship The Voyager, and its subsidiary, Swan Hellenic, operating the Minerva, ceased operations on Dec. 29. Travelers who had cabins reserved on scheduled 2017 cruises were given complete refunds.
The Swan Hellenic brand subsequently was purchased by G Adventures (Toronto, ON, Canada; 888/800-4100, www.gadventures.com), which plans to schedule sailings starting in 2018.
Six cruise lines canceled port calls at Port Antonio, Jamaica, during the winter 2016 travel season, citing large amounts of trash at the port that led to a rat infestation and a pervasive stench. A cleanup effort managed to clean the city of trash before a scheduled cruise stop by the tall ship Star Flyer on Jan. 4, 2017.
Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of novelist Jane Austen, special events are being held in 2017 throughout her native English county of Hampshire, such as…
• On July 18, the date of her death, a special service is being held at Winchester Cathedral at 5:30 p.m. Also, beside her grave within the cathedral, the permanent exhibit “The Jane Austen Story” opened on Nov. 10, 2016.
In central Austria, the town of Hallstatt hired bouncers to prevent tourists from entering the town’s two churches during services after locals complained that travelers were being interruptive by taking photos, even during funerals. The churches are open for visits when not in service.
Hallstatt has become particularly popular with Chinese tourists due to a replica of the town having been built in Guangdong in 2012.
In Barcelona, Spain, new laws affecting tourism went into effect in February 2017. New hotels are prohibited from being built near the city center, and no new licenses for short-term rentals (such as those booked through Airbnb.com) will be granted to landlords.
Currently, there are about 75,000 hotel beds and 50,000 licensed short-term-rental beds available in Barcelona. The city announced in November 2016 that it was fining Airbnb more than €500,000 (near $538,000) for listing unlicensed rooms in Barcelona on its website.
JetBlue on Jan. 12 became the world’s first airline to offer free Wi-Fi to all of its passengers on all flights. Their Fly-Fi service offers connection speeds of 12 to 15 megabits per second (mbps), fast enough to stream movies. In addition to its domestic routes, JetBlue flies from the US to 21 non-US destinations in North America, the Caribbean and South America.