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• 2021 IN REVIEW

These are the best travel photos of 2021

Explore the world in 18 stunning images from our contributors.

Even with an unsteady return to travel, 2021 proved to be a time of renewed exploration. The photographs we published this year reflect an intimacy that comes from staying closer to home and looking deeper into the landscapes and cultural traditions all around us.

Our National Geographic contributors shared surprising glimpses of regions they know well, from the urban trails of San Francisco to the untamed lands of Patagonia to the watery wilds of Alaska. These images reveal the enduring essence of inspiring places.  

( Best of the World: Here are 25 incredible journeys for 2022 .)

The year ahead promises a grand return to travel, and we’re eager to hit the road. We hope these photographs reignite your desire to discover, spark your adventurous imagination, and set you off on your next journey, near or far.

Correction: The correct name of the Greek church is Agios Onoufrios. 

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They de-nude-ed the landscape.

Another day, another instance of tourists disrespecting a landmark.

This time, foreign sightseers angered Namibian authorities after posing naked atop the legendary Big Daddy Dune in the Namib Desert, as seen in photos circulating on social media .

“It is very sickening and it really [creates] a bad image for Namibia,” Kenneth Nependa, vice-chairperson of the Federation of Namibian Tourism Associations, told the Namibian Sun, the BBC reported.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Namibian (@thenamibian)

He added that these antics risked attracting tourists who think that “anything goes” in the southern African nation.

Accompanying footage and video, snapped by an unknown source, shows the unnamed trio strutting about in their birthday suits atop the over 1,000-foot-tall sand mound, which is reportedly popular with families.

Visitors didn’t appreciate the tourists treating the scenic site like a nude beach and called on tourism officials to take action against the crass culprits.

Authorities haven’t yet publicly identified the sandy stripteasers, who allegedly left Namibia by the time authorities received the reports.

However, the nudists could be banned from entering the country’s parks, according to tourism ministers, who added that the “extremely shocking” act was public indecency and therefore punishable by local law.

In light of the indecent incident, officials are calling on visitors to report violators to authorities so they can deal with them accordingly.

“We appeal to that section of tourists to summon the conscience so that they do the right things,” declared Romeo Muyunda, a spokesperson for the ministry of environment, forestry and tourism.

However, many social media users disagreed that the incident was problematic.

“Why are they in trouble? They bothered no one,” an X user declared, according to the BBC, while another claimed that there is “nothing wrong with sunbathing.”

Big Daddy is one of the three largest dunes in Namibia’s Namib-Naukluft National Park and is a popular destination among sightseers looking to get a picturesque view from its crest.

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Sydney Sweeney claps back at critics (again), this time in new Hawaiian vacation pictures

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Sydney Sweeney isn’t letting critics ruin a vacation filled with “good times and tan lines.”

That’s how the “Madame Web” and “Immaculate” actor captioned a post on Sunday that could be construed as a subtle clapback to producer Carol Baum’s disparaging comments about her talent and looks earlier this month.

Sydney Sweeney’s team fires back at producer who said ‘she’s not pretty’ and ‘can’t act’

Sydney Sweeney’s rep called out Carol Baum for ‘unjustly’ disparaging a fellow female producer after Baum said that Sweeney’s film ‘Anyone But You’ was ‘unwatchable.’

April 18, 2024

The “Euphoria” actor posted a series of Hawaii vacation photos to her Instagram, including several of her in a gray crew-neck sweatshirt that reads “Sorry for having great t—.”

At a recent screening of Baum’s 1988 film “Dead Ringers,” the producer said Sweeney’s hit romcom “Anyone But You” is “unwatchable” and that the star was “not pretty” and “can’t act.”

Sweeney, who is herself a producer of the film that also stars Glenn Powell, and her team immediately condemned Baum’s statements.

“How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman,” a spokesperson for Sweeney told The Times . “If that’s what she’s learned in her decades in the industry and feels is appropriate to teach to her students, that’s shameful.”

Sydney Sweeney is in a new horror film. She wants to remind us how dorky she is

After working together on the erotic drama “The Voyeurs,” Sydney Sweeney and director Michael Mohan create a religious thriller premiering at SXSW.

March 12, 2024

The Emmy-nominated actor is no stranger to unwarranted comments about her body. The internet exploded with chatter about her figure after her “Saturday Night Live” hosting debut last month, sparking a debate as to whether her curves were the “ death of woke .”

“I just can’t allow myself to have a reaction,” Sweeney told Variety . “People feel connected and free to be able to speak about me in whatever way they want, because they believe that I’ve signed my life away. That I’m not on a human level anymore, because I’m an actor.”

The “White Lotus” star isn’t letting the discourse affect her or how she lives her life.

“I am such a homebody that life kind of stays the same for me. I just hang out with my dog and my family and my close friends,” she said in a recent interview with The Times . “There’s just more people who say hi to me when I go outside.”

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Mount Fuji view to be blocked as tourists overcrowd popular photo spot

Fujikawaguchiko town official says choice to erect huge barrier is ‘regrettable’ and last resort

A huge barrier to block views of Mount Fuji will be installed at a popular photo spot by Japanese authorities exasperated by crowds of badly behaved foreign tourists.

Construction of the mesh net – 2.5 metres (8ft) high and the length of a cricket pitch at 20 metres – will begin as early as next week, an official from Fujikawaguchiko town said on Friday.

“It’s regrettable we have to do this, because of some tourists who can’t respect rules,” leaving litter behind and ignoring traffic regulations, he told Agence France-Presse.

It is the latest direct action in Japan against over-tourism after residents of Kyoto’s geisha district banned visitors from small private alleys this year.

Record numbers of overseas tourists are travelling to Japan, where the number of monthly visitors exceeded 3 million in March for the first time.

Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain, can be photographed from many spots in the resort town of Fujikawaguchiko. This viewpoint is particularly popular because the majestic – and active – volcano appears behind a Lawson convenience store, which are ubiquitous in Japan.

Due to this visual juxtaposition, “a reputation has spread on social media that this spot is very Japanese, making it a popular photo location”, said the town official, who declined to be named.

The mostly non-Japanese tourists are overcrowding a stretch of pavement next to the Lawson shop, he said.

After traffic signs and repeated warnings from security guards were ignored, the town in Yamanashi region decided on the huge screen as a last resort.

The measure is also meant to protect a nearby dental clinic against tourists who sometimes park there without permission and have even been seen climbing on to the roof of the clinic to get the perfect shot, the official said.

The town wished it had not been forced to take action, the official said, adding that the current plan was for the screen to stay up until the situation improves.

Japan has been a booming tourist destination since pandemic-era border restrictions were lifted, and the government has been working hard to boost visitor numbers. But this has not been universally welcomed, including in Kyoto, where people have complained of snap-happy tourists harassing the city’s immaculately dressed geisha.

This summer, hikers using the most popular route to climb Mount Fuji will be charged ¥2,000 each (£10.50, $13.35, A$20.50), with numbers capped to ease congestion.

Other destinations are also struggling with over-tourism. On Thursday, Venice began charging day-trippers to enter the city, while last week tens of thousands of people across the Canary Islands called for a freeze on visitor numbers .

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Blinken Tours China to Promote Some Ties, While the U.S. Severs Others

Tensions over economic ties are running high, threatening to disrupt a fragile cooperation between the U.S. and China.

By Ana Swanson

Ana Swanson covers trade and U.S.-China economic ties and is traveling with Secretary Blinken in China.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken cheered on the sidelines at a basketball game in Shanghai on Wednesday night, and spent Thursday chatting with students at New York University’s Shanghai campus and meeting American business owners. It all went to emphasize the kind of economic, educational and cultural ties that the United States is pointedly holding up as beneficial for both countries.

But hanging over those pleasantries during his visit to China this week are several steps the U.S. is taking to sever economic ties in areas where the Biden administration says they threaten American interests. And those will be the focus of greater attention from Chinese officials, as well.

Even as the Biden administration tries to stabilize the relationship with China, it is advancing several economic measures that would curb China’s access to the U.S. economy and technology. It is poised to raise tariffs on Chinese steel , solar panels and other crucial products to try to protect American factories from cheap imports. It is weighing further restrictions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors to try to keep Beijing from developing sophisticated artificial intelligence that could be used on the battlefield.

This week, Congress also passed legislation that would force ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to sell its stake in the app within nine to 12 months or leave the United States altogether. The president signed it on Wednesday, though the measure is likely to be challenged in court.

Mr. Blinken’s visit, which was expected to take him to Beijing on Friday for high-level government meetings, had a much more cordial tone than on the trip he made to China last year. That trip was the first after a Chinese spy balloon traveled across the United States, tipping the American public into an uproar.

In a meeting with the Shanghai Communist Party secretary Thursday morning, Mr. Blinken said direct engagement between the U.S. and China was both valuable and necessary.

“We have an obligation for our people — indeed an obligation to the world — to manage the relationship between our two countries responsibly,” he said.

Speaking to students at the N.Y.U.’s Shanghai campus later that morning, he said the educational exchanges the students were engaged in provided a “ballast” for a complicated and confrontational relationship.

Since President Biden met with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in California in November, the U.S.-China relationship has seemed more stable, with nothing like the dramatic ups and downs of the trade spats under former President Donald J. Trump.

But the Biden administration has still been marching toward a more restrictive economic relationship with China.

That includes controls on semiconductor technology, which are being raised by both sides as a more prominent issue than ever before. The Biden administration has been weighing further export controls, particularly on factories that have been helping produce advanced semiconductors for the Chinese tech giant Huawei.

“By explicitly trying to degrade Chinese tech capabilities, especially on advanced AI, the United States has moved export controls to the forefront of the U.S.-China agenda,” said Emily Benson, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

In a call between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi earlier this month, both leaders raised the technology controls as matters of central importance.

Mr. Biden emphasized that the United States would continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced American technologies from being used to undermine its own national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment, according to the White House.

Mr. Xi said that putting new sanctions on China was not “de-risking,” but creating risks. If the United States was bent on “containing China’s hi-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, China is not going to sit back and watch,” he said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

U.S. officials say their restrictions are necessary given China’s authoritarian government and statist economic model. But the moves have rankled Chinese leaders and pushed tensions over economic measures to their highest point in years.

The measures are not just emanating from the U.S. government: Susan Shirk, the author of “Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise,” said that China had pivoted toward a more self-sufficient industrial policy, and has been seeking to supplant the United States as a high-tech superpower under Mr. Xi.

“Xi openly acknowledges that while he wants China to be less dependent on other countries, he wants to keep other countries dependent on China ‘as a powerful countermeasure and deterrent’ as he put it, ‘against them cutting off supply,’” Ms. Shirk said.

China, too, has allowed security concerns to affect a greater proportion of its economy, even as Mr. Xi and other Chinese leaders have tried to reassure foreign businesses that their investment is welcome. A new national security law has extended Beijing’s reach into Hong Kong, threatening the city’s status as a financial hub. American executives have been alarmed by China’s investigations of foreign firms, as well as the country’s broader rules against sharing data and information with foreigners.

Despite China’s complaints about the U.S. government’s efforts to crack down on TikTok, China itself has for decades banned other Western social media services. Apple said last week that Beijing had ordered it to remove WhatsApp and Threads from app stores in China.

Mr. Blinken and other U.S. officials have emphasized that American export controls, sanctions and other restrictions being imposed on Chinese tech companies apply to only a small fraction of the broader U.S.-China relationship. Elsewhere, trade is encouraged, they say.

In a report this week, the U.S.-China Business Council, a group of 270 American companies that do business in China, estimated that U.S. exports to China supported more than 900,000 American jobs in 2022, though goods exports fell in 2023 due to China’s lackluster economy, U.S. tariffs and other factors.

“It is important for us to remind U.S. lawmakers and those in influential positions that every state and congressional district in the U.S. maintains its own economic and trade relationship with China, and changes in U.S.-China trade policy should be considered very carefully,” said Craig Allen, the group’s president.

Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade. More about Ana Swanson

British tourist attacked by shark in Trinidad and Tobago

Officials say beach closures will allow the coastguard and Department of Fisheries to investigate the incident and "neutralise the shark threat, if possible".

Saturday 27 April 2024 18:42, UK

A British tourist is in intensive care after being attacked by a shark in Trinidad and Tobago.

The incident on Friday, which occurred near the Starfish Resort in Courland Bay, prompted the government to shut seven beaches and a marine park along the northwestern coast of the Caribbean island.

The shark appeared to be a bull shark, according to the Tobago House of Assembly, and was 8-10ft long and 2ft wide.

Chief Secretary Farley Augustine said the victim was a 64-year-old British man, adding he was in a "stable" condition but had suffered severe injuries to his arm, thigh and stomach.

A local official named him as Peter Smith, from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire.

"Some reattachments were done, of fingers for example, and hopefully that will save those fingers," Mr Augustine said in a news conference.

"We know that there's significant wounds on one of his legs that cannot be completely closed, but he will require extensive work.

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"The task at this time for our health professionals is really to stabilise and ensure that we can save life and limb as much as possible."

A $10,000 (£8,000) bounty was initially offered to anyone who could capture the shark, but this was later retracted.

Shark attacks in Tobago a rarity

Many experts consider bull sharks to be among the most dangerous in the world.

Historically, they are one of the three species most likely to attack humans, alongside great whites and tiger sharks, according to the National Geographic.

But their presence is rarely felt in Tobago.

In fact, there have only been two other shark attacks there in the past 20 years, data from Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File shows.

One of those - a non-fatal attack in 2004 - was a bull shark.

They are far more frequent off the eastern and southern US coasts and in the central Caribbean.

Bull sharks get their name from their short, blunt snout, as well as their aggressive disposition and a tendency to head-butt their prey before attacking, the National Geographic says.

Stephanie Wright, a British tourist who saw the attack, said she noticed people gathering on the beach and thought they may have been aiding someone who had suffered a cardiac arrest.

"Then I saw a dorsal fin come out of the sea and I went: 'Oh my God, it's a shark'. And as it turned I saw the tail come out as well."

Orion Jakerov, watersports manager at the Starfish Resort, also witnessed the incident and said the man was about waist-deep in the water when the shark attacked.

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He told local media the man and others near him in the water had their backs turned and did not see the shark approaching.

"The other people in the water were physically trying to fight the shark off while it attacked," he added.

In a statement the government said shark sightings were reported in the Grafton area and the Buccoo Reef Marine Park.

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Officials said the closures will allow the coastguard and Department of Fisheries to investigate the incident and "neutralise the shark threat, if possible".

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We are supporting the family of an injured British man in Tobago and are in contact with the local authorities."

Last year, there were 69 unprovoked attacks and 22 provoked bites worldwide, along with 14 fatalities, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File.

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