In travel news this week: submersible superyachts for billionaires, the megahub airport that could be the world’s busiest, plus new digital nomad visas in Turkey and Italy.
New digital nomad visas
Packing up your life and making a fresh start abroad is a dream for many, and new visa programs and tax incentives are making it a bit more achievable. Portugal, Spain and Costa Rica are some of the countries with popular digital nomad visas, and now there are two new options for remote workers.
Turkey’s vibrant cities and glorious coastline can be enjoyed with its new digital nomad visa which is open to citizens of 36 countries, including the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom, ages 21 to 55. You need to be earning a minimum of $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year.
Italy’s long-anticipated digital nomad visa is also now accepting applications. “Highly skilled” non-European Union/European Economic Area citizens can get the opportunity to live there for a year, provided they have their own health insurance, proof of a place to stay and are earning upward of $30,000 per annum. If you’re interested, you need to book an in-person appointment at an Italian consulate in your country of residence. The Consulate General of Italy London has the steps to help you make your way through the bureaucracy.
Making the leap
The Hopper family from Texas left the States behind and moved to Costa Rica’s “blue zone,” one of the regions of the world where people live longest and are the healthiest. Seven years later, they tell CNN they’re feeling “more energized” and love the family-friendly sense of community.
In another adventure abroad, a TV editor from Los Angeles visited Italy for the first time in his 50s. Within 24 hours, he’d bought himself a house. “It’s just such a slower lifestyle here,” he says of Latronico, a town in the southern region of Basilicata. The town “will definitely help me relax.”
One of the first steps for preparing for a new life abroad is to pick up the local lingo. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this guide to the best language learning apps.
Grand ambitions
For more than a decade, an Australian billionaire has been driving plans to build Titanic II: a more seaworthy replica of the ill-fated ship that sank in 1912 but still captures imaginations around the world. Here’s why he’s doing it.
An Austrian company, meanwhile, is hoping to build submersible superyachts for billionaires. At 166 meters (545 feet) long, these Bond villain-style playthings could stay underwater for up to four weeks at a time. Why? Well, that’s rich-folk business.
Another way to blow through money quickly is to launch it directly into space. That is to say, you can spend it on taking a balloon ride 40 kilometers (25 miles) up in order to view the Earth’s curvature from above: a snip at $164,000 a go.
Mistakes, misbehavior and misadventure
An overrun Japanese town has put up an eight-foot (2.5-meter) barrier to stop tourists from taking snaps of Mount Fuji at a popular photo spot. An official told CNN that there’d been ongoing problems with visitors leaving trash and not following traffic rules.
Over in the US, a man accused of kicking a bison at Yellowstone National Park was injured by the animal and later arrested. And a Utah couple accidentally shipped their pet cat with an Amazon return. Thankfully, three weeks later they had a “miracle” reunion.
And in transportation news, Australian travelers were stranded after a budget airline went bust, flights were canceled in Indonesia because of volcano eruptions, and two cruise passengers, ages 81 and 84, had to race to catch up with their ship after being left behind in Spain.
And finally, there was trouble in paradise when four Americans in different incidents were accused of bringing live ammo to Turks and Caicos. The offense can carry a 12-year prison term, although judges are allowed to use discretion.
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