Eugene Levy’s ‘Reluctant Traveler,’ The Beatles’ Liverpool, Passport Renewal Delays And More

This Beautiful Asian Destination Will Pay You To Visit

Travel continues to rebound, but some destinations are enticing visitors with incentives. (Hong Kong is offering free plane tickets to travelers and Malta will pay travelers to visit.) The latest deep-pocketed destination is the island nation of Taiwan, which will offer 500,000 travelers a financial incentive (around $165) per person to vacation there. Taiwan’s aim is to attract six million tourists in 2023, with a goal of reaching 10 million visitors by 2025.

Here’s How Soon Self-Flying Planes Will Take Off

Would you get on a flight if there were no pilot aboard? As Suzanne Rowan Kelleher revealed in a recent Forbes Daily Cover story, it’s becoming increasingly clear that self-flying planes are coming to commercial aviation—and not in some distant Jetsons future world. “Aircraft manufacturers are working toward it. Airlines are eager for it,” she writes. “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is preparing for it. And pilot unions acknowledge the threat is looming on the horizon.” Expect autonomous cargo flights to be first self-flying aircraft in the skies over the next two years, with smaller, self-flying planes to transport passengers in the early 2030s. Assuming there are no major safety issues, self-flying jets with then take off for commercial airlines by the 2040s.

How To Plan A Beatles Tour Of Liverpool

More than 50 years after the Beatles broke up, the Fab Four still draw thousands of tourists to their hometown of Liverpool. (A 2016 report commissioned by the city council estimated that Beatlemania adds $100 million to the local economy and some 2,000 jobs.) Those who want to visit the real Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, the famed Cavern Club and other Beatles-related attractions in Liverpool will find several museums dedicated to John, Paul, George and Ringo, tours of their childhood homes as well as a yellow submarine—parked outside John Lennon Airport.

“If we’d known we were going to be the Beatles, we’d have tried harder.”

TravelWise

American travelers planning an international trip soon would be wise to check the expiration date on that passport. If it has expired or needs to be renewed soon, the wait times are getting longer. Right now, the turnaround time for a standard passport renewal takes at least 8 weeks, according to the State Department website. For $60 more, an expedited renewal application can take a mere 5 to 7 weeks.

Eugene Levy on Going from ‘Schitt’s Creek’ to ‘The Reluctant Traveler’

Imagine a new travel series featuring someone who doesn’t like to travel. That’s the premise behind The Reluctant Traveler hosted by Schitt’s Creek star Eugene Levy, whose fish-out-of-water-shtick is now airing on Apple TV+. “I’m not very curious. I don’t have an adventurous spirit,” Levy says about the show’s premise, which brings him to, among other places, Italy, Japan, the Maldives, and South Africa. But, he is quick to add, “what we didn’t want is for the show to be a joke. It is not a joke show. I’m not trying to pretend that I’m Larry David. In order for this show to come to life and mean anything, I had to, for the first time in my life, reveal things about myself, which I have never done. Tell people what I am thinking and why. What I’m feeling and why. What my phobias are and why. There had to be an unveiling of who I am as a person in order for my travel reluctancy to make sense. So it is not the type of punchline that people might think it is.”

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