Summer of 2024 | Travel edition

Summer of 2024
| Photo Credit: Courtesy Suket Dhir

As summer peaks, and before you pack your bags for your next trip, think how best you can holiday this year. Tourism is wrecking the fragile ecosystems of our mountains and hill stations, as Kodaikanal resident Lathika George writes. The heatwave is impacting the wildlife, with poorer availability of food and invasive plant species adding to their woes, finds The Hindu staffer Rohan Premkumar. Meanwhile, our cities and tourist destinations need a master plan to tackle this, state Dharanidharan Sivagnanaselvam, a DMK spokesperson, and Mythili Menon, an environmental enthusiast.

It’s enough to make our columnist Veena Venugopal to look back with nostlagia at the uncomplicated summer holidays of the 1980s. On a fun note, fashion designer Suket Dhir shares why he believes spontaneous holidays with his kids are a great idea; restaurant owner Shalini Philip gives us a peek at the fresh and wild produce she brought back from Shillong in her suitcase; columnist Sandip Roy goes chasing sunrises; and Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman tells Aditya Mani Jha how travel makes him feel.

Plus, there’s Magazine’s curation of 10 new travel books, and a public digital archive that documents places from literature.