This email may contain affiliate links, which means purchases made through those links earn me a commission, at no extra cost to you. For details, please see my privacy policy. You can unsubscribe from this list at any time from the bottom of the email.

📣 Now on Shoyu Sugar

​

Each year in April, parks around Istanbul come alive with color thanks to the millions of tulips planted for the annual Istanbul Tulip Festival! ​ It will be interesting to see the timing of the blooms this year, given the wild fluctuations in temperature over the past few weeks—it's been unseasonably warm the past few days, with the possibility of snow in the coming week! Read more here

​

Destination Inspiration ✈

• Have you seen Antoni Porowski’s new show on National Geographic called No Taste Like Home? I love the focus on heritage travel and discovering your roots through food! If you’ve seen the show, what did you think? Have you ever considered a trip to trace your genealogy?
• It's official, the EES and ETIAS travel authorizations that were set to be required for travelers entering the EU have been postponed once again until 2026.
• ​Japan's annual cherry blossom forecast has just been updated for 2025 and peak blooms for Washington DC are predicted for the last few days of March. 🌸

Make a difference ☀

• The USDA has cancelled contracts which allowed local farmers to supply schools and food banks with fresh, nutritious local produce. This impacts both the farmers and the recipients in the vast majority of states.
• Kiki Aranita investigates how a variety of DC restaurants are coping with the uncertainty of doing business in the current climate.
• If you’re upset about these or (any number of other issues) and feeling helpless, I can understand the desire to avoid news in general and I hope this newsletter and the dream of travel can be a bright spot in your inbox. ☀ However, if you feel moved to do something, one action you can take is to call your congressional representatives and urging them to act on issues that matter to you. Use one issue per call, there’s a whole list available at 5calls.org.

Feeling Lucky🍀

• eSIM provider Gig Sky is giving away a trip of a lifetime - a free cruise! Enter by 3/28. Details here.
• ANA Airlines is giving away a trip to discover lesser known parts of Japan. Enter by 4/3. Details here.
• Win two general admission tickets to the Hawaii Food and Wine Festival this fall by voting for your fan favorite in the Hawaii News Now Kitchen Scraps TV show. You can vote to enter once per day until 5/11.

Have a great weekend!