Every Friday, Outpost’s online editor rounds up the week’s biggest travel headlines.Â
It’s almost a stereotype at this point, but yet another publication is jumping on the “we’ll pay you to travel the world!” bandwagon. Now the New York Times is looking for a journalist to visit every one of their top 52 destinations in 2018 and come back with stories from each one. “The ideal candidate is a permanent student of life and astute documentarian of the world,” they say. All you need is a valid passport and the ability to commit for a year. Hands up if you read that and felt like you’re not qualified. Nobody? That’s what I thought. Good luck!
Meanwhile, if you’re living in Toronto and hoping to travel for cheap (if not on assignment), a low-cost carrier called Primera Air has launched new direct flights from Toronto to Europe for as little as $200. Initial destinations include London, Birmingham and Paris, and will likely expand to Nordic countries in the future, as Primera is an Icelandic-owned company based out of Denmark and Latvia. This is fantastic news for Canada’s burgeoning low-cost airline industry—and, yes, it’s just Toronto for now, but we expect other major cities across the country will be added soon.
Lastly, on a totally unrelated and optimistic note, Chinese scientists have developed a way to grow rice in saltwater. Yuan Longping is a one of the first scientists to develop hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s, and has since worked on creating rice strands that grow faster in tougher conditions and yield higher amounts. His saltwater innovation, though, might be his most important: this innovation could one day feed 200 million more people, paving the way for combating global hunger. The downside? It currently costs eight times as much as regular white rice. But, hey, once upon a time CDs cost a fortune, too, so maybe this will become an affordable solution in a decade.
