Where Travel and Life Intersect

Travel Over the Holidays and Get Invited In

Keep the family holiday at home, then spend New Year's where the whole town is celebrating.

In John Grisham's novel Skipping Christmas, and later the film Christmas with the Kranks, Luther and Nora Krank's only daughter leaves to spend a year abroad. With the house empty, they decide to skip the holiday altogether and book a Caribbean cruise instead.

Bad move. The neighbors are outraged. Then, on Christmas Eve, their daughter announces she's coming home after all, and the Kranks scramble to throw the party they swore off. Luther ends up giving away the cruise tickets.

The story treats it as a choice between the holiday and the trip, and the holiday wins.

For many of us, being home for the year-end holidays is a deep tradition. However, more people are now trying something else. They travel over the holidays to see another culture celebrate. Some go on their own, some as a couple, and some bring the family along for a very different kind of family holiday.

Last year, in Deloitte's holiday travel survey, baby boomers were the only generation planning to spend more on holiday travel. The pattern shows up well beyond the US. In Japan, trips abroad over the New Year holiday were expected to rise by nearly a third last season, and Britain's aviation regulator expected its busiest Christmas travel period on record.

The Open Door

Noted anthropologist Victor Turner wrote that festivals sit partly outside a society's normal order. For a few days people set aside their usual roles and meet people they otherwise wouldn't. That makes the holidays a good time to arrive somewhere new, because the door is already open.

Some holiday traditions are built around a stranger at the door. In Mexico, the posadas run for nine nights before Christmas. A procession carrying Mary and Joseph goes house to house asking for shelter, and the first houses turn them away in song. The last one lets everyone in, and the party starts.

You can find the open door almost anywhere. In Santa Fe, Canyon Road is lined with paper lanterns and small piñon fires on Christmas Eve. On the Mississippi levee in Louisiana, more than a hundred bonfires are lit the same night to guide Papa Noël. In Edinburgh, a torchlight procession winds through the Old Town on December 29. In Kyoto, at temples such as Nanzen-ji, visitors can line up to ring the bell as midnight approaches on New Year's Eve.

The Rosca

On January 6, Mexican families share the rosca de reyes, a ring of sweet bread for the Three Kings. A small figure of the baby Jesus is baked inside. Whoever finds it has to host a tamales party on February 2, and a guest who finds it is on the hook like everyone else. If you win, it's a perfect excuse to go back.

The Price Tag

There are two costs, and the first is the tradition. Someone at home will notice the empty chairs at the table.

The second is money. Holiday travel often costs more, and this year looks steep. Hopper expects Christmas airfares in the US to average 23 percent more than last year, and hotels 18 percent more.

For years, we've headed to San Miguel de Allende right after Christmas. It gives us the best of both worlds: the holiday at home with our extended family, then a larger one over New Year's with our chosen family in Mexico. A long dinner with friends on New Year's Eve, then the main square at midnight.

by Paul M. Rand, founder and editor of Nomadic Spirit

Destinations worth traveling for, and understanding once you arrive

Naples, Italy

The City in the Manger

At Christmas, Neapolitans build their own streets into the Nativity.

This week's Dispatch argued that the year-end holidays are a good time to arrive somewhere new. Naples may be one of the clearest examples.

In recent years, Naples has become one of Italy's most visited cities. It drew about 15 million visits in 2025, and last Christmas season, from December 19 to January 6, a record 1.8 million people came. Despite the crowds, the traditions make it a compelling draw. At Christmas, Neapolitans build their own city around the Nativity, and anyone can walk in and watch.

The Presepe

Presepe is the Italian word for a nativity scene. In most places that means Mary, Joseph, the baby, and a few animals. In Naples it means a whole town. There's a tavern full of customers, there are stalls of food, and there's a shepherd named Benino asleep on a hillside. Everyone is dressed like Neapolitans in the 1700s.

Many families set theirs up on December 8. The manger stays empty until Christmas Eve, when someone puts the baby in overnight.

Goethe came through in 1787 and wrote about presepi set up on the flat roofs, with Vesuvius behind them. If you want to see one of the great old ones, go up the hill to the Certosa di San Martino, a former monastery. The Cuciniello presepe there has about 800 pieces.

The Street of the Shepherds

When Neapolitans want new figures, they go to Via San Gregorio Armeno, a narrow street in the old center packed with workshops. The Ferrigno family has been at number 8 since 1836, and they still make the figures by hand, with terracotta faces, glass eyes and silk clothing.

New faces show up every year. When Diego Maradona died in 2020, you could buy a Maradona on the street within weeks.

Giovanni Giudice, a third-generation artisan at the Ferrigno workshop, told EWTN News last December: "Here, just walking these streets you return to being a child."

The Night Before Christmas Eve

On the night of December 23, the fish market at Porta Nolana stays open late, because Christmas Eve dinner in Naples is about fish. Capitone, a big eel, is the traditional choice. Vendors sing, and plenty of people come just to be there.

After dinner, many families play tombola. It's a lot like bingo, with the numbers 1 to 90, except that in Naples each number means something. The meanings come from the smorfia, an old dream book, and whoever calls the numbers is expected to tell a story to go with them. You'll also hear bagpipers, often down from the mountains of Abruzzo, playing outside the shops, and you'll see struffoli in the bakery windows. They're little balls of fried dough covered in honey.

Beyond the Manger

Stay a few extra days, because there's plenty more. The pizza is as good as you've heard (UNESCO even lists the craft of the Neapolitan pizza maker as part of the world's cultural heritage). Some cafés still do caffè sospeso, where you pay for a second espresso and leave it for someone who can't afford one.

The National Archaeological Museum has much of what was found at Pompeii. In the old center, the Cappella Sansevero has the Veiled Christ, a marble sculpture from 1753. The veil looks like cloth, but it was carved out of the same block as the rest of the figure. If you're in town on December 16, go by the cathedral. It's one of three days a year when people crowd in to see whether the blood of San Gennaro, the city's patron saint, turns to liquid.

Getting There

Naples is about 70 minutes from Rome by high-speed train, and the season runs from December 8 to Epiphany on January 6. San Gregorio Armeno gets so crowded in December that the city sometimes makes it one-way for pedestrians, so go early on a weekday. The tourism boom has also strained the city, which now has more than 10,000 Airbnb listings.

Before you go, look up Natale in casa Cupiello, a 1931 play by Eduardo De Filippo that Neapolitans still love at Christmas. Luca Cupiello spends the holiday fussing over his presepe while his family falls apart. He keeps asking his son if he likes it, and his son keeps saying no, until the last scene, when Luca is dying, and the son finally says yes.