Airfares to these gorgeous beach destinations are now a lot cheaper

(CNN) — In travel news this week: fat bears, hungry raccoons, an R-rated flight movie mishap and the best-value air travel destinations for Americans in the year ahead.

It’s also been a trying few weeks for the Southeastern United States. Here’s how to help survivors of Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene. 

Airfare price drops

Wallets need vacations, too. A new Travel Trends 2025 report by flight comparison site Skyscanner has revealed the destinations with the biggest airfare price drops from the United States over the past year.

Top of the list is the Mediterranean resort city of Nice, a much-loved playground for visitors to the French Riviera. Fares to the city fell by 27% in the first half of 2024, compared with the same period the year before.

If it’s Caribbean sunshine you’re after, then fares to Castries, St. Lucia (No. 2), and Bridgetown, Barbados (No. 3), have dropped by 25% and 24% respectively.

A year on from its devastating earthquake of 2023, Morocco has been rebuilding its tourism industry and welcoming visitors. Fares to its capital, Rabat, have dropped by 24%, meaning you’ll have more to spend when you get there.

Rounding out the top five is a US domestic destination: Fargo, North Dakota (-24%). Perhaps better known as the title of a hit movie and subsequent TV series than as a travel destination, it has an underrated arts scene, friendly locals and great craft beer and cider.

The animal kingdom

It’s been an action-packed month for our animal friends.

Alaska’s Fat Bear Week gripped the nation as usual. In an exciting and very personal rematch, a mother bear thrashed the final opponent that killed one of her cubs this past summer to retain the title for 2024.

A town in Argentina has been invaded by screeching parrots — watch here — and a woman in Washington state called 911 after her home was surrounded by more than 100 hungry raccoons.

In northern Thailand, about 100 rescued elephants escaped flash floods at a sanctuary, and a New York woman flew 18.5 hours to a zoo south of Bangkok to meet a celebrity hippo she says reminds her of Taylor Swift.

Finally, a lone koala was spotted roaming around a train platform in Sydney. This furry adventurer made it away from the station unscathed, but koalas are an endangered species in that part of the country. Safe travels, little pal.

It’s the journey, not the destination

Earlier this month, an American WWII bomb exploded at a Japanese airport, causing a large crater in a taxiway, and 184 airline passengers and crew were evacuated after a Boeing plane caught fire on a runway. And there were more disrupted journeys this week.

Flames were seen under a Frontier Airlines plane as it made a “hard landing” in Las Vegas on Sunday, and a computer issue with the shuttle train service caused “pandemonium” Monday morning at the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International.

Qantas Airways apologized after an explicit R-rated movie played on every screen during a recent Sydney-Tokyo flight, and two women say they were kicked off a Spirit Airlines flight just for wearing crop tops.

We can never guarantee a trip will go smoothly, but we can take a little sting out of travel setbacks by packing well. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this roundup of 17 frequent flyer essentials.

Taste of home

Bakers at a US Army base in South Korea have the secret recipe for Krispy Kreme doughnuts so troops can get an authentic taste of home.

When it comes to seeking home comfort foods abroad, there may be hard-wired reasons we crave the flavors we do. Here’s the science behind it.

In case you missed it

A teenager from Nepal became the youngest person to summit the world’s 14 highest peaks. 

But not one of those mountains is the closest point on Earth to the stars. Here’s where that is.

“Never a boring moment.”

That’s the takeaway from the couple who left Canada to live in former Soviet Central Asia.

She hit it off with the guy she met at the bar on vacation.

Then he sent her an unexpected text message.

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