Before we get into it, just know that ube has experienced a true explosion in popularity in the past year or so. According to food and beverage data firm Datassential, the number of U.S. menus that feature a dish with ube has grown by 231% over the past four years. Anyone who’s been in a restaurant or cafe lately knows there’s no sign the trend is slowing.

If you’re curious (and maybe a little hungry), read on. We’re covering what ube is, where you can find it and everything else you need to know about the intriguing food taking our country by storm.

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What is ube, exactly?

The uber-trendy veggie, pronounced “oo-beh,” is a purple yam (the name actually means “tuber” in Tagalog). While we sometimes use the terms yam and sweet potato interchangeably, an ube is not the same as a purple sweet potato. Purple sweet potatoes have been available in U.S. grocery stores for quite a while—they look and taste similar to regular orange sweet potatoes and are used most often in savory dishes.

Ube, on the other hand, looks more like taro, which is a root vegetable with dark, thick, rough skin (though it’s typically white on the inside, not purple). Like sweet potatoes, taro is primarily used in savory dishes. Of the three, ube is most often featured in sweets and desserts.

Where does ube come from?

Ube is native to the Philippines, where it’s been grown for literally thousands of years. So what is ube used for there? According to the folks at Organic Ube USA, a company that makes ube powder, the most traditional Filipino ube preparation is halayang ube, a sweet jam. But it’s also an ingredient in ice cream, cakes and bread rolls.

And it’s in high demand. The New York Times has reported that annual ube production in the Philippines has been around 14 million kilograms per year over the past two years. Not only does the country grow a lot of ube, but it’s also exporting more and more in recent years—more than 1.7 million kilograms of it in 2025, according to the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines. That’s a 20.4% increase from 2024. Nearly half of all that ube came here to the U.S., which is double the amount we imported the previous year.

What does ube taste like?

I’ve mentioned a few times that ube is most often used in desserts. That’s because it has a sweet, nutty flavor with hints of vanilla that lends itself beautifully to sweet recipes. Honestly, it’s delicious.

Is ube healthy?

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 100 grams of whole ube (which would be one small to medium yam) contains 120 calories, 1 gram of protein, 4 grams of fiber and 0 grams of sugar, plus some calcium, iron, vitamin C and vitamin A.

The deep purple color also means that it contains powerful antioxidants called anthocyanins, which have been shown to help lower blood pressure, reduce heart disease risk, protect brain function and even slow cancer growth, per the Cleveland Clinic.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that every food and product made with ube is healthy. If you’re enjoying an ube ice cream or cookie, for example, chances are that there’s some added sugar and/or processed carbohydrates in the recipe that are not the best for you, which is important to keep in mind if you’re trying to eat healthy.

Why is everyone so obsessed with ube these days?

There are a few reasons why people have become so obsessed with ube so quickly. The first is a very 2026 explanation: Everything made with ube has a deep, eye-catching purple hue, making it ideal for posting and sharing on social media. In fact, ube became popular on social media before it started popping up in bakeries, cafes and grocery stores.

Those brick-and-mortar shops are the next reason ube has become such a trend. I’ll mention some specifics later, but there are a few very popular national brands that carry ube products in their stores, making the food more available than it’s ever been.

Finally, while the flavor of ube isn’t quite like any other foods we have here in the U.S., it pairs beautifully with dishes we know and love, like ice cream, baked goods, boba tea and lattes. This combination of ordinary and unfamiliar just can’t be beat.

So just how obsessed are we? The Datassential survey above found that two years ago, only 4% of Americans knew what ube was. Now, 27% of people have heard of it. What’s more, only 2.6% of people had tried it two years ago. Today, that number has jumped to 13%, which means five times as many people are eating it now.

Where can you find foods and drinks with ube?

This is what you’ve been waiting for, right? Well, get ready for a sweet treat. Here’s where you can try some foods or drinks made with ube:

• Starbucks has an Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato and an Iced Ube Coconut Cream Shaken Espresso on its spring 2026 menu.
• Trader Joe’s makes a variety of ube products, including Ube Mochi Pancake & Waffle Mix, Ube Ice Cream and some others, depending on your Trader Joe’s location.
• Birch Benders, a brand that’s sold in most large supermarkets and online, makes an Ube Mochi Pancake & Waffle Mix (that also happens to be gluten-free).

Ube lattes are easy to make at home, and there are plenty of ube latte kits and powders online that you can purchase to try out. Likewise, you can buy ube extract or ube powder to flavor your homemade baked goods and other desserts. Your best chance of finding fresh ube in the U.S. is at a Filipino market or an Asian grocery store.

If there are any Filipino bakeries or restaurants in your area, consider yourself lucky. They’ve likely been selling tasty delights made with ube for longer than TikTok has been sending you videos of the trend. And don’t just order one item—you deserve to taste-test them all.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Datassential: “What Is Ube and Why Is It So Popular?”
• CNN: “Ube is enjoying a purple reign in the US. That’s causing problems in the Philippines”
• Organic Ube USA: “The Fascinating History of Ube in Filipino Cuisine and Its US Popularity”
• New York Times: “The World Wants More Ube. Philippine Farmers Are Struggling to Keep Up.”
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration: “Pamana, Whole Purple Yam”
• Cleveland Clinic: “4 Health Benefits of Anthocyanins”

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And yet … here we are anyway, completely hooked. We use AI to write our emails, name our dogs, plan our vacations and settle insane arguments with our husbands about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. (It is, Jonas—I don’t care what ChatGPT says!) It’s the defining love-hate relationship of our era: We are equal parts dazzled and unsettled, grateful and deeply suspicious. So we do what humans have always done when confronted with something too big and weird to fully process—we make jokes about it. But at least a human is writing those jokes … on this site, at least!

These AI jokes, puns and one-liners are our tribute to the robots who will soon be our overlords. Consider this your collection of the best jokes about AI, gathered while we still have the upper hand on comedy. (Again, and I can’t stress this enough: for now.)

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Funniest AI jokes

• How does a chatbot cross the street in New York City?
  It says, “A-I’m walking here!”
• Why did the AI go to the gym?
  To work on its core model.
• Why did ChatGPT get into real estate?
  It was great at generating listings.
• What’s AI’s favorite sweet treat?
  Cookies.
• What was the AI drummer’s favorite beat?
  An algo-rhythm.
• How does AI pay for groceries?
  In cache!
• Why did the chatbot go on a diet?
  Too many bytes.
• What’s AI’s favorite weather?
  Cloudy.
• What did the chatbot say to the router?
  “I feel like we have a real connection.”
• What do you call artificial intelligence that’s also a plumber?
  A pipeline model.
• What’s AI’s favorite sports team?
  The Rams.

AI dad jokes

• What do you call a chatbot pirate?
  Arrr-tificial Intelligence.
• What did ChatGPT say to the Terminator?
  “AI’ll be back.”
• What type of coffee does AI prefer?
  Java.
• What is AI’s zodiac sign?
  Gemini.
• Why did the AI tool go into the cave?
  To do some data mining.
• What’s AI’s favorite type of entertainer?
  A data mime.
• What do you call AI that does your taxes?
  Arti-fiscal intelligence.
• What’s an AI baby’s favorite drink?
  Anything in a Chatbottle.
• How does AI go to the bathroom?
  Install.
• What’s AI’s favorite way to work out?
  Circuit training.
• Why did the AI become a fisherman?
  It was great at trawling the net.
• Me: “Did you know Old McDonald’s farm has been taken over by ChatGPT?”
  You: AI?
  Me: AI.
  You: Oh.

Dark AI jokes

• What does AI think is a joke?
  Humans.
• Why did the AI send flowers?
  It processed your medical records and wanted to get ahead of things.
• What do you call it when AI takes your job?
  Tuesday.
• What’s the difference between AI and a cult?
  One promises to change your life, knows everything about you, asks for your complete trust and slowly replaces your relationships. The other has a compound.
• What’s AI’s favorite movie?
  ChatGPTerminator.
• Why did the AI get into politics?
  It was great at generating empty promises.
• Why did the cat hate AI?
  It was de-Claude.
• What’s the difference between your AI and your boss?
  Your AI already knows it’s replacing you.
• Why did the robot go to therapy?
  Unresolved issues with its motherboard.
• Why don’t robots cry at funerals?
  They already knew.
• What did the AI name its firstborn?
  Version 2.0.

Relatable AI one-liners

• AI will never replace humans because someone has to feel guilty about using it.
• My relationship with AI is the most consistent one in my life, and I’m having ChatGPT unpack that for me right now.
• AI promised to make my life easier, and now I spend 45 minutes crafting the perfect prompt to avoid a task that would’ve taken me 10.
• AI remembered something I said three months ago, and I have never felt so seen or so surveilled.
• I use AI to write my emails, but I still have to actually send them, and that’s the hard part.
• I asked AI for life advice, and it gave me a better answer than I got from my dad, my therapist and my horoscope combined.
• AI keeps hallucinating, and honestly, same.
• The first time AI got something wrong, I was relieved—we’re not so different after all.
• Using AI to help me be more productive is the most human thing I’ve ever done because I immediately used the extra time to scroll my phone.
• My AI keeps finishing my sentences—we’re really starting to find our algo-rhythm.
• I asked my AI to be spontaneous; it said it needed a prompt for that.

AI puns

• AI is my Co-Pilot.
• No more Mr. Geminice guy!
• AI caramba!
• AI-witness News.
• Ctrl-AI-Delete.
• Ro-bot-tom line.
• Byte me.
• A chat-astrophic failure!
• Byte of passage.
• Chip on your shoulder.
• Sync or swim.
• Cache me if you can!
• Bot to trot.
• Short-circuit city.
• Chat’s all folks!

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. For this story on AI jokes and puns, Laura Beck tapped her 15-plus years of experience as a professional humor writer for TV shows and magazines. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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Why stop there? I thought, planning a week-long trip to Florida tailored to my oh-so-specific interests: mermaids, carnivals and circuses. The trip was a joy. Not only did I don a tail and plunge into the depths of a crystal-clear spring, I also nerded out at the Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota and ate a Cubano sandwich at the Showmen’s Bar in Gibsonton, where carnival folk wintered in the mid-20th century. I never felt rushed or stressed by a bored companion, and I met some great people as I swiftly checked things off my bucket list and fulfilled a magical childhood dream.

Solo travel seems to be a rite of passage these days, and it is quickly gaining in popularity as stigmas surrounding it melt away. Google searches for solo travel doubled from 2018 to 2023. Social media exposes us to more places than ever before, and the freedom of doing what you want—not waiting on friends with different schedules and finances, or a spouse with other interests—as well as the desire for self-reflection and growth, has become irresistible.

Gen Z is known for solo travel, and now older generations are getting turned on to the idea. But not every age group approaches solo travel the same way. Ahead, I talked to clinical therapist Michele LaFemina, who has decades of experience supporting clients of multiple generations, to get the lowdown on why travel choices can be so generationally specific, and I also checked in with three travel experts to suggest great destinations for each group.

Read on to discover some fantastic solo-travel vacation ideas.

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Why does your generation matter when it comes to choosing a solo trip?

Every generation is shaped by the era they grew up in. The technology, the predominant cultural values—plus your current age, financial status and physical ability—leave a lasting imprint on how you view independence, leisure and personal freedom. (The Silent Generation, now in their 80s and 90s, will certainly approach solo travel differently than the teens and twentysomethings of Gen Z!)

“If someone was raised in a time and in an environment that valued sacrifice, routine and family responsibility, they see leisure as something they need to earn and that needs to be structured,” LaFemina says. (Think: a guided educational tour.) On the other hand, someone raised in a more individualistic culture might see leisure as a form of self-expression, choosing to book a wellness retreat or Insta-worthy bucket-list experience.

Life experiences matter too: Silents and Baby Boomers may be rediscovering themselves after the loss of a long-term spouse, while Gen Zers might want to meet new people (or find partners of their own). Midlife Millennials and Gen X, sandwiched between children, eldercare and a rapidly changing corporate world, often opt for solo travel as a means of self-care and escape. Younger Millennials and Gen Z, who tend to be motivated by self-discovery and social connection, may solo travel to satisfy their desire for spontaneity, digital nomadism and adventure.

Of course, reasons for traveling solo can transcend generational assumptions. “People base their travels not only on budget or age, but on what independence means to them,” LaFemina says. “For some, it’s exciting; for others, unsafe.” Technology has transformed who can realistically travel solo as well. Navigation apps, real-time translation tools, AI trip planners and online booking platforms have made independent travel dramatically more accessible—particularly for younger generations who grew up digital-first.

What is the ideal type of solo trip for each generation?

Every generation brings its own set of needs, fears and travel goals to the table. Here are our choices for the perfect solo excursion for each generation, from top travel experts.

Silent Generation (born 1925–1945): Guided journeys

The Silent Generation came of age in an era of collective obligation, when community, duty and group harmony took precedence over individual desire. Solo travel as we think of it today—spontaneous, self-directed, unstructured—wasn’t exactly the norm for them. But that doesn’t mean Silents aren’t interested in going solo; they just go about it a little differently.

“Travelers in this generation often prioritize comfort, safety and enriching cultural or historical experiences with minimal logistical stress,” says John William, a travel advisor with Easy Travel & Tours in Tanzania. “They prefer escorted tours or cruises, where the logistical safety of a group is provided, but they can still enjoy their own space.”

For Silents, it’s the best of both worlds: the reassurance of a group and a plan, with the space to enjoy their own company along the way. “They don’t see this as losing or lacking independence,” LaFemina says. “It just feels more comfortable when it’s within a reliable structure.”

Key needs for this generation include accessibility, 24/7 support and easy transportation. Health considerations may also factor into planning; things like travel insurance, proximity to medical facilities and accessibility of destinations and accommodations are worth researching carefully. The solo travel industry has become far more attuned to these needs lately, with many operators offering single-supplement-free group tours designed exactly for this traveler.

Trip idea: Danube River cruise (Vienna to Budapest)

A river cruise through Central Europe is an ideal solo trip for a Silent Generation traveler. The “hotel on the water” format means logistics such as transportation, accommodations and meals are entirely handled, and you’re never navigating alone. The Danube route through Vienna and Budapest offers a wealth of history, architecture and classical culture that resonates deeply with this generation’s intellectual sensibilities.

Small-group shore excursions to historic sites, classical music performances and guided city walks bring the destination to life without the overwhelm of independent navigation. The social-dining format means you’ll never eat alone unless you want to. Look for river cruise operators that offer single cabins or room-share matching to avoid a single supplement.

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Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964): Purposeful adventures

Boomers have long been associated with a significant shift toward individualism. Often called the “me generation,” many are retired or approaching retirement, and their lifelong orientation toward self-expression has finally met up with the time and resources to act on it.

With their newfound free time, many Boomers are “eager to pursue interests they may have postponed during their careers,” says Christian Petzold, a travel and tourism expert at TheTeamTrip. They’re purposeful travelers—not just looking to relax, but to reconnect with themselves, explore a dream destination or finally take the trip they’ve been planning for decades.

Travel expert and wildlife photographer Johan Siggesson describes the Boomer solo traveler through a concept he calls “adventure, refined.” According to his research, 77% prioritize comfort and tend to choose single, easy-to-navigate destinations. They want the thrill of new experiences with a premium safety net underneath. He also says that Boomers are embracing the “hushpitality” trend: quiet luxury travel that prioritizes silence and intentional stillness—early nights, long reads, nature walks and proper rest. After decades of go-go-go, the luxury of doing nothing in a beautiful way brings plenty of fulfillment.

LaFemina says Boomers, like Silents, are often retired, widowed or no longer in a caregiving role, and while they value independence, it isn’t the main driver: “They want comfort, predictability and meaning, and they find it in guided tours, train journeys or going back to a place that meant something to them when they were young.” Built-in socialization opportunities hold appeal, so look for small-group itineraries that balance structured activities with genuine free time. Single-supplement-free options are increasingly available and worth seeking out.

Trip idea: Culinary exploration of Tuscany

For the Boomer who wants depth over breadth, a culinary journey through Tuscany delivers on every level. Farm-to-table cooking classes, vineyard visits, olive oil tastings and guided walks through medieval hill towns like San Gimignano and Montalcino combine comfort with genuine cultural immersion.

This kind of trip is well-served by small-group operators who cater specifically to independent travelers—offering the social benefit of a group (built-in dinner companions, shared discoveries) without the herded-tourist feel. Accommodations in restored farmhouses or boutique hotels add to the sense of earned luxury.

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Generation X (born 1965–1979): Self-reliant exploring

Gen X practically invented solo travel—before it even had a name. The original latchkey generation, they often came home to empty houses, navigated their own schedules and figured things out without much adult help. This independence followed them into adulthood and also influenced how they travel.

“Generation X was raised to be self-reliant, and they weren’t dependent on digital tools,” says LaFemina. “A lot of them are still comfortable figuring things out on their own, so they are confident solo travelers.” Gen Xers tend to be independent, resourceful, quietly adventurous—and less likely to document every moment and post it all online. “They protect their trip as private,” she says.

Siggesson describes Gen X solo travelers as willing to take risks in remote or unfamiliar destinations, but expecting comfortable, well-researched, secure accommodation when they get there. They do their homework and don’t need hand-holding. He says they’re also driving a notable rise in ancestry travel: trips organized around tracing family roots, exploring heritage sites and connecting with the places their families came from.

“When traveling solo, they seek to balance relaxation with immersive cultural experiences,” says William. Gen X is also increasingly entering the solo travel market as their children grow up and leave home—using travel as both a personal reset and a rediscovery of who they are outside of parenthood.

Trip idea: Scotland ancestry and heritage tour

For the Gen X traveler who wants depth, authenticity and a little adventure (with a luxurious landing pad at the end of the day), a curated heritage tour through Scotland hits every note. Genealogy research, visits to ancestral clan lands, whisky distillery tours and dramatic Highland landscapes offer the kind of immersive, meaningful experience this generation craves.

Siggesson recommends a guided but high-end approach—staying in boutique castle hotels or converted manor houses, working with specialists who can help trace family history (before or during the trip) and building in unstructured time to wander. Scotland’s infrastructure makes independent day trips easy, so the trip can flex between guided discovery and true solo exploration, depending on their mood.

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Millennials (born 1980–1994): Intentional experiences

Millennials famously delayed the traditional markers of adulthood like marriage, homeownership and children, and in that gap, many of them traveled. Solo travel became a form of self-discovery, a way of building identity outside of institutional structures and, increasingly, a form of self-care.

LaFemina says that for Millennials, travel is a chance to develop, reset and mark certain milestones, and that many travel solo specifically to recover from burnout: “They aren’t escaping by traveling, they are recalibrating,” she says.

Siggesson identifies what he calls “wellth” travel among Millennials: the intersection of wellness and wealth, where a trip isn’t just a vacation but a cognitive refresh. His data shows that 69% of Millennial solo travelers prioritize a genuine mental reset, gravitating toward quieter or more contemplative locations rather than high-stimulation tourist destinations. There’s also a growing appetite for skill-based travel: cooking classes in Italy, pottery workshops in Japan, language immersion programs, creative retreats.

William says “51% of Millennials travel solo often, frequently seeking community travel like a small curated group trip where they can meet like-minded strangers.” It’s a distinctly Millennial paradox: deeply independent, but craving connection. The ideal trip gives them both.

Trip idea: Slow travel in the Japanese countryside

Japan’s countryside—particularly the Satoyama landscapes of Nagano, the ancient post towns of the Nakasendo trail or the temple-dotted hills of Yamaguchi prefecture—offers everything a Millennial solo traveler is looking for: genuine cultural depth, exquisite food, opportunities for hands-on learning and a pace that actually allows for decompression.

Siggesson recommends a two-week slow-travel itinerary built around a stay at a boutique ryokan (traditional Japanese inn), a culinary-skills workshop (think knife-making, ramen technique or traditional kaiseki cooking) and a nature-immersion element such as forest bathing or a mountain pilgrimage trail. Japan’s exceptional public transit makes it easy to move around independently, and the country’s famous safety and navigability make it a natural fit for Millennials who want their first solo trip to feel like an adventure, not an ordeal.

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Gen Z (born 1995–2012): Connected escape

Gen Z may be the generation most associated with solo travel right now, and for good reason. They’re most likely to have traveled solo on their last trip, and since they grew up watching other people travel solo online, it’s a perfectly normal option that lets them show they are adults in control.

But according to a consumer study by Albert, the personal finance app, 44% of Gen Z say a group-trip text is the scariest message they can receive. The numbers explain why: 61% say friends push them beyond their budget on group trips, and 46% say social spending actively derails their finances. When the group chat breeds budget anxiety, going solo looks a lot more appealing.

But they’re more complicated than their reputation suggests. Gen Z has continued what researchers call the “slow life strategy”—taking longer to reach traditional independence milestones, and in many ways presenting as less risk-hungry than their reputation implies. Many are navigating early adulthood with more anxiety, not less (remember they spent two formative years in pandemic lockdowns). What looks like fearless solo travel is often more nuanced: They want freedom, but they want it with a framework.

That tracks with Siggesson’s data, which finds that 65% of Gen Z see solo travel not as escape from others, but as a way to connect with them—using apps to meet fellow travelers, booking co-living hostels and joining community-focused group experiences. And 71% actively seek non-traditional destinations to avoid over-tourism—they want the experience without the crowd, and they definitely don’t want to post the same photo everyone else is taking.

Trip idea: Seoul, South Korea

Seoul is having a major moment, and Gen Z is largely responsible for it. The city’s K-beauty scene, street food culture, dynamic neighborhoods (Hongdae, Insadong, Bukchon Hanok Village) and thriving social-hostel network make it close to a perfect Gen Z solo destination. Siggesson points to the rising “Glowmads” trend, aka travel centered around skin-care routines, beauty treatments and wellness rituals: 53% of Gen Z travelers are planning trips organized around this trend.

He recommends a 10-day itinerary designed around K-beauty discovery (sheet mask workshops, visits to the beauty district of Myeongdong, skin-care consultations), local cuisine deep-dives (from street tteokbokki to Michelin-starred Korean BBQ) and a co-living hostel base that builds in natural social connection. Seoul’s exceptional public transit is nearly free with a T-money card, making independent exploration affordable and easy (use the Naver app in South Korea instead of Google Maps, which is limited in the country). Budget optimization via AI travel tools makes this trip more accessible than it might look.

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What should you keep in mind about solo travel, regardless of your generation?

Whatever your birth year, a few fundamentals apply across the board when traveling solo:

• Prioritize safety first, always: Safety is the primary concern for 61% of solo travelers across all age groups. Research your destination’s safety profile, register with the U.S. State Department’s STEP program for international travel, share your itinerary with someone at home and trust your instincts.
• Watch out for the single supplement: The solo travel industry is slowly changing, but many hotels and tour operators still charge solo travelers a premium for occupying a room alone. Look for operators that waive the single supplement, offer room-share matching or price solo travel equitably from the start.
• Build in flexibility, but not too much: The freedom to follow your own schedule is the whole point of solo travel. But a completely unstructured trip can feel overwhelming, especially for first-timers. A loose framework of two or three anchor experiences per day, with room to wander, tends to work well.
• Consider your time zone: Big time zone changes can feel more disorienting when you’re alone and don’t have a travel companion to lean on. For a first solo trip, a destination within one or two time zones of home can make the adjustment much gentler.
• Use technology wisely: Navigation apps, translation tools, currency converters and community travel platforms can dramatically enhance a solo trip. Just don’t let your phone become a barrier between you and the actual experience.
• Embrace eating alone: It’s the thing most solo travelers dread and most end up loving. Sit at the bar. Bring a book. Talk to the person next to you—or don’t. Solo dining is one of the quiet pleasures of traveling alone.
• Book the good room: Solo travel is already a generous act of self-care. Don’t undercut it by defaulting to the cheapest option out of guilt. You’re worth the upgrade, so give yourself permission!

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Michele LaFemina, LPC, clinical director at Pathways Recovery; email interview, March 2026
• Christian Petzold, travel industry expert at TheTeamTrip; email interview, March 2026
• Johan Siggesson, wildlife photographer and travel expert; email interview, March 2026
• John William, travel advisor at Easy Travel & Tours Ltd.; email interview, March 2026
• PR Newswire: “Albert Consumer Study on Gen Z Travel and Social Spending”
• American Express: “2024 Global Travel Trends Report”
• Atlys: “Solo Travel Statistics: Insights, Top Destinations & Apps”
• Grand View Research: “Solo Travel Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2025–2034”
• Solo Traveler World: “Solo Travel Statistics, Data 2024 – 2025”
• Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge

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And while savvy travelers know to set their phone to airplane mode once on board and that even automatic gratuities can be lowered if you ask, there’s another fee that may be even harder to avoid. Believe it or not, it’s actually all spelled out right there, in the fine print of your cruise contract—you just never noticed it!

Read on to learn more about the potential fee, how much you may be on the hook for and if it could affect your next vacation.

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Why are cruise lines charging a new surprise fee?

You’re not the only one feeling the pain when you head to the pump. Thanks to the war in Iran, oil prices have spiked, and that affects cruise ships too.

To protect their bottom line, cruise lines include language in the fine print of their contracts that gives them the right to add a fuel surcharge if the price of oil hits a certain trigger point. This add-on isn’t new—the stipulation has been in many cruise contracts for years—but it’s gaining attention now as the price of crude has already surpassed many cruise lines’ trigger points. (At the time of publication, Western Texas Intermediate crude was more than $95 per barrel.)

How much could you get hit with?

Different cruise lines reserve the right to charge different fees. Here are the potential fees for U.S.-based lines, along with the threshold for instituting the fee:

• Carnival: $9 per person, per day; $70 barrel threshold
• Celebrity: $10 per person, per day; $65 barrel threshold
• MSC Cruises: $12 per person, per day; $65 barrel threshold
• Norwegian Cruise Line: $10 per person, per day; $65 barrel threshold
• Royal Caribbean: $12 per person, per day; $65 barrel threshold
• Disney Cruise Line: Doesn’t specify, but Disney does state in its contract that a fuel supplement may be charged

Note that these fees are per person, per day. That means a family of four on a seven-night cruise might see an additional $336 tacked on to their final cruise bill. Ouch!

Which cruise lines are guilty of this?

While nearly all U.S. cruise lines have a fuel surcharge built into their contracts, the good news is that none have implemented the fee since the war started. (The one exception here at home is Margaritaville at Sea, which has a trigger point of $40 per barrel and has charged a $15 per person, per night additional fuel fee since June 2024 on its Paradise ship.)

Representatives for Norwegian and Carnival told MarketWatch that there are no current plans to start charging additional fuel surcharges, but that doesn’t mean cruise lines have ruled out hiking their overall rates as a result of higher fuel prices.

It’s a different story in Asia, where StarCruises and Dream Cruises added a $25 and $12 per day, per guest, fuel fee, respectively, in March.

Is there anything you can do to avoid this?

While there’s no way to opt out of the fee, cruise lines that hedge their oil supplies (meaning they lock in a lower rate in advance for future fuel needs) may be less likely to implement a fuel surcharge. According to Cruise Radio, two lines that are known to hedge are Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. On the other hand, Carnival does not, making it riskier that the line will add a surcharge on future sailings.

Another potential way to avoid fees is to pay in full as early as you can. It may not make a difference, since cruise lines can add the surcharge at any time before your sailing, but it’s possible that you may get grandfathered in.

You’ll also want to read your cruise contract before signing it—yep, even the fine print. Scan it for phrases like “fuel supplement,” and take note of the fees. Even if there’s no way to avoid paying it, knowing in advance how much you should have in your contingency budget always helps. That way, you can pick up that cute souvenir or splurge on that glass of fancy champagne without stressing about your own bottom line.

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Cruise Radio: “Two Cruise Lines Already Charging $25 a Day in Fuel Fees. Will Others Follow?”
• Eye of the Flyer: “Alert: Rising Oil Prices Could Add Hundreds to Your Cruise Bill — Even if Paid in Full”
• MarketWatch: “Could cruise passengers soon be hit with a fuel surcharge?”
• NCL: Guest Ticket Contract
• Royal Caribbean: Cruise Ticket Contract
• Disney Cruise Line: Cruise Contract

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Now, that expectation seems to be sliding. Messages are faster, looser and a lot messier. Lowercase letters slip in. Autocorrect goes unchecked. Terminal punctuation is left off. And instead of standing out, these imperfections often blend right in.

In some cases, they even send a message of their own.

So when I started seeing typos framed as a good thing—somehow signaling status or authenticity—I was horrified, and I had questions. Are people really embracing messy writing? Or are we just getting used to it?

To understand what’s driving the shift, I spoke to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, and Amy Gallo, a workplace communications expert and Harvard Business Review contributor. Read on to find out whether you should be leaning into the typo trend or quietly fixing those mistakes before anyone notices.

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What’s with all the typos?

The rise in typos isn’t about people suddenly forgetting how to spell or how to use an apostrophe. It’s about what writing signals now—and how those signals have changed in an AI-saturated, always-on world.

At the same time, workplace norms themselves are evolving. “For sure, we’re seeing a shift,” Gallo says. “Over the course of my career, I’ve gone from swearing I’d never include an emoji or an exclamation point in my emails to casually texting with colleagues and even clients, often without any punctuation.”

Here are some of the reasons for the apparent surge in typos.

Typos can signal status

In some contexts, typos suggest something counterintuitive: importance.

Fogarty hadn’t initially thought of typos this way, but she sees the logic. “It does make sense,” she says, noting that careful writing traditionally signals effort—and effort signals respect.

“If you are so important that you don’t have to spend time making your message clear and simple, it shows that you have status, that you don’t need to value your reader’s time,” she explains. “They should be recognizing that you are so important, you don’t even have time to get it right for them.”

Gallo has seen the dynamic play out in real workplaces. “If they are generally well regarded, people interpret their typos as a sign that they are too busy to double-check what they’ve written,” she says of senior leaders. “We might imagine them rushing between meetings or answering swiftly during a hectic travel day.”

Of course, this works only if the reader already assumes you’re credible. Otherwise, a typo is just … a typo.

Errors make writing feel more human in the age of AI

Perfect writing used to be the goal. Now, it can raise suspicion.

Since AI-generated text is typically polished and error-free, “adding a typo or a mistake is a low-level way of making your writing look like a real person is behind the message,” says Fogarty.

Gallo has noticed the same shift in perception. “When people suspect that their colleague has used AI to write an email (and a telltale sign is often a lack of typos or other grammatical mistakes!), they think less of them—we often think they’re lazy, for example.”

That said, Fogarty doesn’t recommend faking mistakes to seem real. “Adding your own voice [and] mixing up your style are all better ways to make your writing sound human,” she says.

Voice-to-text is quietly changing how we write

Not all typos are intentional. Some are just the result of how we communicate now.

“I’ve seen a big increase in people using voice-to-text,” Fogarty says. When messages are dictated, rushed and sent on the go, small errors slip in—and increasingly, no one is surprised when they do.

Casual communication has lowered the bar

Workplace communication isn’t what it used to be. Slack messages, quick emails and text-like exchanges have replaced more formal writing.

Perfect grammar “is definitely more important in your client communications than it is in an internal Slack message,” Fogarty notes.

Gallo agrees that expectations vary widely by platform. “How I write an email versus a Slack message versus a text is very different,” she says. “With platforms like Slack, Teams, text and WhatsApp, there are unspoken rules that you’re allowed to be more informal and not worry as much about mistakes.”

In fact, being overly polished in casual channels can give off the wrong vibe. As Gallo puts it, “formality in those platforms can often backfire and make you seem awkward.”

You just don’t care

Sometimes, the explanation is straightforward: People aren’t prioritizing proofreading.

With constant notifications, packed schedules and an expectation of quick replies, many messages are sent as soon as they’re written. The goal is to respond, not refine.

And in some cases, that trade-off is intentional. Gallo points to one colleague who regularly sends imperfect emails without consequence. “I don’t think twice about it because I know how productive and efficient she is. I just assume that she’s moving fast and not rereading messages before she presses send.”

Is it rude to send typo-ridden messages?

It depends. The acceptability of typos still hinges on context and audience.

Gallo emphasized that relationships matter: “We tend to think of people who send emails with typos as less conscientious and trustworthy,” she says. But that judgment softens with familiarity. “It’s likely, given affinity bias, that we are more forgiving of mistakes made by people we know well.”

When to let the typos slide

Typos are generally fine in low-stakes, informal communication: quick updates, internal chats or casual emails where clarity isn’t affected. “Nobody is perfect, so nobody is going to think less of you because you have a typo here and there,” Fogarty says.

But if you’re thinking about adding mistakes on purpose to seem relatable or “more human,” don’t do it. “Most people are going to notice a blatant typo,” she says. “If you’re putting it in so that it stands out, to show that you are not AI, it’s still standing out in a negative way.”

When to clean up those typos, stat

In high-stakes situations, typos still matter—a lot. Think: job applications, client communications, formal reports or anything tied to your credibility. (I’ll admit, when I was a hiring manager, I automatically rejected any resume with a typo.)

“The most important thing is to consider your audience: What are their expectations? Is this someone who will judge me for typos? Then I’ll take the time to review,” says Gallo.

That calculus matters more when the stakes are uneven, she points out. It’s riskier to include typos in messages to people you don’t know well or to those with more power, because they may see them as a sign of disrespect.

Research shows that people from underestimated groups (for example, women and people of color) are judged more harshly for mistakes. “So it may be riskier for people in those groups not to double-check their messages for typos and grammatical mistakes,” Gallo adds.

That’s why the basics still matter. As Fogarty puts it, “writing well and carefully shows respect for your audience.”

When that effort is missing, she says, people notice—especially in high-stakes settings, like a corporate message that should have gone through multiple rounds of editing. “That’s when you think, Wow, this company doesn’t care about the details,” she says.

Should you hop aboard the typo train?

This is a train I won’t be boarding (no surprise). Typos may be more acceptable, but they’re not meaningless.

The real shift isn’t about mistakes; it’s about what counts as good writing. “Mechanically correct writing is no longer a sign that you’ve spent a lot of time and care on your work,” Fogarty says, noting that strong writing comes down to “word choice, the style, the rhythm and pacing.”

In other words, correctness isn’t everything—but it still counts.

The smartest move is to adjust to context. A quick Slack message? Don’t stress about every comma. A client email or job application? Proofread like it matters—because it does.

Typos aren’t just errors anymore. They’re signals. And whether you intend them or not, people are still reading between the lines.

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• Here’s the Punctuation Mark Gen Z Wants You to Stop Using—And It’s Not What You Think

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Mignon Fogarty, creator and host of the Grammar Girl podcast, and author of The Grammar Daily; phone interview, April 21, 2026
• Amy Gallo, workplace expert, Harvard Business Review contributor and author of Getting Along; email interview, April 22, 2026

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I initially had the urge to duck under my desk. (Sorry, Jenna! It wasn’t you; it was me.) But Jenna’s enthusiasm and kindness quickly won me over. And before I knew it, we’d gone from virtual strangers to online besties. Despite the distance and time zones between us, we checked in regularly. Our conversations evolved from providing coursework feedback and sharing industry contacts to swapping stories about our families and divulging our deepest secrets.

That was almost 10 years ago, and against all odds, Jenna and I are still great friends. In fact, I’d count her among my best friends—despite never meeting in person. She’s often one of the first people I share good or bad news with, and she knows more about me than most others in my life.

I realize we may not be the norm. A recent report from the Survey Center on American Life revealed that Americans spend more than 10 hours per day on the internet, yet only 8% report making a close friend online. But we are proof that it’s possible and worth exploring, especially when we’re living in what researchers have dubbed “the friendship recession.”

“Most of us are lonely, and most of us need more relationships,” says Shasta Nelson, a friendship expert focused on the science of connection and the chief friendship officer for the U.S. Chamber of Connection. “Being able to add some that are long-distance or online is such a great opportunity for us to share different parts of ourselves and have a different relational experience.”

Read on for some of the benefits of online friendships and tips on how to find—and keep—your own.

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Why can online friendships work so well?

Online friendships can work well because they often stem from a shared interest or identity, and unlike in-person friendships, they aren’t limited by location. “We are gravitating to people with whom we have a shared identity or something where we feel this person just gets us,” Nelson says.

Because Jenna and I met through a career-related course, we already had a lot in common. Facing similar challenges and triumphs in our industry, we have an understanding that other people in our lives may not, and we’ve strengthened our connection as we’ve brainstormed, vented and cheered each other on.

And scheduling meetups is never a hindrance … because we never meet up! “These relationships work really well because they’re asynchronous, which means we can engage with each other when it works for us timing-wise,” Nelson says. “We don’t have to schedule time together, which means that we don’t have to work on the planning and the driving and getting the babysitter and figuring out where we’re meeting. So we have this opportunity to interact more often.”

I talk to my online bestie far more frequently than I talk to friends who live down the street. Jenna and I go through phases: For a while, we’ll chat online every day; other times, we might go a couple of weeks between replies. But it doesn’t change our relationship—it’s always “to be continued” with us.

This is especially important for people like me who are often living or traveling abroad in other time zones. “Our lives don’t get in the way of our relationships that are online,” Nelson says. “Somebody can have another baby, they can move, life can happen. And yet, as long as they’re still on their computer or on their phone, they’re still able to interact.”

Something else that makes online friendships appealing? They can feel less daunting to start and end, if it comes to that. “It’s easier to say goodbye online versus a contentious or awkward in-person conversation,” explains therapist Alyssa Mairanz, the owner and executive director of Empower Your Mind Therapy.

Can they be just as beneficial as in-person friendships?

It depends on your situation and how you participate online. “Some studies indicate online friendships are less effective at curing loneliness than face-to-face connections,” Mairanz says. “A lack of physicality can be a hindrance to creating a strong emotional bond.”

Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist and the New York Times bestselling author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends, echoed this point. “There’s that instrumental part of friendship where someone’s helping us out in person, like picking us up from the airport or accompanying us to a doctor’s appointment, that online friendships can’t do. But,” she adds, “that’s not to say online friendships can’t benefit us and be quite powerful.”

For some people, such as digital nomads, those with disabilities or social anxiety, caregivers (who have limited time to socialize in person) or members of a marginalized group, online friendships can facilitate connections that might not otherwise be possible. The key is in how we approach our relationships and interact online. “Research finds that heavy social media users are either the most or the least lonely people, depending on whether that social media use facilitates or gets in the way of in-person connections,” Franco says.

Research has shown that when you use social media to reach out in meaningful ways, it can be beneficial. “Using the online world as a tool to build connections can be really helpful, as long as we’re not using the online world to be a spectator in our connections. If you use social media passively to just sort of scroll, scroll, scroll, that’s actually leading to more loneliness and poor mental health,” she says. “We still need to engage and interact.”

You may even find yourself sharing more with your online friends. “Some people feel safer to discuss intimate or private concerns, which can create stronger bonds online versus in person,” Mairanz says.

I’ve also found that the lack of social overlap in my and Jenna’s day-to-day lives has made it easier to divulge personal details without worrying that something will get back to the people in my network. “There’s a lot more self-disclosure often happening in our long-distance or online relationships,” Nelson says.

How do you find friends online and develop a solid friendship?

Finding and keeping online friendships requires some effort, as any worthwhile relationship would! Consider where the type of friends you’re looking for might be online, then don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Here’s how to get started—and keep things going.

Find common ground

Go where you love to hang out online, Nelson says. “Follow the passions, interests and parts of your identity that feel meaningful,” she suggests.

This might be a social media group or an online class on a topic you’re interested in. “In that space, look for the people who leave you feeling seen, accepted, inspired, hopeful or whatever that positive word is that you want,” Nelson says. “We’re going to gravitate to the people who we feel are taking the time to share who they are and receive who we are, and leave us both feeling good.”

Go on, engage

Once you’ve found a place online to hang out and have noticed some people you’d like to get to know better, message them. “Tell them what you like about them,” Nelson says. “Create that one-on-one opportunity to interact.”

I can’t take the credit for making the first move in my online friendship. That was all Jenna!

If the feelings are mutual and a friendship starts to blossom, nurture it. “Prioritize regular communication once developing the friendship,” Mairanz says. Jenna and I have kept our relationship going by regularly chatting; sharing challenges, wins, laughs and job opportunities; and supporting each other through trying times. Because we’ve been so consistent, if one of us does go quiet for a longer-than-usual period of time, we always check to see if the other person is OK or needs support.

Be vulnerable and consistent

A deeper relationship requires deeper interactions. “Make sure you are honest and open,” Mairanz says. “Vulnerability strengthens interpersonal relationships.”

Nelson agrees. “Our relationships are made up of good feelings, like feeling supported, inspired, accepted and loved,” she explains. “They’re also made up of a sense of consistency, like time together, reliability, a sense that we have each other, that we’re building history. And then that third category, vulnerability, is where we feel seen, known and understood. So those three things can happen in person, and they can happen online.”

Express appreciation

Don’t forget to tell your online friends what they mean to you, especially if you can’t show your gratitude in person. “When we look into the research on establishing friendships with folks that are online, it’s the same criteria of friendships in person, such that sharing affection leads to a closer connection,” Franco says. “So telling your online friend how much they mean to you—that contributes to depth in a friendship.”

Are there any downsides to these friendships?

Studies have shown that in-person interactions and physical connection can trigger dopamine, reduce stress, improve mental health and possibly even boost our immune system. The research says digital-only friendships may not offer the same benefits. And if we aren’t practicing in-person social skills, we can get rusty (though balancing online and in-person relationships can keep your social skills sharp).

Another challenge is that we can’t help out in emergencies or attend important life events. “We are missing out on the tangible ways of being in relationship with each other, being able to show up for the hard things, celebrate and make memories with people,” Nelson says.

We also may not meet each other’s loved ones. “Sometimes these [online] relationships might feel a little bit more like a separate relationship that’s really, really meaningful but not necessarily woven into our lives,” Nelson says. I find this part of online friendships to be emotionally jarring; I’m sometimes hit with a twinge of sadness, wishing one of the most important people in my life were with me.

But ultimately, I feel the benefits of a long-term online friendship far outweigh the drawbacks. Sure, it would be nice to catch up with Jenna over a cup of coffee, drop by with soup when she’s sick or attend her kids’ birthday parties. But over the years, we have found ways to be there for each other beyond just words on a screen.

That’s the part I think the studies might be missing: her ordering me dinner delivery when I was going through a tough time. Me mailing her a book for encouragement when she was overwhelmed by life’s obligations. Her introducing me to her brother when I needed a good accountant. I can think of dozens more examples, but the point is that even though we can’t be there in person, we always find ways to show up, encourage and include each other in our lives.

Is the end goal to eventually meet up?

For some people, maybe. But our nearly 10-year-long online friendship is proof that an in-person meet-up isn’t required for a meaningful friendship.

“Whether a relationship is in person, hybrid or online, what we’re looking for is: Does this person leave me feeling seen? Does this person leave me feeling like I can rely on them and trust them? Does this person leave me feeling satisfied and accepted?” Nelson says. And equally important: Are we doing the same for them? “If we can answer yes,” she says, “then those are really meaningful friendships.”

When we first met online, Jenna and I assumed we’d meet in person at some point. But we’ve never really pushed or planned for it. After all, remember that one of the reasons online friendships can work so well is because they tend to be asynchronous and there’s no pressure to coordinate schedules! For much of our friendship, I’ve been a digital nomad living and traveling around the world, and Jenna’s also a full-time writer, as well as a wife and mother of four children under the age of 7. We are both very busy, and there are always thousands of miles—and sometimes literal oceans—between us.

So we haven’t met in person yet. But with us both working on our first books, we’ve joked that our inaugural meetup might be on a book tour or a red carpet. Because we know that when we realize our lifelong goals, we’ll want to celebrate with someone who has been by our side—virtually—all along.

Why trust us

For over 100 years, Reader’s Digest has explored the nuances of relationships, working with such luminaries as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, John Gottman, PhD, and Leo Buscaglia (“Dr. Love”). We ran a decade-long relationships column and have published a compendium of features, Love and Marriage: The Reader’s Digest Guide to Intimate Relationships. We support this information with credentialed experts and primary sources such as government and professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals and our writers’ personal experiences where it enhances the topic. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Shasta Nelson, friendship expert, author and chief friendship officer for the U.S. Chamber of Connection; interviewed, April 2026
• Alyssa Mairanz, LMHC-D, CDBT, therapist and owner of Empower Your Mind Therapy; interviewed, April 2026
• Marisa G. Franco, psychologist, human connection expert and New York Times bestselling author; interviewed, April 2026
• Optimum: “The Digital Day: New Survey Reveals Americans Spend Over 10 Hours Online”
• National Library of Medicine: “Intimate disclosure in online‐only friendships predicts adolescents’ depressive symptoms”
• National Library of Medicine: “Social Networking Site Use and Loneliness: A Meta-Analysis”
• National Library of Medicine: “Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-Line Friends”
• National Library of Medicine: “Face-to-face more important than digital communication for mental health during the pandemic”
• Journal of Social and Personal Relationships: “Less in-person social interaction with peers among U.S. adolescents in the 21st century and links to loneliness”
• Computers in Human Behavior Reports: “In-person and virtual social interactions improve well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic”
• APA PsychNet: “Contemporary friendships and social vulnerability among youth: Understanding the role of online and offline contexts of interaction in friendship quality”
• Survey Center on American Life: “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss”

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Now imagine multiplying your possessions by a couple thousand and having them spread across several royal palaces and estates. Welcome to the dilemma of the British royal family. But what do they do with all their unwanted things? Are they even allowed to throw them out, since even the most ordinary items are pieces of the monarchy’s history? Or do they donate them and send them out into the wild … giving you a chance to own something once used by a princess? Inquiring minds want to know!

We asked royal fashion expert Bethan Holt, author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style and The Queen: 70 Years of Majestic Style, for insights into the royal family’s purging process and upcycling habits. Read on to find out what happens behind closed palace doors.

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What do the royals do with unwanted items?

For a family that seems to have a rule about everything, there are surprisingly few royal mandates about this topic. Instead, says Holt, it usually depends on “the nature of the item” as well as the owner. While some things have to be kept for posterity (more on that below), she describes the royals as generally “practical people who want their unwanted items to be put to the best use.”

Here’s what they do with an item when they no longer want it.

Upcycle it

Queen Elizabeth II hated tossing perfectly good clothes just because she didn’t like them anymore. “She was always very careful with her clothing and had a wartime mindset, so there are stories of her reusing cloth to make new pieces,” says Holt. This especially applied to her off-duty wear. The queen would often have worn-out or unwanted pieces turned into new ones she’d use again and again when at home (aka at her palaces).

And when they were finally beyond repair? She turned them into cleaning rags. Let that sink in: Her staff could have literally been dusting a bookshelf with pieces of Her Majesty’s dress!

Keep wearing it

“Prince Philip, King Charles and Princess Anne all have a similar attitude to Queen Elizabeth,” Holt explains. “We see them rewearing items, often decade after decade. For example, King Charles often wears a coat that belonged to his father.” The piece in question is a double-breasted camel coat with leather buttons and a distinctive belt, and Charles has worn it for decades, including at the Palm Sunday service near his Highgrove Estate in 2023. His father, Prince Philip, was first pictured in it in 1956!

And then there’s Princess Anne. The Princess Royal “recently wore a 57-year-old coat to a State Banquet,” Holt says. The white coat, in which she was first photographed at just 18, got slightly tweaked with a new collar before she wore it to meet Nigerian president Bola Tinubu in March 2026. Clearly not to be outdone, “Prince Philip wore his wedding shoes for 70 years after his marriage!” Holt reveals.

Our favorite royal fashionistas followed suit. Princess Diana often rewore and upcycled her ensembles, including a long-sleeved light blue gown that she slipped on for a visit to Portugal in 1987—which then reappeared, minus the sleeves but with a new heart-shaped strapless neckline, at a charity ball two years later. But Princess Kate just may be the queen of the rewear, with some of her favorites making grand returns on Christmas Day, Wimbledon and even the BAFTAs. And, says Holt, “she owns a pair of Penelope Chilvers boots that she’s been wearing for 22 years!”

Pass it down to other family members

This mainly applies to jewelry. While the crown jewels are held in trust for the nation by the monarch and do not technically belong to the royals, personal jewelry falls outside this classification. “There is a vast collection of historical ceremonial regalia and priceless jewels amassed and passed down over many generations,” says Holt. “While it’s not expressly forbidden for the royals to get rid of these items, I think they view themselves as guardians of these pieces rather than owners.”

One of the best-known pieces that has been passed down for more than a century is Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara. The shiny headpiece, which features a row of upright pearls, was originally designed for Queen Mary in 1913 and has been worn by Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana and Princess Kate over the years. Another example: Queen Victoria’s Sapphire Brooch, which Prince Albert gifted his bride the night before their wedding in 1840. It has been passed on to all the queens who came after her, including the queen mother and Queen Elizabeth II, and was last spotted when Queen Camilla visited the Isle of Man in fall of 2024.

Put it in the archive

“Given the historical importance of Queen Elizabeth’s clothing, a lot of it is carefully preserved in a dedicated archive in Windsor that houses more than 4,000 items,” Holt says. The archive is housed in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle and not open to the public. This year, however, fans can get a rare peek at some of the highlights: To mark what would have been the late queen’s 100th birthday, the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace is hosting a special exhibition called Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style. It features 200 items, including the bridesmaid’s dress she wore at age 8 for the wedding of her uncle, the Duke of Kent, to Princess Marina of Greece in 1934, along with her own wedding and coronation dresses and a selection of evening gowns from the 1970s.

Unfortunately for royal fashion fans, not everything has been preserved as well as these items—and things sometimes even go wrong within palace walls. “Some older pieces in that archive do have moth holes,” says Holt, “which suggests they might have been stored away in a forgotten cupboard for some time before the professional conservators got their hands on them.”

When it comes to furniture, pieces that are no longer needed (or just out of fashion and therefore unwanted) often go into the archives of the Royal Trust, are moved to other palaces and estates, or, if broken, presumably simply disposed of, like they are in every other household.

Give it to a charity shop

Yes, you read that right: Some royal pieces have ended up in secondhand stores. “There are stories of Princess Diana’s and Sarah Ferguson’s clothing finding their way to charity shops, often because it’s been given to staff who then donate it,” explains Holt. “It’s a strange mix of pieces being delicately and lovingly preserved and others being discarded in strangely careless ways.”

Often, years later, the dumped pieces have popped up at auctions after some lucky bargain hunters found out about their origins, often by chance. Some have seen pictures and videos of royals wearing them, then turned their finds into serious money (more on that below).

Auction it

Princess Diana famously sold 79 of her dresses at an auction in June 1997 and raised more than $3 million for cancer and AIDS research—just two months before her tragic death in a car crash. Other royals firmly held onto their items, but their relatives auctioned them off after they passed. Holt names Princess Margaret as a prime example: In 2006, her Poltimore Tiara fetched almost £1 million ($1.4 million) at Christie’s Auction House, where other belongings of Queen Elizabeth’s sister were also sold. In this case, the money didn’t go to charity but straight to the taxman. “[Margaret’s kids] needed to sell her belongings to pay inheritance tax,” Holt says, “which shows the royals often face the same realities as the rest of us, albeit on a more elaborate scale.”

Can commoners ever get their hands on these unwanted items?

Yes, but they need to be very wealthy—or very lucky. Royal items, including Diana’s famous revenge dress, have been auctioned off in the past for small fortunes. The little black dress, which Diana wore the night Charles confessed he’d cheated on her, went for an almost modest $74,000 at a 1997 auction in London (bought by Scottish businessman Graeme Mackenzie). And in 2023, an anonymous buyer paid more than $1 million at a Hollywood auction for a ballerina-style Azagury evening gown Diana sported in the mid-’80s.

But who knows—you might actually stumble across a precious piece at a random British charity shop. Check your purchases carefully just in case, as royal finds aren’t always all that obvious. As Holt notes, “you may not discover the piece has royal origins until years later.”

Skeptical? Here’s proof: A part-time shop assistant at a small vintage store in Berkshire, England, bought an ivory silk gown for £200 ($270) in 1996. By chance, she saw a Princess Diana documentary around the same time and realized the Princess of Wales wore something very similar when visiting Bahrain a decade earlier. Well, she got it checked to see if it could be the same item—and yep, it was the real deal! According to Kerry Taylor Auctions in London, Elizabeth Emanuel, who had designed the dress together with her husband David, confirmed it was the original. The piece ended up being sold for more than £155,000 ($210,000) to an unnamed overseas museum.

Has the monarchy always done this?

Rewearing and upcycling have long been part of royal practice, but the late queen and her husband helped make them standard again. “Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were products of wartime rationing and the ‘make do and mend’ philosophy,” Holt says. “Despite their wealth and grandeur, they always maintained a realistic attitude.” The pair passed this mentality on to their children and grandchildren, she adds.

But that’s not the only reason why later generations have become masters of sustainable fashion. “Charles’s environmental passion and William picking up that climate change baton is all a seamless extension,” Holt says. The king, in particular, has been advocating for environmental protection, organic farming and biodiversity for more than five decades. So it’s only fitting that his family’s values align with his environmental priorities, as well as his push to make the monarchy more frugal. That said, when you’re talking about the royals and their wardrobe, everything is relative!

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Bethan Holt, fashion director of The Telegraph and author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style and The Queen: 70 Years of Majestic Style; email interview, April 2026
• ITV News: “Princess Diana dress found in secondhand shop sells for £155,000”
• The Telegraph: “Princess Anne wears a 57-year-old coat for the Nigeria state banquet”
• The Telegraph: “King Charles recycles his father’s coat, 67 years after Prince Philip first wore it”
• British Vogue: “The queen was the original outfit-repeater”
• InStyle: “Princess Diana’s 10 most expensive dresses sold at auction (including a $1 million gown)”
• Town & Country: “All the times Princess Diana recycled her royal wardrobe”
• Royal Collection Trust: “Centenary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth to be marked by largest exhibition of her fashion ever staged”

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The post Here’s What the Royals Really Do with Their Old Clothes and Other Unwanted Stuff appeared first on Reader's Digest.

But the last time I flew, I was tired, so rather than read, I slept. When we landed, I grabbed my bags and deplaned—only to realize later that I’d left my book in the seat pocket in front of me. Luckily, I wasn’t too far into it, and I’d packed my Kindle. But still! I’m not usually forgetful, but I was in a rush and forgot to check to make sure I had everything. I hope the person who found it read and enjoyed it!

A paperback is one thing, but what about a computer, phone or other expensive item? And why do we forget these things in the first place, especially when we were just using them?

Ahead, I talked to Barbara Oakley, PhD, who studies the connection between neuroscience, learning and memory, to learn a simple trick to remember all my stuff before I get off the plane—and anywhere else I go. Keep reading if you need help remembering things, because this trick works!

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Why do people forget things?

Memory involves many processes, but stress, lack of sleep and just plain being distracted from too many tasks can affect our ability to remember things. Think about how many times in a day you have to remember to do something, like grab your book from the plane or pick up your keys from the dining room table. When you’re trying to remember a bunch of things—and who isn’t, all the time?—you’re priming yourself to forget something.

Here’s an example: I was super-organized with packing for my last trip, but even so, I kept forgetting where I’d put the little bag with hard candy and gum to keep my ears from plugging up during the flight. (It was in my purse the whole time!) Every time I rummaged around for it, I got flustered. And flustered can easily lead to forgetting.

That’s not a big deal when you’re home and just need to retrace your steps until you see that your phone is on the kitchen counter—right where you left it. But when you’re out in the world, the stakes are higher.

Why is this such a problem?

Forgetting things—on planes, at work, at a restaurant—can have adverse consequences, depending on what you leave behind. There’s theft, of course, and the ordeal of canceling your credit cards or buying a new phone. And don’t forget stress! Losing something important to you, from a favorite book to your sensitive personal info, creates anxiety that you definitely don’t need.

And this isn’t a small problem. While it’s hard to get a number on exactly how many things are forgotten on a daily basis, we can get a pretty good idea of the enormity of the issue just by looking at a travel example: According to the TSA, travelers leave behind some 100,000 items at checkpoints every month. We’re talking phones and chargers, wallets, water bottles, sunglasses and even clothes. All things you need! And all things we tend to misplace at home too.

What’s the trick to not forgetting?

It’s called the look-back rule. And it’s as simple as that: Before you move on from wherever you are, turn around and look back. Take a solid three seconds and make sure you didn’t leave anything behind on your chair, on the restaurant table, in the airplane seat pocket.

This practice takes just three seconds and can prevent minutes of pain as you kick yourself for forgetting, and hours of hassles if you leave behind something super important like your wallet and have to cancel all your credit cards, or your work computer and have to fess up to IT and wait for a new one.

How can you make this a habit?

Oakley made herself a rule: Whenever you move, you check. It’s extremely simple, but it works, she says. Anytime you’re transitioning from one position to another, from one task to the next, that’s the reminder. When you move, you check. For example, whenever she goes to a restaurant, when she gets up from her seat, she does a mental assessment: Where’s my phone? Where’s my purse? Where’s my jacket?

Think of it like a scene change in a movie, she says. There’s usually some kind of closure—a visual transition or a line of dialogue that signals the scene is ending. That way, your brain knows it’s the end of that particular scene and opens you up to be ready for the next one.

“If you train yourself that whenever you move, you check, you get closure. And then you’re able to close that scene out,” Oakley says. “You get habituated to the fact that you don’t have closure until you turn around and look.” In fact, she goes one step further than just looking back—she physically touches each item so she can confirm that she actually has each thing in her possession before she moves on.

Oakley has one other trick she uses while traveling, when the stakes are high. “I never use drawers in hotels. I don’t put things in the nightstand. I never hang clothes in the closet,” Oakley says. “I don’t need to remember things because I set up this habit of never leaving things where they’re easy to forget.”

What else can you do to make it easy to find your stuff?

Forgetting where you put things from time to time is completely normal, but you can help your brain remember with a few easy tricks.

• Before you go anywhere, make a list: It could be an actual checklist, or it could be a mental one you run through before you hop in the car in the morning. Then use it again on the other end of the trip, workday or outing, so you remember everything you need to bring home with you. Also, pause and go through your mental checklist before you leave a room, when you go to bed at night, when you head outside to weed the garden, whenever.
• Use trackers and “Find my” features on your devices: Apple Air Tags and similar products tuck easily into a suitcase or wallet, or clip onto a key ring, and allow you to track your items’ whereabouts on your phone or computer. Phones, tablets, laptops and other devices have built-in “Find my” features, so you can always see where they are. You just have to enable and use them.
• Have a place for everything: I’m a big fan of Baggallini bags, which have pockets on pockets on pockets. I always keep my keys in the same small pocket. My lip balm, my wallet, my gum, the card I need to put in the mail—everything has its own place. During a recent trip to France, I kept my passport in the same zippered pocket the whole time, with nothing else in that pocket, so I didn’t risk pulling my passport out by mistake and losing it. This works at home too.
• Make your stuff hard to ignore: If you’re constantly setting your phone down on the table at the coffee shop and then forgetting it, next time group it with something you can’t leave without, like your keys, or set it on top of your coat.

How is forgetting actually helpful?

If the worst happens, you’ll still be OK because, believe it or not, forgetting something once might help you to not make the same mistake again. I told Oakley about the time I left my favorite shirt and jeans behind in the closet of an inn after a weekend work trip. I called the front desk as soon as I realized, but they said the clothes weren’t there. I never got them back—and I still remember this even though it was many years ago!

“See how that memory is seared into you?” says Oakley. “It can be a really good idea to develop a mentality of forgiveness. Have fun with it and laugh if something doesn’t work out, because no matter how bad it is, you’ll always remember it.”

If you’re always trying to remember all the things, constantly running through a mental checklist, it can be crazy making. Like me with my little bag of candy. Better to keep this simple three-second look-back rule in mind. When you move, you check. I’m already doing this with my phone at home and can’t wait to put it into practice next time I travel.

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• The Scary Reason You Should Never Retrieve Your Phone If It Drops Between Airplane Seats—And What to Do Instead

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Barbara Oakley, PhD, professor of engineering at Oakland University; interviewed, April 2026
• TSA: “Lost and found”

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The post This 3-Second Trick Will Ensure You Don’t Ever Forget Your Belongings Again—And You’re Totally Going to Thank Us for It appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Speaking of books: That’s the one project I look forward to tackling. Once a year, I take down every book, thoroughly dust the shelves, then reorganize my library. The shelves and spines get some extra love when I dust weekly. But is this cleaning routine really keeping my collection in good shape?

I don’t have any truly priceless books that would require the care of a book conservator, but I consulted one anyway. Hey, book lovers will do what it takes to ensure their treasures are clean and preserved.

If you’re an avid reader like me, you’re going to want to bookmark this. Ahead, I’m laying out expert-backed steps to keep your home library well-maintained for years to come.

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Why do you need to clean your books?

Keeping any surface dust free is a good thing, especially if you suffer from allergies. But dusty books have their own perils, says Beth Cooper, a bookseller who does restoration and repair work at Addison’s, a used-book store in Knoxville, Tennessee.

For one thing, dust left unchecked can stain covers and pages. Even worse? That dust can attract insects that can cause further damage. Silverfish, in particular, have a craving for paper (yes, they too are bookworms). But Cooper notes that there could also be problems for your books with other insects—like roaches—and their droppings. “They can stain, and there’s not much you can do to get rid of that,” she says.

So aside from keeping your bookshelves clean, this project is a good opportunity to prevent or stop any insect issues. “It’s a good idea to take stock and check to make sure that you’re not having any issues due to poor conditions,” Cooper says.

How often should you clean your books?

According to the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), your book cleaning frequency is really dictated by how quickly the area in which you keep your library gets dusty or dirty.

That doesn’t mean you should overdo it, though. The NEDCC says that while cleaning is beneficial to preserving books, too much of a good thing can compromise books that are fragile, brittle or, in the case of leather books, flaking.

Cooper tells me that my annual cleaning is just fine. “If you do it once a year, I think that’s more than most people do,” she said.

What should you do before cleaning your books?

To give your library a proper cleaning, you need to tackle the shelves, not just the books. So let’s start there.

Empty the shelves

While it’s fine to leave your books on the shelves when you dust during regular cleaning sessions, you need to remove everything from your shelves when you’re doing your annual (or biannual) deep clean.

Pro tip: Now would be a good time to declutter books—if you can bear to part with any, that is. As you pull them down from your shelves, create a “books to donate” pile that will go to a new home.

Dust and clean the shelves

Cooper recommends removing the books and then cleaning the shelves, using whatever cleaning product is appropriate for the type of shelving you have (abrasive chemicals don’t mix well with wood furniture, for instance).

If you use a spray or liquid cleanser, be sure to wipe down the shelves and let them dry thoroughly before replacing them with books.

How do you clean books?

It’s important to remember that books are made of paper, so save your elbow grease for cleaning harder surfaces. When dusting your books, you’ll want to use soft cleaning tools and an even softer approach.

Supplies you’ll need

• Soft brush
• Magnetic cloth (optional)
• Vacuum with a HEPA filter and a soft brush attachment (optional)

Directions

1. Run a soft brush lightly across the cover. “Gently whisk in one direction, not back and forth,” Cooper says.
2. Brush down the spine and the back of the book.
3. Brush across the top of the book—this is where you’ll see the most dust, Cooper says.
4. Lightly ruffle or flip through the pages to check that nothing is stuck. If you see dust on any of the pages, whisk the dust away gently with the brush.

Some experts, like those at the NEDCC, recommend using a magnetic cloth to dust or even a vacuum with a HEPA filter and a soft brush attachment. The cleaning method is similar to dusting with a brush.

However, Cooper prefers to skip the vacuum, saying it’s too easy to scratch or dent the cover or the page block if you’re overzealous with cleaning. “I just don’t think it’s ideal,” she says. “The soft brush works just as well.”

Pro tip: If you do opt for a magnetic cloth, the NEDCC recommends skipping it with books that have deckled (untrimmed) edges or books that are heavily coated in dirt or dust, as you might rub the dust further into the paper or otherwise abrade the cover or pages.

How do you get rid of dirt or stains on book covers?

Cleaning a dirty book cover isn’t as easy as spraying it with Windex—or anything else, for that matter. It doesn’t make much sense to get a paperback wet while cleaning, of course, but you’ll also want to avoid getting any moisture on leather-bound and hardcover books.

Still, dusting won’t cut it if you’re dealing with a scuffed, dirty or otherwise stained book cover. Here’s what Cooper suggests:

1. Take a white eraser (you can find one in an art supply store) and grate it finely—“almost like a zest,” Cooper says.
2. Sprinkle the eraser over the top of the stain, then rub gently in circles to remove the dirt.
3. Gently dust away the eraser residue.

Pro tip: Don’t use leather cleaner on leather-bound tomes, Cooper says. That’s for your shoes, not your books.

How can you keep your books in good condition between cleanings?

While dusting books and shelves is important, there are other things you can do to preserve your books between cleanings—and readings. Here’s what every responsible bookworm should know:

Give your books some breathing room on the shelf

Be careful about how you organize your books. “You don’t want them to be packed too tight on your shelves,” says Cooper. “They need to have ample circulation.” This is especially important for leather-bound books, because the leather needs to breathe, she explains.

Remove them gently

Give them enough room so that you can pull a book off the shelf easily without disturbing the book next to it or rubbing the covers against each other. “You don’t want to have to end up pulling on the top of that spine to get it out,” she says. “It needs to be loose enough to where it comes out easily.”

Avoid direct sunlight

Cooper says paperbacks can fade in harsh sunlight, and leather-bound books can dry out, so keep that in mind when you arrange bookshelves and bookcases in your home.

Readers who like to collect books with sprayed edges, take note of this so that those colors and designs aren’t compromised. But here’s some good news about sprayed edges: Cooper says that aside from too much sun, she’s not aware of any reason why placing books spine-in would harm them. “They’re still going to be exposed to the same thing, whether they’re facing in or out,” she says.

Vacuum, don’t sweep the floors

The NEDCC says that sweeping only kicks up the dust, while vacuuming removes it. After vacuuming, use a dust mop or a wet mop on the floor. A word of warning: If you do use a wet mop, make sure it’s wrung out thoroughly so you don’t give books on the lower shelf a bath.

Change out HVAC filters

The NEDCC recommends changing your HVAC filters on a regular basis to keep dust at bay in your home. It also helps to keep windows closed.

Maintain humidity levels

Cooper says humidity can wreak havoc on pages, leading to brown stains (called foxing) or even mold and mildew if it gets really bad. Whenever possible, try to keep the humidity between 40% and 50%. (Living in Knoxville, Cooper is no stranger to this issue. During the summer, the dehumidifier is on in the store, she says.)

Here’s another thing I’m going to be cognizant of: Eating and drinking while reading. I know, I know. Reading a book with a cup of coffee or while eating lunch are among my very favorite things in life. But spilling food or drink on a page doesn’t just ruin the aesthetic, as I’ve now learned; it could attract bugs to do damage to the pages later. Suffice it to say, I will be extra careful with coffee from now on—and perhaps read only on my wipe-downable tablet when eating lunch.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Beth Cooper, bookseller and book restoration and repair specialist at Addison’s; phone interview, April 16, 2026
• Northeast Document Conservation Center: “Cleaning Books and Shelves”

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McDonald’s is teasing a beverage lineup that’s refreshing and built around unexpected flavor combinations. And Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans, you’ll be happy to know the drinks were made with you in mind—think fun, out-of-the-box flavors and drinks made for sharing on TikTok and Instagram.

Want more details on what’s coming? Here’s the scoop on the new drinks hitting McDonald’s menus this spring and beyond.

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What new drinks are coming to a McDonald’s near you?

McDonald’s is launching a handful of new drinks, including a range of “dirty sodas.” If you’re not familiar, a dirty soda is a popular Utah-based drink—basically a regular soda dressed up with extras, like cream, flavored syrups and citrus.

The expected dirty sodas include:

• Dirty Dr Pepper: a mix of Dr Pepper and vanilla flavoring, topped with cold foam
• Sprite Berry Blast: a blend of “Spicy Sprite” (aka Sprite with extra carbonation) and blue raspberry, finished with cold foam
• Orange Dream: a twist on Hi-C Orange Lavaburst, with a hint of vanilla and cold foam

On the lighter side, there are also icy refreshers built around tropical and citrus flavors. The refreshers coming to the menu are:

• Strawberry Watermelon Refresher: a fruity mix of strawberry and watermelon flavoring, with lemonade over ice
• Mango Pineapple Refresher: a mix of mango and pineapple flavoring, with lemonade over ice
• Blackberry Passion Fruit Refresher: a tart-sweet combo of blackberry and passion fruit, with lemonade over ice

Is this all that’s on the lineup?

Not even close. The refreshers and crafted sodas are just the first wave. McDonald’s is also planning to roll out energy drinks, including a Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer.

So why the big push into drinks right now? It comes down to how people are ordering. Customers aren’t just grabbing a soda and moving on—they want something that feels more in line with what they’d get at a specialty drink spot.

McDonald’s even tested the drinks in smaller pilots and through its CosMc’s concept … before shutting down CosMc’s and folding the best ideas into the main menu.

When can you get your hands on them?

The refreshers and crafted sodas will begin rolling out in May across the U.S., with more locations coming online through the summer. The Red Bull–based energizers, including the Dragonberry drink, are expected later in the year.

Prices have yet to be announced, but McDonald’s plans to compete with places like Starbucks, Sonic and Dutch Bros, just at a lower price point. As of now, Starbucks dominates with refreshers, cold foam drinks and layered iced drinks that typically land in the $5 to $7 and up range. Sonic has also built a following on dirty sodas, usually around $3 to $6, with Dutch Bros in a similar price bracket.

But wait—are they actually good?

Even though these drinks haven’t officially landed at McDonald’s yet, some people have already had a taste, thanks to CosMc’s. Based on past reviews, the reactions are … mixed.

TikTokker Alyssa Ryckman tried four of the CosMc’s drinks and had some mixed-but-into-it takes. She described the Popping Mango Refresher as “pretty good,” saying the mango flavor wasn’t overpowering and giving it a 7 out of 10. The Strawberry Watermelon refresher was her favorite, while the Sprite Berry Blast got a nod for its “blue raspberry” flavor.

One person compared the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher to Kool-Aid, saying it had a “heavier” feel than the ones at Starbucks. And another said the Sprite Berry Blast was “so sweet it made my eye twitch.” The TikTokker’s comparison? It’s like sipping melted blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers mixed with Sprite.

Despite those takes on CosMc’s concoctions, it’s worth giving the new drinks a try when they hit McDonald’s menu. Decide for yourself if they’re worth the hype.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Barron’s: “McDonald’s Wants to Sell More Beverages. Here’s Why It Matters”
• TikTok: @alyssaryckman
• TikTok: @lilymarie0842
• TikTok: @courtneyyteaches

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Some of my favorite travel experiences have sprung from moments when I allowed myself to get lost. Stumbling upon the tastiest curry of my life—cooked to order in a local home and served at a tiny roadside table—while wandering in rural Thailand. Sloth-spotting and toucan-watching while on a quest to find the best cup of coffee in Costa Rica. Boarding a train in Japan with no set plan, just picking a stop to exit and explore, and ending up on an impromptu hike. And aside from the obvious adventures, there are some science-backed benefits to getting “lost” that could make a big difference in your life, not just your trip.

But before you ditch Google Maps and hit the open road on foot, you need to know a few things first. To find out how to get “lost” safely and maximize your experiences, I spoke with travel psychologist Michael Brein, licensed clinical social worker Kristin Miyoko Papa and travel expert Ann Storey. Read on for some of the most fun you’ll likely have on your next trip—and how to do it the right way.

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What are the benefits of getting lost in a new city?

Letting yourself get lost can give you a mental boost and lead to delicious restaurants, cool attractions away from the typical tourist track, and perhaps best of all, interesting interactions. “Meeting kind and hospitable people can give you a unique and personal perspective [of a new place],” says Papa, the founder of Living Openhearted Therapy and Wellness. “This also builds community and connection.” And that’s an antidote to tech-fueled isolation and divisive news. Plus, if you’re traveling solo, even microconnections, like chatting with a shopkeeper, can alleviate loneliness.

Embracing curiosity and navigating uncertainty can also trigger dopamine and give our brain a nice little workout. “Research shows that new and unfamiliar situations can give us a mood boost while also allowing us to build psychological flexibility,” Papa says. “This flexibility is the very skill that researchers link to resilience and protection against anxiety and depression.”

And getting purposefully off track means you might stumble on something that sparks a sense of awe, “such as a stunning view or a hidden medieval cathedral,” Papa says. “Research indicates that by experiencing moments of awe, there is an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in distress. As a result, getting ‘lost’ while traveling may be the most mentally nourishing thing you do on your trip.”

Why can getting lost be the most memorable part of your trip?

It’s not just the cool experiences, though that’s a definite perk! Getting lost forces you to pay attention, in a way we don’t usually do when we’re tethered to our phones. “When we wander through an unfamiliar environment, we’re naturally pulled away from everyday stressors and drawn into the present moment,” Papa says. “New surroundings allow us to tune in to our senses and truly absorb our experience. In a sense, wandering is mindfulness in motion.”

Figuring things out on the fly is more than just an adventure; it’s also an accomplishment that increases your self-confidence. And, explains Brein, who coined the term “travel psychology” in the late 1960s, getting “lost” creates opportunities to reap the rewards for your good decisions—such as finding the correct bus or stumbling on an off-the-beaten-path restaurant—immediately.

Problem-solving without relying on technology can be exhilarating, terrifying and addictive. Those dinosaur days of travel when I was lugging around a guidebook and hopping on and off buses and trains without a set plan or GPS in my hand? That’s when I got hooked on traveling, and more than 20 years later, getting purposefully “lost” is still a big part of my travel style.

How do you get lost the right way?

You don’t need to completely ditch your devices, and you definitely shouldn’t abandon your common sense. You can also do this solo or share your adventure with someone else. Getting lost together is just as much fun! For a safe and meaningful experience, keep your wits about you and set some guardrails.

Set some parameters

“Create a little structure while still being spontaneous, curious and free,” Papa says. “Structured spontaneity may look like exploring a general neighborhood or setting a time frame, rather than simply abandoning all situational awareness.”

Before settling on a neighborhood or area, do some research in advance to ensure it’s a safe place, and plan your visit during the daytime. “It’s easier to orient yourself and identify visual landmarks [in daylight] to prevent becoming hopelessly lost,” Papa notes.

Personally, I’d recommend giving yourself around four to five hours to start—it’s enough time to enjoy the experience without constantly checking the clock, but not so much time that you feel overwhelmed. So maybe start with a coffee shop and then explore the neighborhood until lunchtime, or start by scouting a good lunch spot and then go get lost for the afternoon.

Listen to the locals

When deciding on an area to get lost, ask for recommendations. “Getting feedback from someone who is familiar with the environment can give you some assurance that you’re wandering in an area where you can explore while also being safe,” Papa says. Pre-trip, you can join destination-specific travel communities on social media where fellow travelers and local people offer tips, or consult online travel guides and the destination’s tourism board or chamber of commerce. You can also ask your hotel staff for suggestions. One of my favorite ways of deciding where I will wander? Join a locally led walking tour to get acquainted with the city when I arrive, then take note of areas I want to revisit on my own.

While you’re out on your adventure, you should also be open to insight from local people. “Always ask local people where they eat and spend their time,” says Ann Storey, a travel expert and destination product specialist at Wildland Trekking, an Intrepid Company. “Most people are proud of where they live and are excited to share stories of their town if you take the time to ask.”

One of the best unplanned experiences I’ve had was on a trip to Puerto Rico. It started with a day of wandering around Old San Juan, which led to a chat with the owners of Casa Sol Bed & Breakfast about the history of music and resistance in Puerto Rico, which then led to them inviting me to a batey—a space where people play, sing and dance bomba! One unplanned day and two local people who were so generous with their knowledge and time taught me more than I could ever have learned if I’d had a set itinerary.

Share your location

At the very least, tell someone (a trusted friend, family member or even your hotel) the general area where you’re going and approximately what time you plan to return. This provides what Papa calls a “safety thread.” If, for some reason, you don’t return, they will know where to look for you.

And definitely bring a fully charged phone. Even if you don’t plan on using it, it’s good to have it on hand for emergency calls and tracking and location capabilities. You can also use a location service, such as Life360, that shares your location with a trusted friend or family member you designate in the app.

Pack supplies

In addition to your fully charged phone and power bank for backup, bring the following basics: cash (in the local currency, if you’re traveling abroad), water, snacks, sunscreen and rain gear. Don’t do what I did while on my 21st birthday road trip from New York to Florida: head out for an exploratory jog in a new-to-me city with nothing but the clothes on my back. I got unintentionally lost that day, but thankfully, I had a friend with me, and we eventually used some landmarks and a bit of luck to find our way back to our hotel before dark. (Not one of my best travel moments, but in my defense, I was only 21!)

Pay attention

While I recommend keeping your phone with you for safety purposes, I don’t advise having it out unless you absolutely need it. If you’re staring at your screen, you’re missing out on the scenery, landmarks you may need to find your way back and opportunities to connect with the place and the people. Being glued to your device can also make you a target or, at the very least, a nuisance for other people to navigate around. If you do need to pull out your phone, just pop into a shop or cafe, or at least step out of the way.

Paying attention means also tuning in to your own instincts. “If a street, neighborhood or situation feels wrong, it’s important to take note of that,” Papa says. “These gut signals are often processing real environmental cues, so wandering safely means staying curious and staying attuned to yourself.”

Embrace the uncertainty

So much of our lives is scheduled down to the minute, but getting “lost” is a chance to enjoy each moment and see where it takes you, without any set schedule or expectations. Follow your nose to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or a beautiful botanical garden. Sit down at an outdoor cafe and people-watch or journal. Stop at a viewpoint to take photos or enjoy a sunset over the city. Try something you might not attempt in your day-to-day life, and you might even develop a new hobby.

I wasn’t a fan of thrift shops when I lived in the U.S., but in my wanderings around Amman, treasure hunting while chatting and bartering with shopkeepers has become a favorite activity. Those multicultural, multilingual interactions have led to dinner invitations, friendships and lots of laughs.

How much should you use devices when getting lost?

You can certainly use your device to research safety, culture, weather and general neighborhoods before you set out, but to really immerse yourself in the experience, try to limit your screen time when you’re out and about, and only use your phone when necessary. And it’s definitely a good idea to keep your phone with you for general safety—for example, sharing your location, using the GPS if you are actually lost, making a phone call or using a translator app if needed in an emergency.

But don’t use it as a crutch. Fight that urge to reach for it when you come to a fork in the road or you’re sitting alone or deciding on a restaurant or activity; remind yourself to stay in the moment, trust your instincts, strike up conversations and try something new instead.

Can you reap the rewards of getting lost even if you’re not taking a “real” trip?

Absolutely! It’s equally fun to get “lost” closer to home. And this could actually be a good trial run if you’re not ready to wander in a completely new place. “One of the great benefits of travel,” Brein says, “is the growing appreciation of lasting benefits that one can ‘discover’ more closely at home.”

Whether you’re in a nearby city or half a world away, you can apply the same approach—pick an area, pack supplies, share your location, put your phone away, wander with an attitude of openness—and reap the same rewards. You’ll have an instant adventure and maybe find your new favorite restaurant or a few new friends along the way.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Michael Brein, travel psychologist and author; interviewed, March 2026
• Ann Storey, destination product specialist at Wildland Trekking; interviewed, March 2026
• Kristin Miyoko Papa, licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and the founder of Living Openhearted Therapy and Wellness; interviewed, March, 2026
• National Library of Medicine: “Dopamine Modulates Novelty Seeking Behavior During Decision Making”
• National Library of Medicine: “Exploring the Relationship of Leisure Travel with Loneliness, Depression, and Cognitive Function in Older Adults”
• University of California, San Francisco, Weill Institute for Neurosciences: “‘Awe walks’ boost emotional well-being”

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But nothing is worse than a room where it’s impossible to fall—and stay—asleep, whether because of the constant sounds of a nearby elevator or late-night noise from neighbors. “At its core, a hotel’s primary purpose is rest, and a truly restorative night’s sleep depends on a quiet, tranquil environment,” says John Beck, regional operations director at EVEN Hotel New York–Times Square South.

You can’t always control who’s bunking on the other side of the wall, of course, but coming up, Beck and other hotel insiders share their best tips for scoring the quietest room possible (and what to do if you don’t). Read on to find out what they had to say.

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Which hotel rooms are known as the noisiest?

Whether you’re staying at a budget hotel or a luxury property, some rooms are simply better positioned than others. Overall, it’s best to avoid rooms by noisy elevators and other high-traffic areas. Ernie Slatinsky, general manager and co-owner of Hotel Giles, a historic boutique hotel in Comfort, Texas, says rooms near the lobby or main gathering spaces are more likely to generate noise complaints. Meanwhile, Brian James, front office director for Spectrum Resort Orlando and Encore Resort Orlando, notes that lower-floor units and those overlooking pools also tend to be louder.

Other areas to try to avoid if you’re seeking a quieter stay include:

• Rooms facing the street or near parking lots: Traffic, car doors, horns and late-night arrivals or early departures can create a constant, sleep-disrupting soundtrack.
• Rooms by stairwells: My stay in one nice resort was negatively affected by the sound of guests clomping up and down stairs, which shared a wall with my bed.
• Rooms near ice machines or vending areas: I often use ice machines at hotels, but that doesn’t mean I want to be too near them. The clatter of ice dropping and guests coming and going at all hours can be disruptive.
• Connecting rooms: I recently stayed at a luxury hotel that had a beautiful locked wooden door to connect to an adjoining suite. Unfortunately, it did little to block sound, making conversations next door feel uncomfortably close as I tried to sleep.
• Rooms above or below event spaces: Everyone loves a nice hotel wedding—all except the uninvited, perhaps. Loud music and the general hubbub from get-togethers can be torture for other guests, especially those with rooms nearby.
• Rooms near housekeeping closets: Housekeepers are among the hardest-working hotel employees, but that also means they must always be on the go while cleaning and turning over dirty rooms. Early morning cart movement can easily interrupt sleep.

Which hotel rooms guarantee you the best night’s sleep?

The single best way to improve your odds of enjoying a peaceful stay is to choose the right part of the hotel. While every property has a different layout, Slatinsky recommends booking one on “a floor as far away from the lobby or common areas as you can get.” At his property, that means a secluded log cabin located at the back. “The only time you’d ever hear noise is if someone is in the kitchen doing breakfast,” he says.

You may have also heard that rooms with numbers ending in “01” or “02” are to be avoided because they’re more often near elevators at the start of the hallway. That can be true in some hotels, but numbering systems vary widely, and those same rooms could just as easily be among the quietest on the floor.

So then how can you book the quietest hotel room possible?

Scoring a quiet room takes some planning, so do a bit of research. “Securing a quiet hotel room starts before you even arrive,” explains Chintan Dadhich, a senior hospitality executive overseeing Conrad New York Downtown and Tempo Times Square.

Some hotels are designed specifically with sound reduction in mind—a feature often highlighted on their websites. Beck says that his Time Square South property, located in one of New York City’s busiest neighborhoods, incorporates triple-pane, insulated windows with heavy-duty seals (similar to those found on aircraft doors) to effectively block outside noise. And rooms are “fully insulated from adjacent spaces above, below and beside them, and our cork flooring is specifically designed to absorb sound, dramatically reducing noise transfer,” he says. “Because of this layered approach, noise complaints are rare.”

It’s also worth checking out hotel policies to see how seriously they take quiet hours. For example, after a particularly rowdy wedding party a few years ago, Slatinsky implemented strict quiet hours from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., backed by fines for offenders that started at $100 per penalty.

Once you’ve chosen a hotel, reach out to the property directly. “Guests who are sensitive sleepers should share their preferences in advance—whether that’s a corner room, distance from elevators or fewer adjoining walls—so the hotel team can thoughtfully place them in the best possible location,” Dadhich says.

Technology can help too. Apps like Hilton Honors let guests check in and select their exact room using a floor plan, ensuring they’re far from an elevator or stairwell and other high-traffic areas. And don’t forget to reiterate your preferences during check-in—front desk staff often know which rooms are the quietest and can double-check that you’re in the best location.

What can you do if the room is quiet … but your neighbors are not?

In the event neighbors or other hotel guests create a racket, don’t just grit your teeth, put a pillow over your head and bear it. “If noise does become an issue, the most important thing is to speak up right away,” says Dadhich. “Hotel teams operate around the clock, and a disrupted night’s sleep is treated as an immediate priority. The sooner a guest alerts the front desk, the faster the team can investigate and resolve the problem.”

James says that at his Orlando properties, staff will start with a courtesy call to the noisy room, followed by an in-person visit from a guest services team, if needed. Consequences can at times escalate from there, which is why it’s important to let hotel staff handle any issues.

“If the disruption continues, the [offending] guest may be asked to leave the hotel, and in rare cases, local law enforcement may become involved,” says Vince Angelo, general manager of Embassy Suites by Hilton Orlando Sunset Walk. Dadhich adds, “Ultimately, guest comfort is paramount, and hotels will do everything they can to ensure every stay is as restful as possible.”

How can you make sure your hotel is blissfully quiet?

No matter where you end up lodging, noise can often make or break your stay. Here are some additional smart strategies that can go a long way toward helping you get a good night’s sleep:

• Travel in the off-season: “During peak travel periods like spring break, finding a quiet corner of a busy resort can be challenging,” says Matt Dalrymple, general manager of Margaritaville Resort Orlando. “For travelers prioritizing peace and quiet, it’s important to consider seasonality and plan accordingly.”
• Choose your location wisely: Being situated right in the heart of the action often comes with more noise, especially if a hotel isn’t designed to handle it.
• Read recent reviews carefully: Travelers who’ve stayed at a property often call out problems online, so check guest feedback before booking.
• Call ahead about renovations: Construction noise can start early and last all day, so confirm there’s no work planned during your time at the hotel.
• Pack a backup plan: I always bring a good pair of earplugs with me when I travel, but if you forget yours, ask the hotel for help. “If a guest ever experiences an issue, we support their wellness with a full noise reduction experience, including sound machines, earplugs and sleep masks,” Beck says.

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• John Beck, regional operations director, EVEN Hotel New York–Times Square South; email interview, April 2026
• Brian James, front office director, Spectrum Resort Orlando and Encore Resort Orlando; email interview, April 2026
• Ernie Slatinsky, general manager and co-owner, Hotel Giles; email interview, April 2026
• Chintan Dadhich, senior hospitality executive, Conrad New York Downtown and Tempo Times Square; email interview, April 2026
• Vince Angelo, general manager, Embassy Suites by Hilton Orlando Sunset Walk; email interview, April 2026
• Matt Dalrymple, general manager, Margaritaville Resort Orlando; email interview, April 2026

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The post If You Want to Get Some Sleep on Your Next Trip, Do This to Nab the Quietest Room in the Hotel appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Here’s what happened: Jordan and his partner were at the mall—no regular stairs anywhere nearby, as is the mall’s sacred tradition to make it impossible to go anywhere efficiently—so they were riding an escalator. And in the interest of getting their steps in, they walked around a couple who were blocking the entire width of the escalator as they continued their journey upward. As they passed, the couple yelled, “These aren’t stairs!” And then added some choice words that start with dumb and rhyme with the sound a chicken makes. Yelled. At two strangers on an escalator who were just living their lives.

Unfortunately, those are all the details I have. But I have questions: Was the angry couple passionately kissing? (Because that automatically puts passing them in the not-rude column; no one wants to stand slightly below a lip-locked couple when saliva is flying.) Also relevant: Did the couple have kids or bags? Were they elderly? (Probably not, given the language, but you never know these days.) How big were Jordan and his partner? Were they carrying anything that could have knocked into the couple?

This also raises an interesting philosophical question: Are escalators, which are sometimes called moving stairways, really stairs? Because the implication seems to be that passing someone on regular stairs is fine, but once they turn into a knockoff Disneyland ride, then you have to wait your turn. (No Fast Passes allowed!)

So … is it really rude to pass someone on an escalator? And if it is an etiquette faux pas, is it OK for someone to yell at you in response? Let’s do this.

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Some quick context, since apparently we need it

In the United States, Canada and most of Europe, the norm is to stand on the right and walk (or pass) on the left when walking or driving anywhere in public. When it comes to escalators specifically, this practice dates back to the London Underground in the early 1900s, where the first escalators were designed with a diagonal partition that funneled passengers off to the left. To avoid chaos at the exit, riders began standing on the right so that walkers could pass freely on the left without cutting through a line of people. The habit stuck, spread internationally and became one of those unspoken rules that most people absorb without ever being formally taught.

Most airports, transit systems and shopping malls operate according to this understanding, and many post signage to that effect. This isn’t rogue behavior. This is the expected etiquette.

The case for passing people on an escalator: It’s your right

First things first: You’re allowed to pass people on stairs, regardless of whether they are moving, stationary or some funhouse concoction of both. So when someone is walking on the left side of an escalator, they are participating in a longstanding, widely understood social contract that makes shared public spaces function. This isn’t a power move. It’s pedestrian traffic flow. So if someone is blocking the walking lane by standing two abreast, they are, technically, the one breaking the social contract. Politely going around them—with a quiet “excuse me”—is the correct response to an incorrect situation.

Also, for the record, the yelling is absolutely not OK. Whatever frustration the couple felt about being passed, expressing it with shouting in a public space is a breach of etiquette so bad that Victorian pinky fingers just curled in their graves.

The case against passing: Slow your roll, maybe

OK, devil’s advocate time. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should. Not everyone is in the same situation on an escalator. Some people have mobility limitations that aren’t visible. Some are carrying heavy bags. Some are traveling with small children and need the full step width for safety. Others are simply exhausted, and an escalator is the one place in modern life where they have been granted permission to just stand still for 30 seconds. Let them have this.

There’s also a real safety argument here. Escalator steps are taller and steeper than regular stair steps, and walking on them—especially while rushing or squeezing past someone—does carry more risk than walking on a standard staircase. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission actually recommends standing in the center of the step and holding the handrail. They found that escalators account for around 10,000 emergency-room injuries in the U.S. annually, and a notable portion of those are associated with walking on the escalator itself.

And the research (yes, there is escalator research!) is kind of counterintuitive. A 2024 transit study found that in very high-congestion scenarios, having everyone stand on both sides of an escalator can actually move more people per minute than the walk-left system because it eliminates the bottleneck created by one unused lane. So the efficiency argument isn’t as simple as it seems.

Does this mean passing is wrong? No. But it does mean that a little humility about your right to barrel past people is warranted.

The etiquette rules of various escalator scenarios

Because there are so many different escalator scenarios, here are a few etiquette rules of thumb (or toe).

• When passing is absolutely fine: You’re on a wide escalator with two clear lanes, where one is visibly open for walking. You’ve said “excuse me” clearly and kindly. You have a plane to catch. The people standing are able-bodied adults who are simply occupying the walking lane.
• When passing requires more care: You’re dealing with a single-file escalator, and passing would require some seriously close contact. The person in front of you has a stroller or cane, or is clearly elderly or unsteady. There are young children who could be knocked off balance. The escalator is very steep or very short—if you’d arrive at the same time anyway, what’s the point?
• When you should not pass at all: There is genuinely no safe way to do so, the person ahead is fragile or visibly struggling, or the escalator is crowded enough that your movement creates a domino-fall risk. Sometimes the most polite thing you can do is accept that you will arrive at your destination seven seconds later than planned and survive the experience.
• When you’re traveling outside the U.S.: Escalator norms vary by country. In many parts of Asia, for instance, convention is the opposite of what it is in the U.S.—stand left, walk right—and some cities have been moving toward standing-only escalators entirely. If you’re traveling, read the room (or the signage) before confidently striding up the left side and getting a Tokyo-style silent glare.

And one overarching rule that I need to mention: How you pass matters enormously. Lead with a clear, audible, kind “excuse me” before you’re already in someone’s personal space. Don’t sigh heavily as you pass, and don’t tailgate them and simply hope that they’ll read your mind and move. And don’t barrel on by with bags swinging. Treat the space the way you’d want to be treated in it.

The verdict

Passing someone on an escalator is not rude—when the escalator has a walking lane, when you signal your intent with a polite “excuse me” and when the person you’re passing isn’t someone who needs the full space for safety reasons. That’s the politeness trifecta.

Blocking the entire width of a walkable escalator and then yelling at someone for politely navigating around you? That is rude—and I say this especially for whoever submitted this question because I deeply respect the level of outrage that prompted an email to an etiquette columnist about an escalator. This is exactly the type of stranger interaction that has me arguing in my head for days after it has passed!

Bottom line: The escalator is a social space, and sensible rules exist for managing it. Follow them, extend grace when others don’t, say “excuse me” like you mean it and hold onto the handrail—not because I told you to but because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission would really appreciate it.

Have a social situation you can’t stop ruminating on? Email us at advice@tmbi.com, or message Charlotte on Instagram at @CharlotteHiltonAndersen.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of etiquette stories that help readers navigate communication in a changing world. We regularly cover topics such as the best messages to send for any occasion, polite habits that aren’t as polite as they seem, email and texting etiquette, business etiquette, tipping etiquette, travel etiquette and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Systems: “Escalator Etiquette: Stand or Walk? A Systems Analysis”
• National Library of Medicine: “Riding the Escalator: How Dangerous is it Really?”
• PubMed: “Escalator injuries”
• The Times: “Mystery over Tube escalator etiquette cleared up by restored film”

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The post Is It Really Rude to Pass Someone on an Escalator? appeared first on Reader's Digest.

But beneath all that chatter is a question most of us rarely stop to ask: Why are we talking about money in the language of animals at all? Why not something more straightforward, like “up markets” and “down markets”?

As it turns out, the story of bulls and bears isn’t just financial; it’s historical, linguistic and, at times, a little brutal. These phrases trace back centuries, long before modern Wall Street, revealing how metaphor, instinct and storytelling became baked into the way we understand money.

To get a clearer read on where these terms come from—and how they clawed and charged their way into everyday use—I spoke with Jess Zafarris, an etymology expert, author and co-host of the Words Unravelled podcast. Here’s what she had to say.

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What is a bear market?

A bear market is a period when stock prices are falling, typically by 20% or more from recent highs. It’s often accompanied by widespread pessimism, economic uncertainty and a general sense that things might get worse before they get better.

Bear markets can be short-lived or drag on for months (or even years), and they tend to feed on themselves: As investors grow more cautious, they sell more, which pushes prices even lower.

A recent example is the sharp market drop in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In just a matter of weeks, global markets plunged as uncertainty skyrocketed and businesses shut down. Another widely recognized bear market followed the 2008 financial crisis, when a housing collapse and banking failures triggered a deep and extended downturn.

Where does the term bear market come from?

The phrase bear market comes out of early 18th-century London’s Exchange Alley, where informal stock dealing took place, according to Zafarris.

As she explains, originally, bear didn’t describe the market; it described a person who expected prices to fall and sold in advance. “Speculators who agreed to sell shares they did not yet own were called ‘bearskin jobbers,’ from the metaphorical notion of selling or accepting money for a bearskin before catching the bear.”

The word jobber, recorded as early as 1626 in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), referred to independent stock traders, and Zafarris notes that the role carried a somewhat negative reputation. She points to a citation in the OED from 1715 that reads, “Instead of changing honest Staple for Gold and Silver, you deal in Bears and Bulls.” Over time, the name bear stuck to anyone expecting prices to drop or trying to cash in when they do.

You may have heard the popular explanation that bears swipe their paws downward, mirroring falling prices. But that’s likely a later interpretation, according to Zafarris. The real origin is less about animal instinct and more about early traders trying to outmaneuver the market—and sometimes getting caught in the trap themselves.

What is a bull market?

A bull market is the opposite: a period when stock prices are rising, often by 20% or more from recent lows. These stretches are marked by optimism, strong investor confidence and expectations of continued economic growth.

And when a bull market gets going, it can feel like a stampede. Rising prices attract more investors, more investors drive prices higher, and suddenly the whole herd is charging in the same direction. Momentum builds, risk appetite grows and caution gets left in the dust.

One of the most notable bull markets in recent history ran from 2009 to early 2020, following the recovery from the financial crisis. During this stretch, markets climbed steadily, fueled by low interest rates, rapid technological innovation and sustained economic growth, making it one of the longest bull runs on record.

Where does the term bull market come from?

Like bear, the term bull originally described a type of trader—specifically, one who expected prices to rise and bought assets (often on credit) to sell later at a profit.

The exact origin of bull is less certain than bear, but according to Zafarris, the two terms likely developed together in London’s Exchange Alley as opposing speculative strategies.

Bullish as a descriptor dates back to the 17th century, according to the OED, and was used to describe someone who is assertive or aggressive. Similarly, bearish emerged around the same time. Zafarris explains that both terms were originally used to describe people who literally looked like bears and bulls, but they were then extended to behavioral traits associated with the animals (aggressive, stubborn, charging, devouring, etc.). Only later were the terms associated with financial behavior.

Over time, those labels expanded from describing individual traders to describing the broader mood of the market. Zafarris cites a stock-jobbing explainer of the time that reads, “Prices will be called out … to find the pulse of the market, whether it is Bullish or Bearish inclined”—a concise way to describe sentiment that still holds today.

Why have these animal metaphors stuck around?

These animal metaphors have endured because they make complex market behavior easier to understand. Financial systems are abstract and often intimidating, but bulls and bears offer a vivid, intuitive shorthand.

The popular imagery we associate with them today—bulls charging upward, bears swiping downward—likely helped cement the terms, even if those visuals weren’t the original source. Zafarris also notes that bull-baiting and bear-baiting were once common (and brutal) bloodsports, which may have reinforced the cultural familiarity of these animals and their perceived behaviors.

Just as important, the terms stuck because they tell a story. They emerged from the messy, human world of early speculation, where traders needed quick ways to describe risk, strategy and sentiment. Over time, that shorthand became a shared language—one that still shapes how we interpret the market today.

RELATED:

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• Here’s the Real Reason Why Police Officers Are Called “Cops”
• Here’s the Punctuation Mark Gen Z Wants You to Stop Using—And It’s Not What You Think

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Jess Zafarris, etymology expert, founder of Useless Etymology, co-host of the Words Unravelled podcast and author of several books, including Words from Hell; email interview, April 16, 2026
• Merriam-Webster: “Bull market”
• Oxford English Dictionary: “Bull market”
• World Economic Forum: “What Is a Bear Market?”
• Fidelity: “Bear Market Basics”
• Securities and Exchange Commission: “Bull Market”

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The post This Is the Surprising Reason We Call Them Bull and Bear Markets appeared first on Reader's Digest.

And the number of data centers is increasing rapidly. In 2021, there were approximately 8,000 worldwide. Just five years later, that number has jumped to more than 12,000, and there’s no slowdown in sight. These centers are massive, ranging in size from 100,000 square feet to millions of square feet. (The largest in the U.S., located in Nevada, is whopping 7.75 million square feet.) With that immense size comes immense processing power—and substantial energy consumption, pollution and resource depletion, says John Oppermann, executive director of the Earth Day Initiative.

So how concerned should we be? And what could AI do to our planet if left unchecked? To find out, Reader’s Digest spoke with Oppermann, as well as Noah M. Kenney, founder of tech advisory firm Digital 520, and Benjamin R. Hayes, PhD, director of the Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program at Bucknell University. Read on to get the lowdown on the upswing in AI data centers and how your next ChatGPT conversation could affect the environment.

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What goes on in these data centers, exactly?

This is where your AI buddy “thinks” of the answer it’s going to spit back at you in 3 seconds or less, as well as where it’s trained to do that. When you ask ChatGPT, Claude or another AI tool a question, or a company engages in a more complex data-processing task, “your words leave your phone or computer as tiny packets of data and travel throughout the internet,” Kenney explains. “Next, those packets of data arrive at a data center, which is a giant warehouse full of computers stacked in rows.”

Inside the data center, your question heads to a special chip called a GPU, which is like a super calculator that solves millions of math problems at once. The AI breaks your question into small pieces, called tokens, then guesses the next words, based on patterns it learned from huge amounts of text. “It is a bit like the suggested word on your phone, but much smarter,” Kenney says. “Those words then travel across the internet to your screen.” Of course, each step of this process takes just milliseconds.

The only problem? When those chips work, they get really hot. “Imagine rubbing your hands together fast,” Kenney says. “Now picture doing that a billion times a second, which is what a GPU does when it answers your question.” If chips get too hot, they break. To prevent this, data centers pump cool water through pipes near the chips—and we’re talking lots and lots of water. You can guess where we’re going with this.

What are the environmental impacts of AI?

Yep, water usage is a huge problem—but it’s not the only one. Here’s how using AI sets off a domino effect of serious environmental issues.

Water use

To cool those chips, it takes anywhere from 500,000 gallons of water per day for average-sized data centers to several million gallons per day for newer and larger data centers with more powerful AI, according to the New York Times. To put that in perspective, we asked ChatGPT what that might look like in terms we could visualize. Its answer? Five million gallons of water is the equivalent of 80 million 8-ounce water bottles—and remember, that’s the amount of water being used at one facility per day. “Electronics must remain cool 24/7, 365 [days a year],” Hayes says. “Otherwise, computer chips and motherboards will literally melt within minutes.”

Large amounts of water are also required indirectly to produce the electricity needed to operate data centers. “Data centers require a massive amount of electricity,” Hayes explains. “They typically need to be located near power plants that already are drawing the largest amounts of water from the environment and then have their own high-volume needs.”

Data centers’ water usage can also impact an area’s animal life. A 2026 study published in the journal Water Biology and Security found that fossil fuel–powered data centers can make local water supplies too warm and unsafe for native marine life, while hydropowered data centers can cut off access to spawning areas for fish if new dams are built or old dams are removed. This can kill off species, ultimately reducing biodiversity and wrecking ecosystems.

Energy use and emissions

Data centers consume more than 4% of electricity in the U.S.—roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity all of Pakistan uses in a year. That figure is projected to grow by a whopping 133% by 2030. “Some of these individual data centers use twice the energy that can be generated at a single average-sized power plant,” Hayes says. “A single AI data center cluster is comparable to millions of households, or a large fraction of a state’s residential load. That’s historically unusual: Only things like aluminum smelters and massive industrial complexes have approached this scale before.”

The concern isn’t the electricity use itself: It’s the way that power is generated, which, in the U.S., tends to be from burning coal or natural gas. This emits carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming and climate change.

Additionally, data centers’ massive backup generators, which run on diesel or gas, emit nitrous oxide fumes and particulates that negatively impact air quality, Hayes says. Any facilities next to and relying upon natural gas or coal power plants also give off tremendous amounts of greenhouse-gas emissions. How much are we talking about? According to a 2025 study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, the rate of AI growth in the U.S. would put an additional 24 million to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2030.

Noise pollution

Residents living within three-quarters of a mile from a major facility may notice a low-frequency hum or distant “roar,” Hayes says. It’s more noticeable at night (because there’s lower background noise) and in the winter, when there are no leaves to dampen the sound. In those cases, it can be heard up to 3 miles away. The sound is often described as “background highway noise” or a faint airplane idling far away.

“That low-frequency component matters because it travels farther and penetrates walls more easily, and it doesn’t fade as quickly as higher-pitched sounds,” Hayes explains.

Could we actually run out of water because of AI?

Believe it or not, that’s not out of the realm of possibility. “If the proposed number of facilities gets built along certain major rivers, then indeed it is possible to reduce river and groundwater levels in places, for certain times of the year such as August to October in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States,” Hayes says.

Some areas of the U.S., including the American Southwest, have been facing water crises in recent years, and measures have been put in place to reduce residential and commercial use of water. But, Opperman notes, “adding the huge water needs of AI data centers to this existing problem runs the risk of some communities having less water than they need. The demand will simply outstrip the supply. We can wind up in a dire situation where we are using more water than we have.”

Now, may have heard OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s recent—and now infamous—claim that an average ChatGPT query uses just about 0.000085 gallons of water, or “roughly one 15th of a teaspoon.” That may be technically true, but that figure is incredibly misleading. It reflects only the direct operational water use for cooling the server when processing a query—and excludes the massive upfront training costs, power generation, and water and hardware supply chains. “As an analogy, Altman’s number is like saying that one car ride uses just an ounce of gas from the tank,” Kenney says. “It ignores all the gas required to produce the car, make the road or dig up the oil.” Plus, there’s the fact that no one ever asks a chatbot just one question.

Are there other options that use less water and energy?

At this point, there aren’t any alternatives to data centers that use less water and energy. “The hope is the ongoing engineering efforts to make more efficient chips that generate less heat and new technologies to cool them at the motherboard will significantly reduce the water and power consumption,” Hayes says. “But even as they improve, demand for AI will likely continue to increase, and these demands will offset savings in power and water efficiency.”

As of 2024, nuclear power supplied around 20% of electricity for U.S. data centers. They may play an even larger role in the future, as AI companies plan to open or reopen new nuclear plants in the United States—including Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which had a partial meltdown in 1979.

While nuclear power is emission-free, it’s not without its risks … of the occasional disastrous nuclear meltdown. Solar power is also out as a reliable option, since they don’t work at night, on winter evenings or during cloudy stretches.

How many AI centers are in the U.S.—and where are they?

Currently, there are approximately 5,400 AI data centers in the U.S.—the most in any country of the world, by far. (Fun fact: Germany’s next, with just over 500 data centers.) However, it’s important to keep in mind that this is an estimate, because there is no federal registration requirement for data centers, and the owners of some data centers don’t disclose their locations for security purposes and/or to have an edge on the competition.

While there are AI data centers scattered throughout the country, one-third can be found in three states: Virginia, Texas and California. More specifically, northern Virginia and Dallas are the main data-center hubs, as are Chicago and Phoenix. These locations will likely remain key to AI data infrastructure, since half of the data centers currently being built in the U.S. are part of preexisting large clusters, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Are we living in a real-life version of The Lorax?

It sure feels like it! “I think that people see great financial potential in the ever-increasing use of AI, and it is causing us to ignore a lot of warning signs,” Oppermann says. “The environmental impact caused by rushing into using AI and its requisite energy and water needs runs a risk of depleting the ecosystems we rely on to maintain our quality of life.”

For now, it’s hard to say what the future might look like and the role AI will play, but it’s important to think a few steps ahead, especially in terms of the potential environmental impact. “Some of the risks we do not even understand yet, but other risks we very much understand but are seemingly willing to plow ahead anyway,” Oppermann notes. “We have to decide what we value and what kind of future we want for ourselves.”

Some communities are actually pushing back on the development of data centers in their areas—and winning. “If people speak up and decide what they value and what they think is right and fight for it, this is not all a foregone conclusion,” Oppermann says. “We have the capacity to decide what we want for the future, not just helplessly stumble into it.”

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on AI and the environment, Elizabeth Yuko, PhD, tapped her experience as a professor, bioethicist and longtime journalist who often covers history and knowledge for Reader’s Digest. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• John Oppermann, executive director of the Earth Day Initiative; email interview, April 15, 2026
• Noah M. Kenney, founder and principal consultant at Digital 520; email interview, April 19, 2026
• Benjamin R. Hayes, PhD, director of the Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program at Bucknell University; email interview, April 16, 2026
• Pew Research Center: “What we know about energy use at U.S. data centers amid the AI boom”
• Time: “Data Centers Are Lousy for the Planet. Should We Move Them to Space?”
• New York Times: “Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door”
• Water Biology and Security: “Data centers: an emerging threat to freshwater biodiversity in the United States”
• Nature Sustainability: “Environmental impact and net-zero pathways for sustainable artificial intelligence servers in the USA”
• Cargoson: “Number of Data Centers by Country (November 2025)”
• Brookings: “The Future of Data Centers”
• International Energy Agency: “Energy and AI”
• Regional Plan Association: “The Rise of Data Centers in the Grid”
• Data Centre Magazine: “Top 10: Biggest Data Centres”
• Sam Altman: “The Gentle Singularity”
• Communications of the ACM: “Making AI Less ‘Thirsty’: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models”
• Insights: “From Cloud to Cup: How Much Water Does Your ChatGPT Drink?”

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The post Is AI Really Ruining the Environment? Experts Weigh In on How Dire the Situation Actually Is  appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Well, we have some good news for you: Being more environmentally responsible doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, there are a bunch of simple ways to do a little better for the planet—and we’re making it even easier for you by listing 15 of them right here. These small actions don’t require a lifestyle overhaul, but they make a big difference, and you can easily fit them into your day, whether that’s Earth Day or any other day of the year.

Read on for easy wins that feel good, do good and might just stick long after Earth Day is over.

Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more sustainability, fun facts, humor, cleaning, travel and tech all week long.

Easy ways to help the planet

1. Switch your laundry cycle to cold water.
   This might sound too simple to work, but trust us, it does—mostly because around 90% of a washing machine’s energy use comes from heating the water. This one switch alone can significantly cut household energy use without changing anything else about your routine.
2. Walk or bike short distances.
   If it’s a quick trip, skip the car. Changing how you travel can help cut fuel use and air pollution. In fact, a single walking or cycling trip can save 0.4 to 0.5 kg of carbon dioxide, compared to driving. Better yet, it’s usually faster than dealing with parking.
3. Support local businesses.
   Local goods don’t travel as far, which translates to fewer transportation emissions. You’re also keeping money in your community, which is a nice bonus.
4. Pick up trash when you see it.
   This takes only a few minutes to do. While one piece might not feel like much, if more people picked up trash regularly, it would make a visible difference in public spaces and waterways.
5. Choose digital tickets and receipts instead of paper.
   This Earth-saving hack saves paper (obviously), but it also reduces the energy and water used in paper production. According to a Green America report, receipts in the United States consume more than 3 million trees and roughly 9 billion gallons of water annually. It’s an easy choice that adds up across millions of people.
6. Switch to LED light bulbs.
   LEDs use up to about 75% to 80% less energy than traditional bulbs and last way longer. That means less electricity used and fewer bulbs ending up in landfills.
7. Air-dry your clothes instead of using the dryer.
   Dryers use a lot of energy—around 3,000 watts (3 kW) per hour, to be more specific. Tumble dryers are one of the most energy-intensive home appliances, so skipping even a few loads a week can noticeably reduce electricity use and emissions over time.
8. Take shorter showers.
   We know long, hot showers are basically a daily reset button for life, but they also use a lot of water. A typical shower uses around 2.5 gallons (9 to 10 liters) per minute, so cutting just two to three minutes can save 20 to 30 liters each time.
9. Bring a reusable bag, and actually remember to use it.
   Plastic bags are used for minutes, but they can stick around in the environment for hundreds of years. And with billions used annually, this is one of those “small habit, huge scale” situations. Keeping a reusable one on you can remove a surprising amount of waste from the system.
10. Carry a reusable water bottle or coffee cup.
    Single-use cups and bottles feel harmless in the moment … until you see how many add up in a week. According to the Earth Day Network, using a reusable bottle can save an average of 156 plastic bottles every year, per person. Plus, you’re reducing the energy used to constantly produce and transport disposables.
11. Swap one meat-based meal for a plant-based one each week.
    No need to overhaul your whole diet—even just one meal swap helps! Food systems are a major source of global emissions, so reducing your meat intake, even by a little, can lower your overall footprint over time.
12. Unplug devices you’re not using.
    Even when they’re “off,” many devices still quietly sip electricity. This standby or “phantom energy” can make up around 5% to 10% of household electricity use. Unplugging is basically cutting off the sneaky background drain.
13. Buy less, but buy better.
    Most of a product’s environmental impact happens before you even buy it, aka during manufacturing and transport. Choosing fewer, longer-lasting items can reduce waste and emissions without changing your lifestyle.
14. Stop wasting food at home.
    Remember the days when your parents made you sit at the kitchen table and finish everything on your plate? You might not have understood it at the time, but about one-third of all food produced globally gets wasted. That means all the water, energy and emissions that went into making it are wasted too. Using what you buy is one of the easiest ways to shrink your footprint without changing what you eat.
15. Spring clean your phone storage.
    Deleting old photos and duplicate images from your camera roll is weirdly satisfying, and it’s also a small win for the planet! All that data you keep stored lives on servers in massive data centers, which already account for about 1% to 2% of global electricity use, and it adds up: Storing just 1 terabyte of data can require anywhere from 40 to 300 kWh of energy each year. Every time you free up space, you’re helping cut down on the energy needed to keep all that extra data alive behind the scenes.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Cleaning Institute: “Cold Water Saves”
• World Health Organization: “Cycling and Walking Can Help Reduce Physical Inactivity and Air Pollution, Save Lives and Mitigate Climate Change”
• Green America: “Skip the Slips, The Big Impacts of Paper Receipts”
• U.S. Department of Energy: “LED Lighting”
• Energy Sage: “How Much Electricity Does a Dryer Use?”
• Earth Day Network: “Fact Sheet: Single Use Plastics”
• Time: “Why You Should Declutter Your Digital Life”
• MIT Sloan School of Management: “AI Has High Data Center Energy Costs—but There Are Solutions”

Inspiring Earth Day Quotes About the Planet

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The post 15 Super Easy Things You Can Do Right Now to Help the Planet appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The annual ritual

Earth Day is a beautiful, annual 24-hour window where we all collectively pretend we’ve been composting this whole time.

Carbon-footprint math

A real hero for the Earth!

The glacier has left the building

So much for that trip to the Antarctic we’d been saving for.

Climate anxiety is fun

Climate anxiety is real and valid, and it usually peaks at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday for no reason in particular. When you need a break, we suggest reading these Earth Day jokes instead.

The biodegradable situation

Biodegradable is doing a lot of heavy lifting as a word. We should probably ask more follow-up questions about the timeline.

Entering my seed-packet era

Nobody plans for this, and yet here we are. We’d also be happy to tell you how good discarded eggshells are for those tomato plants. Anyone? Um, anyone?

I’m the king of the world!

Leo would be proud.

This can’t be right

Well, this is depressing. Weren’t those animals totally OK when we were kids?

Dad was right about everything

Hey, I eventually got here. Crumbles into dust.

The reusable-bag situation

The road to environmental ruin is paved with reusable bags you absolutely meant to bring to the store.

I’m rich!

Never mind that it took six months and 16 failed attempts.

Who’s with me?

Ain’t no party like a farmers market party because a farmers market party is ORGANIC!

Thrift-store high

Single-handedly saved the planet and saved $47. I will be accepting my Nobel Prize now.

The fast-fashion guilt spiral

The sweater is already in the mail.

Anyone have a brush?

Let’s get this meeting started!

There’s no such thing as too many totes

Science has made so much progress, but there is no known cure for tote-bag accumulation.

Yeah, that’s right

I’m not saying I’m better than you in this Earth Day meme, but … I’m kind of better than you.

In it for the long haul

You know what they say: Good things come to those who wait (and wait … and wait).

A national park pilgrimage

That tree is 2,000 years old, and now my family is too!

New Earth Day level achieved

Bird-watching unlocks a part of your brain that cannot be relocked.

Totally won the potluck

Yes, I grew the zucchini myself. Celebrate me.

Behold the power of my good choices

This tap-water goddess is thriving, and she wants you to know it.

Sustainability doubles as mood lighting

This is us now. Nobody has burned a house down—yet.

If you know, you know

Now, which fast-food place should I order from tonight?

Mason jar mastery

Just like my ancestors.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. For this story on Earth Day memes, Laura Beck tapped her 15-plus years of experience as a professional humor writer for TV shows and magazines. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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The post 25 Earth Day Memes That Deliver the Laughs—Without the Carbon Footprint appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Even better than a traditional guidebook, Christie’s classic allowed me to immerse myself in Egypt in a vivid way. I would read a few chapters, then literally step into the same geography that influenced the author. The experience created a 360-degree layering of sounds, sights and smells that brought the book to life while creating new memories that were entirely my own stories to tell.

It turns out travel based on books like this is a growing trend. “We have undoubtedly seen a shift away from passive sightseeing toward more meaningful, narrative-led travel,” notes Johnny Prince, co-founder and CEO of the tour operator Timbuktu. “People are looking for context to their trips, and books provide one of the most powerful entry points into understanding a destination.”

For me, reading and travel are practically synonymous, and I always combine my love of literature and exploring the world into one intertwined escape. Read on to discover why you might want to consider letting books shape your next trip—and my advice on how to best do that.

Join the free Reader’s Digest Book Club for great reads, monthly discussions, author Q&As and a community of book lovers.

The rise of literary tourism

There’s now an unofficial name for travel based on literature: bookbound trips. According to Skyscanner’s 2026 trends report, 55% of respondents either have booked or would consider booking a trip inspired by novels, while 33% would consider visiting a location mentioned in one.

Hilton’s 2026 trends report echoes the findings on literary wanderlust. Among Americans surveyed, 68% said reading is one of their most anticipated leisure activities during downtime.

Vacation rental platform Vrbo spotted this 2026 travel trend too, though it nicknamed these trips “readaways.” Whatever you call them, the data is clear: Travelers are all about R&R this year—as in reading and relaxation.

An alternative to literary tours

Unlike traditional literary tours that turn books into rigid itineraries, bookbound travel doesn’t have to dictate an entire trip. I might seek out some specific sites mentioned in what I’m reading, but I also let the story act as a general lens that helps interpret how I see a place. Because of a book, I notice details or sense a mood I might otherwise miss. In turn, the destination I’m visiting rewrites, in a way, how I understand the story I’m reading.

In Death on the Nile, for example, a character remarks to detective Hercule Poirot that looking at the “big and peaceful” pharaohs carved from rock near where their boat is docked “makes one feel that one’s so small—and rather like an insect—and that nothing matters very much really…” That line resonated with me very differently when I read it in Egypt, surrounded by similar otherworldly monuments that have endured for thousands of years, than it would have if I’d read it at home.

Later, during stops between Luxor and Aswan, I better appreciated the world Christie drew inspiration from—surreal sites like the Karnak Temple, where massive columned halls and rows of stately stone sphynxes felt almost imaginary. At the end of the trip, while aboard a felucca, a traditional Nile sailboat, I spotted the book’s opening setting, the opulent Cataract Hotel (now officially known as the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan). From the water, I could practically picture Poirot’s dismay at Jacqueline de Bellefort’s unexpected and very unwelcome arrival.

That same Nile cruise allowed me to dust off the mystery alongside two other books set in Egypt that had been sitting on my towering to-be-read stack: Christopher Bollen’s Havoc, a thriller anchored in a Luxor hotel modeled on the historic Winter Palace Hotel, and his The Lost Americans, unfolding amid the chaos of Cairo.

The point of my trip wasn’t to experience the world of these books, but these books helped me appreciate the world around me.

What makes bookbound getaways so great

Traveling with a good book set in the destination you’re visiting turns an ordinary trip into a truly immersive experience. Here are just a few of the ways bookbound travel adds depth to any getaway:

Solo travel is much more enjoyable

Novels are engaging travel companions, especially on solo trips. One of my first bookbound getaways came shortly after the publication of Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons, a thriller set in Rome about a Harvard symbologist who races through the city’s churches and other sites to stop a deadly ancient plot.

Each night, I’d read a few chapters before bed and add any places mentioned in the story to my itinerary. Like a scavenger hunt, my days became so full of exploration and fun that there was little room for loneliness.

Details hidden in plain sight are easier to discover

On a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, I read Gabriel García Márquez’s romantic epic, Love in the Time of Cholera, and began noticing all the beautiful, lush colonial courtyards behind half-open doors in the historic Old Town—scenes I might have overlooked without the book’s rich portrait of the Caribbean city. As a bonus, I even found the late author’s former house.

And in Rome, with Angels & Demons as my guide, I uncovered entirely new corners of the Italian capital, including Bernini’s masterpiece sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, tucked away in Cornaro Chapel, inside the easily missed church Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The history of a place becomes more human

I recently went to El Salvador, a country I didn’t know that much about, and read The Weight of All Things by Sandra Benitez while there. The novel follows a boy whose mother is killed in an act of political violence, and through his search for her, it reveals how the country was torn apart by a brutal 12-year civil war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of its citizens, many of them children. The book made the historical reality of that conflict clearer to me.

The setting feels like more than just a backdrop

Some destinations are already postcard-perfect, but a great book can personalize them. Liliana Mascolo, who co-owns and runs the Hotel Poseidon on Italy’s Amalfi Coast with her mother and sister, saw this firsthand when writer Rebecca Serle used the property as a creative touchpoint for One Italian Summer, her novel about love, loss and mother-daughter bonds.

“One Italian Summer was an unexpected surprise in all the best ways,” Mascolo says of meeting fans of the story who didn’t want to “just turn the pages, but step into them” by staying at the hotel. “Over the years, we’ve welcomed countless guests who arrived with the book in hand, asking for team members by name,” eager to meet the very people who made the narrative feel tangible.

You go home with memories of both the trip and the book

“Novels create an emotional connection to a place before you even arrive, and that makes the experience infinitely richer once you’re there,” says Timbuktu Travel’s Prince. “Often, when a destination is tied to a story, you instantly notice more, ask different questions and engage on a much deeper level.”

I’ve noticed something similar myself. When I see certain titles now, I immediately recall where I was when I read them. Chasing the Thrill, the nonfiction account of how millionaire Forrest Fenn hid a treasure chest in the American West and sparked a real-life treasure hunt, always brings me right back to reading it on a summer road trip through Utah, Wyoming and Montana. In my mind’s eye, I can still picture the wide-open skies and expansive mountain views, and I feel that sense of freedom—just from hearing the name.

Book-based travel fits every budget

Bookbound trips can be as wildly luxurious or as simple as you want. “Books have long served as a powerful catalyst for travel inspiration,” explains Jennifer Lew, the vice president of product at TCS World Travel, which designs private jet expeditions based on books for well-traveled, well-read clients. “We help guests go beyond the page by bringing the worlds they’ve read about to life in a way that feels both intentional and deeply considered.”

But even those with far more limited budgets can explore their immediate surroundings with the aid of a good book. My home base of New York City, for example, offers me an endless wealth of bookbound-style trips right outside my door, from Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. There’s usually a book out there for just about every part of the world, even the most unexpected ones.

How to plan a literary trip

There’s really no right or wrong way to plan a literary-focused trip. I usually choose a destination first, then build a reading list across genres set there. Before a trip to Venice years ago, I wanted to understand the city as more than just a haven for tourists, so I devoured Jon Berendt’s The City of Falling Angels, an investigation into the 1996 La Fenice opera house fire. In the process, I learned about Venice’s real-life scandals and eccentric characters.

Other times, it works in reverse: a book inspires the destination choice. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a novel that opened my eyes to Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, casting the bright Mediterranean city in a completely different light. When I finally visited, what might have been just a curious maze of narrow streets and stone facades took on the air of a shadowy mystery world filled with hidden passageways and mythical, forgotten bookstores. I wandered the neighborhood at night, seeing it as the book showed me how.

Sometimes I’ll mix it up and read one book before I travel to get a sense of place, then save a few others to enjoy while I’m there. Different genres and tones change the trip—even places I’ve visited before.

How to get the most out of literary tourism

There are many paths up the literary mountain, but a bookbound holiday shouldn’t feel like an assignment. With book-based travel, the point isn’t to trace a story step by step on a map or check off locations (though that can be fun too) but to let the stories and destinations inform each other.

I rarely read while exploring. Instead, I alternate—reading before heading out or spending the morning roaming and returning to the book later. Sometimes I even see places first and read about them afterward. This rhythm lets both experiences breathe. When I visited Rome with Angels & Demons, I sought out certain landmarks, but I also wandered far beyond them.

In the end, the book starts the story, and the destination writes the final line.

Where to take your bookish adventure

Here are some book-and-destination pairings to consider for your next big trip:

San Juan, Puerto Rico

What to read: The Rum Diary

Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary captures the sun-soaked, unruly spirit of San Juan. Parts of the film adaptation were shot at Caribe Hilton, where the novel’s atmosphere comes to life. The hotel is the perfect launchpad to dive into that mid-century Caribbean energy.

Amalfi Coast, Italy

What to read: The Talented Mr. Ripley

Patricia Highsmith captures the allure of the 1950s Mediterranean jet-set lifestyle through the eyes of Tom Ripley, a down-and-out outsider who deviously worms his way into another man’s life. It’s a great read to get lost in on a voyage with SeaDream Yacht Club cruise or a stay in one of the area’s cliffside towns perched high above the sea.

The Mississippi River

What to read: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

When I was younger, I was obsessed with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book worth revisiting at any age. I grew up near the Mississippi River, but it still would have been a dream to take an adventure like the one Mark Twain wrote about. Today, fans of the classic can do just that with American Cruise Lines, which offers Twain-themed itineraries along the Mississippi that include stops in Hannibal, Missouri, the author’s boyhood home.

Denmark

What to read: Hamlet

Reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an experience, but nothing quite compares to stepping into Kronborg Castle, the UNESCO-listed fortress immortalized as Elsinore in the Bard’s masterpiece. To top it off, the story will come to life this August, when world-class actors perform open-air productions of the play in the castle’s courtyard.

Chicago

What to read: The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson’s bestselling nonfiction book The Devil in the White City details two parallel stories: the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the crimes of H.H. Holmes. Much of the narrative unfolds around Jackson Park and nearby Chicago landmarks. Experiencing those spots—especially the Museum of Science and Industry and the Riverwalk—feels like stepping through the pages of the book itself.

Iceland

What to read: Njál’s Saga

Every fall, I head to the North Atlantic for the Iceland Noir book festival and read novels by the many Icelandic authors represented, from Ragnar Jónasson to Yrsa Sigurðardottir. For something more deeply tied to the country’s landscape and history, pick up Njáls Saga. Written in the 13th century, it unfolds across the south coast, including the lava fields and mountains around Hotel Rangá.

“I always tell guests it’s important to read it twice: once for the story and again to see how women cleverly influenced events behind the scenes,” says Friðrik Pálsson, owner of the property, which curates custom tours to locations where the saga is set, such as Keldur, a collection of turf houses that offer a window into Iceland’s early farming practices and medieval life.

Anywhere on a boat

What to read: American Fantasy

For a meta bookbound experience, cruisers might want to get American Fantasy, a novel by Emma Straub about a woman of a certain age who finds herself on a four-day cruise with a ’90s-era boy band (and all their adoring fans). The literary fiction title taps into another one of this year’s biggest trip trends: nostalgia travel.

India

What to read: The Jungle Book

Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book follows Mowgli, raised among wolves in the forests of Madhya Pradesh in central India. It’s a tale often linked to Pench National Park, and The Oberoi Vindhyavilas Wildlife Resort and The Oberoi Rajgarh Palace offer immersive gateways into that world for young readers and their families.

At The Oberoi Vindhyavilas Wildlife Resort, guests head out on dawn safaris through Bandhavgarh National Park—home to one of the highest densities of Bengal tigers—evoking Mowgli’s encounters with the formidable Shere Khan.

Hawaii

What to read: Lies and Weddings

I visited the Four Seasons Resort Hualālai on Hawaii’s Big Island nearly two decades ago, but if I returned today, I’d bring along Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan’s novel Lies and Weddings. He spent time at the resort while writing the high-drama family saga that’s as thrilling as the Hawaiian lava field landscape surrounding the property.

New York City

What to read: Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune

The Waldorf Astoria in New York is an ideal backdrop for the nonfiction Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune, journalist Anderson Cooper’s personal account of his family, the Vanderbilts, and their legacy, including the real estate empire behind this recently reopened iconic hotel.

Venice, Italy

What to read: The Midnight Train

There’s something magical about train travel and Venice, so pairing the two with Matt Haig’s The Midnight Train—a new time-traveling love story that recalls his bestseller The Midnight Library—feels fitting.

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Johnny Prince, co-founder and CEO of Timbuktu; email interview, April 2026
• Liliana Mascolo, co-owner and operator of Hotel Poseidon; email interview, April 2026
• Jennifer Lew, vice president of product at TCS World Travel; email interview, April 2026
• Friðrik Pálsson, owner of Hotel Rangá; email interview, April 2026
• Skyscanner: “Travel ’26 Trends”
• Skyscanner: “Bookbound, the Literature Trend”
• Hilton: “2026 Trends Report”
• The International: “Hamletscenen”

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The post I Let Novels Guide My Travels—And It Brings Each Place (and Book!) to Life appeared first on Reader's Digest.

So when I learned that my trusty sidekick might be headed to that great tech graveyard in the sky, I worried that I might lose everything. I still haven’t read a lot of the books in my ever-growing Kindle library. I wouldn’t lose them … would I?

Well, bookworms, it’s time to find out. Read on to learn what’s going on with Kindles, whether yours is affected, when things will change and what to do about it.

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What’s happening to your beloved Kindle?

Amazon recently announced that it will no longer support Kindles released in 2012 or earlier. That means you won’t be able to download new books or check out e-books from the public library using the Libby or OverDrive apps. You can still read anything you’ve already downloaded, but basically, in another month, your older-model Kindle will become a relic.

Which Kindles are affected?

If your Kindle is on the chopping block, Amazon should have sent you an email. These are the affected models:

• Kindle (1st and 2nd generation)
• Kindle DX and DX Graphite
• Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation)
• Kindle 4
• Kindle Touch
• Kindle 5
• Kindle Paperwhite (1st generation)
• Kindle Fire (1st and 2nd generation)
• Kindle Fire (HD 7 and HD 8.9)

Not sure which one you have? Here’s how to check:

1. On your Kindle, go to Settings.
2. Select Device Options.
3. Select Device Info.
4. If you see a serial number instead of the model name, look it up online and see what device it matches.

Even easier: Go to your Amazon account and start looking into the trade-in process (more on that later). It’ll show you which Kindle you have.

What will happen to your e-book collection?

All your books will still live on your old Kindle, so you can still read them there. They also live in your Kindle app, so you can read them on your phone or tablet. And if you choose to buy a new Kindle, when you sign in on your new device, your books will transfer over.

When will these changes go into effect?

May 20 is the last day Amazon will support older Kindles. The trade-in offer lasts until June 20.

Why are they doing this to us?

The company says that “technology has come a long way” since 2012, but didn’t elaborate on why that’s the line of demarcation. Tech experts say that older devices of all kinds are vulnerable to security issues because the technology is too old to support software patches. (That’s a big reason why you’re prompted so often to update your phone apps.)

Should you just buy a new Kindle?

If you’re devoted to reading on a Kindle, then it’s probably worth it. There are a bunch of new models, and you may enjoy new features like vivid color graphics, AI summaries and more.

The least expensive new Kindle is the 7-inch Paperwhite, with 16 gigabytes of storage and a price tag of about $160. On the other end of the spectrum is the 11-inch Kindle Scribe Colorsoft with 32 gigabytes of storage, which comes with a pen for drawing and taking notes and costs around $630. (There are options in between as well.)

Amazon is offering trade-ins on older Kindles, plus a 20% discount if you buy a new one. But that trade-in won’t get you much. I was offered a measly $5 for my 2015 Kindle—the same amount as the older 2012 model I upgraded from—in the form of an Amazon gift card, of course. So the 20% discount is more helpful. With 20% off, the new Paperwhite would cost about $123.

You might save even more if you buy a refurbished model. Amazon sells certified refurbs, which start at under $100 and might give you the features you want without the brand-new price tag.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

The least expensive new Kindle, the Paperwhite comes with 16 gigabytes of storage.

$159.99 at Amazon

What if I don’t want to buy a new one?

You have until May 20 to download more books, which will buy you some time. You could also load your current Kindle up with books for your kids and pass it down to them. Many places, including Amazon, offer free kids’ book downloads.

You can also read on your phone or tablet using the Kindle app, but the reading experience is different. A Kindle uses special e-ink and has no glare, so it’s easier on the eyes. Plus, the battery lasts longer—sometimes for weeks, versus hours or days for a phone or tablet. But let’s be real: Those devices can be distracting, with all those other apps that might pull you away from your book. That said, an iPad, with its more vivid graphics, is superior for comics, graphic novels or highly visual books.

As for me, I’m lucky that my old Kindle is still good—for now. I’m about to take a trip, which is when I find it most helpful. I used to pack a stack of books for every trip, and my back is very thankful that I’ve adopted an e-reader.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Wired: “Amazon Pulls Support for Perfectly Fine Older Kindles”
• Tech Crunch: “Amazon to end support for older Kindle devices”

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The post Warning! Your Kindle Might Be Obsolete Very Soon—Here’s What That Means for Your E-Book Collection appeared first on Reader's Digest.

So what gives? Why didn’t they loosen up and show some public displays of affection? It turns out there’s a very valid reason, according to a new book by royal author Ian Lloyd. Ahead, I dig into the story and talk to Maria Coole, a Daily Mail reporter and the editor of The Royal List newsletter, about the couple’s enduring relationship.

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Why didn’t Elizabeth and Philip ever hold hands?

They simply would never have considered it. It was a very different time, and according to Lloyd’s new book, The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, their lack of PDA was “hardly a surprise since Philip had never been shown much affection from his parents.”

Born on June 10, 1921, in Corfu, Greece, Philip was the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice. When he was 18 months old, his family was exiled and fled to Paris. He would never again experience a stable home life: Alice had a nervous breakdown and went into an institution, his sisters married German princes, and Philip was sent to school in the U.K. Before Andrew’s death in 1944, Philip spent five years estranged from his father.

In 1939, the year Philip and his father lost contact, then-Princess Elizabeth first met her future husband, during a visit to the Royal Naval College. She “never took her eyes off him the whole time,” her governess, Marion Crawford, later wrote. But you’d never know it once they started seeing each other.

“When their relationship finally blossomed during the summer of 1946, the couple gave few clues away, even to those close to them,” Lloyd writes. “Peter Ashmore, the king’s equerry, recalled Philip’s three-week stay at Balmoral, when the couple came to what Philip called ‘an understanding,'” he continues. “They certainly did not drool over each other … They scarcely held hands.”

Even in later years, Philip would favor formality over familiarity in public. Lloyd explains that Philip’s private secretary and friend, Mike Parker, tried to encourage him to show some affection to his wife in public. “He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve,” Parker said in 1992, according to Lloyd. “I always wanted to see him put his arms around the queen and show her how much he adored her,” Parker went on. “What you’d do for any wife. But he always sort of stood to attention. I mentioned it to him a couple of times. But he just gave me a hell of a look.”

Was that the only reason for their lack of PDA?

No. It was also simply not done back then. “You have to remember, it was a very different time,” Coole says. “Once Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952, if she’d been seen holding hands with Philip at formal events, royal protocol would have been aghast. Their generation did not do public displays of affection, and how royals behaved in public was strictly orchestrated.”

Plus, the queen prided herself on being inscrutable when she was attending formal events, explains Coole: “She rarely cracked a smile, and Philip would stand ramrod straight.”

While there is no official rule saying you can’t show affection, royal protocol means it’s understood that it should be kept to a minimum while working, she says. That’s why Charles and Camilla and William and Kate are rarely snapped holding hands when they are working. “They are there in a professional capacity, so they are shaking hands with people and greeting the public,” she says. “It wouldn’t work if they’re wandering around locked together.”

“William and Kate do show more affection than Charles and Camilla and much more than the queen and Philip, as do Harry and Meghan, but much of that is generational,” she says. However, Coole notes, there were occasions when the formality cracked. In 1999, Philip was snapped giving the queen a kiss on the cheek at the New Year’s Eve celebrations in London. “The queen’s smile was lovely,” she says.

Did Elizabeth mind this lack of PDA?

No, not at all. “Elizabeth was emotionally controlled, and the fact he wasn’t all over her was something she quite liked,” Lloyd explains. A former royal butler, Paul Burrell, also revealed a saying that they had at Buckingham Palace about the queen’s priorities: “Horses, dogs, husbands and kids, and that was the pecking order,” he said on The Secret To podcast. “Even the horses came before her husband.”

But that did not mean the couple was not in love, says Coole—far from it. “They just didn’t need to show it in public,” she says. “It was different behind palace walls.”

Were Philip and Elizabeth affectionate in private?

Absolutely. “Pictures and letters from their private life tell a very different story,” says Coole. Despite not giving a balcony kiss at their wedding in 1947 (Charles and Diana would be the first to do this, in 1981), the couple was enraptured in private.

After the wedding, Philip wrote in a letter to the Queen Mother: “Lilibet is the only thing in the world which is absolutely real to me, and my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will have a positive existence for the good. Cherish Lilibet? I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me.”

And while their formal photos show them standing side by side, informal snaps often captured them arm in arm, picnicking at Balmoral and playing with their children. “You can see the love in their eyes, right to the end,” says Coole.

What was their love language?

One word: Lilibet. “Philip called Elizabeth her pet name throughout her life,” says Maria. He also had another adorable nickname for her: cabbage. This was seen on screen in the 2006 movie The Queen. “I enquired in royal circles and was told on very good authority that that is what the duke sometimes calls the queen,” movie screenwriter Peter Morgan told The Times.

They rarely spoke about each other, but when they did, it was extremely moving. Proof of the queen’s enduring love for Philip came in her 1997 Golden Wedding speech, when she said, “He is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know.”

After he passed away in April 2021, the queen said in her Christmas message that year, “In the months since the death of my beloved Philip, I have drawn great comfort from the warmth and affection of the many tributes to his life and work. His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation were all irrepressible. That mischievous, enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him.” If that’s not the language of love, we don’t know what is.

Of course, each generation’s love language is different. The queen and Philip were part of the Silent Generation—people born from 1928 to 1945, during times of global strife and economic hardship. Gestures and gifts were not about extravagance but were dignified, thoughtful and meaningful. In the words of the queen, “We see our own children and their families embrace the roles, traditions and values that mean so much to us, as these are passed from one generation to the next, sometimes being updated for changing times. I see it in my own family, and it is a source of great happiness.”

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Maria Coole, editor of The Royal List; interviewed, April 18, 2026
• The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Lloyd
• The Secret To: “Learning To Embrace Who You Are with Paul Burrell Part 2”
• The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen’s Childhood by Her Nanny, Marion Crawford by Marion Crawford
• The Times: “Is it why Charles talks to the veg?”

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The post Here’s Why Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip Rarely Held Hands—And What Their Secret Love Language Actually Was appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Plus, I love Earth Day. I have loved Earth Day since I was an earnest (read: painfully nerdy) teenager who started a compost bin at my high school. I had big dreams and a bigger bucket. What I did not have, it turned out, was the correct ratio of greens to browns, or the right kind of enclosure, or any concept of how quickly “free food pile” spreads through the rat community. Within two weeks, my environmental passion project had become a rat metropolis. Ruh-roh! It was not my finest hour, but it was extremely on brand for the well-meaning, slightly chaotic energy that surrounds most Earth Day efforts.

I share this story not to discourage you from composting (please compost; just look up how first), but because it captures something true about our relationship with the planet: We mean well, we sometimes make things slightly worse in the process, and the whole thing is kind of funny if you squint.

Which brings us to the real reason we’re here: the funniest jokes about Earth Day! Whether you’re a devoted recycler, a reluctant reusable-bag owner or someone who panic-bought a houseplant last April and let it die by May, there’s something here that will make you giggle about attempting to go green. Happy Earth Day!

Funniest Earth Day jokes

• Why did the glacier have a temper tantrum?
  It lost its cool.
• What’s the best part of an Earth Day cake?
  The ozone layer.
• Why do environmentalists make great detectives?
  They always follow the carbon footprint.
• Why did the composting comedian get booed off stage?
  His material was crappy.
• What did the hybrid car say to the charger?
  “I’m electrified by you!”
• Why did the Earth break up with the sun?
  It felt like things were getting too hot too fast.
• What did the tree say to the lumberjack?
  “I’m stumped as to why you’re doing this.”
• Why did the iceberg go to therapy?
  It had a lot going on beneath the surface.
• Why do aliens vacation on Earth?
  It’s got the best atmosphere.
• What’s the best compliment a composter can give?
  “You’re biode-great-able!”
• What does the Earth do on Halloween?
  Twig or treat!
• What’s the Earth’s favorite subject?
  Algae-bra.

Recycling jokes

• Why did the recycling bin break up with the trash can?
  It was tired of its garbage.
• Have you heard about the conspiracy controlling the world’s recycling? 
  It’s called the aluminum-ati.
• How do you know someone is really into recycling?
  Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
• What do you call someone who only recycles sometimes?
  Most of us.
• What do you call it when you recycle the same joke over and over?
  Sustainable comedy.
• What’s a recycler’s favorite TV show?
  Two and a Half Cans.
• What’s a recycler’s second-favorite TV show?
  The Big Bottle Theory.
• What are a recycler’s favorite toys?
  Barbie and Can.
• Why did the cardboard box go to therapy?
  It kept folding under pressure.
• Why don’t they make cars out of cardboard boxes?
  They’d keep breaking down.
• Why couldn’t the broken glass get into the recycling program?
  It didn’t make the cut.
• What’s the most recycled thing on Earth?
  Excuses for not recycling.

Climate change jokes

• Why did the glacier break up with the mountain?
  It felt like things were melting down between them.
• What do you call it when the Earth writes a column in the newspaper? 
  A hot take.
• Why did the politician refuse to talk about climate change?
  He was already in hot water.
• What do climate change and a soap opera have in common?
  Everyone knows what’s going to happen, nobody can stop watching, and it’s been going on way too long.
• How does a climate denier change a lightbulb?
  They don’t. They sit in the dark and insist it’s fine.
• What did one melting ice cap sing to the other?
  “It’s gettin’ hot in here …”
• What’s the worst part about climate change jokes?
  They have a very limited shelf life.
• Why don’t climate change scientists wear sunglasses?
  Because the future’s not bright.
• What body of water reduces global warming?
  A carpool.

Earth Day one-liners

• Earth Day is the one day a year we all agree to feel guilty and then do nothing about it.
• The best thing you can do for the planet is plant a tree; the second best thing is to stop telling people you planted a tree.
• Every day is Earth Day if you’re anxious enough about it.
• I have 47 reusable bags in my trunk that I never use—Happy Earth Day!
• I compost now, which means I have fruit flies.
• Going green is easy—getting the dye out of your hair is the hard part.
• I switched to a bamboo toothbrush, and now I feel both virtuous and slightly like a panda.
• The sun is a genius—it literally has a million degrees!
• Earth Day is like New Year’s for people who compost: full of promises, followed by gentle failure.
• A tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, probably because they’re all inside looking at their phones.
• I drive a hybrid because I want to save the planet … and I also want people to know I want to save the planet.

Clever Earth Day puns

• Time to mulch things over.
• Don’t stop be-leafing.
• Lettuce save the Earth.
• I’m lichen what I’m seeing!
• Tree-t yo’self!
• Coal me crazy.
• There is no planet B.
• Thistle be a great Earth Day!
• Weed better start recycling.
• Water you doing for Earth Day?
• I’m a fungi to be around on Earth Day.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. For this story on Earth Day jokes, Laura Beck tapped her 15-plus years of experience as a professional humor writer for TV shows and magazines. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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Somehow, there’s still lots more to learn about this rock we call home, as scientists continually make new discoveries about how Earth works. Forget what you learned in school, because some of these new science facts go against everything we thought we knew about the planet.

Fittingly, this season of change is also when Earth Day comes around, a day that’s become not just a celebration of nature but a call to action to save the planet. And the news about Earth isn’t all bad: There are so many astounding, inspiring and downright confounding things we literally just found out about, they might actually motivate us to protect our beautiful world.

Read on to discover the most surprising Earth facts scientists learned in the last year. And make sure you’re sitting down, because some of these are pretty shocking!

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Earth has another moon

Well, sort of. The “quasi-moon” PN7 was discovered by scientists from the Pan-STARRs observatory in Hawaii on Aug. 29, 2025. It’s called a quasi-moon because it’s not really a moon at all—it’s an asteroid. And although it seems to orbit Earth, it’s really orbiting the sun alongside us. The scientists were able to tell that PN7 has already been in orbit for 60 years and will likely be with us for 60 more.

It’s not big enough to exert any pull on the Earth, the way the moon does with the tides, and it will eventually leave our orbit. But in the meantime, it presents a great opportunity for researchers to study more about how orbits work. PN7 is the most recent and smallest quasi-moon discovered, but it’s actually not the only one: There are at least six other temporary travelers making the trip around the sun with us.

The deepest known ecosystem was found under the sea

The final frontier might not be space, but the depths of Earth’s oceans. Scientists recently discovered the deepest ecosystem on the planet 6 miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in deep trenches called “hadal zones.” Using a manned submersible to dive down to these trenches, the scientists found thriving communities of tube worms, clams, gastropods and more, which likely include new species.

But how do these creatures survive? Instead of sunlight, they use the chemical methane as a source of energy. This discovery has broadened our understanding of what animals can do to survive and the extreme things they are capable of: In other words, as Jurassic Park’s Dr. Malcolm says, life finds a way.

Gold is leaking from Earth’s core

Although we can’t journey to the center of the Earth (yet, anyway), scientists are learning more about the planet’s core, which is a solid ball of hot metal surrounded by a layer of liquid metal. The core’s metals include gold, platinum and a rare metal called ruthenium, which was the focus of a study that looked at ancient volcanic rock from Hawaii. The type of ruthenium the scientists found in the old rock was different from what’s been found in newer rock, indicating that it actually came from Earth’s core. “We realized we had literally struck gold,” one of the scientists said.

The ruthenium was delivered to the surface through magma, which erupts as lava and creates volcanic hotspots like Hawaii—and it’s likely that gold “leaks” this way as well. Given that almost all of Earth’s gold is also located in the core, could we be in for another gold rush? Maybe, but scientists are still studying whether this leakage is a new phenomenon.

Thawing Arctic permafrost is increasing global warming

Global warming is real, and it’s increasing, as clearly shown in a recent study of Arctic permafrost. Thanks to a supercomputer and newer, more detailed models over a larger area and for a longer period of time, scientists were able to determine just how much more of the permafrost has melted recently. The problem is that as more and more of it melts, carbon that had long been frozen is now flowing from rivers into the Arctic Ocean, where some of it is released as carbon dioxide, disrupting the ecosystem and increasing global warming, which melts more permafrost and creates a vicious cycle.

Although the study might not persuade climate deniers that there is a problem, understanding more about the process is key to finding solutions and further motivating people to rally behind the cause.

Beavers are environmental heroes

A first-of-its-kind study out of the U.K. found an unexpected ally in the fight against global warming: beavers. These toothy creatures are already known for their dam-building, and it turns out the wetlands they create by damming rivers capture carbon dioxide from organic material in a big “carbon sink.” This traps the climate-changing gas instead of dispersing it into the environment. The study found that wetlands where beavers are active store carbon up to 10 times the rate of wetlands without beavers. Leave it to beavers to save the planet!

This new research illustrates how connected the inhabitants of an ecosystem are, and provides a good reason to encourage eager beaver building in wetlands and rivers. Long considered a “keystone species” because of their ability to transform environments, these adorable animals were almost fur-trapped to extinction in North America and Europe in the 19th century, but they have rebounded in a big way.

Underground earthquakes were discovered

We’re not talking just a little ways underground—we’re talking way, way below the surface in Earth’s mantle. This layer of gooey rock was previously thought not to experience many earthquakes. After all, how could the mushy mantle “crack” the way the Earth’s hard crust, or surface layer, can? But researchers at Stanford University recently discovered a method to locate and measure mantle quakes worldwide by comparing specific seismic waves, and what they found was shocking.

The mantle quakes occurred all over the globe, particularly in a stretch from the Alps to the Himalayas, and in unexpected locations like the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska. Although mantle quakes aren’t felt on the surface, researchers think learning more about these underground earthquakes can help us better predict and prepare for the devastating ones on the surface.

Wolves saved aspen trees

Scientists discovered more evidence of the interdependence of plants and animals in an ecosystem when they conducted a study on aspen trees in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. They observed a flourishing resurgence of new trees in aspen stands for the first time since the 1940s. Why? It’s all due to wolves. Sprouts of aspen trees were eaten by a growing population of ravenous elk for decades until wolves, who became locally extinct in the park in the 1930s, were reintroduced there in the 1990s. As carnivores, the wolves reduced the elk population, which meant the trees could finally thrive again.

Aspen stands are unique because the trees are all connected by an underground root system and because they are actually genetic clones of one another. When observations of the stands were made in the 1990s, there weren’t any saplings, but the recent study found them in 43% of the aspen stands surveyed.

Microlightning may have created life on Earth

A study out of Stanford University found that electrical charges from sprays of crashing water, such as waves and waterfalls, may hold the key to the start of life on Earth. This is not regular lightning as occurs during a thunderstorm, but rather tiny zaps when water is divided, which can mix with gases in the air to create organic compounds—i.e., life. This lightning is hard to see with the naked eye, but it may be able to provide explanations for the origins of life, as well as have practical applications such as creating other compounds like ammonia and hydrogen peroxide.

In a separate study, the researchers discovered that ghostly blue flames observed for centuries in swamps and dubbed “will-o’-the-wisps,” one of planet Earth’s greatest unsolved mysteries, are another example of microlightning. Here, it occurs when bursting bubbles of methane gas from decaying organic material oxidizes and produces a luminous charge. This phenomenon can help scientists learn more about chemical reactions in natural environments.

Renewable energy can power the planet

In one of the biggest wins of the last year for planet Earth—Science even named it their 2025 Breakthrough of the Year—renewable energy overtook coal as the world’s leading electricity producer, according to a report by the think tank Ember. For the first time, researchers discovered proof that renewable energy, such as wind and solar, is a viable means of powering the planet without destroying it. Solar and wind power were able to outpace demand, and this hard evidence of clean energy’s feasibility marks a turning point in moving away from fossil fuels.

Could this historic moment turn the tide of the future of the planet? Scientists say there is good reason to hope.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Planetary Society: “Earth’s quasi-moons, minimoons, and ghost moons”
• Nature: “Flourishing chemosynthetic life at the greatest depths of hadal trenches”
• Nature: “Ru and W isotope systematics in ocean island basalts reveals core leakage”
• University of Massachusetts Amherst: “A Wisconsin-Sized Chunk of Alaskan Permafrost Is Thawing; Arctic and Global Climate May Never Be the Same”
• Communications Earth and Environment: “Beavers can convert stream corridors to persistent carbon sinks”
• Science: “Continental Mantle Earthquakes of the World”
• Forest Ecology and Management: “Changing aspen stand structure following large carnivore restoration in Yellowstone”
• Stanford Report: “‘Microlightning’ in water droplets may have sparked life on Earth”
• Science: “2025 Breakthrough of the Year”

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The post 9 Surprising Earth Facts Scientists Learned in the Last Year That Change Everything We Thought We Knew About the Planet appeared first on Reader's Digest.

And I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The novel, released in 2024, won the relatively new but prestigious Clark Fiction Prize in 2026, an accolade shared by the likes of Pulitzer Prize–winners Colson Whitehead (for The Underground Railroad in 2018) and Percival Everett (for The Trees in 2023). Amazon reviewers loved it too—the book has racked up 17,000 reviews in just two years.

So when I heard that the novel was being adapted into a television series by the ultra-hip A24, I was excited for even more people to experience a story I loved. I was also a bit skeptical. Would the show stay true to the book’s commentary on single parenthood? Would the Hollywood-ification of a good book dull the authentic character development? Would Margo, a young girl making her way in the world, still feel relatable when played by a beautiful actress?

I finally got those answers when the first three episodes of Margo’s Got Money Troubles dropped on April 15 on Apple TV. This star-studded show features Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Nick Offerman and Michelle Pfeiffer, plus a screenplay adapted by David E. Kelly, known for writing shows like Big Little Lies, The Practice and Presumed Innocent.

The show seems to be just as popular as the book: A day after its first three episodes released, it already has a 96% critic’s rating and a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, giving me (and anyone else who loved the book) a good reason to keep hopes high. Ahead, here’s my inside take on how closely the show sticks to the book and why you should tune in, whether you’ve read the source material or not.

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What is Margo’s Got Money Troubles about, exactly?

The show follows Margo Millet (Elle Fanning), a junior college student from an unconventional family who gets pregnant after sleeping with her slimy married English professor, Mark (Michael Angarano). Margo’s mother, Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer), isn’t happy about the pregnancy, and at the time, her dad (Nick Offerman) isn’t in the picture.

At just 19 years old, Margo is portrayed as naive about the realities of the world, which had me reminiscing about my own not-so-practical point of view at that age. Margo’s baby comes, and she’s in need of a lot of cash—fast. That’s when Margo comes up with the idea to create an OnlyFans account, which she develops with help from her dad, Jinx (Nick Offerman), who shows up after a stint in rehab to help.

The story follows Margo’s journey to get on her feet as she grows her OnlyFans presence. Diving deep into the world of online adult content, Margo navigates parenthood and her relationships with her friends, the father of her child, her parents and her fans.

How closely will the series stick to the book?

So far, the adaptation of Margo’s Got Money Troubles stays true to what the novel is about, with a few distinct changes worth calling out. These changes mainly have to do with how a television show is a different storytelling medium from a book.

Ready to dive in? Beware, there are serious spoilers ahead!

The plot points stay true

All the major plot points of the book are present in the show. Margo’s still a young woman who gets groomed by her married professor, and she’s still trying to make money through sex work to support her new baby.

Before the rest of the episodes are released, it’s hard to know for sure whether the show will stay true to the book. However, the characters and plot have been set up in such a similar way that I don’t expect the show to deviate too much from this novel about getting through hard times.

Motherhood remains important in Margo’s transformation

In the book, Margo’s personal transformation hinges deeply on how she finds empowerment and self-actualization through parenting. I loved how, in the beginning of the book, Margo decided to continue her pregnancy despite pressure from both Mark and her mother to terminate it.

I was glad that this idea of Margo staying true to her own needs and desires is present in the series because her becoming a parent influences her personal transformation. It also plays a role in how she understands her own parents, a former Hooters server and an ex-professional wrestler.

Characters are the same, for the most part

The characters of Margo, her professor and her parents all remain consistent with the book. One difference, however, is in the character Linda (Nicole Kidman), who acts as the family mediator.

In the novel, Linda is Jinx’s sister, making her Margo’s aunt. In the show, Linda knows Jinx from the professional wrestling community, and she isn’t related to the family. I don’t mind this change, and I think it makes sense to add a little flair for the TV show without losing the character’s purpose. (And seeing Nicole Kidman act the role of a pro wrestler will certainly be a good time!)

Another change: Margo’s mother seems to be a little nicer in the show than she was in the book. This removes an additional, realistic challenge that Margo faces, so I hope that the next episodes show Shyanne’s difficult, unlikeable side—it’s important for Margo’s growth as a character.

One difference in the show that I’m happy about is the glimpse into Jinx’s journey in rehab. We couldn’t know this in the book because it was written from Margo’s perspective, and she wasn’t aware of her father’s whereabouts. In a television show, however, the viewer can get information that the book’s narrator might not have, and I was glad to see that we learned more about Jinx, who was ultimately my favorite character in the book.

A major love story isn’t present

In the book, Margo winds up falling in love with a guy named JB (Michael Workéyè). JB is still in the television show as Margo’s customer, but they don’t have the kind of love relationship they do in the book.

Thorpe told the Hollywood Reporter that the film’s producers attempted to keep this storyline in the show. However, the nature of Margo and JB’s relationship just doesn’t translate to the screen.

I think this makes sense, and I like that there’s less emphasis on a love story in the television show overall. This is a story about a young woman learning to get on her feet, and she certainly doesn’t need a love interest to get there.

What else can we expect from the series?

Margo’s Got Money Troubles is definitely a funny story. It’s also sad, unexpected and filled with twists, earning it a place squarely in the dramedy genre.

One important thing to note: Despite the comedic moments in this show, it’s very much a commentary on the difficulty of staying afloat financially in American society today, which is what I loved most about the original story.

In that vein, the show is relatable to anyone who’s ever had money troubles, been a single parent, struggled with family relationships or tried to understand their own parents and their choices. I don’t have children of my own, yet I could relate very much to the relationship dynamics, money issues and mental health challenges portrayed.

In other words, this show couldn’t be more timely for any American of any age.

What does the early buzz say?

The initial verdict on Margo’s Got Money Troubles is good—really good. In fact, there are already rumblings that this show could be a contender for awards season, as long as the rest of the series holds up to its great start.

• “It really lives up to it so far! The tone is exactly right,” said a commenter on Reddit.
• “…by the end of the first episode I was hooked and wanted more, same with the end of the second episode, but unfortunately, it was bedtime,” according to a commenter on IGN‘s Facebook page.

Sentiment is similar among movie critics, with reviewer Richard Roper raving that the show is “a star-studded, wickedly funny, sex-forward adaptation, and it’s one of the most engaging and entertaining series of the year to date.”

Still wondering if you’ll enjoy the show? Well, there’s only one way to find out!

Where can you watch Margo’s Got Money Troubles?

You can tune into Margo’s Got Money Troubles on Apple TV, but all eight episodes won’t be available right away. The first three episodes came out on April 15, and one episode will drop every Wednesday until the finale on May 20.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. For this piece, Michelle Polizzi tapped her experience as a journalist to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Apple TV: “Margo’s Got Money Troubles”
• Texas State University: “About the Prize”
• Reddit: “Margo’s Got Money Troubles Is the Must-See Show of the Spring”
• Facebook: “IGN”
• RogerEbert.com: “Margo’s Got Money Troubles”
• Hollywood Reporter: “The One Big ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Change That OnlyFans Creators Requested”

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The thing is, it’s not just me, and it’s not just shared childhood nostalgia that makes the weather seem worse now. According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) from the United States Global Change Research Program, “the severity, extent [and] frequency of multiple types of extreme events” really have increased. We’re seeing more rainfall and flooding, as well as worse heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and drought risks.

In other words, wet places are getting wetter, dry places are becoming drier and the April showers we remember from our youth? Well, they’re becoming April deluges in some places. Ahead, I talk to Marybeth Arcodia, PhD, an atmospheric scientist and assistant professor at the University of Miami, to learn more about what’s going on. Keep reading to discover why April showers really are getting worse.

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How much more rain are we now getting?

It depends where you live, but according to the landmark 2023 NCA5, the number of “extreme precipitation days” in the contiguous United States has been steadily increasing for decades. (“Extreme” days represent the top 1% of all heavy rainfall events, measured by total precipitation.) And according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this trend will continue throughout the 21st century.

Two areas stand out. Since 1950, the Northeast has seen an increase of around 60% in extreme precipitation days, and the Midwest has seen a near-45% increase. Both areas also saw increases of greater than 10% in annual and five-year maximum rainfall amounts. This has resulted in more flooding in these areas too. But it’s not just these two regions; all of the lower 48 states saw increasingly extreme rainfall.

So far, 2026 holds a surprising record: the driest first three months on record for the contiguous U.S., according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). But extreme rain and storm events still occur, including in Pittsburgh, which saw record-breaking rain and widespread flooding this past March. Also in March, supercell thunderstorms brought tornadoes and 6-inch hail to Illinois, Indiana and Michigan; four people died. And last April offered another clear demonstration: The Central Mississippi River Valley suffered catastrophic flooding after some areas saw more than 16 inches of rain, resulting in at least 24 deaths and billions of dollars of damage.

What’s going on, exactly?

Arcodia says to think of Earth as a giant snow globe, with its climate regularly getting shaken up. It’s “well known among the climate community that the climate has always been changing. … What has changed is the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, or greenhouse gas emissions, and the temperature,” she says. “This is happening at a rate 50 to 100 times faster than we’ve ever seen before.”

Before, our snow-globe planet would get shaken up by cyclical climate events, and then it would have time for the flakes to settle back down to the bottom of the globe. It had the time to reach equilibrium. Now, because of the rate of emissions and temperature increases, we are “shaking the snowglobe and not allowing it to reach equilibrium,” Arcodia says. “Because of this, our extreme weather events are intensifying.” And this is happening across seasons and across hemispheres.

But let’s talk about spring rain, specifically—you know, the proverbial April showers that bring May flowers. Warmer air can actually hold more water due to something called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. As a result, rising temperatures can increase the intensity of storms and rainfall. And according to the NCEI, March 2026 was the warmest on record in the contiguous U.S.

Are other extreme weather events increasing?

Yes. It’s not just heavy spring rain, thunderstorms and flooding. According to the NCA5, the western U.S. has seen an increase in heat waves and overall hot days since 1980, and as of March 2026, more than half the U.S., including parts of the Great Plains, Lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast U.S., was experiencing a drought due to this past winter’s warmer and drier conditions.

If warmer air temperatures are supposed to be making spring wetter, what gives? “The easiest way to sum this up is that the wet places are getting wetter, and the dry [are getting] drier,” Arcodia says. “So instead of a redistribution of the cycle, both regions are intensifying.” In other words, it’s totally possible for spring to bring both flooding and drought, depending on where you live. With a warming planet, experts expect extreme events like this to continue.

Which states are going to be hit the hardest this year?

In its latest April one-month outlook, the National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts that much of the United States, including the Northeast, Midwest and much of the central U.S., as well as most of Alaska, will likely experience above-average rainfall over the course of the month, with particularly high likelihood in the Illinois-Missouri-Iowa corridor.

Hawaii has already experienced a very wet spring, with an estimated 2 trillion gallons of rain (enough to fill 3 million Olympic pools) falling in March, according to data from the University of Hawaii. Local affiliate Hawaii News Now reported that large portions of the Big Island, Maui, Molokai and Oahu had the wettest March on record (since 1991).

In other parts of the country, however, this spring has brought worsening droughts, according to NOAA. And according to the NWS forecasts, large portions of the West Coast, Pacific Northwest, South and Florida panhandle will likely experience below-normal levels of precipitation this month.

How can you prepare for this more extreme spring weather?

The NWS offers a useful checklist to help you prepare for and respond to severe storms and subsequent flooding risks:

• Know your risk: Check to see if your home, school or workplace is in a flood-prone zone or other high-risk area.
• Have an evacuation plan: Map routes in case of flooding; some roads are more prone to flooding than others, so know where you are going before you start.
• Prepare emergency kits: Include evacuation information and first aid supplies. Ready.gov has a full list of suggested items.
• Create a communication plan: Include friends, family and neighbors. Know who should go where when.
• Charge your devices: Have necessary electronics charged and ready to be without electricity access.
• Stay informed and follow all evacuation orders: Download weather apps or watch your local news to stay informed.

Arcodia underlined just how important it is to be aware and to be prepared for the kind of severe weather that may impact your region: The “No. 1 [part of] being prepared is understanding that a 1-in-100-year flood event can happen, a heat wave that you have never experienced before can happen,” she says. It’s important that “the community be ready.”

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Marybeth Arcodia, PhD, professor at Miami University; video interview, April 10, 2026
• Climate Trends: “Fifth National Climate Assessment.”
• National Centers for Environmental Information: “Assessing the U.S. Temperature and Precipitation Analysis in March 2026”
• NOAA: “Precipitation Change in the US”
• Hawaii News Now: “New data shows March storms dumped over 2 trillion gallons of rain over Hawaii”
• World Weather Attribution: “Effective emergency management prevented larger catastrophe after climate change fueled heavy rains in Central Mississippi River Valley”
• PNAS: “What a 190-year-old equation says about rainstorms in a changing climate.”
• National Weather Service: “Monthly Precipitation Outlook”
• NOAA: “Spring Outlook: Drought forecasted to expand in U.S. West, parts of Plains”
• Weather.gov: “Flood Safety For You And Your Family”

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The post It’s Not Your Imagination: April Showers Are Getting More Severe, Especially in These Regions appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The fact is, when you’re getting ready for a trip, you’re focused on packing right for any weather and making sure you’re not carrying on more than 3.4 ounces of expensive conditioner that might get confiscated by a TSA agent. But if you’re like me, you’re forgetting one important step: cleaning your luggage. Even if you stay at nice hotels, your bags still need a post-trip wipe-down (or so I’m learning).

To find out what nasty stuff can grow on luggage and how to clean a suitcase, I reached out to a microbiologist and a cleaning specialist. Read on for their pointers on how to sanitize your travel bags so they look good, hold up longer and don’t turn into a mobile biohazard lab.

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Just how germy is your luggage?

“There have been all sorts of microbes discovered on luggage, from the harmless to the downright nasty,” says microbiologist Jason Tetro (professionally known as The Germ Guy), the author of The Germ Code.

He ticked off some common offenders: skin bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (including MRSA, officially known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), fecal coliforms like E. coli and Enterobacter, and a few foodborne pathogens, including listeria. “And don’t forget fungi, like Candida, Aspergillus and our old friend Penicillium,” Tetro adds.

So when you learn how to clean a suitcase properly, you’re not just removing surface filth; you’re getting rid of microbes too. That’s important because viruses and bacteria can hang out for days on common suitcase surfaces. “Viruses usually last four to 24 hours on these surfaces, though Norovirus can last 28 days,” Tetro says. “Bacteria can last for several days.”

Translation: You can pick up a bug from your bag, which is not what you want to deal with on your vacation or business trip.

Does luggage type matter?

While hard and soft suitcases harbor similar types of germs, the surfaces don’t pose the exact same risk. “With soft-shell bags, germs will soak into the fabric for the most part, unless the bag has been made waterproof,” Tetro explains. And if it has soaked into the fabric? “It may create less risk in the short term,” he says, “but they may form biofilms over the long term and become even more problematic [to get rid of].”

Either way, you want to attack the nastiness pronto.

What are the germiest parts of luggage?

Germs often hide out in hard-to-clean parts of your baggage. Suitcase wheels are a total germ hot spot, with one study finding they contain 58 times as much bacteria as a public toilet. Think about it: Your suitcase picks up nasty bugs everywhere it travels, from airport restroom floors to surprisingly filthy hotel rugs to overhead bins and cargo holds.

Handles are another high-touch spot, with 40 times more bacteria than a toilet seat, per that same study.

Does the inside of your luggage also need to be cleaned?

In a word: absolutely. “Luggage interiors tend to get dirty faster than the outside,” says Iryna Balaban, co-founder and CEO of Sunlight Cleaning NYC. Many people occasionally wipe down the outside but forget about the interior, assuming it’s clean because it doesn’t come into contact with all those high-touch airplane and airport surfaces. Yet that inside fabric gets exposed to everything from soiled clothing to dirty sneakers to damp (and sandy!) swimsuits.

The interior lining can also get filthy from fabric lint and toiletry spills, Balaban points out. If you’ve ever had a shampoo leak in your luggage or an eyeshadow quad shatter into a million pieces on the road, you know exactly the mess she’s talking about.

How do you clean luggage?

The trick for removing germs from baggage depends on the type of suitcase you’re de-griming—different surfaces can tolerate different chemicals. Here’s how to clean a suitcase, no matter what surface you’re dealing with.

How to clean a fabric suitcase

1. Vacuum the fabric. Balaban says a vacuum’s upholstery attachment can help you get rid of loose dirt and debris.
2. Disinfect the luggage. Tetro suggests using a fabric-safe disinfectant wipe to remove bacteria and other germs.
3. Create your cleaning solution. “I use a very mild detergent solution made by mixing approximately 1 teaspoon of liquid laundry detergent per liter (or roughly 1 quart) of warm water,” Balaban says. Resist the urge to add more detergent—you just need enough soap to lift dirt without soaking the bag or leaving behind a soapy residue.
4. Spot-clean any stains. Wet a microfiber cloth with your cleaning solution. Dab it onto the luggage, but don’t vigorously rub, because you could damage the fabric.
5. Let your luggage dry. Leave the bag open and upside down to air-dry. Make sure it’s fully dry before you use it again or put it in storage so mold and mildew don’t develop.

How to clean a hard-shell suitcase

1. Disinfect the luggage. Wipe down every inch of the exterior with a disinfecting wipe (such as Lysol) or an alcohol-based disinfectant. “I typically use a disinfecting spray that contains at least 70% isopropyl alcohol, and this will effectively kill most commonly found germs on the surface of hard materials,” Balaban says. While some commercial cleansers contain this formulation, you can also buy 70% isopropyl alcohol at a drugstore or grocery store and pour it into a new, empty spray bottle to spritz all over the surface.
2. Scrub the exterior. Using a soft brush, scrub the cracks and crevices where dirt and germs collect (think the wheels, the handle and any buckles).
3. Let your luggage dry. Unzip your bag and let it hang upside down to dry for at least a full day before storing or using it.

How to clean a suitcase interior

If you’re dealing with a spill or stain on the inside of your luggage, tackle that first. The key to making sure messes, whether toiletry leaks or other issues, are strictly temporary is to spot-clean as soon as you can with a diluted detergent (like the DIY cleanser suggested in the directions below) or fabric-safe wipe. Then, hang the bag upside down to fully dry.

When you’re home and giving your luggage a full scrub-down, tackle the entire inside.

1. Vacuum the interior. This will get rid of dirt, sand and other debris.
2. Disinfect the luggage. Wipe the inside with a fabric-safe sanitizing wipe, or spray it with a 70% isopropyl alcohol solution. Don’t use a bleach-based wipe, though, or it could discolor the fabric.
3. Tackle stains. If you see any visible stains, dab them with a solution of diluted laundry detergent (1 teaspoon of liquid laundry detergent per liter, or roughly 1 quart, of warm water).
4. Let your luggage dry. Leave the bag open and upside down to fully dry overnight so mold and mildew don’t develop, Balaban says.

How often should you clean your luggage?

Sanitize your luggage every time you get back home, Tetro says. “It doesn’t matter if you were staying in a cruise ship cabin, a motel room or a five-star hotel,” he says. “You need to clean everything the same way after each trip.”

What if you haven’t hit the road in a while and your bags have spent months in the attic or basement? “If you’ve had a bag in storage for several months, I highly recommend cleaning it before returning it to active duty,” says Balaban. Don’t worry: Bacteria and viruses can’t survive for months on your suitcases, Tetro assures. But dirt, grime and dust can. Taking a few minutes to vacuum and clean your suitcase prevents leftover dirt from messing up your clean clothes—and even prolongs the life of your luggage.

What else should you keep in mind to avoid luggage germs?

• When packing, contain anything messy. Tetro is a fan of using resealable baggies to contain slightly damp swimsuits, foods and other potentially messy things you pack.
• Unload your suitcase in a “safe room.” Once you’re home, unpack your luggage in a carpet-free entryway, laundry room or bathroom “to eliminate tracking dirt in,” Balaban says.
• Worried about pests? Put your bag in the bathtub. Tetro learned this tip from a colleague: “When you get to the hotel or home, put the luggage in the tub and leave it there for an hour or two,” he says. Check both the tub and the luggage itself for stowaways.
• Check every last pocket. “The small zippered pockets and areas along the lining of the luggage are where crumbs, receipts and small spills can get trapped and remain undetected for months,” Balaban says. “I always make sure to unzip every pocket when I am performing my cleaning and inspection routine, since these are often areas where residual dirt can hide.”
• Immediately wash dirty clothing. Ever arrive home and leave your unpacking for … let’s just say “later”? Me too. But here’s the problem with this habit: Letting dirty clothing sit in luggage creates the perfect conditions for bacterial and mold growth. It can also make it stink and transfer that odor to the fabric lining, Balaban warns. As soon as you’re home, toss it in the wash—or the laundry room … or even the hamper. As long as it’s not festering in your suitcase, you’re good.

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Jason Tetro, microbiologist, author of The Germ Code and The Germ Files, and host of the Super Awesome Science Show podcast; email interview, April 5, 2026
• Iryna Balaban, cleaning specialist and CEO and co-founder of Sunlight Cleaning NYC; email interview, April 3, 2026
• Insure and Go: “Germs on the go: bacterial study reveals our suitcases are dirtier than the average toilet”

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The post Here’s How to Spring Clean Your Luggage So It’s Not Teeming with Germs appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The mission also marks the first time that humans have been able to see the entire far side of the moon with their own eyes. (Fortunately for us, the crew took plenty of photos.) It’s a stepping stone to an even greater lunar goal.

“At NASA, we dare to reach higher, explore farther and achieve the impossible,” said Lori Glaze, PhD, NASA’s acting associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “[The astronauts] are charting new frontiers for all humanity. Their dedication is about more than breaking records—it’s fueling our hope for a bold future. Their mission is carrying our promise to return to the moon’s surface, this time to stay as we establish a moon base.”

It’s all part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, which will send astronauts on “increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars,” according to the agency.

Over the moon with excitement? Us too. So we searched the web for the best news articles and videos for additional context on the Artemis II mission, its place in history and what it means for the future of space travel. Read on for the fascinating details.

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The U.S. first went to the moon as part of the “space race” against the USSR

After the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, in 1957, the U.S. knew it had to catch up. This meant beating the Soviets to the surface of the moon, a goal so urgent it became known as the “space race.” That was the aim of the Apollo program, which launched after NASA’s Mercury and Gemini missions and ran from 1962 to 1972.

And it was successful. Between 1969 and 1972, there were a total of 11 crewed Apollo missions, including six that landed on the moon. The 1972 Apollo 17 mission was the last crewed mission to the moon until Artemis II.

Discovered on the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

But we stopped going to the moon when the space race ended

During the Cold War, space travel was about more than sending astronauts into orbit and to the moon. It was a display of America’s might and scientific advancements, and it was used to send a message to the Soviet Union. “They realized that in human history, whenever two cultures have come up against each other, it’s the one that has the better technology that usually ends up on the top of the heap,” former NASA chief historian Roger Launius told Space.com.

Since that conflict and rivalry ended, space exploration hasn’t felt as urgent. And that’s reflected in federal funding for the space program: During the height of the space race, NASA’s funding was about 4.4% of the entire federal budget. Today, it’s less than 0.4%.

Discovered on Space.com

Yet we still benefit from the U.S. space program’s innovations

While lunar landings get all the press, there are a number of other advancements that have come courtesy of the space program—including ones we use in everyday life. For starters, without space-delivered technologies, we wouldn’t be able to communicate via cellphones or satellite transmissions.

The space program has also led to the invention of GPS, heart rate monitoring technology, banking technology, scratch-resistant lenses, memory foam mattresses, rechargeable batteries, wireless headphones and the Jaws of Life rescue tool. “The general public doesn’t understand how incredibly important space is to them on a daily basis,” space policy expert Greg Autry told USA Today. “Our modern civilization would not continue to operate without our regular investment in space.”

Discovered on USA Today

Now, there’s a new space race—this time, between the U.S. and China

Both China and the U.S. have set their sights on the moon—more specifically, on building a base near the south pole to obtain resources like hydrogen, frozen water and helium. A home base would also make it easier to launch missions farther into space.

The idea is that the first country that establishes its lunar base sets the rules for moon colonization moving forward. “This time, the goal is not flags and footprints,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said. “This time, the goal is to stay.” While Artemis II puts the U.S. ahead at this point, NASA acknowledges that China may make it to the moon first.

Discovered on The New York Times

Going to the moon puts us one step closer to Mars

NASA would like to send people to Mars by the 2030s, but reaching that goal involves first going back to the moon. “Going to the moon and staying there for a sustained period is much safer, much cheaper and much easier to be a test bed for learning how to live and work on another planet,” Libby Jackson, head of space at the Science Museum in London, told the BBC.

Once NASA has established a base on the moon, scientists can test ways of providing air and water for its visitors. This will involve figuring out how to generate power and shield people from extreme temperatures and space radiation. “These are all technologies that if you try them for the first time on Mars and they go wrong, it’s potentially catastrophic,” Jackson said. “It’s much safer and much easier to try them out on the moon.”

Discovered on BBC

A goal of the Artemis II mission is to test the spacecraft …

NASA wanted to find out how its Orion deep-space crew capsule, named Integrity, would fare in outer space. “This is a test mission,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman said before the launch. “When we get off the planet, we might come right back home. We might spend three or four days around Earth. We might go to the moon. That’s where we want to go, but it is a test mission, and we are ready for every scenario as we ride this amazing Space Launch System in the Orion spacecraft, 250,000 miles away. It’s going to be amazing!”

Discovered on CBS News

… and the other technology required for space travel

When Artemis II made it to the moon’s south pole, the mission was truly in new territory: It’s nowhere near where the Apollo missions landed in the 1960s and 1970s. That presents different challenges, like the fact that it’s one of the coldest places in the solar system.

“The practice that we’re getting with Artemis II is really critical for NASA to test not only the life support systems and the technologies needed to get the astronauts to the moon and back safely but also the science—communication between the scientists on the ground in Houston and the crew on board,” Paul Hayne, a planetary scientist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told NPR.

Discovered on NPR

The crew members will also be guinea pigs

In addition to their official duties, the members of the Artemis II crew also took part in several scientific studies examining the impact of space travel on human health. Each person wore a wrist monitor to track their activity levels, interactions, sleep patterns and overall well-being. They also provided saliva samples that may help researchers better understand how immune systems work in space. For another study, tissue samples from each astronaut, contained in USB-sized chips that are also aboard Orion, will shed light on how increased radiation and microgravity may affect human organs.

Discovered on Smithsonian Magazine

Problems plagued “the most important piece of equipment on board”

Roughly an hour after launch, astronaut Koch reported an issue with the Universal Waste Management System (the fancy name for the toilet on board): A part came loose and got stuck in the fan generator. Fortunately, after a few hours of troubleshooting, she was able to fix it.

A few days later, the lines to vent the urine out of the toilet were freezing and becoming clogged. To fix it, the astronauts rotated the Orion capsule so that sunlight could hit the vents and melt the frozen wastewater. “It’s kind of a complex engineering issue when you expose a liquid to a vacuum. It’s a pretty chaotic environment,” Rick Henfling, Artemis II’s entry flight director, said during a media briefing.

Discovered on CBC

Orion got a free ride home

Once Artemis II reached the farthest point in its trip—approximately 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon—it began its return trip to Earth. But instead of requiring propulsion, Orion’s fuel-efficient journey took advantage of the Earth-moon gravity field, which naturally pulled the spacecraft back to Earth.

Discovered on NASA

Artemis II was just the beginning

The history-making Artemis II mission reignited America’s passion for space travel, but slingshotting around the moon wasn’t NASA’s ultimate goal. This was just a stepping stone in a larger lunar vision. “You hear sometimes around here, ‘This is a once in a lifetime …’—no, it’s not,” NASA administrator Isaacman said after the spacecraft successfully landed in the Pacific. “This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.”

Yup, NASA’s endgame with the Artemis program is a station on the moon. After a mission in low-Earth orbit with Artemis III, the space agency plans to launch the Artemis IV mission in 2028, sending two astronauts to the moon’s south pole for a week to do science experiments. From there, missions will build toward a permanent lunar base.

And from there? Not even the sky’s the limit.

Discovered on the Los Angeles Times and NASA

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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The post Artemis II Just Made History—Here’s What It Means for the Future of Space Travel appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The reality is that most of us live inside our devices all day. We work, plan, pay bills, text, take photos—and then keep all 19 blurry versions of those photos for reasons known only to our egos. So clutter builds up quietly, spreading across a dozen different corners of our digital lives, and the thought of cleaning it all out can feel kind of oppressive. But a proper cleanse is possible, and it doesn’t have to turn into a punishing project.

To figure out how to actually tackle a digital detox, I spoke with experts Yulia Tekin, founder of Digital Declutter Cafe, and Amanda Jefferson, a tech and productivity coach who owns Indigo Organizing. Both of them help people dig out from inbox dread, photo overload and the general psychic weight of digital clutter. Read on to learn how to get control of your life.

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Why you should care about digital clutter

Digital clutter is more than just too many files. It’s the unread emails you keep meaning to deal with, the Downloads folder you’ve stopped opening on purpose, the duplicate photos, the old apps, the mystery documents in your cloud storage and the browser tabs multiplying like fruit flies. Nobody else can see that mess, which almost makes it worse. It’s private, persistent and somehow still loud.

Tekin says digital clutter can create “a constant background noise in your mind,” and many of her clients describe low-level dread, avoidance and shame, especially around checking their email. According to the Cleveland Clinic, digital clutter can be just as taxing as physical clutter and can even trigger high levels of stress and anxiety, making it harder to focus and be productive.

Ready to get rid of the dread and stress in your life? Here’s what to do.

Where to start

When you’re overwhelmed, the goal is momentum—not perfection.

• Do a quick “digital rooms” audit: Make a list of your digital clutter zones (email, photos, files, desktop/downloads, apps, texts/voicemails, browser tabs/bookmarks, online accounts). Then circle the one that you dread opening the most each day, and start there.
• Pick a tiny time window: Start with 10 to 20 minutes. Set a timer. Stop when it goes off, even if you’re not “done.” The habit matters more than the heroic one-time purge.
• Back up before you delete: If you’re going to do big clean-outs (especially of photos and documents), make sure you have a backup plan first, whether it’s on the cloud, an external hard drive or both.
• Create an archive for each zone: This is the digital equivalent of moving everything off the kitchen counter so you can wipe it down. In email programs, Archive is often a built-in button; for files, try naming a folder “Archive–2026” (or “Archive–Old Stuff” if you’re honest).
• Decide on your “must keep” categories up front: That may include things like taxes or financial records, legal documents, medical information, important family photos or anything tied to work or school requirements.
• Work top down, not all at once: Start with the biggest visible clutter, like your inbox, camera roll or desktop, and then move deeper into your cloud storage or old accounts later.

Finally, when decisions feel hard, use a two-step declutter technique. Move questionable items into a new archive or review folder, and set a reminder to check back after a set amount of time, like 30 or 90 days. After you’ve had some time to think, you may have a clearer perspective.

How to declutter your email

If digital clutter has a final boss, it’s probably email. It’s often the most stressful part of people’s digital lives, and according to Tekin, it’s one of the best places to start if you want relief fast.

Do a “clean slate” archive so you can breathe again

If your inbox has years of history, you don’t need to sort every email right now to feel relief. The point is to get your active inbox under control.

• Pick a cutoff date: This could be everything older than two weeks or everything older than 30 days—just pick one.
• Find emails before that date: Depending on your email platform, you can typically use the search function or a specific filter to sort by date.
• Archive instead of deleting: Select all of the emails and send them to your email’s Archive folder. Archived email is still searchable if you need it later, which reduces the “what if I need that receipt?” panic.

Then, make a promise to future-you: You’re not avoiding the inbox—you’re creating space to build a system.

Create a system and stick with it

“You also need to learn a simple system for processing what comes in each day so the clutter doesn’t build up again,” Tekin says. The system doesn’t have to be complicated. The goal is to make quick decisions so emails don’t just sit there, quietly multiplying.

Here’s what that can look like in practice:

• Set up a few basic folders: This can be by topic, like “Work,” “Family” and “Receipts,” or by status, like “Response Needed,” “Waiting for Response” and “Complete.” Keep it simple enough that you’ll actually use it.
• Act the first time you open an email: Before you open an email, you should be ready to reply to it, file it or delete it, instead of putting it off until later.
• Unsubscribe as you go: If you open something and know you don’t want more of the same, scroll down and unsubscribe right then.
• Clear out obvious junk: Promotions, notifications and updates you don’t need can be deleted in quick passes.
• Archive anything you might need later: This keeps your inbox focused on what’s current without forcing you to overthink every message.
• Use flags or stars only for action items: That way, what’s marked actually indicates something you need to deal with.

Delete, unsubscribe and organize the rest

During your 10- or 20-minute timed decluttering sessions (which you are definitely doing, right?), go through your now-manageable inbox backlog and make decisions. Read and move important emails into your folder system, and unsubscribe, archive or delete the rest as needed.

How to declutter your phone

Phones are tiny portals to our entire lives, which means they can accumulate an impressive amount of chaos.

Start with your camera roll

“Your camera roll is usually the most cluttered part of your phone,” Tekin says. Her advice is to start by deleting duplicates, blurry photos and screenshots you no longer need. For photos you want to keep, move them to your backup system (computer, cloud, archive folder) so you’re not clinging to everything out of fear of losing it.

If the backlog feels daunting, she recommends working your way through it month by month.

Remove apps you don’t use

Do you have apps you haven’t opened in months or even longer? Jefferson recommends checking your phone’s storage settings, usually found in your main Settings app under something like “Storage” or “General,” which can show you exactly which apps you use the least and which ones are taking up the most space. It’s a quick way to spot the ones you forgot you even downloaded.

Tekin’s rule here is refreshingly simple: If you don’t use it and don’t plan to, let it go. Regret deleting an app? You can almost always reinstall it later.

Clear out texts and voicemails you don’t need

Texts and voicemails tend to pile up quickly, especially the ones that felt too minor to deal with in the moment. Over time, they turn into a backlog you’ll never realistically go through.

Start with the obvious: Delete old verification codes, delivery updates, spam messages and group chats that have long since run their course. If you have ongoing conversations you want to keep, consider pinning or favoriting them so they’re easy to find, then clear out the rest.

Voicemails are usually even easier to clear out. If it’s not something you need to reference later, like important instructions or contact info, it’s safe to delete. Most messages fall into the “you listened once and never need to again” category. If it feels like too much to tackle at once, do a quick sweep by date or just commit to clearing a handful at a time.

How to declutter your documents

If your desktop looks like a digital junk drawer, first of all, same. Second, this is fixable.

Build a file system you’ll actually use

Before you can start decluttering, you need a way to organize what you want to keep. Tekin recommends keeping your file structure simple. Her mantra is “wide, not deep,” meaning a few clear folders instead of a rabbit hole of subfolders you’ll never remember.

Jefferson agrees. If your system is too complicated, you’re probably not going to keep up with it. (As someone permanently guilty of an endless canyon of folders-within-folders, this advice may be life-changing.)

Get rid of unnecessary and duplicate files

Once you have a folder structure in place, start clearing things out. The easiest place to begin is with duplicates, outdated versions of the same document and anything you don’t recognize or haven’t opened in years. If you hesitate, it usually helps to ask a simple question: Would I realistically look for this again? If the answer is no, it can probably go.

Move documents you want to keep into the folders you created. For things you’re unsure about, Jefferson recommends using a catchall “Archive” or “Old Files” folder. That way, you’re not stuck making a high-stakes decision in the moment, but your main folders stay clean and usable.

Make files easy to find (and harder to lose)

Going forward, Jefferson suggests giving files clear names the moment you create them and putting them where they belong right away instead of letting them marinate in Downloads or pile up on your desktop until they become part of the scenery.

How to declutter your photos

Photos are their own beast because they’re not just files. They’re memories, potential memories or 14 pictures of my cat kind of just looking like a black blob. How could I delete those?

Identify and consolidate, then simplify

Tekin recommends first figuring out where your photos actually live. That might be your phone, your laptop, a cloud service, an old hard drive or all of the above. Once you know what you’re working with, you can consolidate them and choose one home base going forward.

Start with a specific, recent time frame

This is where people tend to get overwhelmed, because the idea of sorting years of photos sounds like a punishment devised by a very sentimental villain. Tekin’s advice is to avoid doing that. Instead, start with something contained, like your most recent month of photos or whatever is currently on your phone.

From there, go for the easy wins first, like duplicates, blurry shots, screenshots and anything you don’t remember taking. Most phones and cloud services will even group duplicates or similar images together, which makes it faster to clear them out without overthinking every single photo. Once you’ve done a small batch, congrats! You’ve already made a dent, which is usually enough to make the next round feel a little less painful.

How to declutter online

Your digital mess doesn’t end with what’s sitting on your devices. It also lives in old accounts, lingering bookmarks and all the little corners of the internet where your information has been hanging around for years.

Delete old accounts

Most of us have at least 10 online accounts, and more than a third have more than 20, according to identity-management company Okta. These could be old streaming trials you never canceled, shopping accounts from one-time purchases, forgotten news subscriptions, fitness apps you used for two weeks before abandoning and random accounts you created just to download something once.

It’s good to clear out these inactive or forgotten accounts periodically because they increase the risk of account takeovers, especially if you reuse passwords or don’t regularly update security settings.

Figuring out what you even have is usually the hardest part. One way to start is by searching your email for phrases like “welcome,” “verify your account” or “subscription,” which can surface accounts you signed up for and forgot about. You can also check your password manager, if you use one, since it often acts as an accidental archive of everywhere you’ve logged in.

Empty your Downloads folder

Jefferson recommends regularly clearing out your Downloads folder, which is where your computer automatically saves things like PDFs, images, documents and anything else you’ve downloaded from the internet. It’s usually easy to find in your file system (often labeled “Downloads”), and it tends to become a holding zone for things you only needed once. Open it up, delete anything you don’t need and move anything important into a proper folder so it’s not just sitting there.

Delete old bookmarks

Bookmarks can get out of hand just as quickly. If you have hundreds saved, it’s usually a sign you’re not actually using most of them. Instead of trying to organize everything perfectly, focus on keeping the ones you genuinely revisit and deleting the rest. If you want a middle ground, you can create a single folder for “read later” or “maybe useful” links, instead of letting them take over your browser.

How to keep your digital life clutter-free

Tekin boils maintenance down to three things: simple setups, regular routines and small daily actions.

In practice, that means creating systems that are easy enough to actually use, doing a quick weekly reset—even if it’s only five or 10 minutes—and making tiny decisions in the moment. Name the file properly. Unsubscribe when you realize you never read the newsletter. Delete the screenshot once you no longer need it.

“The goal isn’t perfection,” she says. “It’s a system that’s good enough to keep things manageable.”

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of articles on personal technology, arming readers with the knowledge to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats and internet scams as well as revealing the best tips, tricks and shortcuts for computers, cellphones, apps, texting, social media and more. For this piece, Miranda Manier tapped her experience as a journalist to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We rely on credentialed experts with personal experience and know-how as well as primary sources including tech companies, professional organizations and academic institutions. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Yulia Tekin, digital declutter consultant and founder of Digital Declutter Cafe; interviewed April 2026
• Amanda Jefferson, owner of Indigo Organizing; interviewed April 2026
• Cleveland Clinic: “Clearing Out Digital Clutter”
• Okta: “Customer Identity Trends Report”

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The post Your Stress-Free Guide to Ditching Digital Clutter appeared first on Reader's Digest.

And it’s not just inflation at play. Global instability, including ongoing geopolitical tensions and disruptions in oil supply chains, has kept fuel prices unpredictable and often elevated. The result? Gassing up can feel like a strategic financial decision.

The good news is that you don’t have to accept whatever price you find at the nearest station. There are smartphone apps designed specifically to help you track down the cheapest gas near you—or even along your route—saving you real money over time. Below, we break down five of the best options.

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What are the best gas apps for finding cheap fuel?

If you’re trying to stretch your gas budget, the right app can make a noticeable difference. These tools compare real-time fuel prices, offer rewards and even help you plan smarter routes so you’re not overpaying at the pump.

GasBuddy

Available on: Apple and Android

Best for: Finding cheap gas nearby and earning fuel rewards

GasBuddy is one of the most well-known gas price comparison apps, and for good reason. It uses crowdsourced data to show you real-time fuel prices at stations near your location, listing the top 10 cheapest gas prices near you. You can filter by fuel type, sort by price and even plan stops along a road-trip route.

One of its standout features is the Pay with GasBuddy card and rewards program, which can offer discounts per gallon at participating stations. It’s a solid all-around tool if your main goal is simply paying less every time you fill up.

Waze

Available on: Apple and Android

Best for: Finding cheap gas while navigating your route

Waze is best known as a navigation app, but it also doubles as a powerful fuel-saver. While giving you turn-by-turn directions, it can display nearby gas prices, so you can decide whether it’s worth exiting your route for a cheaper fill-up.

Because it’s community-driven, users regularly update gas prices, making it surprisingly accurate in many areas. It’s especially helpful on road trips, when you want to avoid expensive highway stations. Another plus: The app works with a few gas chains to offer discounts.

Google Maps

Available on: Apple and Android

Best for: Convenience and familiarity

Google Maps isn’t just for directions—it also lets you search for nearby gas stations and compare prices in many regions. Simply type “gas stations” into the search bar, and you’ll often see current fuel prices listed right in the results.

Its biggest advantage is convenience. Since most people already use Google Maps for navigation, it’s easy to quickly check prices without downloading another app.

Upside

Available on: Apple and Android

Best for: Earning cash back on gas purchases

Upside takes a different approach than the other apps on this list: Instead of just showing you cheap gas, it gives you cash back after you buy it. You claim an offer through the app, fill up at a participating station, then upload your receipt or pay through the app to earn rewards. For active users, this can be around $290 a year.

Depending on where you live, you can also earn cash back on groceries and dining. For frequent drivers, those small rebates can add up quickly over time.

AAA Mobile

Available on: Apple and Android

Best for: Members looking for trusted fuel price tools and trip planning

The AAA Mobile app is a helpful companion for members of AAA. In addition to roadside assistance features, it includes trip-planning tools and can help you locate fuel prices along your route.

While its gas price functionality isn’t fully crowdsourced like some other apps, it’s a reliable option for drivers who already use AAA services and want everything in one place.

How else can you save money at the pump?

Even with the best apps, a few smart habits can stretch your fuel budget further. Here are some easy ways to cut costs every time you fill up:

• Get gas on Sundays, which research found is typically the cheapest day to fill up.
• Use a credit card that offers cash back or rewards specifically on gas purchases.
• Keep your tires properly inflated; it could improve your gas mileage by up to 3%.
• Fill up at warehouse clubs like Costco, which often offer lower per-gallon prices.
• Don’t let your tank get too low. Prices can spike suddenly, and you may be forced to buy regardless of cost.
• Avoid aggressive acceleration and hard braking—smooth driving improves fuel efficiency.
• Lighten your load by removing unnecessary weight from your vehicle.

With gas prices still fluctuating and budgets stretched thin, these apps can take some of the guesswork—and pain—out of your next fill-up. A few taps on your phone might be all it takes to keep a little more money in your wallet the next time you hit the road.

RELATED:

• Here’s the Real Reason Why Gas Prices Always End in 9/10 of a Cent
• Here’s How to Tell Which Side of the Car Your Gas Tank Is on—Without Getting Out
• The Gross Reason Why You Should Never Get a Slushie From a Gas Station

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• AP News: “Gas prices eclipse $4 a gallon in the US, the highest since 2022”
• U.S. Department of Energy: “Keeping Your Vehicle in Shape”

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But it was not meant to be—and not just because he was married to Nicole Kidman at the time. No, there was another, very specific reason she didn’t entertain the notion.

Read on to learn exactly what she thought about the potential pairing.

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Were Princess Diana and Tom Cruise friends?

No, but they had met briefly. In 1992, Tom and Nicole, who had been married two years by then, met Diana at the London premiere of their movie Far and Away. A few years later, in the summer of 1995, Cruise was filming the first Mission: Impossible movie in London’s Pinewood Studios when he extended an invitation to Diana and princes William and Harry, then aged 13 and 10, to visit him on set. Diana’s private chef, Darren McGrady, who worked at Kensington Palace up until her death, recalls the visit on his YouTube channel.

“We had celebrities at Kensington Palace all the time. She came into the kitchen one morning and said, ‘Darren, we’ve had an invite to go and watch the making of Mission: Impossible, for me to take William and Harry,'” he recounts. “They were young then and loved the pyrotechnics and everything.”

McGrady remembers her saying, “Do you think the boys would be interested?” He did think they’d be interested—and their mother too, he revealed in the video he made for what would have been her 60th birthday. “I remember saying, ‘I’m not sure about the boys, Your Royal Highness, but if you get to meet Tom Cruise?’ … She said, ‘Darren, I’ll crack the funnies.’”

Why did Princess Diana say she’d never date him?

It turns out Diana thought Tom was just a little too short for her. In a hilarious anecdote, McGrady reveals that after they had enjoyed their set visit, “she came into the kitchen later that day, and the boys absolutely loved it—all those explosions and things,” he says, before adding the princess’ punch line: “She picked up some fruit, walked out and said, ‘That’s another one off the list—he’s too short.’ She’d met Tom Cruise!” he says, chuckling.

What Cruise thinks about this story, we’d love to know. We’re sure he’d take it all in jest, as after all, he was newly married to Nicole, having tied the knot in December 1990. Their union would last a decade until the couple announced their separation in February 2001.

How tall was Diana?

The princess was willowy and tall—at 5’10”, she would indeed have been taller than Tom Cruise, who is 5’7″. Interestingly, she was the same height as Charles, but she was often photographed with her head tilted, crouching down or standing on a lower step, so she looked shorter—such as in the couple’s engagement photos in 1981.

One Hollywood star who was comfortably taller than Diana, however, was John Travolta, at 6 feet, 2 inches. Diana famously danced with the Saturday Night Fever star at the White House in 1985. Travolta explained that First Lady Nancy Reagan set it up, telling him, ‘Her fantasy is to dance with you—would you dance with her tonight?’ The Grease actor later said the whole thing felt like a fairy tale.

Did Tom and Diana cross paths again?

No. Sadly, the next time Tom and Nicole “met” the princess was at her funeral, on Sept. 6, 1997. However, Cruise continues to enjoy a close relationship with the royal family and has gone on to become friends with Prince William.

In 2022, he helped present at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, after which Queen Elizabeth invited him for tea at Windsor Castle. (The pair were said to hit it off.) That same year, he hosted William and Kate at the London premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, where Tom helped the princess up the stairs. “We have a lot in common,” he told My London at the time. “We both love England, and we’re both aviators; we both love flying.”

The following year, he recorded a video in a jet, for the King’s Coronation Concert, where he said, “Pilot to pilot, Your Majesty, you can be my wingman any time,” and gave a thumbs-up to the king in a cheeky throwback to the original movie.

This past November, the 63-year-old actor helped out at William’s Earthshot Prize awards in Rio. He recorded a video for the event, saying, “Good evening, Rio [and], my dear friend Your Royal Highness. I am sorry I couldn’t be there in person to celebrate with you.” He went on to congratulate the winners and finalists, adding, “Thank you for all the great work you are doing … reminding us what is possible when commitment meets purpose.”

RELATED:

• Here’s Why Princess Diana Thought Harry Would Make a Better King Than William
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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• You Tube: “A Culinary Tribute to Princess Diana on Her 60th Birthday From Her Chef”
• My London: “Top Gun Maverick UK premiere: Tom Cruise is joined by Kate Middleton and Prince William”
• Mirror Now: “Tom Cruise message at King’s Coronation Concert”
• Esquire: “John Travolta interview”

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Take the security lines. We’re all trying to get through as fast as possible, heaving the contents of our pockets into the bins without much thought. The bad news? “Airport security bins are among the most contaminated surfaces in airports, with research showing that 50% of tested security screening trays carried respiratory virus genetic material, which is the highest contamination rate of any airport surface tested,” says Steven Goldberg, MD, a physician and the chief medical officer at HealthTrackRx.

Think about it: Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport sees an average of 266,000 travelers per day. And nearly all of them grab a bin or two to fill with their stuff. Money, phones, gum wrappers, passports … it all goes into that germy bin. But there’s one common item that you should never put in there, and taking an extra few seconds to properly stow it can really pay off in the long run.

To learn why you should be careful about what you casually toss into the bin, we spoke with Dr. Goldberg; Wesley Long, MD, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital; and Daniel Egan, MD, an infectious disease physician at Orlando Health. Read on to find out which common travel item can easily pick up some seriously nasty germs from airport security.

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Which common item should you never put in the security bin?

Did you guess? It’s your earbuds! (And headphones too, for that matter.)

Why? First of all, earbuds and over-the-ear headphones go right next to your face. This puts them in close proximity to the body’s main germ entry points: the eyes, nose and mouth. Plus, earbuds actually go inside your ears, which can introduce microbes directly into the ear canal.

Remember that statistic from Dr. Goldberg? Security bins were among the germiest things researchers tested. In fact, according to the study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, they were even filthier than an airport toilet. (Yuck!) This is mainly due to the sheer volume of contact from human hands all day, every day. Hands are major carriers for bacteria and viruses that can make us sick.

Plus, Dr. Goldberg says, people are putting items that have come into direct contact with their bodies into the bins, including belts, phones and other electronics. Finally, there are shoes. Even though TSA no longer requires shoe removal, many airports still do, and shoes pick up all manner of gross stuff on their soles.

What kinds of germs can stick to them?

Viruses are the most likely microbe to linger on security bins, then get transferred to your personal items. These include respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses, such as rhinovirus (aka the cold virus), coronavirus, norovirus and influenza.

It’s less likely you’ll pick up bacteria from the bins, though it’s still possible. “Because exposure typically lasts only a few minutes, a bacterial infection is unlikely,” says Dr. Egan. That’s because viruses spread more easily than bacterial infections, he adds. Viruses also cling better to nonporous surfaces, like plastic bins, earbuds and headphones, as well as earbuds’ silicone tips and coverings.

But don’t count out bacteria completely. “If the bins are not regularly cleaned, that type of infection can still occur,” Dr. Egan says. “But respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses would be much more common.”

How long can germs live on these items?

Lifespans vary for viruses on surfaces that haven’t been cleaned or disinfected—and it’s not clear how often or frequently that actually happens to security bins in airports. The cold virus can stay on surfaces for up to a week but largely loses its potency after 24 hours. The flu virus can last for one to two days, while coronavirus can hang out for up to a few days.

That means if your earbuds have picked up any germs, they will likely still be there when you get to your seat—where you can transfer them to your hands. “You probably put them on while you’re sitting in your seat, and you’re not likely to be able to wash your hands or remember to do so before you eat or drink something on the plane,” Dr. Long says.

While it’s not guaranteed that you’ll definitely pick up a virus or get sick from briefly touching security bins, it’s one major place researchers know germs reside. Airports are often crowded and also have many other high-contact areas—the security line, the restrooms, the plane itself—that can bump up the chance of illness. Why risk it?

What should you do instead?

It’s pretty simple: Pack up those earbuds or headphones before hitting the bins.

“I would put everything in my carry-on, and I usually do,” Dr. Long says. “Also, keeping things in your scanned baggage helps keep them from falling out inside the scanner and getting lost or forgotten at security.” Just make sure you don’t leave them in your pocket, or a TSA agent will ask you to remove them before stepping through the body scanner.

If you did put your earbuds or headphones in a bin, how should you clean them?

Whether you’re traveling or staying home, clean your earbuds and headphones regularly. “You should clean your earbuds at least once a week during regular use and immediately after any potential contamination, like if they accidentally touch a security bin, fall on the floor or are shared with someone else,” Dr. Goldberg says.

Here are the easy steps to follow when cleaning your earbuds or headphones:

1. Remove silicone tips or coverings.
2. Use an alcohol wipe to clean each one thoroughly.
3. Wipe the earpiece where the silicone tips go.
4. Wash foam headphone coverings, if present, with mild soap and water.
5. Dry completely before reattaching them.

It’s a good idea to check the manufacturer instructions that came with your earbuds or headphones too. It will likely have cleaning tips for your specific product.

What else should you avoid putting in those bins for this reason?

Any loose object that doesn’t need to be scanned on its own should go into its own transparent bag or be stored inside your carry-on luggage, the experts say. These include:

• Cellphones and tablets
• Wallets
• Medications
• Neck pillows
• Children’s pacifiers, bottles and toys
• Snacks and other food items
• Glasses and sunglasses
• Water bottles (empty, of course)

Only items that need to be removed and scanned separately should go into a bin on their own, including shoes (if required), liquids (limited to 3.4 ounces or less), belts, jackets and laptops.

What else can you do to stay healthy when traveling?

The experts offer plenty of smart recommendations for keeping germs at bay when you’re traveling. This is especially important for people with weakened immune systems or other conditions that put them at a higher risk for infection.

• Wash your hands or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer after touching security bins, using the bathroom, and before eating or drinking.
• Avoid touching high-contact surfaces whenever possible. If you can walk on the moving walkways without holding onto the handrail, for example, do that. Use tap-to-pay with a card instead of pushing buttons at checkout registers to minimize contact.
• Pack disinfecting wipes. Use them to wipe not only your earbuds but also armrests, tray tables, and seat-belt buckles on the plane. (And avoid resting your head against germy plane windows!)
• Consider wearing a well-fitting, high-quality N95 mask, especially during boarding and deplaning, which are times when people are more crowded together.

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing, and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Steven Goldberg, MD, MBA, chief medical officer and clinician at HealthTrackRx; email interview, April 13, 2026
• Daniel Egan, MD, infectious disease physician at Orlando Health Medical Group; email interview, April 13, 2026
• Wesley Long, MD, PhD, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital; email interview, April 13, 2026
• City of Chicago Office of the Mayor: “O’Hare International Airport Sets All-Time Passenger Record in July 2025”
• BMC Infectious Diseases: “Deposition of respiratory virus pathogens on frequently touched surfaces at airports”
• Cleveland Clinic: “Germs”
• Frommer’s: “TSA Bins Are Absolutely Disgusting, Says This TSA Agent”
• U.S. Transportation Security Administration: “Travel Tips: 3-1-1 Liquid Rule”

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