But this isn’t just another bullet train.

Taking about four years to build, the line, also referred to as the Jing-Zhang high-speed railway, connects Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, all three of which will host events during the upcoming Winter Olympics.

The route will stop at 10 stations, including Badaling Chang Cheng, the most popular section of China’s Great Wall.

Chongli railway, a branch line from the Jing-Zhang railway, is also open and will ferry passengers from the capital city to Taizicheng Station — a stone’s throw away from several skiing competition venues and the Olympic Village.

Just how smart is this new train?

The new rail line began operations on December 30, with the first train running from Beijing North Railway Station to Taizicheng Railway Station.

Tickets range from RMB77 ($11) to RMB231($33) for a normal high-speed train and RMB90 ($12) to RMB270 ($38) if you’re traveling on a smart train.

At the time of writing, tickets for the smart trains need to be booked two days in advance.

So what makes them “smart?” Well, the carriages are equipped with 5G signals, intelligent lighting and 2,718 sensors to collect real-time data and detect any operational abnormalities.

Meanwhile, each individual seat has its own touch-screen control panel and wireless charging docks.

Though the high-speed trains on the route are autonomous, a monitoring driver will be on board at all times. The trains can automatically start, stop and adjust to the different speed limits between stations.

Back at the station, robots and facial recognition technologies have been deployed to help passengers with directions, luggage and paperless check-ins.

Getting ready for the 2020 Winter Olympics

The trains’ interiors have been designed with the needs of athletes and journalists in mind, too.

Some cabins feature larger storage areas for winter sports equipment, which can be accessed by QR code. Special storage spaces have also been created to house athletes’ stimulant test samples.

The dining car can reportedly be converted into a media center during the Olympics, with adjustable seats and tables making it easier on journalists traveling with lots of equipment. The car will also offer a live-broadcast service and charging outlets underneath each table.

Car Four features removable seats, which will make it easier for passengers traveling with wheelchairs during the 2022 Winter Paralympics.

The first China-built railway

Chinese railway enthusiasts are excited about the new route for another historical reason.

Jing-Zhang Railway was originally the name of a now-defunct line. First opened in 1909, it was the first railway designed and built independently by Chinese, linking Beijing and Zhangjiakou.

Traveling along the entire route back then took eight hours.

The line’s few remaining original stations closed in 2016 to make way for the construction of the new high-speed railway.

Running at the top speed of 431 kph, the train links Shanghai Pudong Airport and Longyang Road in the eastern side of Shanghai.

(CNN) — Think your profanity-laced T-shirt would be fun to wear on your next cruise?

Carnival Cruise Line says no.

That means nothing worn during the cruise should “contain any message that may be considered offensive or contain nudity, profanity, sexual innuendo/suggestions. In addition, clothing/accessories should not promote negative ethnic or racial, commentary, or hatred or violence in any form.”

While Carnival’s crew isn’t “the clothing or expression police,” spokesman Vance Gulliksen says the change came after some reports in other travel sectors of customers wearing clothing with “very threatening messages.”

Beyond the basic guidelines

“We already have some basic clothing guidelines in place and our guests respect them and understand we are a family-focused business,” he says. The reports started a new discussion “about how we were prepared to handle such a situation and the need for clarification to both guests and crew.”

“Similar to other forms of travel on land and by air, cruise lines have a wide range of policies put in place to create a welcoming and inclusive environment onboard their fleet of ships,” she says. “Those policies cover everything from dress codes to alcohol consumption, and give cruise lines the authority to enforce the policies however they deem necessary.”

“Following the announcement, we’ve seen a number of cruisers come out in favor of this policy change and hope to see the line able to enact the rule onboard,” said McDaniel.

How will the policy be enforced?

Gulliksen said staff “will look out for guests wearing clothes with inappropriate images or language and ask them to change as needed. We will evaluate situations on a case by case basis and take appropriate steps as necessary.”

The cruise line’s other attire guidelines for the dining room and other public spaces remain the same, Gulliksen says.

That means no jeans, men’s sleeveless shirts, shorts, T-shirts, sportswear, baseball hats, flip-flops or bathing suits on formal evenings — aka the “‘Cruise Elegant” Dress Code.

Some cruisers love the change

Lots of posters on CruiseCritic’s message boards applauded the change.

“Well, I for one, hope their new policy is effective. I cringed every time I saw someone with a profanity bearing tshirt. It’ll be hard to enforce though,” wrote Cruise Critic Member Joe817.

“Sad that common courtesy has declined so much that people have to be requested not to wear clothing with vulgarity or hate speech in multi-generational public settings,” wrote Cruise Critic Member simplelife.

Too subjective for others

“That policy is way too broad and vague. Offensive??? People today are too easily offended. Some may be offended by a t-shirt with a Christian cross or a Star of David on it. Or a MAGA hat,” wrote one poster.

“Bernie Sanders and AOC are extremely offensive to me. Can I complain about those?” asked another poster.

Sorry about that ugly sweater

Ugly sweaters are still allowed.

CNN

This doesn’t mean you can avoid the ’80s.

You might think the cruise line’s December Ugly Sweater Contest or the ’80s Rock-N-Glow Deck Party are offensive on principle, but those specialty events and cruises will continue.

(CNN) — In the past year, television host Samantha Brown took a total of 45 flights. She zipped through 88 airports and checked into 32 hotels.

But this bustle is not unusual.

The third season premiers January 11 on PBS.

Brown has been traveling on television for 20 years, hosting over a dozen TV series and specials and lending her expertise as a guest on numerous other travel-focused shows.

Also the executive producer of her current show, Brown oversees everything from editing to funding.

When she started her first TV job in 2001 hosting Travel Channel’s “Great Hotels,” she and Rick Steves were among the few big names taking viewers along on their vacations. Now, everyone is doing it.

YouTube is full of people documenting their adventures on video. Everyone from former corporate executives to entire families are filming their trips for social media, some reaching millions of followers.

Brown believes the world’s obsession with travel — influencers and the whole nine yards — is mostly a great thing, especially as travelers making videos for YouTube and Instagram slowly grow more diverse.

“When I was growing up, I thought travel was for the privileged,” said Brown. “Not just people privileged with money, but time and confidence. The travel influencer, the blogger, they show you, ‘Hey, I’m there, so you can do it, too.'”

The problem, Brown says, is when travelers only share the absolutely perfect stuff. That photo showing one beautiful woman alone at the Trevi fountain, known for its insane crowds, is not real and it’s not what traveling is all about.

“Travel is imperfect,” Brown says. “Travel is messy.”

Her own evolution as a travel host shapes the advice she gives. When she started out, she felt she had to have a flawless itinerary, never making a mistake on camera, and effortlessly making her way around the world. These days, she has a stronger sense of humor about pretty much everything.

“Now I understand that being imperfect doesn’t mean you’re not an expert, doesn’t mean you’re not a good traveler,” Brown said. “It means you’re a really good person and a good human being. That’s what you really need when you’re a traveler. I’m just going to make the best of this.”

Ahead of her show, Brown sat down with CNN to offer a few ways to make the best of any travel situation.

Tip #1 – You don’t need to learn the language ahead of time

On her latest show, Brown stopped at the Imperial Library and the Vollpension (Granny) cafe where grandmas are the bakers.

“Samantha Brown’s Places to Love”

Brown admits she’s never once studied a language before traveling — and she’s been to 74 countries and counting.

“The best thing you can do to connect with locals is smile and say hello,” explains Brown.

That said, she never starts out a conversation by blurting out, “Do you speak English?” This phrasing puts the onus on others to already know her language. She’s always found people would help if she first spent a moment being polite.

To practice being cordial when you don’t know the native tongue, Brown recommends learning just four key phrases in the language of the country you’re visiting:

Hello.

Please?

Thank You.

May, I please have … ?

The first three are simple good manners. The last is something Brown has learned over time is useful in all sorts of situations.

“We’re always asking for things,” Brown says. “We always need something, whether it’s a bathroom or a really good flaky croissant. So, if I know how to say that in the most polite form, that makes the connection right there.”

Tip #2 — Plan for the inevitable airport anxiety

Brown half-jokingly suggests she write an ongoing blog on the sole subject of “how to survive in an airport.”

In fact, she can’t stop laughing when talking about air travel.

“Maybe that’s what we all need to do, is just imagine that we’re Chevy Chase, we’re trying to get home, we’re John Candy, trying to get home, and maybe we just put a comedy spin on it,” she suggests.

Brown believes you can avoid 90% of the anxiety you get at the airport by getting there in plenty of time. Therefore, she bases her arrival at the airport on her boarding time — not the takeoff time.

Brown’s a fan of convenience and likes the curbside bag check option. Even though you have to tip the handler, you often avoid longer check-in lines inside, which she argues makes the few bucks worth it.

Now inside the airport with plenty of time to spare, Brown is a proponent of taking advantage of all the small things on offer these days — again, even if it means spending a few extra dollars.

Brown loves the wider variety of local foods you can eat or activities you can try in airports nowadays, and she particularly likes flying into Tampa, Minneapolis and Seattle.

“I think the airport experience has become a lot better, where the flight experience has … ” Brown says before pausing for what feels like a long time. “I think it’s stabilized, but it has deteriorated for so long. It’s kind of now just keep your expectations really low and then you’ll be fine.”

Tip #3 — Parents, never use the pre-board

Brown lives in New York City with 6-year-old twins. When thinking about travel tips for parents, she reflects on a dreamier time when she was single and sat in the first class cabin.

“My move from traveling as a solo female traveler to a mom of twins was brutal,” said Brown. “I realized, here I am, a travel expert, and my kids reduced me to nothing.”

She allows her kids have gotten better over time, and now they’ve acclimated to air travel. It can happen for yours too, she says.

Brown’s first piece of advice for parents starts at the airport: Never use the pre-board.

If you do, your kids will be sitting on the plane during the absolute worst time of the entire flight. People are shoving their bags overhead, they’re being rude to fellow passengers and they’re forgetting they once had manners.

Meanwhile, children are absorbing the whole scene, while sitting on a plane on the runway for roughly 45 minutes longer than necessary.

If takeoff is delayed, tack on even more time.

If you’re lucky enough to travel with a partner, she advises sending them ahead to set up the car seats, while the other parent hangs back with the kids, boarding at the absolute last minute (when they’ve also hopefully burned off more energy in the waiting area).

On the flight or once in the hotel room, she blows up small balloons to entertain bored kids.

Pro tip: Duct tape keeps small fingers from unlatching things on the back of a train seat, and it also smooths over sharp edges in a hotel room (think: quick and easy baby proofing).

And don’t forget to bring something to eat. That’s food for you, not just food for the kids. A “hangry” parent is no good to anyone.

“Still, my kids would cry the entire flight,” said Brown. “I’m like, ‘You’re crying?’ I used to sit in first class.”

Tip #4 — Once you arrive, roll with the unexpected

Brown and her family wrapped up a trip to Maine with a picnic at Chauncey Creek Lobster Pier.

“Samantha Brown’s Places to Love”

Sometimes you score a great deal on a pretty hotel or find an Airbnb deal that appears quaint and cozy. Then you arrive to find out “pretty,” “quaint” and “cozy” are descriptions hiding a disaster.

The friendly tour you booked is full of party-hungry snobs, or the dream beach vacation is ruined with torrential rains.

“I think the number one rule of how to turn around a vacation is breathe and take a moment,” said Brown. “Let it be what it is.”

If you can’t do this immediately (and a lot of us can’t), don’t give up and don’t go home. Do what you can to try to find the humor in it.

Brown is an expert at traveling, and she has a team to help with the planning:

“Believe it or not, every single time I arrive in a destination that I’ve had so much planning and expectations, I get to my hotel and I literally sit in the bed and I say, ‘Now what?’ There’s just this moment that we have to allow ourselves. We had the fantasy. Now is the reality. They’re going to come together.”

She said travel’s reality is meeting people, but meeting people can sometimes be strange and it can often be awkward.

“Even when things have gone painfully wrong, it’s amazing how you can turn around a situation and just have a good time. You’re like, “Well, at least I’ll have a story for the next 40 years of my life.”

(CNN) — When a restaurant, hotel, street, town or city becomes “Insta-famous,” it seems it’s only a matter of time before overtourism follows behind.

The Alpine village of Hallstatt, nestled in Austria’s Salzkammergut mountains in the district of Gmunden, knows this only too well: a cascade of chocolate-box buildings surrounded by snow-capped mountains and lapped by crystalline water, it’s straight out of a fairytale — and straight off your social media feed.

The population of this UNESCO-protected spot is just 780, but its tourist numbers reportedly reach some 10,000 visitors a day.

Part of its appeal, beyond endless selfie opportunities, is Hallstatt is rumored to be the inspiration for Arendelle, the fictional setting of Disney’s “Frozen” movies.

Fairytale setting

Hallstatt, which was built up around the salt mining industry, first reached widespread prominence in the early 19th century when it was “discovered” by romantic writers and artists, as struck by the beauty of Baroque architecture as the Instagrammers are today.

The Disney movie “Frozen” was supposedly inspired by the beautiful landscape of Hallstatt.

Walt Disney Pictures

Mazurok tells CNN Travel that “photos of Hallstatt, compared to other cities, gather tremendous number of likes and views.”

Knoll says it was Hallstatt getting added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1997 that marked the start of the tourism influx.

“Hallstatt became more and more famous,” she says. “Many new shops, guest houses and attractions opened.”

Social media intensified the growth.

“When someone posts a nice picture of Hallstatt on Instagram, his followers will also probably want to go there,” says Knoll.

She points out the social media effect doesn’t just stem from visitors, Hallstatt’s tourism boards run social-media based advertizing campaigns on Instagram and Facebook.

Morgan St. Pierre, a teacher from Connecticut, visited Hallstatt with her family in Easter 2018, while she was studying abroad in Europe. They weren’t aware of the ‘Frozen’ connection, but stopped off for lunch and to see the views.
As a lover of photography, St. Pierre says she was keen to “capture the essence of the village.”

But that wasn’t always straightforward.

“It was honestly difficult to take certain photos without having other tourists in the background as well,” she tells CNN Travel.

Reducing tourist numbers

Parts of Hallstatt suffered fire damage in November 2019.

FOTOKERSCHI.ATAFP-via-Getty-Images

“They had to work to fix the damage and therefore it was better, to have less tourists here in Hallstatt,” says Knoll.

Still, she says, many came anyway. They wanted to see the damage.

“So the mayor [said] officially that it would be great if they don’t visit Hallstatt until the damage is fixed,” she explains.

“The situation with tourism is very controversial. It’s equally a blessing and a curse for the locals,” says Mazurok. “On the one hand they have a large profit from tourism. But it comes at a cost of privacy and comfort.”

St. Pierre says she was struck by a feeling that Hallstatt was “under-prepared for the level of tourists that were there, especially on a holiday weekend.”

When she visited Amsterdam and Venice, St. Pierre noticed there were lots of visitors, but they tended to be doing activities. In Hallstatt, most people were just taking pictures.

“I would love to go back to Hallstatt in the summer to enjoy the lake more and see what summer in Austria is like, but I would be hesitant because I know how many people there were in the cold months,” she says. “[I] can only imagine how many more people there would be in the spring or summer.”

It’s not always this tranquil when the tourists descend.

ALEX HALADA/AFP via Getty Images

Knoll says the local community center is working to address the balance. The first step? Implementing a new bus system in May 2020.

It will, she says, reduce “the number of buses and also the number of guests here in Hallstatt.”

“The buses will book a slot in advance and then they can visit Hallstatt. Buses who have a booking at the town, either an overnight stay, or a ship cruise, a visit in a museum, get preference,” Knoll explains.

Quality over quantity

Hallstatt is now focusing on “quality tourism.”

Pixabay / Creative Commons

There have been reports of angry Hallstatt locals feeling driven out by visitors in a manner not dissimilar from the dissent stemming from Venice, Dubrovnik, Amsterdam and other European centers of overtourism.

Mazurok lives in Salzburg and says he probably wouldn’t live in Hallstatt: “It is difficult to stay in a town which is treated as a theme park,” he says.

Knoll lives about six miles from the village, in nearby Bad Goisem, but she has family in Hallstatt, and she has noticed the impact.

“On [the] one hand, many inhabitants of Hallstatt [make their livelihood] from the tourism here. Many of them are working in the tourism sector or rent their private rooms for tourists to stay there,” she says.

“On the other hand, sometimes it’s a bit strenuous to have so many guests in your hometown. Also the prices at supermarkets are more expensive than in other towns nearby.”

The solution, she says, is a focus on “quality tourism,” with the new bus system the first step.