4 things that will inspire you to travel this January

From a high-flying festival to a lesser known national park, here’s how to see the world right now.

This story appears in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.

The big event

Go fly a kite? Don’t mind if we do—at the International Kite Festival, January 6-14, in Ahmedabad, India. Fancy flyers, from long-tailed dragons to eerie aliens, draw global kite experts and superfans.

New book to read

Mudlarking is more than simply scavenging for historic objects on a river’s foreshore. It can be a meditative act in which looking is as enjoyable as finding, writes Lara Maiklem in Mudlark. Travelers can try London mudlarking with tours led by Thames Explorer Trust and others.

Best wildlife sighting

It’s nesting time for Magellanic penguins. The monogamous pairs and their chicks can be seen in colonies along the coasts of the Falkland Islands (above), as well as Argentina and southern Chile.

National park finder

Lush rainforests, soft sand beaches, and tiny thimble jellyfish (above) are just some of the treasures in the National Park of American Samoa, the only U.S. national park south of the Equator. Its far-flung location, about 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, means that travelers hike, snorkel, scuba dive, and explore Samoan culture with few crowds.

More from this issue

Why do we get annoyed? Science has irritatingly few answers.
Why hiking Wales is one of our best trips for 2020
How a photographer got this amazing mountaintop shot

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