In Transit Blog: Calendar: Coming Events in London; Washington; and Thailand

'Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain,' London The Victorian and Elizabethan periods may be well known, but many quintessentially "polite" things thought of as British — taking tea, theatergoing and a fascination with gardening — originated in Georgian England. "Georgians Revealed," from Nov. 8 to March 11 at the British Library, explores the roots of popular culture and "the revolution in everyday life" that took place between 1714 and 1830, through artwork, rare books and everyday objects, like the first fashion magazines. (Above, a circa 1714 portrait of George I.) Talks about culinary history, poetry and the emerging middle class; guided walking tours; and a night of "Vice and Virtue" with live music and performances, and food and drink, are highlights.

Steven Spielberg Film Festival, National Archives, Washington A free public film festival showcasing films by Steven Spielberg, including "Amistad" (1997), "Lincoln" (2012) and "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), will take place Nov. 15 to 18. The event is a lead-up to a ceremony at which the director will receive this year's Records of Achievement Award, an annual tribute to an individual whose work has deepened public understanding of historic events. Mr. Spielberg will receive the honor on Nov. 19, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Lop Buri Monkey Banquet Festival, Thailand Travelers may flock to Thailand for its noted cuisine, but in Lop Buri, about 94 miles north of Bangkok, monkeys are the foodies, at least during the Monkey Banquet Festival. A spread of fruit, traditional Thai dishes and other foods is offered to the honored guests, the small primates that proliferate in the area. (Nearby vendors and food stalls feed tourists.) The annual feast, this year on Nov. 24, takes place around the three-spired Phra Prang Sam Yot, a Buddhist temple that was converted from a 13th-century Hindu shrine.

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In Transit Blog: In-Flight Devices, Yes. But What About the Power?

Updated, 5:44 p.m. | With the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to allow passengers to use portable electronic devices throughout flights, the next question from fliers will most likely be, "So, where's the power outlet?"

Only about 1,200 of an average 22,000 domestic economy flights taking off in the United States Friday will offer A/C or USB outlets, Routehappy, the flight data Web site and search engine, said on Thursday. That's little more than 5 percent of flights spanning only six airlines: American, Delta, Hawaiian, United, US Airways and Virgin America, according to recent data analyzed by the company.

Wi-Fi and in-flight power are already important amenities for passengers, John Walton, the data director at Routehappy, said in an email. Airlines like Delta, United and US Airways have already invested significantly in outfitting their domestic fleets with it, and in September, JetBlue announced that it would begin offering satellite Wi-Fi on its Airbus fleet.

But the F.A.A.'s determination on portable devices makes the need for both Wi-Fi and the power to access it even more important. With more fliers than ever using tablets and smartphones in place of laptops, that could come out to more than an hour of extra connected time for passengers, Mr. Walton said.

"And that's particularly the case for business travelers, who often get caught in takeoff lines at busier airports," he said. "That hour delay on the tarmac is a lot less stressful if you can get some work done while your plane inches its way forward in the queue."

The new procedures are likely to  lead to new in-flight offerings as well, Mr. Walton said. Fliers can expect that airlines will look into streaming wireless entertainment like Netflix or Roku, renting iPads to passengers and offering in-flight magazines on e-readers. (Passengers will not be able to text or make or receive calls during flights.)

"Of course, the crux of the matter will be to standardize a set of rules governing what on, off and stowed mean," he said. "We've only just seen safety videos start to explain that fliers need to turn devices off-off. I can only imagine the 'I'm not texting, I'm playing Candy Crush' arguments as it all rolls out."

Delta and JetBlue Airlines have both been approved by the F.A.A. to begin offering passengers expanded use of portable electronic devices on domestic flights. Each had representatives on the agency's Portable Electronic Devices Aviation Rulemaking Committee, which evaluated the new procedures and reported its findings to the F.A.A..

"It's official! The FAA just approved @delta plans for PED customer use – effective immediately," Delta posted on Twitter this afternoon.

Delta said on Thursday that it has 570 domestic aircraft ready to comply, and that it plans to have more than 550 regional aircraft ready by the end of the year.

JetBlue has outlets available to customers sitting in "Even More Space" seats on nine of its A320 Airbuses, Anders Lindstrom, the manager of corporate communications, said in an email. But a "cabin refresh" is planned for the entire Airbus fleet, he said, which will provide power outlets to every customer on those flights. Any new JetBlue aircraft will already have outlets installed.

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Imprint: Norman Rockwell’s New England

Caleb Kenna for The New York Times

The view from Rockwell's bedroom at his home in Arlington, Vt. The house is now an inn.

I had driven for three and a half hours from New York so that I could go for a walk. And here I was at last, strolling along River Road in Arlington, Vt. The quiet, unpaved street winds along the banks of the Batten Kill, which is said to be the best trout stream in Vermont. In the distance, the green hills were ablaze with red and orange and offered what seemed like a quintessential New England view.

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"Freedom From Want" illustration, owned by SEPS. Licensed by Curtis Licensing. All Rights Reserved.

Rockwell painted "Freedom From Want" during his time in Vermont.

Norman Rockwell, who bought a house on this road in 1938, was not what you would call a lover of autumn foliage. His instincts as an artist were firmly figural, and he declined to paint a landscape in the 15 years in which he lived in Vermont. A native New Yorker who was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and began his career in the suburb of New Rochelle, N.Y., he did not farm or garden. Other Vermonters kept stables, but Rockwell, by his own admission, harbored a trembling fear of horses.

When he moved to Arlington, he was in his mid-40s, a celebrated magazine illustrator who was looking to deepen his art. He had painted his share of amusing covers, of freckled schoolboys and their mutts, and he hoped to tap into some truer, more expressive vein of American life. What drew him to New England was not so much the picket-fence tranquillity as the larger idea of it, the reassuring we-the-people symbolism. New England was the birthplace of American democracy, and Rockwell, as it turned out, would update the communitarian ideals articulated by our country's founders.

It was here in Vermont, during World War II, that Rockwell painted his much-heralded "Four Freedoms." Although based on lofty civic principles — freedom to speak and to worship, freedom from fear and from want — the series does not feel didactic. The four paintings have nothing to do with patriots on horseback and the fiery battle for independence. Rather, they portray the civic and familial rituals that connect random people in a town. Using his Vermont neighbors as models, Rockwell posed them in emblematic scenes: attending a town-hall meeting, saying prayers, socializing around a Thanksgiving table, and peeking in on sleeping children.

Other artists have given us other New Englands. It's remarkable how many competing portraits of America emerged from this corner of the country in the first half of the 20th century. Grandma Moses, for one, was a friend of Rockwell's who lived on a farm just across the Vermont-New York border. Grandma, as the whole country once called her, was nothing if not a late bloomer. She took up painting at the age of 76. Working at her bedroom desk, she churned out cheerful views of farm life, nostalgic scenes of snow-covered farmhouses, split-rail fences and horses trotting along dirt roads. She offers a view of New England as a green Arcadia where no one ever comes down with a cold.  

Robert Frost was not quite so peppy. He moved to this part of Vermont in the '20s. His stone house in South Shaftsbury, just a few miles from Rockwell's, is open to the public. The snowy woods, the roads that diverged, the "nothing gold can stay" sense of loss and dissipation: nature provided him with his great subject. He seized on it to create a portrait of Americans as resourceful but emotionally reserved and fond of putting up fences.

Today, Rockwell is associated less with Vermont than with Stockbridge, Mass., the town in the Berkshires where he settled in his later years. Stockbridge was the last place he lived, and it is the home of the Norman Rockwell Museum, which houses the bulk of his artwork and personal papers. In the course of the past decade, I spent many days there. I was writing a biography of Rockwell and contentedly sifting through his letters, datebooks and mounds of bills. Compared with most other artists, he left a very long paper trail.

I hadn't spent much time in Vermont, but it offered biographical rewards of its own. Namely, here one can sleep in the Rockwell bedroom.

Deborah Solomon is the author of "American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

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In Transit Blog: In the Keys, in the Air

The newest way to see the Florida Keys is from the open cockpit of an antique airplane. Overseas Aero Tours began flight-seeing tours last spring in a World War II- vintage biplane.

Built in 1940, the Waco UPF-7 features capacity for two passengers, plus the pilot, and flies at about 500 feet in search of regularly visible rays and sharks, along with the occasional dolphin, turtle and manatee. At up to 1,500 feet, passengers get the broader view of the area's unique bridges and islands.

"From the air you really see how Henry Flagler changed the neighborhood," said the pilot and co-owner Brad Neat, referring to the railroad magnate who built the original 1912 railroad linking the Keys via a series of bridges, later replaced by the Overseas Highway. "Plus it's really cool seeing how little land and how much water there is around here," he said.

Tours depart from the airport on Marathon in the Middle Keys and start at $110 for two for 10 minutes, going up to $599 for an hour.

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Surfacing: In Stockholm, ABBA, Alcohol and Animals

Rob Schoenbaum for The New York Times

ABBA the Museum opened in May.

Buzzy new gastropubs and drinking salons have been proliferating throughout Stockholm's urban islands, from pockets of the tourist-heavy Gamla Stan to hip Sodermalm, which today is a virtual Little Brooklyn with its bars, body art and beards. But Djurgarden, the tranquil two-mile-long island in the middle of the capital, had largely been a stalwart against these waves of change. Dense with meadows, an aging amusement park and staid museums, Djurgarden lacked the dynamic appeal that pulses in nearby areas. But recent openings on the western edge are infusing new life into this oft-overlooked island.

ABBA THE MUSEUM

Devoted to the legendary Swedish pop band and Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid's catchy tunes, this museum, which opened in May, gives fans reasons to sing again, more than 30 years after the group split.

Djurgardsvagen 68; (46-8) 1213-2860; abbathemuseum.com; admission 195 Swedish kronor, about $32 at 6.10 kronor to the dollar

SPRITMUSEUM

Rob Schoenbaum for The New York Times

Spiritmuseum.

A potent mixture of art and alcohol are the focus of this museum that opened on the waterfront in May 2012. A collection of Absolut Vodka's arty ads mingles with educational-type exhibits on topics ranging from Sweden's strict liquor laws to traditional drinking songs.

Djurgardsvagen 38; (46-8) 1213-1300; spritmuseum.se; admission 100 kronor

MELODY HOTEL

Those looking to bed down on Djurgarden can now check in to this chic 50-room boutique hotel, which opened in April. The ground-floor restaurant and bar overlook the ABBA museum's red-carpeted entrance, making the spots great for people-watching.

Djurgardsvagen 68; (46-8) 5025-4140; melody.se

OAXEN KROG & SLIP

Rob Schoenbaum for The New York Times

Oaxen Krog and Slip.

This May, the elegant new Nordic restaurant Oaxen Krog moved from a tiny island in Stockholm's archipelago to a large metal structure on Djurgarden's southwestern edge, where it's now joined by a more casual adjacent bistro, Oaxen Slip.

Beckholmsvagen 26; (46-8) 5515-3105; oaxen.com

LILL-SKANSEN

Rob Schoenbaum for The New York Times

Lill-Skansen.

The sprawling open-air museum Skansen is rural Sweden in miniature, complete with red farmhouses and folk costumes. And Lill-Skansen, its recently revamped children's zoo, includes a new building filled with little creatures like rabbits, guinea pigs and frogs, as well as an aviary and a pasture of pint-size goats for petting.

Skansen, Djurgardsslatten 49-51; (46-8) 442-8000; skansen.se; admission 100 kronor

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Pursuits: In Amish Country, on the Train to Paradise

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

The Strasburg Rail Road steam train cuts through fields on its way back to Strasburg from Paradise, Pa.

The double hoot of a steam train jolted me awake. I peeked out the window above my bed. A wispy gray tuft billowed behind a massive coal-burning locomotive as it chuffed across fields of Amish farmland toward Paradise, Pa.

People come to these pleasant hills of Lancaster County for its countryside shops selling fruit and shoofly pie and its quiet, winding roads with the only sound the click-clacking of horse-drawn buggies. But we came for the rumbling, the soot and the clanging. We came for the trains.

The weekend trip was only half over, and already we had waved at them, climbed up them, rode on them and eaten inside of them. And yes — I recalled that morning as I looked around the narrow room with small, crisply curtained windows where I woke up — I was actually sleeping in a caboose.

We had managed to do all this in Strasburg, Pa., a town in Lancaster County that has been building a following for decades with its historic railroad that operates excursion steam trains, a railroading museum and a motel made up of 39 cabooses and railcars, in addition to two other model train sites in the area. With events for every season, there are plenty of reasons many families from New York to Washington make Strasburg a destination — and being able to get there in under three hours is not least among them.

It seems absurd that I questioned whether this railroading enclave would interest both my husband, Michael — a card-carrying rail fan — and our trainiac toddler sons, ages 2 and 1. The earliest indication, the moment we got out of the car parked in an open field near the Strasburg Rail Road and they ran in three different directions, suggested that yes, it would. But another question remained: Would there be enough quirky authenticity to hold my interest, too?

Our first stop was the Strasburg Rail Road, a tourist railway for more than 50 years, and a working railroad since its charter in 1832. Beyond its regular excursion rides, it offers themed outings linked to the era of steam power and catering to all manner of visitors. There are wine-and-cheese, murder-mystery and first-class dinner rides. There are rides celebrating hobos, Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. There's even a steampunk festival. On Nov. 16 and 17, the railroad will host its first "Steampunk UnLimited," with musicians, artisans, authors, tours of the mechanical shop and even an absinthe cocktail tasting aboard the first-class car. (Baby sitter, please!)

At the other end of the spectrum is the reason we went there: Thomas.

For those who don't have a train-crazed, pre-school-age child in their lives, that would be Thomas the Tank Engine, a fictional steam locomotive from the books by the Rev. Wilbert Vere Awdry, now featured on DVDs and in toy-strewn playrooms everywhere.

The railroad's "Day Out With Thomas" events, held in June, September and coming up Nov. 22 to 24, are its biggest days. The event drew 31,000 people over nine days last June. We were among the 5,500 wild-eyed, Ergobaby-wearing parents in a stroller derby vying to get close to Thomas on one of those days.

"Look!" Michael and I exuberantly called out to our boys when we saw the retrofitted 1917 steam train with the bright blue shell, red trim and moving eyes twinkling above the sweetly doughy cheeks chugging down the tracks. The excitement was too much for even me. "It's Thomas!" I screamed.Our boys were nonplused. If they had said anything, it would have been, "Yeah, Mom, obviously Thomas is here. He's Thomas the Tank Engine. And this is a railroad. Duh."

But that didn't mean they were not excited to ride on Thomas's train. Clutching toy versions of Thomas and chunks of pizza in their hands, they clambered onboard and called out, "All aboard!" Thomas pushed us backward down the track — away from the scrum of parents jostling for photos and the clanging Thomas theme songs — and into a brief reverie of farm-fresh air and the country quiet of cornfields before bringing us back into the thronging railway station.

We took a break of sorts to explore some of the permanent children's attractions at the railroad (like a pump car, hand-cranked train cars and a miniature steam train giving rides in a loop) before a relative and her school-age children joined us on the railroad's classic 45-minute steam train ride to Paradise and back.

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Explorer: In Namibia, Conservation and Tourism Intersect

Remy Scalza for The New York Times

The population of black rhinos has increased in recent years in Namibia.

Uamunikaije Tjivinda squatted in the sand and threw a few strips of dried giraffe meat into a pot of boiling water. Like many Himba women in the arid, northwestern part of Namibia called Kaokoland, she wore sandals, a goatskin skirt and little else. Her skin and long, plaited hair were a striking rust-red, rubbed with ocher dug from the earth.

From nearby hills, other women with young children converged, standing quietly around Ms. Tjivinda's domed hut, their eyes downcast. Out of the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser, my wife and I unpacked gifts brought on the advice of our guide — cornmeal, tea, sugar and other supplies hard to find here.

Though no longer a novelty for these women, these sorts of encounters with tourists are still new enough to be awkward. Only when the food came out did they smile and start to talk.

"The conservancy has been good for us," Ms. Tjivinda said in the local Otjihimba dialect, which our guide translated. "Wildlife are cared for like our own livestock, and money from tourism goes into our conservancy bank account." Goats wandered by as the women sat down to braid hair. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a small Himba girl, her hand wrist-deep in the sugar bag we brought. She raised a fistful to her mouth and swallowed.

For nearly two decades, Namibia, a country twice the size of California but with just 2.1 million residents, has been part of an ambitious experiment in both community tourism and wildlife conservation, known as communal conservancies. "The idea was to fight poaching by restoring control over wildlife to the local people," said John Kasaona, the director of Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation, the primary N.G.O. behind the initiative.

In 1996, groundwork laid by the organization paved the way for new laws giving tribal communities — who previously had limited rights to resources on communal lands — the ability to form conservancies and self-manage their wildlife. "We wanted to show them that they could benefit financially from keeping these animals alive, in particular from wildlife tourism," said Mr. Kasaona, who would spend years canvassing the countryside, explaining the model village by village. "Try convincing people who were made these same promises years ago by a colonial regime and then robbed of their land," he said. "At first, no one trusted us."

In the years since, the plan has been a resounding — and rare — success story for African wildlife. Seventy-nine conservancies now cover a full 20 percent of Namibia. Populations of desert lions, desert elephants and black rhinos, all threatened with extinction in the early '90s, have increased several times over, while poaching has plummeted. (One rhino was poached in Namibia last year, compared with 668 in neighboring South Africa.) Meanwhile, conservancies throughout the country have teamed up with international tourism operators, giving ordinary travelers like me unprecedented access to both animals and local culture.

But an increase in wildlife — and tourists — has brought a new and unexpected set of challenges. "We're having some problems with our own success," said Mr. Kasaona, who grew up herding goats in Kaokoland and whose family members still live a pastoral life there. "As we say, lions and cattle aren't always best friends."

Nearly half of all Namibia's conservancies, and many of the country's most ambitious community tourism projects, are in the northern Kunene region (which includes Kaokoland), an expanse of dry mountains and valleys the size of Greece but with fewer than 90,000 inhabitants. As we drove north in a rented four-wheel drive, gravel roads gave way to "Kunene highways," rutted tracks that thread through desert, cross dry river beds and sometimes disappear altogether. Against this harsh backdrop, conservancies have logged one of their greatest successes, the return of the endangered black rhino.

"These animals were almost completely wiped out by poachers 25 years ago," said Aloysius Waterboer, a guide at Desert Rhino Camp, a tent lodge located in Damaraland, traditional home of the Damara people. We were bumping along in an open safari car, hoping to spot one of the roughly 30 rhinos that now live in this area. Mr. Waterboer slowed the vehicle and studied the riot of zebra, oryx and elephant footprints in the sand, looking for rhino tracks.

The camp, a cluster of eight tent chalets, sits alone on 1,700 square miles of rocky hills and desert scrub leased from area conservancies, who are also 40 percent shareholders in the project. Nearly 90 percent of employees, including Mr. Waterboer, are drawn from local communities. Many of the expert rhino trackers on staff are former poachers themselves. "If you're a poacher, all you really want is to feed your family," Mr. Waterboer explained. "So it made sense to put them on the payroll."

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In Transit Blog: A Mood Change at Security Checkpoints

Mood lighting and upbeat music aren't revolutionary ideas for romancing a date, but they may be for wooing travelers at airport security checkpoints. At least that's the hope of the creators of a new security experience being tested at the Charlotte-Douglas and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airports over the next few months.

With direction from Security Point Media, an airport advertising company, the approval of the Transportation Security Administration and funding from Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, one checkpoint at each airport received a makeover.

Passengers entering the lines are greeted by pastel LED lighting and giant prints of leaves, flowing water and flowers on the walls. Directional speakers play music from Internet radio stations and announce instructions from the T.S.A., and flat-screen monitors display wait times for the line and updates from the airport.

Once on the other side, travelers are able to tie their shoes and adjust their shirttails in an area set up with plush sofas, rugs, high-top tables and mirrors, all care of Spring Hill Suites.

The scene resembles something "much more like the lobby of a four-star hotel than an industrial area," Joseph T. Ambrefe, the chief executive of Security Point, told The Charlotte Observer. It's a visual that will be hard to forget considering that Spring Hill Suites' return on its investment is plenty of wall-size advertising in a space where travelers are temporarily captive.

Nothing the hotel has contributed, however, will slow down the process of getting through security, Craig Fowler, a senior marketing director for Spring Hill Suites, told The Observer. Although it remains unclear whether the enhancements will actually help travelers move through the lines faster.

"It's a little too early to quantify those improvements," Mr. Ambrefe said on the phone Wednesday morning, two weeks after the project began. "There are efficiencies that are driven by a combination of factors, including improved traveler messaging, both the audio and video, that help prepare them better for the screening process; and then there's the implementation of our patented secure trays, which are designed to reduce the number of screened images per traveler and to simplify those images for the screener. And that helps the line move faster."

But it's really the holistic approach to the process that makes it a better experience for travelers, Mr. Ambrefe said. "That's really where the big win is."

A review of the service in early January will determine whether it will expand to more terminals and other airports, and whether Marriott will continue as a partner.

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Frugal Traveler: Churches and Cheap Seafood Off the Coast of Chile

Seth Kugel

The Church of San Francisco in Castro.

Around dusk on my last day in Chiloé, an archipelago just off the coast of southern Chile, I finally made it to the farthest point on the island of Lemuy, winding around sheep farms on tidy dirt roads to a little town called Detif, home of one of Chiloé's traditional wooden churches, which are recognized as a World Heritage site by Unesco.

As is often the case with old churches in tiny villages, entry required finding the villager with the key. That villager, a woman named Griselda in a blue apron and not-very-recently-dyed auburn hair, turned out to run a little provisions store just across the street. As far as I could tell, it was the only business in town.

"Sorry to bother you so late," I said in Spanish, "but is it possible to see the church?"

I got the feeling she was thrilled to have a visitor, especially so late, and in the off-season. "Someone from another country is here to see the church!" she shouted to her husband as she fetched the key. She turned out to be a lovely woman and a knowledgeable resource. The head of the local church committee, she told me fishing, then a mussel farm, had upheld the economy; now it was largely pensioners, she said. (Her children were raising families elsewhere in Chiloé.)

Unlike the magnificent carved-wood interiors of other Chiloé churches I had seen, this one was homespun and whitewashed, with worn vestments of long gone priests lovingly displayed and icons of saints ready to be picked up and carried in the coming Christmas procession. Griselda told me that Mass is said once a month.

Chiloé (pronounced chill-oh-AY), which lies at about the midway point between Santiago and Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, has long been a beloved but distant and rustic getaway, favored by Chileans and backpackers but inconvenient for vacationers from farther away or with less time to spare. A grand effort to change that is underway: with a new airport obviating the bus-and-ferry trip from the mainland, boutique hotels and hostels supplementing the already large supply of guesthouses, and even a growing availability of espresso in what was once exclusively Nescafé territory, Chiloé is looking to challenge Patagonia and the Atacama Desert as Chile's go-to escapes.

Whether that's a good thing, it's not yet the case. There's hardly any way, for example, to examine the hundreds of lodging options on the island on Trip Advisor or Booking.com or Airbnb — which is why I had gone door to door, looking for housing options in Castro, Chiloé's largest city, best known for its palafitos, houses on stilts traditionally owned by fishermen but now frequently offering beds to sleep in.

Seeing a sign for Hospedaje (Lodging) at 547 Pedro Monti Street, I rang the bell. And rang again. I was about to leave when a window popped open and 75-year-old Sergio Cárdenas poked his head out. "Just a moment," he said. "I just need to put on some pants." He showed me around his home, which was still being repaired after a fire next door earlier this year (I also later found that the bathroom lacked hot water and wouldn't pass muster with most). When I asked him if he served breakfast, and he gave me a sad look. "But I'm all alone," he said. I dropped off my bags and set out to explore the islands.

Chiloé does not offer the shock-and-awe landscapes of Atacama or Patagonia; it is a place of subtler appeal, known for those charming wooden churches, palafitos, plentiful just-off-the-boat salmon and shellfish, indigenous-influenced crafts. It also has a vaguely separatist spirit: residents often call themselves Chilotes rather than Chileans, and maintain an understated independent spirit, like Texans without the bluster.

On my first day, I took an easy bus (1,500 pesos, about $3 at 508 pesos to the dollar) from Castro's antiquated but very functional bus terminal to Chiloé National Park. It was lovely if somewhat uneventful. There are well-maintained trails to the desolately beautiful coastline and through some of its quickly changing forests, with bilingual signs explaining the changing landscape. (Entrance is officially 1,500 pesos, but I didn't see a place to pay.)

But almost as lovely was the bus ride across the island. Chiloé's landscapes are wildly uneven without being dramatic; green hills and valleys and full of sheep, reminiscent of New Zealand. (When a man on the bus told me Chiloé does not have a professional soccer team, to me the reason became obvious: there was not enough flat land anywhere for a pitch.) This time of year, there's an added splash of color: bright yellow flowers known locally as espinilla coat the landscape, great for photographs but bad for agriculture — the plant, Ulex europaeus, is actually an invasive weed the islanders could do without.

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In Transit Blog: Hotel Yoga? Everyone’s Invited.

Yoga classes at hotels have long been a popular guest amenity, but now some properties are opening them up to the public as well.

The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air, which are both Dorchester Collection properties in Los Angeles, have complimentary Saturday morning 60-minute classes (on Nov. 30, the classes will be at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and all other Saturdays through the end of the year, they will be at Hotel Bel-Air).

Participants are provided yoga mats and are also given free, freshly pressed juices.

The Palomar San Diego, a Kimpton property, has complimentary hourlong vinyasa-style classes on Wednesday evenings next to the rooftop pool and offers students beforehand a free healthy snack like a fruit kebab or a smoothie. The Tides Inn in Irvington, Va., offers 90-minute paddleboard yoga three times a week, where the poses are done on a paddleboard on Carter Creek adjacent to the hotel. The classes are free for guests, but nonguests must pay $40 to join.

The Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., about 90 minutes from Los Angeles, has two to three yoga classes a day in different styles including restorative and power that guests can take free but cost $25 to $30 for everyone else. The price covers access to the spa facilities, which include a Jacuzzi, steam room and pool. The Z NYC Hotel in Long Island City in Queens also has seasonal 45-minute beginner yoga classes on its rooftop on weekend mornings, which cost $15 for guests and nonguests.

Hotels are trying to build a sense of community by opening yoga classes to the public, said Albert Herrera, the senior vice president for global product partnerships for the luxury travel network Virtuoso.

"We're seeing that today hotels want to be more than a place for guests," he said. "They want to be a local hangout. A yoga class is a great way to do that and also increases the chances that these locals will become aware of, and come in for, other offerings such as the restaurant or spa."

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