Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Those in the travel industry are working to advertise cooler destinations, amid the prospect that the heat may prompt people to give up on traveling in the summer altogether.
Tourists from abroad get water mist sprayed on them to cool down on the street at Tsukiji Outer Market, a popular sightseeing spot, as the Japanese government issued a heatstroke alert in Tokyo and other prefectures due to a heat wave on Friday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 23, 2025
World’s climate change crisis has tourists seeking ‘coolcations’
Record heat waves are transforming the world’s tourism industry as holidaymakers struggle to deal with the havoc wrought by climate change.
A damaged car in the Liuli River in the Huairou district of Beijing on Aug. 13. Flooding exposed weaknesses in the rural emergency response infrastructure for Beijing, whose urban core is surrounded by several rural districts like Huairou.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2025
Is historically arid Beijing ready for a wetter future?
Recent floods revealed how historically dry Beijing, home to 22 million people, remains insufficiently prepared for what experts say will be an increasingly wet future.
A commuter uses a portable fan on an underground train at rush hour during a heat wave in the City of London financial district.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2025
As temperatures soar in London, regulations, not costs, put cooling beyond reach
The British capital has seen a surge in demand for air-conditioning units in high-end homes as climate change raises summer temperatures.
People huddle near a large fan blowing icy-cold mist at the Osaka Expo on July 12. Amid Japan's relentless summer heat, organizes have put myriad measures in place in order to keep guests safe.
Osaka Expo highlights the challenge of holding events in Japan's scorching summer
Giant umbrellas, mist fans and human-sized ice boxes are some of the many ways organizers are offering respite to visitors.
Haji Karam Jat (right), a fisherman, and his family members walk along an embankment in Keti Bandar town of Thatta district near the Indus delta, in the south of Pakistan on June 25.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 7, 2025
Death of a delta: Pakistan's Indus sinks and shrinks
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced from the region in the last two decades as the downstream flow of water into the delta has fallen 80% since the 1950s.
People cool off under water jets in Madrid on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 5, 2025
'Silent killer': the science of tracing climate deaths in heat waves
Heat can claim tens of thousands of lives during European summers but it usually takes months to count the cost. Scientists are aiming to change that with faster studies.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past