Europe

Manchester

England

Eindhoven

Netherlands

Eindhoven 🚲 at £43-£45 rtn from Manchester

The best time to visit? When tulips are exploding from every field, window box and crack in the streets, of course!

St. John's

Canada

Amsterdam

Amsterdam 🌷 at $955 RT

Winnipeg

Hamilton

Waterloo

Amsterdam 🌷 in $730s-$880s RT

Birmingham

Amsterdam 🚲 at £86-£87 rtn from Birmingham

Oh, and the canals? Lined with trees blazing every shade of amber and gold!

Toronto

Amsterdam 🚲 at $689 RT 

Glasgow

Scotland

Amsterdam 🌷 at £89 rtn from Glasgow

I was pleasantly surprised to get an alert for a flight from Winnipeg to Europe for less than local flight prices. Ticked off cycling in the Netherlands and Belgium from my bucket list. Thanks JFC!

Postcard from Don

This was a great deal and we just flew SAS to Copenhagen. We booked this for a trip to Berlin! 

Postcard from Amanda

Can't wait to send you an actual postcard from here! There aren't a lot of flights from Winnipeg, and this one came at the perfect time! We'd already booked a River Cruise and we had been watching for flight deals.
Thank you!!!

Postcard from Traci

Thank you for the great deal! It's for my boyfriend and I's first trip together in September!!!

Postcard from Jennifer

So excited to take my hubby. I have been numerous times and love it and visiting with family. My husband father emigrated in the late 60's to Canada. I want to show him where his father grew up. Sadly he passed away, during COVID. I had so wanted to take him back.
So excited to go back. 

Postcard from Rebecca

I decided to change my Christmas market base from Munich to Basel as it was half the price! Now I can enjoy Swiss, French AND German markets with my family! Thanks!

Postcard from Jhenn

United States

I&rsquo;ve always been obsessive about art museums. It&rsquo;s the first thing I usually do when I visit a new city. And while I love to admire galleries full of paintings and sculptures by iconic artists, my favorite works take on a different quality: immersion.
After experiencing about fifteen emotions simultaneously inside Tim Shaw&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timshawsculptor.com/projects/mother-william.php">Mother, the Air is Blue, the Air is Dangerous</a> in college, I was hooked on the entire concept of immersive art. It takes one set of skills to make a beautiful painting; it takes another to transform a space and make viewers forget they&rsquo;re in a museum.&nbsp;
Yayoi Kusama is arguably the queen of such installations, with her&nbsp;<a href="https://high.org/exhibition/yayoi-kusama-infinity-mirrors/">polka-dotted rooms</a>:

You might also remember <a href="https://artlead.net/journal/modern-classics-olafur-eliasson-the-weather-project-2003/">Olafur Eliasson&rsquo;s The Weather Project</a>, in which he created an artificial sun in the Tate Modern.
But lately, the concept seems to be exploding in popularity outside the world of contemporary art. &ldquo;Immersive experiences&rdquo; are something of a tourism staple these days, from the million franchises of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.museumofillusions.com/our-locations/">Museum of Illusions</a>, to that traveling <a href="https://vangoghexpo.com/">Van Gogh projection</a>.

Personally, I find many of these places to be a little too touristy. If there&rsquo;s an identical copy of your &ldquo;mind-blowing experience&rdquo; the next city over, it feels less like a step out of reality and more like a gimmick.&nbsp;
However, there&rsquo;s one major exception to my sentiment towards major art exhibit chains, and that&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://meowwolf.com/">Meow Wolf</a>: five locations, each completely different, each with an interactive story from the same universe. Their fandom definitely seems to be growing &mdash; the Vegas location is now on most lists of &ldquo;Things to do in Vegas&rdquo; (including <a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/skip-the-strip-the-non-gamblers-guide-to-las-vegas">mine</a>), and there are even some folks who plan entire trips just to experience a new Meow Wolf (including me).

It&rsquo;s hard to adequately describe the feeling of a Meow Wolf if you&rsquo;ve never been to one. Imagine parking your car and walking into a nondescript warehouse, and then spending the next 3&ndash;-5 hours completely forgetting your normal life as you&rsquo;re overcome with a need to solve a gripping interdimensional mystery by rifling through the items inside an artistic, interactive alien world.&nbsp;
They really don&rsquo;t mess around when it comes to details. I once opened a filing cabinet in one of their exhibits, expecting to find it either empty or locked, but it was full of readable typed pages with text that matched the worldbuilding.&nbsp;
I always walk out of Meow Wolf feeling like I&rsquo;ve just crash landed back on Earth after a vacation to another planet, which is&nbsp;exactly what I want from an immersive art exhibit.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve heard the&nbsp;<a href="https://doloris.nl/en/">Doloris Mazes</a> in Tilburg and Utrecht bring a similarly surreal experience to the Netherlands, but without having visited, they&rsquo;re a bit shrouded in mystery for me &mdash; phones and cameras are strictly banned, making it difficult to get a sense of the art inside without seeing it for yourself. The mystery grows even more tantalizing when you learn that all guests must enter alone, blindfolded.&nbsp;
The intensity of their entrance rules is probably how the question &ldquo;Is it scary?&rdquo; ended up in their FAQ. Their answer includes the following lines:
&ldquo;Because you do not know what lies ahead, entering the maze can feel exciting or tense. This feeling comes from stepping into the unknown rather than from any intention to frighten you.&rdquo;
How poetic!
I think that quote really gets to the core of what makes these exhibits so popular, and so exhilarating to me. I can&rsquo;t accurately explain Meow Wolf to you if you haven&rsquo;t visited, and I&rsquo;ll never understand the Doloris Meta Maze until I visit the Netherlands and see it for myself.

It makes sense that places like this become magnets for visiting travelers, because it really is like microdosing on travel &mdash; you never quite know what&rsquo;ll meet you when you arrive, but you emerge with the sense that your normal life is lightyears away. And while you can spend hours telling your loved ones about it, you can never truly share the feeling with them.
I could write paragraphs about my experience in that Tim Shaw installation. I could describe, in perfect detail, the caf&eacute; tables, the floating trays, the eerie blue glow and the muffled audio. But I can never fully share the experience of waiting in line in an art museum with no idea of what was in that room, and then suddenly being immersed in another world. You just have to walk through that door yourself.
So here&rsquo;s to stepping into the unknown, even if it&rsquo;s just the contents of a gallery! And if you&rsquo;ve had any similar experiences with an art installation or interactive experience, let me know in the comments &mdash; I&rsquo;m always hungry for more.&nbsp;

Tiny Steps into the Unknown: A Look at Immersive Art Attractions

Mexico

Guatemala

Spain

Finland

Fiji

France

Sri Lanka

Hey there Travellers,
Like much of the world this week, Katy's off on holiday, so I get the special honor of sending out the first Detour of 2026 🎉
New Year's Eve, for many folks, is a time of reflection! It's the perfect excuse to dig through some old memories and take stock of those meaningful moments.&nbsp;
So that's our theme for this week: memories.&nbsp;This Detour is chock full of them &mdash; from this year's highlights, to nostalgic travel tattoos from trips long past.&nbsp;
Let's make 2026 another great year, Travellers! And let us know in the comments which travel memories you're hoping to create in the next twelve months &mdash; maybe we can help :-)
Wishing you a safe and happy New Year,

Olivia - Sub-Editor of the Detour

Permanent Souvenirs: Our Travel Tattoo Tales&nbsp;

You know a trip is worthwhile when that bittersweet thought crosses your mind: I wish I could bottle up this moment and keep it forever.
It&rsquo;s the feeling that drives souvenir sales and fills up your photo albums, but for travelers who&nbsp;really want to keep those memories close, there&rsquo;s another option &mdash; having that memory permanently added to your body.
Despite the discomfort of traveling with a fresh tattoo, getting inked on the road is a time-honored tradition. Captain Cook&rsquo;s sailors are said to have returned home from Polynesia sporting some new body art. Even 700 years ago, religious pilgrims to the Middle Eastern Holy Land were <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1235759">getting small tattoos as evidence of their journey</a>. By the 19th century, the list of folks with travel tattoos even included <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/japan-courts-and-culture/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace/features/royal-tattoos">British royalty</a>.&nbsp;
Nowadays, there&rsquo;s an entire culture built up around travel tattoos. Some shops in touristy areas even&nbsp;depend on the demand. And just like in centuries past, there are still a myriad of motivations behind the decision.&nbsp;

During my (rather formative) few months in New Orleans, I realized I&rsquo;d regret it forever if I didn&rsquo;t leave that city with an inked reminder. Next thing I knew, I was face-down on a leather table, surrounded by NOLA-typical spiritual decor, while a stranger put me through excruciating pain for so long that I felt like my soul was leaving my body.
Unfortunately, in my case, that meant I was having a panic attack, desperately trying to keep still while hyperventilating and gasping through the pain. I tried to focus on a fixed point in the room to ground myself, but ended up locking eyes with a large, weeping statue of Santa Maria. It seemed less unnerving than the taxidermied animals, the bloody crucifixes, or the clutter of figurines stuck with nails or covered in bones and teeth.&nbsp;
When it was finally over, I paid the artist with shaking hands and basically ran out of the shop. I cannot even describe the headspace I was in. The relief was so strong that I felt like an entirely new person. All I wanted was a drink and a place to sit down.
Fortunately, that&rsquo;s not a tall order in New Orleans &mdash; I popped over to Bourbon Street and entered the first bar I saw.&nbsp;

Midway through a whisky, while listening to a bartender&rsquo;s story, I realized my new tattoo had started bleeding. There was a gruesome, oozy red smear running down my leg and trickling onto the floor of the bar.
&ldquo;Sorry, could I just get a napkin?&rdquo; I say, interrupting the bartender. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m bleeding onto your floor.&rdquo;
She casually handed me a napkin without even pausing her story. She had no reaction at all to hearing a patron say they were bleeding onto the floor of her bar at 2pm on a Monday.&nbsp;
I guess that&rsquo;s business as usual on Bourbon Street!
The tattoo has long since healed, but whenever I look at it, I remember what a wild time it was. I had no idea it would be that intense, but I&rsquo;m honored to have been given such a distinctly NOLA experience &mdash; one that really embodies the chaotic excitement of my time in the city. It&rsquo;s how I got hooked on travel tattoos!
So, as a person with so much access to well-seasoned travelers who understand the value of overseas memories, I just&nbsp;had to ask the Jack&rsquo;s Flight Club staff and Community for a few more tales.
And I heard some great ones! Like the new tradition started by our reader Zo&euml; and her wife, which started out as a space-saving measure:

&ldquo;My wife and I have a tradition of getting a tattoo on every *far* trip. Makes the long haul flight home worth it&hellip; Wanting to collect &lsquo;souvenirs&rsquo; whilst living in a small flat at the time was the original inspiration. We&rsquo;ve collected them from Thailand, Bali, and Singapore so far. Many more on the travel wishlist.&rdquo; - Zo&euml;

Or our Jack&rsquo;s Navigator Henry&rsquo;s story, about a priceless memorial that only cost &euro;15:

&ldquo;When I was 19/20, I lived in Spain and became friends with a good group of people. I moved back when someone at home died, but while I was at home, one of my friends in Spain died (very tragic, I know). So when I came back to visit my friends, one of them mentioned that another guy was starting off as a tattoo artist, and he needed guinea pigs to get the business&nbsp; going, so I said I would volunteer one night we were out. So the next day, we went to Seville and got this done. It is of course the song of Liverpool Football Club. But the tattoo is actually for everyone who is no longer with us. The words of the song make more sense than whatever I will say here 😂 It took 3 hours and cost 15 euro.&rdquo;&nbsp;- Henry

Our writer Akasha&rsquo;s tales of stick n&rsquo; pokes in Central American hostels could probably fill an entire novel:

"After almost an hour with my face wedged in the crook of an old Maltese man&rsquo;s pungent armpit as he bent over backwards attempting to tattoo my ribcage, eighteen-year-old me was hooked.&nbsp;
'For each country I visit, I&rsquo;m going to get a tattoo to commemorate it,' I excitedly told my boyfriend at the time. He rolled his eyes. He was the typical Irish lad, one that would 'go on holidays' once every 5 years to Benidorm or Magaluf. Something about the Irish pubs there.
He probably didn&rsquo;t expect that by my twenties, I&rsquo;d be lying on a sagging mattress in the jungles of Guatemala, a Czech apprentice straddling my torso, carving her gun of pain into my arm for four hours without a break.
Or that I&rsquo;d let a French guy hand-poke a reiki symbol onto my wrist in exchange for covering a bar shift.&nbsp;
Stick and poke became my preferred way. So naturally, my ears perked up when a German tattooist blew into the hostel I worked at in Chiapas. It&rsquo;d take me a few weeks to propose a trade he simply couldn&rsquo;t refuse: I&rsquo;d bleach his dreadlocks in return for some artwork."

"This was probably my most painful one. Not from the needle but from the cup of rubbing alcohol he poured over my raw skin, and the violent slap that followed. A sick and twisted joke because it was midnight and I couldn&rsquo;t scream without waking the hostel guests.
And while I haven&rsquo;t managed to stay true to my promise of getting inked everywhere I&rsquo;ve wandered, I&rsquo;ve done a pretty good job of collecting permanent stamps.
Mostly, the ink I&rsquo;ve gotten along the way is a map itself - of the girl who showed up clueless and curious, reckless and scared, but booked the ticket anyway."&nbsp;- Akasha

And lastly, our Detour queen Katy shared the story of her first tattoo, a remnant of a teenage adventure in the Netherlands:

"When I finished high school, I didn&rsquo;t go on the big group trip clubbing in Ayia Napa. That wasn&rsquo;t my thing at all. I wanted to see some of the world before starting university, not just the inside of a bar, surrounded by people I&rsquo;d mostly never see again.&nbsp;
Instead, myself and some of my closest friends decided to go Interrailing around Europe for 5 weeks. As is common when leaving high school in Scotland, most of us were only 17 at the time. We couldn&rsquo;t even (legally) drink in bars at home, so a month of European rules was exciting. And when we realised that we&rsquo;d even be old enough to get tattooed in The Netherlands&hellip;
Well, let&rsquo;s just say a few of us decided to give it a go &mdash; a fact my mum only found out three years later, when I was lazily lying in bed with my leg hanging out from under the sheets.
When getting your first tattoo, there&rsquo;s a lot of pressure to make it meaningful, so I opted for something I knew would always be important to me &mdash; music. I was right, playing music is still part of my life. But perhaps more important is the fact that I got it while on a memorable adventure with people who are still part of my life."&nbsp;- Katy

When I look at all of these stories together, there&rsquo;s a common thread: Most things in life are temporary. People enter and exit, chapters close, and that return flight is always rapidly approaching. I can go back to New Orleans, but I can&rsquo;t go back to that trip. Travel, by definition, has to be ephemeral.&nbsp;
We might be staking our money, time, and energy on a very short-lived experience, but we often return home permanently changed. I think travel tattoos owe their prolonged popularity to that change &mdash; they can help make the outside match the inside.
So if you feel the same, and have a travel tattoo (or several) of your own, feel free to send them our way. Maybe you&rsquo;ll see them in part two :-)

Travel Tales

Jack's Gone Global: Where We Went in 2025

As you might expect, the Jack's staff is always jetsetting around the world! 2025 was no different &mdash; We traveled everywhere from the Caribbean to the Arctic Circle.&nbsp;
Here's a few highlights from another fantastic year of travel...

<h2 id="lapland">Lapland</h2>
Hannah Deals &amp; Content

&ldquo;We took a day-trip over to the <a href="https://arcticsnowhotel.fi/en/">Arctic SnowHotel </a>during our trip, as well as snowmobiled through the forests, and took reindeer and husky rides on a tour with the Snowmobile Park company &mdash; they were great and included proper snow gear in their prices, so would highly recommend.
And last but not least, the northern lights! While you can hunt for them on a guided tour, it gets pricey. Instead, we stayed just outside of the city (towards Ounasvaara) in an AirBnB and were lucky enough to spot them dancing above the house most nights we were there.&rdquo;

<h2 id="lapland">Fiji</h2>
Larissa Deal &amp; Content Manager EU

&ldquo;Fiji was such a surprise to me! I went for a family celebration and didn&rsquo;t have many expectations (given I knew a lot of the holiday would be resort-bound), but we managed to do a decent amount in Nadi and the surrounding <a href="https://www.koroyanituheritagepark.org/plan-your-trip">Koroyanitu National Heritage Park</a>. My highlights were DIY-ing a hike through the park to an incredible waterfall lookout, and visiting the <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qs6PyZGqz5nm2PF9A">Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple</a> - the intricate paintwork inside was incredible!&rdquo;

<h2 id="lapland">France &amp; Scotland</h2>
Andrea Member Experience Team Leader

&ldquo;My trip to France and Scotland healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing. The little girl in me who thought she might never make it to Europe and visit her dream city and the grown girl in me that found her soul city.
My favorite moment of my adventures was being able to see and touch the Eiffel Tower. I knew that I would cry the moment I laid eyes on her and I very much did! LOL The tears were joy and marvel and finally realizing that I did it, I made it, I was standing in Paris!! I was looking at a monument I had only seen in books and movies. I checked a place off of a very long bucket list. I had macarons and croissants from French boulangeries and strolled along streets with beautiful architecture. I spoke terribly broken French from the years of Duolingo that I had been doing and I was out of this world happy.
However. My favorite place was Scotland. I had never traveled and felt at home anywhere the way I did there. The buildings, history, slight gloom and chill in the air. The beautiful stone streets and castles, this was my place. A place I felt very happy and comfortable, where I could wander for hours and not feel tired. I am still day dreaming about my time there and thinking of the things I want to do and see when I go back. It was on my bucket list and still is. There's so much more I need to see and experience (highland coos, for example!)&rdquo;

<h2 id="lapland">Sri Lanka</h2>
Fran&nbsp;Deals &amp; Content/Social Media

&ldquo;We loved our train experiences in Sri Lanka, and we&rsquo;d suggest every curious traveller give it a try at some point. I even wrote <a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/the-truth-about-traveling-by-train-in-sri-lanka">an honest guide</a> about it. It sparked our curiosity to venture beyond the tourist-packed routes and discover the more authentic, less crowded journeys in the future.&rdquo;

<h2 id="lapland">St. Croix</h2>
Olivia&nbsp;Deals &amp; Content/Detour Sub-Editor

&ldquo;The highlight was definitely the Cruzan Rum Distillery, which you can read more about <a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/detour-179-st-croix-historic-distillery">in my article here</a>. Between the informative tour, the historic setting, our lovely guide, and drinks enjoyed at a breezy, palm-lined patio bar, we couldn&rsquo;t have been more pleased. There&rsquo;s a reason every guide to St. Croix name-drops this spot, and I can happily add myself to its list of fans&rdquo;

<h2 id="lapland">The Netherlands</h2>
Gabi Product Team

&ldquo;I had such a great time in the Netherlands. I started off in <a href="https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/discover-the-netherlands/visit-the-cities/the-hague">Den Haag</a>, where I decided to try haring (the famous raw herring, just a full fish) which not everyone loves but I&rsquo;m absolutely crazy for (I really love pickled stuff). I spent the rest of my time wandering around the city center, renting bikes with nerdy names, and cycling to some pretty spots like Haagse Bos. That same day I rode all the way to Scheveningen, which turned out to be a super lovely beach with a big pier. I sat there with a hot Chocomel in hand, feeling very Dutch. It also POURED rain the minute I hopped on the bike.&rdquo;

How about our readers? Where did you travel in 2025? Let us know in the comments :-)

Travel Tips

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across web this week.
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Unfortunately, we have to start the year off with some tragic news: Chaos in Machu Picchu as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gweww8rjro">two trains collided</a> last Tuesday, causing one death and injuring 40 others.&nbsp;</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">On a more hopeful note, National Geographic released their <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/travel-adventures-best-trips-to-book-2026">top 20 picks for adventures to take in 2026</a>. The key words? &ldquo;Immersive&rdquo; and &ldquo;Transformative.&rdquo;</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Sicily&rsquo;s Mount Etna has been in a bit of a turbulent mood lately, but that&rsquo;s not stopping the local skiers from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cz7n4px7e41o">hitting her slopes</a>.</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Central Asia <a href="https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/12/22/kobyz-and-the-yurt-central-asias-living-knowledge-enters-unescos-intangible-heritage-lists">got some love from UNESCO</a> as a regional stringed instrument and a style of yurt both got added to the organization&rsquo;s list of intangible cultural heritage.</li>
<li>And finally, got any questions about life at an Antarctic research station? Now&rsquo;s the time to ask &mdash; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/climate/thwaites-glacier-expedition-antarctica.html">the NYT is heading on down</a>, and they want to know what you want to know.</li>
</ul>

Netherlands

£46-£50 rtn

Amsterdam at $955 RT

Amsterdam in $730s-$880s RT

£86-£89 rtn

Amsterdam at $689 RT

£91 rtn