Sarah Feldberg

With 300 sunny days a year and minimal light pollution, the arid Elqui Valley offers some of the best stargazing in the world, and a prime spot to watch this summer's total solar eclipse.

“Moo! Baa! Maa!” a few hundred people shout in unison over the tunes of a onesie-clad DJ. The enthusiastic call and response feels like spring break-meets-motivational rally, but instead of worshipping at the altar of wet T-shirts or self-empowerment, we are here to celebrate an edible miracle of microbiology: cheese—and the people who sell it.

I remember the first time I saw a tumbleweed. I was just outside Las Vegas, picking up my Toyota Corolla from the back of a moving truck, and it rolled down the shoulder of the road as I gaped at this everyday marvel. Huh, I thought. They really do tumble.

This seven-page magazine feature tracks the dramatic rise of women's co-working spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through community, camaraderie, events and classes, these shared offices are delivering much more than a place to work.

It was 9:30 on a Thursday night, and there was a photo shoot in the Palms porte-cochere. A couple of young women teetered on heels in front of an AstroTurf wall, with the resort's name spelled out in Jeff Koons-like balloon sculptures behind them.

“I love Tiny! One of my favorite mentors ever and one of the most talented chefs in the Army. Tell him he’s looking a little small.”

That was the reaction on Twitter to a photo snapped last Wednesday by CNN White House reporter Kate Bennett. After an immediate outburst, Bennet explained her tweet: "For inquiring minds, yep, that's Chef Rush, and he was happy to tell me his arms are 24-inches around."

In San Francisco mansions and on Virginian farms, people are rejecting conventions and experimenting with better ways to build society.

The cage, Cassie Weinberg tells us, is optional. It’s a sunny morning on the southern coast of South Africa, and we’re bobbing on indigo waves a few miles off shore. We’ve come this morning with Aliwal Shoal Scuba for a cage dive with sharks, specifically oceanic blacktips, which reach lengths of about seven feet and are generally non-aggressive. But we can ditch the cage, provided we agree to one tiny, little thing ...

Sondra Bernstein's warehouse space is overflowing with cookbooks. Stacked on folding tables, they form a maze—Rachel Rays across from Alice Waters, diagonal from Thomas Kellers. In late February, Bernstein, owner of Sonoma institution The Girl & the Fig, put out the call for used books to start rebuilding cookbook collections lost to last fall's wildfires.

The best seats aboard Rovos Rail's Pride of Africa are undeniably on the back deck of the observation car. They're just wooden benches, really, average in design, but this open-air balcony is where you feel the train. This is where you watch the track spit out behind you like an infinite ladder, where you rock to the vehicle's steady rhythm, where you soak in the details of passing the landscape.

The museum’s walls are filled with works by farmers, mathematicians, prison inmates and people with mental illness. “My favorite artists may not even think of themselves as artists,” says Hoffberger. “We’re looking for people who have such a powerful experience in their own life that their art is produced in expression of a life experience too big for words."

Numerous studies have found benefits to spending time in the outdoors: better concentration, elevated mood, even faster healing and improved sleep patterns.

But camping isn’t just a prescription for dealing with urban angst and anxiety. It’s also a joy in its own right.

Stretching 90 miles along the jagged western edge of the continental United States, Big Sur has long exercised a magnetic pull on people drawn to its dazzling landscape.

Here, earth and ocean meet, not with gently sloping sands but with muscular mountains and rugged cliffs.

You can fly just about anywhere from Las Vegas, but spring is all about the drive. So pack your boots, your bikes and boards, your camera and your favorite wine glass — it’s high season for adventuring.

Last April, 13,000 people attended MGM Resorts' first ticketed esports event, the League of Legends North American League Championship Series (NA LCS) at Mandalay Bay Events Center, while another 500,000 watched from home.