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New study reveals the top 100 coffee shops in the world

New study reveals the top 100 coffee shops in the world

Yahoo26-02-2025
The World's 100 Best Coffee Shops has just released its highly anticipated 2025 ranking, naming the top spots for a perfect cup across the globe. Topping the list is Toby's Estate Coffee Roasters in Australia, a well-known specialty coffee roaster known for its commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing. Founded in 1997, Toby's has built a reputation for high-quality beans and a fair-trade supply chain that supports its growers. Its flagship café in Chippendale, Sydney, is a must-visit for those in the area.
Coming in second is Onyx Coffee Lab, a U.S. favorite with multiple locations across Arkansas. Known for its seasonal flavors and expertly sourced beans from Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, Onyx has gained a cult following for its innovative approach to specialty coffee.
Rounding out the top three is Gota Coffee Experts in Austria. Situated in the heart of Vienna, Gota is recognized not only for its award-winning coffee, but also for its hands-on workshops, where visitors can learn the art of coffee processing, roasting, and brewing.
Toby's Estate Coffee Roasters, Australia
Onyx Coffee Lab, USA
Gota Coffee Experts, Austria
Proud Mary Coffee, Australia
Tim Wendelboe, Norway
Apartment Coffee, Singapore
Kawa, France
Coffee Anthology, Austria
Story of Ono, Malaysia
Tropicalia Coffee, Colombia
Espressolab, South Africa
Hola Coffee Lagasca, Spain
Casa Canela, Venezuela
Alquimia Coffee, El Salvador
Kross Coffee Roasters, Greece
MOK Coffee, Belgium
Prevail Coffee, USA
Yardstick, The Philippines
Veneziano Coffee Roasters, Australia
Puku Puku, Peru
You can view the full list on The World's 100 Best Coffee Shops website.
The post New study reveals the top 100 coffee shops in the world appeared first on The Manual.
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She left her home in California to live on a cruise ship for 15 years
She left her home in California to live on a cruise ship for 15 years

CNN

time7 days ago

  • CNN

She left her home in California to live on a cruise ship for 15 years

When Sharon Lane stepped onto Villa Vie Odyssey cruise ship in mid-June, she was flooded with feelings of joy and relief. This moment was the fulfillment of a dream a long time coming. 'I'm finally able to do what I've wanted to do for years,' she tells CNN Travel. For Lane, this is no brief cruise vacation. The 77-year-old Californian plans to be on this ship for the next 15 years, perpetually circumnavigating the world's oceans and stopping off at destinations from Japan to New Zealand. Villa Vie Odyssey is a 'residential' cruise ship, meaning passengers don't generally board for just a quick jaunt. Its cabins are sold on a permanent basis — or at least for the estimated 15-year lifetime of the Odyssey, which is a recently renovated, three-decade-old ship. 'I buy the cabin, I live in the cabin, and that's it. And then there's no end,' says Lane. Or at least that's the hope. Residential ships are still new territory for the cruise ship industry. While the Odyssey is currently sailing smoothly up the US West Coast, its initial launch was delayed by months. Meanwhile some passengers, including Lane, had already experienced the disappointment of an earlier long-term residential cruise collapsing before it even secured a boat. Operated by cruise startup Villa Vie Residences, the Odyssey finally set sail at the end of September last year. There are still cabins available to purchase. Lane bought hers at the end of last year and boarded several months later, when the ship passed through her home port of San Diego, California. Villa Vie Residences' CEO Mikael Pettersen says cabin prices start at $129,000 for an inside for 15 years, on top of which there are monthly fees — $2,000 per person per month for double occupancy, $3,000 for single. Outside cabins start at $169,000, with monthly fees rising $500 per person. These figures aren't cheap — but remain comparatively so in contrast to The World, the only other residential cruise ship experience currently at sea, which caters for a more luxury market with a starting price of $2.5 million. There are other residential ship projects in the works — such as NJORD, a self-described 'exclusive community at sea' — but they've yet to be realized. Odyssey's concept is also potentially cheaper than hopping from one shorter cruise voyage to another. Villa Vie owners can also rent their cabin out to others, which means short-term passengers can still come and go from Odyssey. But the majority of owners have purchased their cabin with the intention of living on board, according to the cruise company. 'Most of our cabins are sold to full-time or mostly full-time residents,' Pettersen tells CNN Travel. 'I only know of a couple of residents who have investment cabins that they actively rent out. Most rentals come from owners who decide to stay off the ship for a period of time.' Lane says she used her life savings to purchase her interior cabin, but she sees this as a good deal. Food and soft drinks are included in residents' monthly fee. So is alcohol at dinner, Wi-Fi and medical visits (but not procedures or medicines). There's also 24/7 room service, weekly housekeeping and bi-weekly laundry service at no extra cost. 'I don't have to do my laundry anymore. I don't have to do grocery shopping,' says Lane. 'Living on the ship is much less expensive than living in Southern California.' Entertainment is also provided, including 'a singing duet, pianist, professional dancers,' according to Pettersen. Local performers are booked at ports of call, and residents are also encouraged to host their own events at a regular 'speakers' corner.' 'Residents present every week,' Pettersen says. 'We have a very diverse community including a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a White House chief of staff, an astronaut and many scientists and doctors onboard that share their knowledge and experiences.' Odyssey usually stops in each port for a couple of days, where optional shore excursions are organized for an additional fee. Throughout the course of its anticipated 15-year life span, the ship will continually circle the globe, calling at different locations with each circumnavigation. Lane says she is excited about the destinations, but being on the ship is her favorite part of cruising and she plans to spend most of her downtime on the deck. She says her windowless cabin is simply for sleeping. Her berth is 'toward the front of the ship, because I can feel the ocean more there,' she adds. 'I like the ocean motion.' The eight-deck Odyssey can 'technically' accommodate 924 people, according to Villa Vie's Pettersen, but some cabins have now been combined into one, meaning 'about 450 cabins in total.' 'Given the solo rate and that residents often travel away from the ship, we don't expect more than 500 residents onboard at any given time,' he explains. 'I find that delightful,' Lane says. 'It's very roomy for the number of people.' In November 2024 Villa Vie said that 50% of passengers in the first takeup were traveling solo. Today, Villa Vie Residences' CEO Pettersen confirms single travelers now make up 'close to 55%' of those on board — Lane among them. Pettersen says 80% of Villa Vie Odyssey's owners are from the US and Canada, with Australia and New Zealand a close second. As a recent addition to the on-board community, Lane is enjoying meeting and mingling with her fellow residents. 'There's very, very few, if any, people on the ship who are not lifelong travelers,' she says. 'When you're with a group of people that think like you, life gets easier.' Villa Vie Odyssey was originally supposed to embark in mid-2024, but ended up stalled in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for four months, awaiting safety certification. When the vessel eventually set sail, Villa Vie contended with some cancelled ports and itinerary changes. Missed stop-offs in the Galapagos Islands, the Falklands in the South Atlantic and Antarctica led to some disappointment among passengers. 'Residents understand for the most part that we are doing something new and there will be occasional challenges but I think overall we are getting better,' says Villa Vie's Pettersen. Pettersen blames cancelled ports on weather, red tape and logistical problems in destinations where smaller 'tender' vessels are needed to carry passengers ashore. 'Galapagos was not possible for us to go because you need 100% Ecuadorian crew,' he says. 'Falklands was due to 50-knot winds.' Pettersen says that in Antarctica, Villa Vie 'did not get the certificates in time and the weather did not allow for an exemption. We had some other missed tender ports where waves were simply not safe for tender operations.' Pettersen suggests these teething problems will be overcome as Villa Vie Residences' gains more experience. He points out this is a kind of voyage never really attempted before. Villa Vie is currently building a custom walkway to link the ship and tender boats to reduce movement from waves and swell. This, says Pettersen, will 'greatly reduce these missed ports.' 'We have a very capable itinerary planner who plans about a year ahead,' Pettersen adds. 'It is an extremely difficult task as there is really nobody that has done this sort of itinerary before so it is challenging to understand all regulations in every region of the world. However, we are learning a tremendous amount.' To make up for the missed ports, a new segment has been added to the cruise 'which offers everything that was missed in 2024, including Antarctica, Falklands, Greenland, and northern Europe,' according to Pettersen. This will involve an extended stay in the Argentine port of Ushuaia, on the southern tip of South America. 'This time we are spending an entire month in Ushuaia, giving us plenty of opportunity to work with the weather to make sure we hit the Falklands and Antarctica,' he adds. 'We learned that the weather down there is highly unpredictable so giving us this flexibility will ensure an amazing customer experience.' Lane says she's relieved to have missed much of the Odyssey's early drama and is confident that Villa Vie had enough time to 'work out the kinks' by the time she joined in mid-June. 'I don't want complications in my life, you know, I'm at a point in my life where I want simplicity,' she says. Lane has, however, experienced first-hand some of the uncertainties of the nascent years-long cruising industry. She was among hundreds of passengers who committed thousands of dollars toward a three-year-long cruise voyage planned by a start-up called Life at Sea. After repeated postponements, that project collapsed, with management company Miray Cruises never actually managing to secure a ship to host the voyage. Lane got a refund, but by then had given up her rental lease and sold many of her belongings. When the cruise dream collapsed, she moved into a retirement village in Orange County, California, where she felt stagnant. 'The whole two years I was there, I was looking for someplace else to go… I wasn't settled. I didn't feel settled. Because it wasn't the life I wanted,' says Lane. Lane explains she wasn't aware of the progress with Villa Vie Residences until the Odyssey made headlines when it finally set sail in fall 2024. She was immediately sold. Her reaction, she says, was just two words: 'Holy cow.' 'I called them up and I gave them money the same day,' recalls Lane. Pettersen, who worked for Life at Sea until departing in a management schism, says about half of the passengers let down by Life at Sea have followed him to his new company. 'We have about half of them on the Odyssey,' he says. Those who purchase long-term cabins on Odyssey do have the option to sell up should circumstances change. Lane says she currently hopes to see out the full 15 years at sea, finally living her dream life. 'There's no end,' she says. 'Sure, in 15 years… but in 15 years, I'll be ready for a home… Or maybe, at the end, I'll go on their next ship… I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.' 'Being on a ship deck, that's my happy place,' Lane adds. 'Whenever the weather is good, I will be on that deck. And when the weather isn't quite good, I'll bundle up and be on that deck, because that is my happy place. You can stand there, you can sit there, you can chat with people, you can read a book. You have the ocean breeze, you have sea air.'

Business Insider Did Something So Stupid With AI That We're Reeling
Business Insider Did Something So Stupid With AI That We're Reeling

Yahoo

time03-06-2025

  • Yahoo

Business Insider Did Something So Stupid With AI That We're Reeling

Amid Business Insider's latest pivot to AI, the site's past brushes with the technology are coming back to haunt it. As Semafor reports, a manager recommended fake, seemingly-AI-generated books to underlings last year on a reading list meant to help them better understand business journalism. In the staff email, which was leaked to Semafor, the senior BI manager suggested well-known titles like Andrew Ross Sorkin's classic "Too Big To Fail," about the Wall Street crash of 2008, and "DisneyWar" by James Stewart, which exposed the tumultuous behind-the-scenes drama at the famed studio some 20 years ago. Those were recommended alongside books that nobody had heard of, with names like "Simply Target: A CEO's Lessons in a Turbulent Time and Transforming an Iconic Brand" by Gregg Steinhafel, the former chief executive of the big-box chain, and "The House of Morgan: An Intimate Portrait of the Most Powerful Banking Family in the World," by purported author Fredric Morgan. But Semafor was unable to find any evidence that those titles had ever been published. Some were similar to real books — like the legitimate book "The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance" by Ron Chernow — while others seem to have been completely made up. One of the books on the most ludicrous falsehoods on the list was "Mark Zuckerberg Autobiography: The Man Behind the Code," a purported autobiography of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that also claims to have been written by a "Jasper Robin." (An autobiography, obviously, is written by its subject.) Though Zuckerberg has been the subject of at least a few biographies written by other people, none of them have been named "Jasper Robin," and in fact, we were not able to find anything about said author except for their author page on Goodreads, which also links to the title in Italian and German — but not to any booksellers. Though BI didn't admit the source for those phony titles either in leaked documents or in requests for comment from Semafor, it doesn't take a deep investigation to figure out where they almost certainly came from — especially given that the company is now investing in AI, and is planning to lay off 21 percent of its workforce amid its pivot to using the hallucination-happy technology. In a memo to staff announcing the layoffs that later published on its website, BI CEO Barbara Peng said that the company is "going all-in on AI" and experiencing growing pains as it does. "Change like this isn't easy," Peng wrote. "But Business Insider was born in a time of disruption — when the smartphone was reshaping how people consumed news. We thrived by taking risks and building something new." To say that BI has "thrived" may be an overstatement. The site has long been winnowing its workforce; along with the latest cuts, the company laid off eight percent of its workforce last year and axed 10 percent of its roles in 2023 — and in that instance, AI experiments were also announced around the same time. And when senior managers are recommending books they haven't even read, nevermind verified they're real, it's easy to see why. More on hallucinatory citations: RFK Jr's "Make America Healthy Again" Report Cites Studies That Don't Exist, in Clear Sign of AI Generated Slop

Are residential cruises an opportunity for travel advisors?
Are residential cruises an opportunity for travel advisors?

Travel Weekly

time31-05-2025

  • Travel Weekly

Are residential cruises an opportunity for travel advisors?

A small but intriguing part of the cruise business may be set to grow after another residential cruise company has appeared, promising consumers they can buy a cabin and live year-round at sea. Founders of residential lines said they are optimistic about the success of this sector. They point to cruise lines sailing longer world cruises as a trend in their favor. Improvements in high-speed WiFi and consumers' flexibility in working from home are trends supporting this niche product. But some travel advisors said they are hesitant to sell space on residential cruise lines, noting a lack of trade inclusion in the lines' sales strategies and high-profile but troubled product launches. Several residential cruise lines have carved out a space in the industry. Perhaps the best known is The World, a luxury condominium ship that has been in operation for more than 20 years. The newest brand in the market is Crescent Seas, which was founded by former Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings chairman and real estate developer Russell Galbut. He plans for the line to begin sailing in December 2026 on the Seven Seas Navigator, which will be chartered from Regent Seven Seas Cruises and renamed the Crescent Seas Navigator. Crescent plans to expand the fleet a year later by chartering the Oceania Insignia from Oceania Cruises. Both ships will undergo $50 million refurbishments, and three more vessels could be announced over the next five years, Galbut said. Sales for residences on the Navigator, priced from $750,000 to $8 million opened in April. Condos on the Insignia are priced from $650,000 to $10 million, with sales opening this summer. Another line, Villa Vie, uses a former Fred. Olsen ship and offers the opportunity to buy or rent a cabin or buy a seasonal ownership membership. Other brands are in the works, including Storylines, which is building its own ships. Some launches have been messy and failed. In 2023, Life at Sea Cruises canceled its voyage two weeks before embarkation, saying the purchase of a cruise ship fell through shortly before its sail date, according to media reports. Owned cabins were even part of a model for a planned Crystal Cruises ship, but that version of the line ceased operations before the vessel could be built. Carlos Edery, CEO and co-founder of Luxury Cruise Connections based in Miami Beach, said he has noticed a growing interest from affluent clients in living at sea year-round. Nonetheless, he remains wary. "The recent struggles and delays seen with ventures ... have made us cautious about recommending such investments until we see consistent, successful operational execution," he said. In the case of Crescent Seas, travel advisors are built into the sales structure. They can earn a commission when selling a residence or when booking their clients on shorter-term voyages when residents taking a break from the ship opt to make their cabins available to rent. "There's a lot of logic why a travel agent would want to be involved with us," Galbut said, although he declined to share what the commission rate was. Real estate agents, yacht brokers and private bankers could also sell commissionable space on these ships, he said. Alex Sharpe, CEO of Signature Travel Network, said there is a lot to like about the Crescent Seas project, but he stopped short of saying he envisions selling it. "There are certainly earning opportunities, but at the same time, it is not what a typical travel advisor does, so it would likely be more specialized and, for us, will require more research and deliberation," he said. Dennis Nienkerk, a luxury advisor at Dallas-based Strong Travel Services who worked in commercial real estate for more than 25 years, said he knows people who owned condos on the World, and he would welcome the opportunity to sell units on the Navigator. Villa Vie founder and chairman Mikael Petterson said he was looking to better incorporate advisors in his product to sell world cruise segments on the ship. The Villa Vie Odyssey is 74% booked, which leaves room to sell segments to traditional cruisers, he said. Petterson, who was managing director of Life at Sea Cruises, isn't surprised that another residential cruise line has entered the market. If anything, he's surprised there are not more. "World cruises are getting longer and longer," he said. "The option of living onboard with high-speed WiFi, the flexibility of people working from home -- all these factors come together and make residential cruising that much more feasible." That doesn't mean it is easy. Petterson launched the Odyssey from Belfast, Ireland, in September following a four-month delay due to inspection issues associated with the ship, which sat in dry dock before returning to service. Now Petterson is looking for a second ship, and he said he hopes it will come with a smoother launch. Earlier this year, he said he was "knee-deep" in negotiations for a ship currently in operation that contains no more than 600 cabins.

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