Throughout the week, our team shares articles they’ve stumbled upon which may interest our readers, even if they might not otherwise merit a full post. Here are some of the posts we found interesting this week: Bulgaria adopts the euro, drone deliveries on the Great Wall of China, 27 years traveling on foot, and bring your ID to these 11 National Parks.
Which countries will start using the euro in 2026?
19 years after joining the EU and ~2 years after joining the Schengen Area, Bulgaria will now use the Euro as its official currency instead of the “lev”. In doing so, they’ll become the 21st country to adopt the Euro.
Tourists scaling the Great Wall of China can now get takeout delivered by drone
Wow, we are really living in the future. One of China’s food delivery services, Meituan, can now deliver things like snacks, water, sunscreen, or medical supplies to the Great Wall of China. And this isn’t the kind of thing where the delivery driver shows up at the parking lot or the gift shop. No, as you can see in the video, this is a drone delivery to a remote section of the Great Wall of China, which would otherwise take about 50 minutes to walk to.
I don’t know about you, but Karl Bushby is a name I’ve seen all over my feed lately. In 1998, Karl started what he calls the “Goliath Expedition”, a journey with a conceptually simple goal of traveling from Punta Arenas, Chile, to Karl’s home in England…without the aid of any method of transportation. According to his own rules, he would have to achieve this solely by walking or swimming. The elevator pitch of this journey is simple enough, but in practice, it was unsurprisingly complicated. In the CNBC article, Karl comments:
These sounded like two simple rules from the early days, but you know, once those two rules meet the reality of the real world, things can get mighty complicated, especially [with] visas and difficult governments and regimes and some of the controversial borders that [I’ve] had to cross…
Even now, 27 years later, Karl’s journey is not yet complete, though he has now made it to Europe and expects to reach England this fall. Perhaps the understatement of the century, Karl sounds like an unbeatably unique person. It was sometime during his 12 years in the British army as a parachute regiment when he started daydreaming about long journeys like this, somewhat bored by the lack of adventure his military life was providing. You can get an idea of Karl’s personality in his YouTube channel here: suffice it to say, it’s been quite a journey full of adventures and, of course, misadventures (including being detained in Russia and jailed in Panama.) Really, it’s not just a travel story – it’s a story of survival. He talks about the way hunger consumes your thinking when you don’t have a reliable source of food, and the importance of leaning on the help of others. And in a poetically relatable fashion, he still says the hardest things he’s endured have been the heartbreaks – losing women he’s loved throughout the years. There is no adventure that lets you escape the human experience, I suppose.
In 2026, it will be required for visitors (16 or older) entering 11 major national parks to show a US government-issued photo ID to avoid a $100 international visitor surcharge. Annual passes will also adopt dual pricing, with international visitors paying $250 and US residents paying just $80. Acceptable forms of ID include a US passport, driver’s license, state ID, or permanent resident card (‘green card’). Here are the national parks adopting this dual pricing in 2026:
- Acadia National Park
- Bryce Canyon National Park
- Everglades National Park
- Glacier National Park
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Grand Teton National Park
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
- Yellowstone National Park
- Yosemite National Park
- Zion National Park
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Re the guy walking for 27 years who refers to himself as “we;” I would ask, “Is that the ” royal we” or the “multiple personality disorder we” preferred by psychotics worldwide?”
Anyone walking for 27 years is likely in the latter category. Moses included.
Good on Bulgaria! Welcome to the Eurozone, Balkan neighbors!