I am not a coder. I can’t write a single line of Python, JavaScript or C++. Except for a brief period in my teenage years when I built websites and tinkered with Flash animations, I’ve never been a software engineer, nor do I harbor ambitions of giving up journalism for a career in the tech industry. And yet, for the past several months, I’ve been coding up a storm. Among my creations: a tool that transcribes and summarizes long podcasts, a tool to organize my social media bookmarks into a searchable database, a website that tells me whether a piece of furniture will fit in my car’s trunk and an app called LunchBox Buddy, which analyzes the contents of my fridge and helps me decide what to pack for my son’s school lunch. These creations are all possible thanks to artificial intelligence, and a new A.I. trend known as “vibecoding.” Vibecoding, a term that was popularized by the A.I. researcher Andrej Karpathy, is useful shorthand for the way that today’s A.I. tools allow even nontechnical hobbyists to build fully functioning apps and websites, just by typing prompts into a text box. You don’t have to know how to code to vibecode — just having an idea, and a little patience, is usually enough. “It’s not really coding,” Mr. Karpathy wrote this month. “I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.” My own vibecoding experiments have been aimed at making what I call “software for one” — small, bespoke apps that solve specific problems in my life. These aren’t the kinds of tools a big tech company would build. There’s no real market for them, their features are limited and some of them only sort of work. But building software this way — describing a problem in a sentence or two, then watching a powerful A.I. model go to work building a custom tool to solve it — is a mind-blowing experience. It produces a feeling of A.I. vertigo, similar to what I felt after using ChatGPT for the first time. And it’s the best way I’ve found to demonstrate to skeptics the abilities of today’s A.I. models, which can now automate big chunks of basic computer programming, and may soon be capable of similar feats in other fields. A.I. coding tools have existed for years. Earlier ones, like GitHub Copilot, were designed to help professional coders work faster, in part by finishing their lines of code the same way that ChatGPT completes a sentence. You still needed to know how to code to get the most out of them, and step in when the A.I. got stuck. But over the past year or two, new tools have been built to take advantage of more powerful A.I. models that enable even neophytes to program like pros. These tools, which include Cursor, Replit, Bolt and Lovable, all work in similar ways. Given a user’s prompt, the tool comes up with a design, decides on the best software packages and programming languages to use, and gets to work building a product. Most of the products allow limited free use, with paid tiers that unlock better features and the ability to build more things. To a non-programmer, vibecoding can feel like sorcery. After you type in your prompt, mysterious lines of code fly past, and a few seconds later, if everything goes well, a working prototype emerges. Users can suggest tweaks and revisions, and when they’re happy with it, they can deploy their new product to the web, or run it on their computers. The process can take just a few minutes, or as long as several hours, depending on the complexity of the project. Here’s what it looked like when I asked Bolt to build me an app that could help me pack a school lunch for my son, based on an uploaded photo of the contents of my fridge. The app first analyzed the task and broke it down into component parts. Then it got to work. It generated a basic web interface, chose an image recognition tool to identify the foods in my fridge and developed an algorithm to recommend meals based on those items. If the A.I. needed me to make a decision — whether I wanted the app to list the nutritional facts of the foods it was recommending, for example — it prompted me with several options. Then it would go off and code some more. When it hit a snag, it tried to debug its own code, or backed up to the step before it had gotten stuck and tried a different method. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Roughly 10 minutes after I had entered my prompt, LunchBox Buddy — which is what the A.I. had decided to call my app — was ready. It suggested a generic turkey sandwich. You can try it for yourself here. (The version I built incorporates an A.I. image recognition tool that costs money to use; for this public web version, I’ve replaced it with a simulated image recognition feature so I don’t rack up a huge bill.)

Amazon’s Alexa is undergoing its biggest overhaul since debuting more than a decade ago. On Wednesday, Amazon said it was giving Alexa a new brain powered by generative artificial intelligence. The update, called Alexa+, is set to make the virtual assistant more conversational and helpful in booking concert tickets, coordinating calendars and suggesting food to be delivered. Alexa+ will cost $19.99 a month or be included for customers who pay for Amazon’s Prime membership program, which costs $14.99 a month. It will begin rolling out next month. “Until right this moment, right this moment, we have been limited by the technology,” Panos Panay, the head of Amazon’s devices, said at a media event. “Alexa+ is that trusted assistant that can help you conduct your life and your home.” With the changes, Amazon is aiming to catch up in generative A.I. for everyday users. While the Seattle company has in recent months made up for lost time in A.I. products and services that it sells to businesses and other organizations, its grip on consumer A.I. products has been narrower. Alexa’s upgrades, which were first teased in 2023, are Amazon’s biggest bet on becoming a force in consumer A.I. The moves are also an opportunity to reboot Alexa, which has been perceived as having fallen behind other virtual assistants. In recent years, Alexa’s growth in the United States has generally stagnated, according to the research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, with people turning to the assistant for only a few main tasks, such as setting timers and alarms, playing music and asking questions about the weather and sports scores. At Wednesday’s event, Mr. Panay and other Amazon executives demonstrated how Alexa+ could do those things in a more personalized manner. Alexa+ could identify who was speaking and know the person’s preferences, such as favorite sports teams, musicians and foods, they said. They also showed how a device powered by Alexa+ could suggest a restaurant, book a reservation on OpenTable, order an Uber and send a calendar invitation. Alexa, which was a brainchild of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, debuted in 2014, wowing people with its ability to take verbal requests and translate them into actions. It became a symbol of Amazon’s innovation. Over the years, the company has highlighted some Alexa-connected devices, including Echo speakers, a connected microwave, a wall clock and a twerking teddy bear. But wild experimentation has been out since Mr. Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s chief executive in 2021 and handed the company over to Andy Jassy, a longtime executive. Mr. Jassy reined in Amazon’s expenses, killed some projects that appeared to have no obvious prospects and oversaw layoffs. In 2023, he hired Mr. Panay, a Microsoft executive, to oversee devices. Mr. Panay’s top responsibility was to bring generative A.I. to Alexa and to unlock the promise of the all-helpful assistant that Amazon had long envisioned. Soon after Mr. Panay started, Amazon said it was rebuilding Alexa’s brain with the kind of technologies that underpinned OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. “The re-architecture of all of Alexa has happened,” Mr. Panay said on Wednesday. As Amazon worked to update Alexa, competitors leapfrogged it. ChatGPT, for example, can hold extended, in-depth conversations, with some people developing emotional — and even sexual — relationships with A.I. personas. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have denied the claims.) Bringing generative A.I. to Alexa was not easy because the virtual assistant faces challenges that a chatbot does not. Alexa might serve multiple users in a household, for instance, so it needs to distinguish who is speaking and personalize the responses. Amazon also wants Alexa to be at the center of people’s lives and connected to multiple smart devices and services, which is complicated. It must integrate multiple A.I. systems, including ones built by Amazon and the start-up Anthropic, and interact with devices such as smart lightbulbs and with apps including Ticketmaster. Amazon also gave Alexa+ a personality, even training it with comedians to make it funny. “In the fall, it was just too slow,” Mr. Panay said in an interview. Generative A.I. has also been afflicted by “hallucinations,” or when the A.I. systems serve up incorrect information. Because Alexa interacts with the real world — playing a song, ordering a product, turning off an alarm — Mr. Panay said Alexa had to reliably get things right. He said he believed Alexa+ was finally both fast and accurate. “I think people will fall in love with it pretty quickly,” he said.

It’s a tax season unlike any other: As millions of Americans dutifully file their returns, the Trump administration is calling for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and plans to fire as many as 7,000 workers — all while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is seeking access to detailed taxpayer information. It is not surprising that many taxpayers are wondering how this may affect their returns and refunds. But despite the uncertainty, tax experts say individuals shouldn’t change their behavior — the sooner you file, the better. There are also several things that taxpayers can do to try to prevent their return from being entangled in the system and avoid potential delays. “There is no possible way there won’t be a reduction in service, given the I.R.S. has been trying to hire employees and they haven’t even filled all of their openings,” said Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. Many of the fired employees were part of the agency’s compliance teams, which deal with auditing and collections, though some were also reportedly at call centers, too. More than 160 million individual returns are expected to be filed this year. Those that have already been filed are winding their way through the system as usual, though taxpayers appear to be taking a bit longer to file: More than 33 million federal returns were filed as of Feb. 14, down about 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the I.R.S. website. And about 32.8 million of them had been processed, also down roughly 5 percent. The average refund amount was $2,169, down 32 percent from $3,207 last year. The numbers tend to even out as more returns come in, the agency said on its website. But refunds are also lower, in part, because they don’t include the first wave of returns claiming the earned-income tax credit and the additional child tax credit, which cannot be issued before mid-February. Here are some questions to consider. Is there anything I can do to avoid delays? Roughly 91 percent of taxpayers file their returns electronically, according to the agency. If you are among the 10 percent who don’t, now is a great time to start, whether that means working with a professional or using tax software or the agency’s free Direct File system, if you’re eligible. That’s the most important step you can take to avoid delays; also be sure to use direct deposit for your refund, and verify your routing and bank account numbers. Could my refund be delayed? At the moment, things are moving along as usual. It usually takes about 21 days to process a return and for a refund to be processed, according to the agency’s website. “Every filing season for the vast majority of taxpayers, their returns go through swimmingly,” said Nina E. Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, an advocacy organization, and a former taxpayer advocate at the I.R.S. Each return goes through a set of electronic filters, but it can get stuck or rejected if an issue is flagged — if someone has filed a return with your Social Security number, for example, or your children have already been claimed by a former spouse. Returns may also be flagged when people forget to attach a specific schedule or claim credits they are ineligible for, or the system detects a math error, which is common. Those returns are set aside to be reviewed or even audited before a refund is issued, which may delay it. “Some of those potential issues are within your control, so make sure you have all of the required forms on your return so it doesn’t get slowed up,” Ms. Olson said. “Be really careful of how you are entering data if you are using software — check it, double-check it and triple-check it so you don’t encounter a delay here.”

Bolton Valley Resort, about 30 minutes east of Burlington, Vt., has long been overshadowed by larger, more famous neighbors. The family-owned ski area is halfway between Stowe Mountain Resort and Sugarbush, both owned by ski conglomerates that rely on multimountain passes. Stowe takes Epic and Sugarbush takes Ikon, and each resort has more than 100 trails, a vertical drop of over 2,000 feet, a dozen or more lifts, and luxury slope-side lodging. Bolton Valley is comparatively humble, with six lifts, 71 trails, a vertical drop of 1,700 feet and a 60-room hotel. It is one of the most popular ski areas on the Indy Pass, which features smaller independent mountains, and among the few resorts to offer night skiing. A lift ticket at Bolton costs under $100 most days and nights, half the price of Stowe and Sugarbush. “We are the littlest of the big ski areas,” Bolton Valley President Lindsay DesLauriers said to me when I visited the resort last month. “We have Formica in the bathrooms, not marble.” What Bolton lacks in glam it more than makes up for with its terrain and friendly vibe. It has cultivated a niche among Eastern ski areas as a hybrid downhill and backcountry resort, leaning into demand for backcountry skiing with its fabled 1,200-acre powder preserve, known as the Bolton Backcountry. Bolton Valley reinvented itself, because it almost didn’t survive. The one-stop shop that offered gear, guides and unique terrain — enabling snow seekers to glide seamlessly between groomed, lift-served trails and powdery backcountry glades — was brought back from the brink by devoted skiers and a new generation of a famous skiing family. The renaissance of Bolton Ralph DesLauriers, 90, and his father opened Bolton Valley in 1966, with a mission to build a “working man’s resort,” said Ms. DesLauriers, Ralph’s daughter. “Skiing was a luxury sport for out-of-staters,” she said. “He wanted it to be accessible to Vermonters.” Night skiing was featured to enable locals to ski after work, and on most afternoons in winter, yellow buses disgorged scores of local students, who took over the mountain. “I think we’ve taught over 50,000 local kids to ski,” Mr. DesLauriers said at his home near the Bolton base lodge. “In the end, that probably saved the ski area.” By the 1990s, Mr. DesLauriers’s vision of a ski area for common people was a faint anachronism. Neighboring ski resorts were spending tens of millions on luxurious makeovers and marketing themselves to a more affluent clientele. The prospects of a small, independent ski area like Bolton Valley seemed bleak. Mr. DesLauriers lost Bolton Valley to the bank in 1997, and the resort went through several owners and even closed for a season. Locals moved to save it. Backcountry skiers, who had flocked to Bolton for the beloved glades that surround it, learned in 2011 that the heart of the backcountry trail network was going to be sold. They worked with the Vermont Land Trust to raise $1.8 million to purchase nearly 1,200 acres, which were then donated to the state and are now part of Mount Mansfield State Forest. In 2017, Mr. DesLauriers surprised the ski world when he repurchased Bolton Valley for little more than it cost him to build the resort a half-century earlier. This time, he asked his children to run it. So began the renaissance of Bolton Valley, with Lindsay, 45, at the helm. She is aided by her brothers Evan; Adam, who runs Bolton’s backcountry center; and Eric, the head of mountain operations. Another brother, Rob, works as a hotel developer in Jackson, Wyo., and as a quiet adviser to Lindsay. Rob, Eric and Adam achieved renown in the 1990s as extreme skiers and were featured in more than 20 films. Running a ski area was not in Ms. DesLauriers’s life plan. She had just received a master’s degree in literature and taken a job as an advocate in Montpelier, leading a statewide campaign for progressive workplace policies like paid sick leave. “My brothers were the skiers. I was into literature and other things,” she said. (She is also, in fact, an expert skier, as I quickly learned when later skiing with her.) But when her father repurchased the ski area, Ms. DesLauriers reluctantly agreed to take charge. The ski area “was an extension of our home,” she said. But if she was going to move back, she knew Bolton Valley needed an update. She tapped her political connections and raised $2 million in investments to fund improvements, build mountain biking trails and a wedding venue. With Adam, she strove to make backcountry skiing a core part of Bolton Valley’s new identity. They hired guides, invested in backcountry ski and snowboard equipment to rent, and started backcountry clinics. ‘If you don’t mind trees’ Learning how to backcountry ski is what drew Steve and Ryan Rogers, a father and son from Weymouth, Mass., to Bolton Valley on a recent January morning. They had come to take an instructional backcountry tour. I tagged along. Steve, 56, who works in the affordable housing field in Boston, researched online and determined that Bolton Valley was the only place in New England that offered backcountry ski and snowboard rental, instruction, and ski terrain all in one place. After an hour of orientation inside a warm ski center, the pair (and I) followed the guide Scott Meyer into Bolton’s backcountry. “If you can Alpine ski, you can probably pull this off — if you don’t mind trees,” Mr. Meyer said. We skinned up to Bryant Camp, an old cabin built by Edward Bryant, a conservationist and forester who bought the land around Bolton Mountain a century ago. We reached the top of a birch glade, where we removed our climbing skins. At the sight of the beautiful low-angle glade covered in undulating powder, the Rogers duo looked equally excited and apprehensive. Mr. Meyer gently encouraged them to take their time and focus on the spaces between the trees, not the trees themselves. They pushed off and were soon gliding through the powder. A few turns in, they were smiling. Ryan, 24, let out a delighted whoop. “It was beautiful,” said Steve, at the bottom of the run. “Seeing trees come at me a little faster — that was a little eye-opening or adrenaline-pumping, but great.” Later that day, I found Ms. DesLauriers in her office overlooking the ski area. She told me that since she took the helm in 2018, the resort’s gross revenue has nearly tripled, season pass sales have increased 30 percent and the resort is profitable for the first time in years. She said she relishes taking on the titans of the ski industry. The neighboring resorts on the Epic and Ikon passes, she said, “have left gaps in the market that we’re happy to fill.” Multimountain passes fundamentally changed the nature of skiing in the United States — while bringing hefty profits to the resort conglomerates that introduced them. The passes prompted crowds of skiers, yet exacerbated traffic jams, long lines and housing shortages in small resort communities. Skiers overall welcomed the savings and flexibility brought by Epic and Ikon, but the cost of single-day lift tickets rose dramatically at participating resorts, now topping $300 at Vail and Park City and over $200 at Stowe.A lift ticket for around $100 “might sound like a pretty freaking good deal,” Ms. DesLauriers said, “for a powder day with five-minute lift lines and 1,700 vertical feet.”

If you sold personal items like concert tickets or used clothing online last year or received money for services through payment apps, you may get an unfamiliar tax form this year. A tax law change means most online marketplaces and payment apps must send the Internal Revenue Service a form called a 1099-K, with a copy to you, if you received more than $5,000 in payments for “goods or services” in 2024. That’s down from a threshold of $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions. (Starting in 2024, the number of transactions no longer matters.) “As the threshold keeps going down, it catches more people,” said Melanie Lauridsen, vice president for tax policy and advocacy at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Under the old cutoff, the forms mostly went to people running active businesses rather than to occasional or small-time sellers. “This substantial drop in the reporting thresholds could result in millions more taxpayers receiving Forms 1099 this filing season than in prior years,” according to a blog post by Erin M. Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, who leads a group within the I.R.S. that works on behalf of taxpayers. Who’s eligible to receive Form 1099-K? If you bought several concert tickets, for example, and resold them online at a markup, you could potentially meet the 2024 threshold for getting the form, Ms. Collins said in an interview. Tickets for big-name concerts, she said, such as performances by Taylor Swift, have reportedly sold for more than $1,000 per ticket. If the seller made money, the gain is taxable. The rule doesn’t apply to personal payments, like gifts or transfers of money to friends and family, the I.R.S. says. If you and a friend go to a concert, and your friend pays you for the ticket using a payment app, “you should not receive a Form 1099-K for the reimbursement and, generally, it would not be taxable,” according to “common situations” described on the agency’s website. Similarly, if you dine out with friends and pay with a credit card, then have the others reimburse you for their share of the meal via Venmo or another app, that transaction doesn’t count toward the reporting requirement, the I.R.S. says. It’s possible that you could receive a form for such transactions in error — for instance, if someone mistakenly tagged payments to you as purchases rather than personal payments. With both Venmo and its parent, PayPal, for instance, transactions between consumer accounts are “friends and family” by default unless the person paying designates them as goods and services. To help avoid a mix-up, the I.R.S. advises, “be sure to note these types of payments as nonbusiness in the payment apps when possible.” CashApp says on its website that only users with designated business accounts who exceed the federal threshold will get 1099-K forms. You can check the website of your payment app or marketplace for information about its specific tax policies. If you get a Form 1099-K this year, “the No. 1 thing is, do not ignore it,” said Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations with the National Association of Tax Professionals. “Think about, why did you get it?” Just because you receive a form doesn’t necessarily mean the full amount it shows is taxable, said Lisa Greene-Lewis, a certified public accountant and a spokeswoman for TurboTax. “Don’t panic when you see that amount on a 1099-K,” she said. If the amount reflects business income, you can deduct expenses for marketing, supplies, advertising and the like, she said. (Gig workers, freelancers and other self-employed people typically report income and expenses on Schedule C.) If you get a form because you sold used clothes on eBay or Poshmark, but sold them for less than you paid, you generally don’t have to pay taxes on the payments you received. (Since you didn’t make money on the sale, the amount isn’t taxable.) In an attempt to simplify such situations when you file your 2024 tax return, the I.R.S. has included a new space at the top of Form 1040’s Schedule 1 for reporting “additional income and adjustments to income.” There, you can include amounts reported in error on a 1099-K or report personal items sold at a loss. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT As of Thursday, the I.R.S. had not updated all of its online information to reflect this change, but details can be found in the instructions for Schedule 1. If you expected to get a 1099-K but haven’t yet, check on your provider’s website to see if electronic versions are available. Forms should have been made available to users of online payment systems and marketplaces by Jan. 31, the I.R.S. says. What if I sold the goods for a loss? As with any information submitted on a tax form, it’s wise to keep receipts and other documentation showing the amount you originally paid for the item — sometimes known as its “basis,” said Andy Phillips, vice president of H&R Block’s Tax Institute. Say you paid $6,000 for concert tickets and resold them online for $5,500, according to an example in Ms. Collins’s blog. You’ll get a Form 1099-K reporting gross payments of $5,500. But because you didn’t make money on the tickets, you’ll report the amount of $5,500 in the new space, and won’t owe tax on that amount. Why is this change taking effect now? The change had been scheduled to take effect in 2022 at a threshold of just $600 as part of a plan to better track income from the gig economy that may not be reported to the I.R.S. The change was included in the American Rescue Plan legislation that Congress passed in 2021. The I.R.S., however, delayed the change by two years. A lobbying group representing payment apps like Venmo and CashApp and marketplaces including eBay and StubHub had opposed the change, and a government watchdog agency said the much lower threshold could confuse gig workers. Then, in November, the I.R.S. announced that it would stagger the arrival of the lower threshold over a few years, giving businesses and sellers time to adjust. For 2024 — the year covered by the tax return you are filing this year — it’s $5,000. For 2025, the threshold will drop to $2,500. And in 2026 and years after, it will fall to $600. “I think the I.R.S. listened, and that was appreciated,” said Ms. Collins, the taxpayer advocate. Do some states have lower reporting thresholds for 2024? Yes. At least five states set lower limits for receiving the form, according to PayPal. They are Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia, where it’s $600, and Illinois, where it’s more than $1,000 and four or more transactions. If you live in one of those states, or others with different rules, you may get a Form 1099-K even if you didn’t exceed the federal threshold for 2024. In those cases, companies send the forms to state tax authorities, not to the I.R.S., according to PayPal. What if I had income from online sales but didn’t get a 1099-K? Income of any type — even if it’s beneath the threshold for getting a 1099-K form — should be reported on your tax return, Mr. O’Saben said. The 1099-K, and other similar forms, are intended to make the I.R.S. aware of the income, he said. But it’s incorrect to assume that if a form isn’t received, the income isn’t taxable. Could the threshold for 1099-Ks be changed again? Modifying the federal thresholds would require action by Congress, Ms. Lauridsen said.

Last August, a hotel room in Europe priced at 200 euros was about $224. Today, travelers spending American dollars would pay only $208. On the rise since last autumn, the dollar is strong compared with a number of foreign currencies, including the euro, the Japanese yen and the Canadian dollar. And President Trump’s tariff threat is only making it stronger. For travelers, the exchange rate bonus makes trips abroad extra appealing. “We’ve seen an increase in international bookings as travelers look to maximize the value of their dollar abroad,” said Michael Johnson, the president of Ensemble, a travel agency consortium. “The strength of the U.S. dollar has made destinations in Europe, Asia and South America more attractive, as travelers can get more for their money.” In these dynamic and unpredictable times, whether the dollar will remain strong is anyone’s guess. To understand the fluctuations of the foreign exchange market and how and where to take advantage of it, we asked travel and financial experts to weigh in. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Strong present, uncertain future A number of factors influence the value of the dollar. Among them, said Michael Melvin, the executive director of the master of quantitative finance program at the University of California San Diego, are economic growth and geopolitical risk. In recent years, “The U.S. has had exceptional economic growth relative to other countries,” Mr. Melvin said, noting the higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation only made the dollar more attractive to investors. International conflicts such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East also lead to investments in U.S. Treasury bonds. “The U.S. dollar has a safe-haven role to play in uncertain times,” Mr. Melvin said. Talk of tariffs has created more volatility. When 25 percent tariffs were recently threatened against Canada and Mexico, their currencies initially plunged against the dollar. They have since recovered after postponements were announced, but still offer good value. Alex Cohen, a senior foreign exchange strategist for Bank of America, expects the dollar to remain strong for the first half of the year as the new administration’s policies take effect. The outlook for travelers The exchange rate benefit largely affects foreign travel purchases like food, gifts and hotel bills, rather than airfare, particularly for those flying on American carriers, where pricing is in dollars. Travelers are noticing the potential for savings. Since November, bookings have been up 65 percent compared with the same period last year at Luxe Voyage Travel, based in Clermont, Fla., according to its owner, Cristina Cunha, a member of the Envoyage global network of advisers. “Clients are feeling more confident about traveling abroad, thanks to the strengthening U.S. dollar and post-election stability,” Ms. Cunha said. For those who have already booked foreign trips, the dollar bonus is an invitation to indulge, said Peter Vlitas, executive vice president of partner relations for Internova Travel Group, a travel services company with more than 100,000 travel advisers. “Historically, when the dollar is strong, we have seen travelers who are already committed to their trips try to ‘buy up’ and get better value for their dollar,” Mr. Vlitas wrote in an email. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Adrian Mooney, the director of sales at the hotel and golf club Kilkea Castle in County Kildare, Ireland, said that for American guests, the exchange benefit is going to extras like spa services and horseback riding. “The strong dollar is giving guests more spending power on the ground,” Mr. Mooney said. How to take advantage of the exchange rate Before leaving home, make sure your credit card does not charge a fee for transactions in foreign currencies, advised Kathy McCabe, the host of two public television shows “Dream of Europe” and “Dream of Italy.” When using the card, pay in the local currency when vendors ask if you want to purchase the transaction in dollars or in foreign currency. “Always choose the local currency,” Ms. McCabe said. “This will avoid dynamic currency conversion, which is a service that converts the purchase to your home currency at a marked-up exchange rate.” She pointed to a warning by the European Consumer Organization that called the practice a “scam,” noting that studies had found the practice raised prices between 2.6 and 12 percent for those who opted for the converted currency. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT When you need foreign cash, withdraw it from a bank-owned A.T.M., said Laura Lindsay, the global travel trends expert with Skyscanner, a flight comparison site, because bank A.T.M.s offer a better exchange rate and lower fees than private ones. Where to stretch your budget Among countries where the U.S. dollar goes further, Japan is a particularly good value as the yen — currently going for 152 yen to the dollar — has been declining against the dollar for the past four years, according to Mr. Melvin of U.C.S.D. “Japan has been on sale for U.S. visitors,” he said. “It costs a third less to go to Japan than just a few years ago.” Expedia found Osaka to be among the cheapest hotel destinations for April travel, averaging about 26,878 yen a night, or $175. The dollar doesn’t buy quite as many euros as it did in the fall of 2022 when it was slightly ahead of the European currency, but it’s not far-off today, at 0.96 euros to the dollar. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Last year at this time, a dollar bought about 17 Mexican pesos. Today, it buys more than 20. Hotels in popular beach destinations often get around the exchange rate slide by stating their rates in dollars. But that’s less common at small hotels such as Mesones Sacristía, in Puebla, which offers antique-furnished rooms from 2,300 pesos ($113). The dollar has also been gaining on the Canadian dollar in the past year, going from 1.35 Canadian to 1.42 for $1. And it’s not just the exchange rate that benefits Americans heading north. Kayak found that airfare is down 18 percent compared with 2023 based on recent searches for travel through April. Keep an eye out for sales. For example, through March 3, the houseboat rental company Le Boat is offering a deal that saves travelers the normal 13 percent tax on weeklong rentals on the Trent-Severn Waterway in Ontario, a 52 Places to Go pick this year. Seven-night trips start at 3,359 dollars ($2,359).

In January, my family and I arrived at Pomerelle Mountain Resort in southern Idaho to find fresh powder, inexpensive lift tickets, no lines and bargain burgers grilling at the base. What more could a skier ask for? Perhaps a faster chair, but we chalked that up to vintage charm. Last fall when I purchased the Indy Pass — the small-resort answer to the Epic and Ikon passes — I’d never heard of Pomerelle, one of the resorts I now had access to. But the Indy Pass, established in 2019 with 34 members, exists to introduce skiers to the independent, often family-owned resorts — now more than 230 of them — that individually lack the marketing power to compete with Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company, issuers of Epic and Ikon. Skiing is an expensive sport. Large resorts often command more than $200 for a same-day lift ticket, offering access to extensive terrain and high-speed chairlifts to maximize your run time. In contrast, small ski resorts offer cheaper prices on everything from lift tickets to lunches, which is especially appealing to families and novices. Parking is usually free. Designed for skiers seeking variety as well as affordability, Indy offers two days each at member resorts on three continents (the majority are in the United States). To test the payoff, I bought the Indy+ Pass for $469 last spring (this upgrade on the $349 base pass is exempt from blackout dates) and studied the Indy Pass map. Clusters of resorts in the East, Midwest and Rocky Mountains offered intriguing opportunities for ski-centric road trips. Last month, with my husband and son, we drove roughly 1,200 miles between Salt Lake City and Missoula, Mont., skiing seven days at five resorts in Utah, Idaho and Montana. We came out ahead financially — individual tickets would have cost $547 per person for this ski trip alone — while exploring throwback lodges and learning to embrace family time on slow chairlifts. Vail Resorts had just settled a strike at nearby Park City Mountain Resort when we set out from Salt Lake City for Beaver Mountain, an Indy member near Logan, Utah, about 110 miles north. The Seeholzer family has been operating Beaver, considered the oldest, continuously run family-owned resort in the country, since 1939 (regular lift tickets cost $70). “Our unofficial catchphrase is ‘Skiing the way it used to be,’” said Travis Seeholzer, the resort’s third-generation general manager. “There’s not a bunch of fast lifts and glitzy lodges, but relaxing days of skiing away from the hustle and bustle.” Midday on a snowy Saturday, Beaver was relatively busy with cars parked down the forested approach road. Still, it was less than a five-minute walk to Harry’s Dream Lift, a triple chair that took us to the 8,860-foot summit. Small resorts tend to have shorter runs; compare Beaver’s 1,700-foot vertical drop with Park City’s 3,200 feet. But we appreciated the variety — most of the runs were rated intermediate or advanced — and being part of a laid-back ski scene where B.Y.O. snacks stuffed the lodge cubbies. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We thought Epic and Ikon were a death knell. We found the complete opposite,” Mr. Seeholzer said. “A lot of people are just looking for that different experience and a little slower pace.”

It’s possible to amass $1 million in special health savings accounts to use in retirement, a new analysis finds, with several big caveats. You have to start young, contribute the maximum each year and leave the money untouched for decades instead of spending it on medical needs. Health savings accounts, known as H.S.A.s, let people set aside pretax money for health and medical care. To open an H.S.A., you must have a specific type of health plan with a high deductible — an amount you must cover out of pocket before insurance pays. The money can be saved or invested to grow tax-free, and is tax-free when withdrawn and spent on eligible care or products. (The federal government does not tax the accounts, but some states assess state taxes.) Because of their robust tax advantages, H.S.A.s are seen as a valuable tool to save for health needs later in life, including costs that aren’t covered by Medicare, the federal health plan for older Americans. H.S.A. funds can also be spent on nonmedical costs after age 65 without penalty. The money is taxed as ordinary income. The new analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit group, assumes that at age 25, a saver begins contributing the maximum allowable amount each year ($4,300 for an individual in 2025 — the amount is tweaked annually for inflation — and an additional $1,000 for people 55 and older) and continues those contributions through age 64 with no withdrawals, “regardless of whether the individual uses any health care services.” It also assumes the funds are invested and earn a 7.5 percent rate of return. At lower rates of return, or fewer years of saving, the total would be less. At a 5 percent return, total savings after 40 years would be about $540,000 and at 2.5 percent, $298,000. Recent estimates of average savings needed to cover health care costs in retirement range from $165,000 to $184,000 for an individual, depending on variables like health status and the type of Medicare plan or other health coverage the person may have. The catch in saving so much in an H.S.A., of course, is the difficulty of maxing out annual contributions and leaving the money alone for four decades, paying for any needed care with other funds. Many account holders use H.S.A.s as if it were a checking account to pay for current care rather than for long-term savings. According to Devenir, an H.S.A. investment firm, 47 percent of funded H.S.A.s had withdrawals in 2023. As of mid-2024, just 9 percent of all accounts invested at least part of their balance. Paul Fronstin, director of health benefits research at the institute and an author of the analysis, said that the report illustrated the potential of H.S.A.s when someone took full advantage of them — but that not everyone could. “I don’t think it’s realistic for the average person,” he said. “You have to have enough money to max out contributions, and a lot of people don’t.” H.S.A.s have been criticized by some groups as benefiting mainly more affluent Americans who can afford to invest their contributions while paying for medical costs out of pocket. The accounts were introduced more than 20 years ago, and as of mid-2024, more than $137 billion was held in about 38 million accounts, according to Devenir. The accounts have grown along with the prevalence of health plans with high deductibles, which can make it difficult for many working people to pay for medical care, said Andrea Ducas, vice president of health policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “If you have less than $400 in savings and a $5,000 deductible, what does that health coverage actually mean for you?” she said. In 2024, 21 percent of people with job-based health insurance were in H.S.A.-eligible, high-deductible health plans, up from 14 percent a decade earlier, according to KFF, a nonprofit health care research group. But some research suggests many enrolled in such plans aren’t using the accounts to save for health care. Even so, various legislative proposals would broaden the availability of the accounts. One Republican-sponsored bill reintroduced in January, for instance, would expand the type of insurance plans eligible for H.S.A.s and increase annual contribution limits to better reflect the account holder’s potential out-of-pocket costs. The Tax Foundation, a research group that generally favors lower taxes, has suggested eliminating tax breaks for H.S.A.s and adopting so-called universal savings accounts that could be used for a broad variety of purposes, not just for health care, without penalty. The accounts might behave similarly to Roth individual retirement accounts, which offer no tax break for contributions but provide tax-free withdrawals (if certain requirements are met). The foundation has argued that universal accounts are more flexible and “fiscally responsible,” and that they can help simplify the current patchwork of complex, tax-favored accounts that can stymie savers. A draft list of ideas to pay for a tax cut circulated among House Republicans in January included an item that would replace H.S.A.s with universal accounts. Alex Cyriac, chief executive of Lively, a financial technology company that offers H.S.A.s., described discussion of universal accounts as a “talking point” but said the elimination of such accounts was unlikely. “I think the probability is pretty low,” largely because so many Americans have them, Mr. Cyriac said. Another bill, proposed with bipartisan support, would create a Roth-type account for health care expenses — similar to H.S.A.s but for people with low- or no-deductible health plans. Here are some questions and answers about health savings accounts: Can I take my H.S.A. with me if I change jobs? Yes. The accounts move with you if you change employers, in contrast with other workplace options like flexible health spending accounts, and there’s no deadline for spending the money. What is the minimum deductible for an H.S.A. health insurance plan? For 2025, an H.S.A.-eligible health plan must have a deductible of at least $1,650 for individual coverage and $3,300 for family coverage. What is the deadline for making an H.S.A. contribution for 2024? You can contribute for 2024 up to this year’s tax filing deadline (April 15 in most states, with later deadlines in federal disaster areas). If you are making a contribution this year for the 2024 tax year, the maximum contribution is $4,150 for individuals and $8,300 for families. (People 55 and older can contribute an additional $1,000.)

Yrjö Kukkapuro, a renowned Finnish designer whose postmodern style of chairs graced waiting rooms, offices and living rooms across Finland as well as collections in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has died. He was 91. His death Saturday at his home outside Helsinki was confirmed by his daughter, Isa Kukkapuro-Enbom, in an email to The Associated Press on Sunday, as well as a statement from Studio Kukkapuro, where she is the curator. The cause of death was not disclosed. “Almost every Finn has sat on a chair he designed — at a metro station, in a bank, at school, or in a library,” the studio said in a news release. “Yrjö Kukkapuro never stopped designing and coming up with new ideas. Until the very end, he pondered a concept of his new chair, the plan of which was clear in his mind. His assistant didn’t have time to make drawings of the chair.” In a career spanning more than 70 years, Kukkapuro’s chairs were lauded for their comfort, functionalism and ergonomics as well as their design, and featured names like Ateljee, Karuselli-chair, Long Chair and, his most famous, the Experiment. Designed in 1982, the Experiment chair was considered avant-guarde but ultimately became commercially successful and was seen as a key turning point for the postmodern style of furniture. The Experiment includes decorative, wavy armrests in bright colors, an upholstered back and bottom, and its signature angled seat despite the frame being flat on the ground. Although initial production ceased in the 1990s, European furniture design brand Hem sought permission from Kukkapuro in 2021 to reproduce it with minor adjustments to the scale and construction. “We are saddened by the news of Yrjö’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family,” Hem founder and chief executive Petrus Palmér said in an email to AP. “He was a furniture design trailblazer, and showed us that a non-conformist approach is the only way to achieve a lasting legacy.” The Experiment chair retailed for up to 2,399 euros ($2,479) on Hem’s website Sunday, where a description called it “timeless, bold, and as compelling today as the day it was created.” “In the Experiment Chair, Kukkapuro sought to add art to Functionalism, to satisfy romantic tastes alongside meeting essential needs,” the description reads. “The result is startling, authentic, a hero of twentieth-century design.” Kukkapuro designed his family’s studio and home to feature a wave-shaped roof and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Built in the late 1960s for him and his wife, artist Irmeli Kukkapuro, who died in 2022, it’s scheduled to become a museum next year.

Norbert was practically a stuffed animal come to life. The three-pound mixed-breed internet-famous therapy dog dispensed joy simply by existing. Julie Steines started posting photos of Norbert on Instagram more than a decade ago: of him volunteering at children’s hospitals, nursing homes and schools; of him dressed as a wizard or a reindeer, wearing a beanie or a tie. His tiny pink tongue hung out of his mouth much of the time. Soon you could buy plush toys in his likeness, with profits going to charity. His mission as a therapy dog, according to his website, was simple: “to spread smiles, inspire kindness and bring comfort to those in need.” It turns out that I, along with many of his nearly one million followers on Instagram alone, was among those in need. Any time I felt blue, I’d seek out his page for an infusion of happiness. And when I saw him pop up in my feed at random, a wave of endorphins flooded my brain. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT When Norbert died last week, just shy of 16 years old, tens of thousands of comments and tributes poured in. “My family is heartbroken,” Steines wrote as part of a lengthy announcement. Pet content remains one of the last bastions of joy on social media. Norbert and many other beloved online dogs — all blissfully unaware of their internet fame, or the internet at all — cut through a digital landscape growing less hospitable by the day. As petty fights and bizarre bots increasingly overwhelm online spaces, I find myself following more dogs and fewer people. Instagram turns 15 years old this year, as will my oldest pup at home. When introduced, the platform, with its focus on photos and videos, elevated pet content to greater heights than any service that came before. It didn’t take long for Instagram to become populated with accounts dedicated to dogs — personal pages where the dogs were not the sidekicks but the stars, their humans the accessories. These accounts would often be verified, like those of celebrities and politicians. There’s something distinct and humbling about forming a parasocial relationship with, and experiencing heartbreak from, an animal you’ve never met. Now that many of us have been on social media for a decade or more, it’s becoming impossible to not brace for the inevitable. And when these animals “cross the rainbow bridge,” as it’s said, I’ve scrambled to place my sadness as the families behind the pets come into focus, as does their grief, usually in a heart-wrenching caption. When Henry the Colorado Dog died suddenly in 2022, leaving his best friend, a cat named Baloo, grief-stricken, I was inconsolable. Their page, with 2.3 million followers, had been a celebration of cinematic adventures: Henry and Baloo cuddling in a tent in the Rocky Mountains or floating in a boat on a river at sunset. With Henry gone, Baloo stopped eating and was floundering. Then I watched a triumphant story arc unfold as his family found Pan, a new canine companion who is as intrepid as Henry was and who’d go on to bond deeply with Baloo, softening the hurt but not replacing Henry, whose memory remains a strong presence on the page. When Kabosu, the Shiba Inu who helped define the Doge meme, died last year at the age of 18, The New York Times published a proper obituary. When Bodhi, a Shiba Inu known online simply as the Menswear Dog and who modeled for Coach, died last year at age 15, he, too, was the subject of an article. This inclination to honor such losses more officially can in part be attributed to the novelty of celebrity, but human’s best friend seems to have taken on greater personal and cultural significance in general in recent years. Most dog owners consider their pets family, and some are even seeking ways to foster richer interspecies communication. Policies that allow workers time off to care for a sick pet or to grieve the loss of one are also gaining steam. As is sometimes the case with the pages of notable people who die, the accounts of pets often endure, but forever with an asterisk. Though unlike these people — whom fans can honor by watching their movies, reading their books, listening to their music — the photos and videos taken of dogs are the “art” that they offered, and social media the stage on which they were admired. At least for a while, I imagine the sight of Norbert’s pricked gray ears and black button nose will cause only sadness. But eventually, I will return ready to delight again in his soul-restoring magic, which, at least for me and those who never knew him in real life, is the gift he always provided.