Top travel news of the week from around the world, from lovesick penguins to millennial travellers

Our top stories from this week featured two stories about travel and living trends among millennials, followed by one of the best jobs in the world, and a lovesick penguin.

A series of new research studies cover the hot topic of millennial living trends, looking particularly at the cities that are best for young people. The criteria often cover things that are important to young people, namely affordability as a leading factor. When it comes to cost of living a study carried out by Youthful Cities used the criteria “which city do all the aspects of affordability from a youth perspective best align?” This included looking at expenses such as “cost of a tube of toothpaste, minimum wage, cost of 12 eggs, cost of movie ticket, cost of rental housing, rate for a taxi, cost of gym membership, cost of a fast food meal.” The ten most liveable cities for young people according to affordability (in descending order) were Los Angeles, Paris, Osaka, Boston, Tokyo, Berlin, San Francisco, Detroit, Montreal, with Sydney winning the top slot as most liveable city according to affordability and quality of life.

Read more: here

Hiking across Norway – through the country’s amazing fjords, streams and mountains – would be the perfect vacation for many outdoor enthusiasts. But, for the next year, it’s 23-year-old Andreas Orset’s full-time job. Orset has been hired as an explorer for the Norwegian hiking boot producer Alfa, along with the Norwegian Union of Outdoor Recreation Organizations. The project also has support from the national official travel guide for Norway, Visit Norway. More than 1,000 people applied for the job, but Orset made it through the application process and boot camp to be hired as the ‘Eventyreren’ – or Explorer.

Read more: here

While many millennials may be dreaming of a vacation, more than half feel so guilty about taking time off work that their paid holiday time is going to waste. Vacation shaming – where people feel a sense of shame or guilt from co-workers for taking time away – has become prevalent in the workplace and affects more millennials than their older counterparts, according to the 2016 Alamo Family Vacation Survey from Alamo Rent A Car. About 59% of employed millennials felt shame when taking a vacation, while only 41% of people 35 and older felt the same.

Read more: here

A penguin raised by a Brazilian pensioner travels 5,000 miles every year to reunite with his soulmate. The heartwarming story began five years ago when Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, a retired bricklayer, rescued the South American Magellanic penguin on an island just off Rio de Janeiro. The struggling little animal was covered in oil and close to starvation when Joao took it under his wing. The Sun reports that the former tradesman nursed the penguin back to health, working constantly for a week to get the sticky black residue out of the bird’s feathers. It was the start of a man-penguin friendship that was to grow and grow.

Read more: here

Artist Simon Beck walked for 13 hours in the French Alps to create the largest tribute in snow to HBO's hit TV series Game Of Thrones. Inspired by Game Of Thrones character Jon Snow, the House Stark sigil (a house crest or emblem) of a direwolf ended up measuring the size of two and a half football pitches. The Briton renowned for using land as the canvas for his drawings trudged a total of 64,800 footsteps on snowshoes to make his work of art. Somerset-born Beck, who studied engineering at Oxford University, uses a set of sketches to measure how many steps will be needed for each part of the drawings he undertakes.

Read more: here