Incredible survival tales of animal encounters

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02.15.25

In travel news this week: robot legs take off in China, the Italian influencer who mobilized her own TikTok army, plus one of the most terrifying whale encounters since Jonah.

By Maureen O'Hare

🦈 Animal encounters

Great white shark. (Dave Fleetham/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

A Chilean father recently captured the moment a humpback whale briefly swallowed his son while kayaking in Patagonia. Miraculously, 24-year-old Adrian Simancas emerged unharmed. "I thought … that I was going to die," Simancas told CNN.

In this video, two American tourists share another harrowing story of the day they were attacked by a shark in the Bahamas. Although unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas are rare, it's at least the third reported shark attack involving Americans since 2023.

It's not just at sea that tourists need to be vigilant, of course. A video of a dangerous encounter with a territorial bison went viral back in 2022, but would you know what to do if one of the shaggy beasts had you in its sights? Here are our bison survival tips if you get yourself in a pickle.

Finally, a Massachusetts man visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park was in a bad way last year when a grizzly bear took a "good chomp right to the bone" on his leg. Here's what happened next.

❤️ Audio amour

From animal encounters to Chance Encounters, CNN Travel's hit series about love and friendship is now a new CNN podcast. Host Francesca Street chronicles marvelous real-life stories of incredible travel connections, starting with an Italian woman and an American man who met by chance in London's Trafalgar Square in 1984.

If you don't want to end up like the man who was fined $200 this month for putting his phone on speaker in a French train station, you'll want to use headphones in order to listen. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this guide to the best true wireless earbuds of 2025.

After you've finished the podcast, there are still several years of the weekly Chance Encounters column you can catch up on, such as the tale of Arthur "Chip" Gaudio Jr., who hadn't seen his high school crush in years. Then he traveled to Sweden to visit her.

🇨🇳 Chinese travel trends

China has been working on some innovative ways to get around – from the prototype for what could be the world's fastest high-speed train to robot legs to make mountain-climbing easier. Yes, tourists are tackling the 5,000-foot-tall Mount Tai in Shandong Province using high-tech exoskeletons to make hiking a breeze. And you thought electric bikes were fancy.

Then there's the Comac C919, China's first homegrown passenger jet and the country's answer to the Airbus A320. Here's what it's like on board.

China is also building the world's largest artificial island airport, Dalian Jinzhou Bay International off the country's northeast coast. Its operators aim to handle 80 million passengers per year, with the first phase due to open in 2035.

Some young Chinese people, however, are preferring to go back to basics. The so-called "iron butt" travelers are ditching planes to travel long distances by bus and train – no matter if it wreaks havoc on heinies.

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🇦🇺 Australian gold

CNN

Vegemite, an Australian delicacy with the unpromising base material of leftover brewers' yeast, is so loved in the country there's even a museum dedicated to it.

It's a short day trip from Melbourne, the cosmopolitan city that's become a global food and drink powerhouse.

👀 In case you missed it

Influencer mobilizes TikTok "hordes" to "invade" ski resort.

It's part of an ongoing beef between Rita De Crescenzo and the Italian ski resort industry.

One of Paris' most popular attractions is closing for five years.

Some say it's a "serious mistake."

This country's Cold War paranoia left it riddled with bunkers.

Now they're coming back to life.

IKEA names its furniture for Swedish destinations.

This American took a road trip to visit them.

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