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(CNN) — Airports around the world are increasing health screenings and implementing new quarantine procedures as officials race to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, a new SARS-like illness that first appeared in Hubei province, China.Hundreds of people have been infected by the Wuhan coronavirus in mainland China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and the US, which has one confirmed case. At least nine people have died, all in Hubei province, the majority of them elderly and suffering from pre-existing conditions.Chinese health experts this week confirmed some cases involved human-to-human transmission.Officials announced public transportation in Wuhan would be suspended until further notice starting the morning of Thursday, January 23.The suspension includes local buses, ferries, long-distance buses and subways. All airport and railway stations in Wuhan will be “temporarily closed” for departing passengers with no set re-opening dates. China’s busiest travel period With the annual Lunar New Year/Spring Festival travel rush now underway, officials are battling to isolate those infected and prevent the disease from spreading further. According to data from aviation website Flightconnections.com, Wuhan Airport services non-stop scheduled passenger flights to 109 destinations in 20 countries. These include major cities like London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, New York, San Francisco, Bangkok, Tokyo and Seoul.Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, is also a hub for China’s high-speed rail network.Compounding the challenge for health authorities, hundreds of millions of Chinese will travel during the Spring Festival period, which officially began on January 10 and will end on February 18 — the largest annual human migration on Earth. In Wuhan itself, infrared thermometers have been installed at the airport, train stations, coach terminals and passenger piers to measure the temperatures of passengers departing the city, according to state media.China is also encouraging passengers traveling to and from Wuhan to change their travel plans during the busy Lunar New Year holiday period, by exempting them from service charges for refunds for all modes of transport. Here’s a look at the preventative measures adopted in some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Stay up to date with the latest on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak here. United StatesAir China flight attendants arrive at Los Angeles International Airport after touchdown from Beijing, which serves as a connector from Wuhan, on the first day of health screenings for coronavirus. David McNew/Getty Images North America/Getty ImagesSince confirmation of the first case of the new coronavirus on January 21, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has increased screening and quarantine measures at the country’s major airports. Last weekend, the CDC started health screenings for Wuhan passengers arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport.Starting this week, Wuhan passengers will also be screened at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.Passengers flying in from Wuhan, whether on direct or indirect flights, will only be allowed to land at one of those five US airports doing health screenings, which include a temperature check and observation for symptoms such as a cough and trouble breathing.Thailand Thailand has long been a favorite destination for Chinese nationals — the country tops the list of source markets for international arrivals in the country. Three people in Thailand have been confirmed to be infected with the virus. In response, officials at international airports in Bangkok, Krabi, Chiang Mai and Phuket are reportedly screening arrivals not just from Wuhan but also Beijing and Shenzhen, which have also recorded cases of the coronavirus. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand has international-standard diagnosis and medical care, and is closely coordinating with WHO and related departments for the potential response measures. JapanOfficers at a health screening station in Tokyo’s Narita Airport observe passengers arriving on a flight from Wuhan, China on January 16. STR/AFP/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty ImagesJapan has reported one confirmed case of the coronavirus. The patient, who has since been treated and released from hospital, traveled to Wuhan in late December. According to the WHO, quarantine and screening measures have been enhanced for travelers from Wuhan city at all Japan airports since January 7. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reportedly instructed government ministers to strengthen quarantine efforts and monitor patients, while a hotline has been setup among the different ministries in the government. Hong KongThough no cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed, Hong Kong, which was hit hard by the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, is on particularly high alert. The semi-autonomous city is a popular destination for Chinese nationals. In addition to health declaration forms and temperature checks at train stations and Hong Kong International Airport, increased cleaning and disinfection procedures on trains and planes arriving via Wuhan have been implemented. Australia The Australian Department of Health is currently working to implement additional measures to manage the risk of the coronavirus, including additional border measures — particularly in relation to the three weekly direct flights from Wuhan to Sydney.All passengers on these flights will receive information about the virus, with a request that they identify themselves to biosecurity officers at the airport if they are unwell. “You cannot absolutely prevent entry into the country of a disease like this. The incubation period is probably a week,” Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said Tuesday. “It’s about identifying those with a high risk and making sure people with a high risk know about it and know how to get medical attention.”SingaporeTo date, there have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus reported in Singapore, however the government isn’t taking any chances. From January 22, temperature screening at Changi Airport will be expanded to include all inbound travelers on flights arriving from China, the Ministry of Health announced. “Given that Singapore is a travel hub, we expect to see more suspect cases, and cannot rule out the possibility of imported cases,” the ministry said in a statement. “Once a case is confirmed, contact tracing will be initiated, and we will implement strict isolation, quarantine, and infection control and prevention measures to prevent further transmission.” Additional reporting by Steven Jiang, Elizabeth Cohen, Alexandra Lin and Nectar Gan.

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(CNN) — For many, Wuhan was an unfamiliar word until this month, when the Chinese city was thrust into the spotlight as word of the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus hit headlines around the world. Where is Wuhan?With a population of more than 11 million people according to government figures, Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei province and the biggest city in China’s central region. Located on the Yangtze River, it’s about 800 kilometers (about 500 miles) west of Shanghai, or a four-hour ride by high-speed railway.The city, spanning 8,494 square kilometers, has played a major role in the government’s plan to rejuvenate the nation’s central region for more than a decade. The transportation capital of ChinaWuhan’s high-speed railway maintenance centre is one of just four in the country. -/AFP/AFP/Getty ImagesThanks to its prime location, Wuhan is often referred to as “jiu sheng tong qu,” meaning it’s considered the main thoroughfare of nine provinces.In addition to conventional railway networks, Wuhan is one of the stops on two of the main long-haul high-speed railway lines: Beijing-Guangzhou (from north to south) and Shanghai-Chengdu high-speed railway (from east to west).It’s also home to one of just four major train maintenance centers in the country.Turning to aviation, Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is the only airport in the mid-China region to have direct flights to five different continents.According to data from aviation website Flightconnections.com, Wuhan Airport services non-stop scheduled passenger flights to 109 destinations in 20 countries. These include major cities like London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, New York, San Francisco, Bangkok, Tokyo and Seoul.Wuhan to shut temporarilyOn January 23, government officials announced the temporary closure of Wuhan’s airport and railway stations.All train tickets in and out of Wuhan have also been suspended, while multiple international airlines have canceled flights to the city.All public transport services are suspended until further notice. This is expected to create a lot of chaos as China is now in the middle of Chunyun, or the Spring Festival travel rush. Some 3 billion trips were expected to be made among Chinese people visiting their families to celebrate Lunar New Year — many of those journeys passing through Wuhan. A rising business center, tourist destinationWuhan is a major manufacturing city in China with a heavy focus on automobile and medical equipment: Bosch and PSA both relocated their China headquarters to Wuhan recently.But the city’s historical importance can be traced back more than 3,000 years. Wuhan is listed as one of the Famous Historical and Culture Cities by the state and is home to the ruins of Panlong City. The archaeological site, discovered in the 1950s, includes graves and palace foundations of the ancient walled town from Shang dynasty (1600-1046BC). It was where the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1911, leading to the overthrow of China’s imperial system.In addition to historical attractions, travelers visit Wuhan for its natural scenery such as Mulan Mountain, a sacred mountain area for both Taoist and Buddhist believers. Wuhan is also a popular jumping off point for those exploring the Three Gorges Dam Scenic Area, which is about 400 kilometers west of the city. Many travelers going on Yangtze River cruises begin their trips in or near Wuhan.

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Drone footage shows a frozen lake in China featuring icy “branches.”

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Host Hidetoshi Nakata takes us on a tour of Tokyo’s stunning Geihinkan — the State Guest House — which accommodates heads of states and diplomats visiting Japan.

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(CNN) — For as long as I can remember, I have struggled to explain to people where I’m from.Americans know of the Soviet Union but have little idea of the different characters of the republics that made up the former USSR.Calling myself Russian didn’t feel authentic. Yet when I referred to Moldavia, where I actually grew up, I would get blank stares. “It’s called Moldova now,” I would say. “Where is it?” the question would immediately follow. As the decades went by, I wasn’t sure myself where I was from. My country wasn’t even on the map when I was young, and in my heart I felt homeless. America was now my home. I’ve spent my entire adult life in the United States. I got married here, raised my daughters and lived my American dream. Still, a piece of me was always missing, and I didn’t know where to go to find it.That was until one day in 2019; I received a message from my high school classmates asking me to return for a reunion.Behind the Iron CurtainGoing back to the place I was raised felt scary. It had been more than 30 years and from what I’ve read in the news, Moldova wasn’t doing well. It’s one of the poorest, least visited and most politically unstable countries in Europe. Many people are leaving. But that was only half the story.It was December 1989. I had just turned 20 when I fled to the United States, leaving my parents behind in the midst of my country’s collapse, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I didn’t know a soul. All I had was $61 in my pocket, a small suitcase and a desire to be free. The catalyst for the escape was my arrest for selling a denim skirt. I knew it was illegal to sell anything outside of government-owned shops and if caught I could spend time in prison for “speculation” — trading to make profit.I needed money for food and hoped I wouldn’t be punished, especially with perestroika underway (the program of political and economic reforms that was intended to save the Soviet Union but, some would argue, hastened its end).But when two militiamen took me to the station and interrogated me for an entire day, promising to ruin my life, I was scared. A bribe got me released, and by then I instinctively knew I had to find my way out. I understood that once I was beyond the Iron Curtain, there was no going back.’Aren’t you curious?’Elina Fuhrman (right) and her school friend Olga Golban in 1986. Courtesy Elina FuhrmanI did make one trip in 1992 to Chisinau, capital of the newly renamed Moldova, to see my parents. The Soviet Union no longer existed, at least on paper, and I foolishly thought it meant I could now freely travel, at least through Eastern Europe, in this brave new world.On my way back to America, I was taken off the train from Chisinau to Bucharest and held at the Romanian border in a padded cell. If not for the serendipitous encounter with the newly appointed Moldovan national security adviser at a Washington, D.C., party weeks before my trip, I would have probably been jailed for leaving my motherland the way I did. “My dear girl, nothing has changed,” a border guard told me after my release following the Moldovan President’s orders in the middle of the night. Needless to say, at that point there was never going back. Ever. “Aren’t you curious?” one of my classmates messaged me on Facebook. I hadn’t seen most of my classmates since our prom night in June 1986. I forgot many of them, including their names and their faces. We didn’t have class reunions until someone created a Facebook group and started adding everyone to reconnect. We are spread out all over the world, but this year we were all turning 50, and seeing each other again seemed like a great idea to some. How do I go back to the place I removed from my memory? A vanished country that I told myself I had no connection to? I brought my family to the US in the mid-’90s, and there was absolutely nobody left in Moldova for me to see. Do I want to unknot my personal narrative after all these years? A tourist in my own homeTaking the plunge to revisit my childhood home was one of the boldest decisions I’ve made. Here I was armed with a small stack of old black-and-white photographs, the only mementos left from my life there and my even more limited memories. I nervously got ready for my trip. When the plane landed in Chisinau, my anxiety escalated. “Is this your first time in Moldova?” my seatmate asked me. I could tell that my uneasiness was noticeable, but all I could answer back was “in a long time.” Anxiously fumbling with my luggage, I handed my US passport to a Moldovan passport control officer and watched his gaze as he examined it before waving me to exit. I entered the city straight into the embraces of my classmates who came to greet me, and my fears immediately dissipated. My car ride from the airport felt surreal. If not for my childhood friends beside me, I couldn’t tell where I was. The new name for Moldova is fitting, because Chisinau doesn’t look like anything I remember. I felt like a tourist in my own home. Everything has been transformed: the alphabet, the money, the flag, the clothing, the billboards. The gray monolith that’s been etched in my mind is no more; the city and the people are more colorful. Supermarkets and designer boutiques replaced the state-owned shops selling propaganda and uniforms. Construction work is everywhere, and everyone is talking on a cellphone. You can buy sushi, go to a karaoke bar and have a burger or French pastries.The Soviet past I remember is just that — a vanished way of life, an old story or an archived film. The life and the childhood I remember no longer exist. What I do find here is the connection to my classmates, an extended family I told myself a long time ago I didn’t have. Communist youth1984: As members of the Komsomol youth organisation, the children are carrying real guns. Courtesy Elina FuhrmanWe are the children of an extinct world, and we will always be bound together by the profound experiences we can’t even begin to explain to our kids. Only we know what’s it like to grow up indoctrinated with a rigid ideology only to see it crumble before our eyes on the cusp of our adulthood. To have our formative years coincide with the sweeping shift of the political landscape and subsequent collapse of the only world we knew growing up. All of us were raised as upstanding communist youth and to believe we were lucky to live in the country of the happiest childhood. We came of age with glasnost (openness) — a Soviet government reform introduced in the mid-198s to give people more rights and freedoms — and in this changing world, we were battling our desire to live alongside the need to survive. We all share the experience of unlearning everything we learned as kids. We were the last generation to grow up behind the Iron Curtain. As we made our ways to different parts of the world, created new lives and new identities, we all realized that we would forever be trapped between two worlds. But what we found going back to our hometown is a sense of collective identity, a home within each other, a childhood home we thought we no longer had.I came to Chisinau with a question: What changed more — Moldova or me?I didn’t know how to answer it, so I asked my classmates. We agreed that everything is unrecognizable, but the changes in the city couldn’t compare to the changes within us. As we toured our hometown and surrounding areas on a bus, we felt like visitors in an unfamiliar city, discovering its secrets and learning its newly written history. The biggest change for me was that I no longer felt homeless in my heart.

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(CNN) — If your sweetheart turns to you tonight and whispers “shall we try for a little one?”, don’t dismiss them out of hand. It could be they’re talking about an Irish island. Great Blasket, on Europe’s Atlantic fringes, is seeking a couple to become summer caretakers and sole full-time residents of this unoccupied island off Ireland’s west coast. As long as you’re not sticklers for electricity or hot running water, you’ll embrace the majestic 1,100 acres (4 1/2 square kilometers) of emerald isle as your domain. As well as sublime views, the generous rain keeps the landscape lush and those stiff Atlantic breezes power the wind turbine that generates enough electricity to charge up your phone. The roles, suited to a couple or two friends, involves the management of the island’s coffee shop and three vacation cottages from April to October this year. Accommodation and food are provided and wages discussed on application.Candidates should be aware they’ll be facing some tough competition. “We’ve had about 7,000 applications,” Alice Hayes tells CNN Travel on January 16, having posted the job vacancy online just six days earlier. Hayes and her partner, Billy O’Connor, live on the nearby Dingle Peninsula and O’Connor runs regular boat tours to the island in summertime. Together, the couple refurbished the islands’ cottages, one of which was home to legendary storyteller Peig Sayers, whose Irish-language autobiography “Peig,” published 1936, has been a standard text for generations of Irish students.Sayers had “a very tough and difficult life on the island,” says Hayes, and her famously bleak book documented “the hardship she went through.”The island’s 2019 caretakers were Lesley Kehoe and Gordon Bond. Like Sayers, they shared their Great Blasket experiences with the world — although their Instagram and Twitter accounts presented a rosier view of Atlantic living. However, Kehoe tells CNN Travel, wannabe caretakers should take note: “What you see on social media isn’t what it’s all about.” While she posted “pictures of bonfires, fields and sunsets,” what you didn’t see is Kehoe “running round the cottages making beds” or “queues coming out of the coffee shop.” “You can easily forget that it gets up to 400 visitors a day,” she adds. “it can be incredibly busy.”As for off-the-grid living, Kehoe says that while you can use your cottage’s kettle to boil water for showers, after a few days she steeled herself and got used to showering cold. Start your morning that way, she says, and “at least you know that’s the coldest you’ll be that day.” The water is fed by an island spring and that pure water and fresh air has its benefits. “My skin, my hair, my general health was incredible,” says Kehoe. There’s no electricity or Wi-Fi on the island, but, surprisingly, the mobile internet reception is excellent, thanks to a mast a few miles away on the mainland. Of those 7,000 — and counting — applications Hayes and O’Connor are now sifting through, there will no doubt be a large number of people with a romanticized view of what the job entails. However, Kehoe says that those who know they’re the person for the task will have the “gut instinct” that they are a Blasket Islander in waiting. She says that she and Bond were unable to return this year “for practical reasons,” but “if we could do it again, we would.”Not only has the experience been a powerful one for her and her partner, they’ve also made lifelong friends with Hayes and O’Connor. She and Bond are now back home in Kildare, near Dublin, but plan plenty of repeat visits. While there are those who criticize the “commercialization” of Great Blasket and its neighboring Blasket Islands, Kehoe thinks the global attention the island is receiving is ultimately beneficial. “I think that the work Billy and Alice do to keep the island alive is so much more important than leaving it out there fossilizing. If that [industry] wasn’t there, it’d just be ruins.” For more information about Great Blasket Boat Tours, island accommodation and Blasket Island trips, visit greatblasketisland.net.

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