Summer vacations in colder climates like the Arctic are getting more popular, Jennifer reports, as people turn to "coolcations" to avoid record-breaking heat.

Why it matters: Despite the wince-inducing name, "coolcationing" could potentially reshape the travel and resort industries — as well as real estate investments, as climate change alters where people choose to recreate.

Driving the news: Condé Nast Traveler named coolcationing one of the "biggest travel trends to expect in 2024," noting that heat waves are making a summer vacation in Norway seem more appealing than one in Sicily or southern France.

• Booking travel in "temperate destinations" also has the benefit of cities "being less crowded," the magazine said (perhaps only for now).
• Iceland, Finland and Scotland — already popular for summer travel — are getting even more so.
• The Baltic nations are on the rise, too.

What they're saying: "The effects of climate change have really become more pronounced in the travel space," Misty Belles, a spokeswoman for the Virtuoso travel network, tells Axios.

• "People used to want to travel in June, July, August because they were more assured to have sunnier skies, and now people are less concerned about rain and more concerned about soaring temperatures," said Belles, whose company specializes in luxury and experiential vacations and counts 20,000 agents worldwide.
• Travelers are also "willing to go further afield than they really have before" to avoid wildfires and heat waves, she says.

🧊 By the numbers: British travel company Iglu Cruise says it saw demand for Arctic destinations increase 235% in 2023 compared to 2022.

• After years of record-breaking tourism to Antarctica, "the Arctic is the new Antarctica," Belles says.
• As global warming opens up new shipping lanes in the Arctic — and climatologists wring their hands — companies offering polar cruises are proliferating, featuring Champagne-soaked trips to remote places like Svalbard (a Norwegian archipelago) and Canada's Baffin Island.

Threat level: "Coolcationing" comes with climate risks of its own, including the fact that increased shipping and tourist boat traffic in the Arctic will likely cause further environmental damage.

Zoom in: The emergence of the "coolcation" trend has set off a wave of promotional social media posts just as people are planning their summer travel.

• A luxury-lifestyle newsletter called the James Edition dubbed coolcationing "the travel trend shaping real estate investments," saying that investors and travelers alike are scoping out high-end properties in cold-weather markets.

Reality check: The top travel destinations in 2023 were Paris, Dubai, Madrid, Tokyo and Amsterdam, according to a report by market research company Euromonitor International.

• "Italy is still our #1 destination," Belles says. "No one is saying, 'No, I can't possibly go to Tuscany.'"

What's next: Condé Nast Traveler also predicts we'll be doing more home-swapping, frontier tourism, eco-diving and "skip-gen travel," in which grandparents go on trips with their grandchildren.

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Californians are voting today on a proposed overhaul of the state's approach to mental health treatment and homelessness, Axios San Diego's Andrew Keatts reports.

Why it matters: The plan would create a blueprint that supporters hope — and opponents fear — could be replicated elsewhere.

How it works: Proposition 1 would let the state borrow $6.4 billion to build mental health treatment facilities and supportive housing for homeless residents.

• The money would be used to construct an estimated 4,350 homes for homeless residents or those at risk of becoming homeless.

Yes, but: California has an estimated 181,000 homeless residents.

Friction point: The measure had bipartisan support last year, but a last-minute change to allow funding for facilities that hold patients involuntarily outraged some mental health advocates.

Read the rest.

Elon Musk is feuding with a growing list of Silicon Valley rivals over the future of AI and more, Axios' Zachary Basu and Erica Pandey write.

• Musk is now suing OpenAI — which he co-founded — and CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of prioritizing profit over "the benefit of humanity."

Why it matters: Musk — a headstrong billionaire prone to petty feuds — and his rival tech titans have an outsized impact on the fate of a technology that could pose existential risks to the human race.

Zoom in: Musk's suit argues that OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft violates its founding agreement.

• "OpenAI Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft," the lawsuit says.
• Microsoft, led by CEO Satya Nadella, has invested billions in OpenAI and is the only company with a license to use the tech behind GPT-4, OpenAI's blockbuster product.

The latest: The OpenAI spat has pulled in even more Silicon Valley billionaires as they trade jabs online.

• Venture capitalist and OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla posted that Musk's lawsuit "feels like a bit of sour grapes."
• Musk hit back, and investor Marc Andreessen came to his defense.

The big picture: Musk's lawsuit is the latest in a growing list of his feuds with Silicon Valley rivals.

• Just last week, he vowed to create a Gmail competitor following criticisms over bias in Google Gemini's AI image generation results.
• And after news broke that OpenAI, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos and others have invested $675 million in humanoid robot startup Figure, Musk — who's working on his own robot model at Tesla — posted: "Bring it on."

Go deeper.

Today's leading chatbots for the everyday user — OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini — are all best approached as tutors or assistants rather than information desks, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

Why it matters: Getting started using any of these tools is easy, but knowing how to get the best results can be tricky.

The big picture: All three are designed to create, edit and summarize content.

• ChatGPT works well for most tasks. Google's Gemini has access to more timely and updated information. Copilot is best for work tasks.
• Chatbots can help you write your resume, create a basic recipe with the the ingredients you have in your fridge, summarize long articles, turn text into presentations, or create itineraries.
• They're also great for sparking creativity or combating writer's block. Some people even use them to help communicate with their kids.

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