Category: Destinations

Tips for Packing and Preparing for a Road Trip

While American road trips had a golden age of sorts from the 1950s to the 1970s, thanks to a quickly developing interstate highway system and the automobile becoming a commonplace fixture, there’s perhaps never been a better time to hit the road. As travel restrictions begin to loosen, many Americans are turning to road trips…


Big Pleasures in a Tiny Country: Belize From Rainforest to Coast

While I knew it was safe—or should be, anyway—the whole situation was still a bit intimidating. Moments before, when this stretch of almost-neon aquamarine was quiet, the tropical sun reflected off the surface of the blue Caribbean—those warm waves inviting me in for a swim. But now? It was a feeding frenzy. With guides chumming…


Drive-Ins Offer More Than Movies

From time to time, residents of the little town of Farmington, Maine, gather to attend events that range from a craft fair and flea market to a band concert and a Catholic Mass. At a site in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the attractions include an arcade, car museum, and swap shop. Rather than being seated in…


South Carolina’s Grand Strand: A Popular Family Destination

Stretched out on the warm sand of Myrtle Beach, it’s easy to unwind. During a recent trip to there, I watched a little boy launching a kite nearby, his little legs running as fast as they can. On the shore, my family shrieked with laughter as they tossed a Frisbee in the waves. Overhead, the…


Roadside Kitsch Helps Tell America’s Story

A 65-foot-tall elephant named Lucy stands near the sea in New Jersey, as she has for 140 years. Giant blueberries are scattered about a field in Maine. Visitors to Long Beach, Washington, come face to face with a two-headed calf, cycloptic lamb, and mummified half man-half alligator. If the thought of catching a bit of…


Soak Up the Island of Hawaii

Some vacationers soak up sun on beaches with white or black sand. Not far away, divers suit up for a deep dive to get up close and personal with a variety of denizens of the deep. Other people check out a surreal moonscape of hardened pitch-black lava, then hike through a lush tropical rainforest.  …


Wine Brings Visitors to Once-Sleepy Cottonwood, Arizona

Arizona’s burgeoning wine industry has put the once-sleepy Cottonwood on the map. Nowhere is that more apparent than the Historic Old Town, an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its commercial architecture from the first half of the 20th century. Many of the old storefronts lining Main Street have been repurposed…


Scotland’s Eccentric Isle of Eigg

“If you’re going to get sick, be sure it’s on a Wednesday,” my Isle of Eigg tour guide/driver Brian Greene said. “That’s the day the doctor arrives by ferry from Skye.” Greene was filling in for Charlie Galli, this Scottish island’s usual taxi driver (and only source of public transportation), who was stuck on the…


Finding Hidden Greece, From Unnamed Islands to the Heart of Athens

I’m not sure this place even has a name, and I know you’d never find it online. Tucked away, just off the village’s main square, I can’t even recall, for the moment, how we got here from the ship. Disembarking from our gulet, a big, wooden sailboat that looks like it could carry pirates, walking…


Good Times and Quiet Moments in Kent County, Delaware

The sound of slot machines competes with the excited cries of winners sitting at the nearby gambling tables. Meanwhile, silence reigns at farms where horses—rather than tractors—pull plows. Welcome to Kent County, Delaware. Dover, the state capital, retains the charm that William Penn envisioned when he laid it out in 1683. The graceful Dover Green…