The multi-country Europe trip works when the combination is honest. Here are three that genuinely do — and how to approach each one.
Stories That Inspire the Way You Travel
I've been traveling since before I could walk. Literally. So when I write about a place, it's not from a brochure. It's from a terrace, a back road, a kitchen table, or a train I took because the timing was right. Some pieces are practical — the timing that matters, the question to ask before you book. Some are just stories I couldn't stop thinking about long enough to keep to myself. Pour yourself a coffee. Or wine. Probably wine.
Pull up a chair. This is where the stories live.
Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, and the Baltics are built for summer. No heat problem, thinner crowds, and days that don’t end. Here’s the case.
The United States has a geography problem in the way people talk about it. The good stuff, in the popular imagination, lives on the edges. New York. Miami. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Everything in between is flyover country — a term that says more about the traveler than the terrain. The terrain is spectacular. Between […]
There is a particular kind of traveler — and I suspect you know one, or are one — who will spend months planning a trip to the south of France and drive past some of the most beautiful coastline in the world without stopping. The Northeast has a proximity problem. It’s too close to feel […]
I know the South. Born in Maryland, grew up in Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, and Atlanta. Spent most of my summers in Charleston. Family scattered across Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and the Carolinas meant long drives to see them, which I didn’t mind because it usually meant stopping at a yet-to-be-discovered barbecue spot. I’ve also lived […]
I have a confession that might surprise you, given what I do for a living. Some of the trips I think about most often weren’t to Portugal or Japan or the Amalfi Coast. They were within the United States. A long weekend somewhere I could drive to. A flight so short the ice in my […]
I’m home. Ten days in Portugal with Collette, twenty new acquaintances, and absolutely nothing on my to-do list. No restaurant reservations to confirm. No driving routes to second-guess. No backup hotels bookmarked in case something didn’t feel right. For the first time in longer than I can remember, my only job was to show up. […]
Portugal looks small on a map. It is not small. That’s the first thing worth knowing before you start planning. The country is roughly the size of Indiana, which sounds manageable until you realize that the drive from the southern coast to the northern wine regions takes the better part of a day, and that’s […]
August has a reputation problem. Ask most seasoned travelers what they think about August travel and you’ll hear some version of the same answer: too crowded, too expensive, too hot, too much. The airports are full of families in matching t-shirts. The hotels charge what they like because they can. Every good restaurant in every […]
If you’ve ever looked at a photo of Dubrovnik or Hvar and thought “I need to go there,” you’re right. You do. But here’s what I want you to know before you start planning: the Dalmatian Coast is one of those places where how you travel matters almost as much as where you go. You […]
