Search results for

Have you been here? Tell us about it below!End your day in Old San Juan with a pre-dinner stroll along the water, alongside the Old City Walls. It’s that time of day when everything seems to slow down, even the waters of the Caribbean Sea begin to ease into a glassy stillness - perfectly reflecting the midnight blue sky and the incandescent glow of the street lamps. Start from Paseo de la Princesa, at the Raices Fountain, and wind your way around the walls. Take in the views of the setting sun from the benches that line the walkway. Reminisce about the day and linger. There’s no need to rush into the night and tomorrow will come soon enough.

Inspired by the lunar calendar, new spa treatments at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne resort on an island south of Miami Beach explore the moon’s influence on the senses. Products from Éminence’s biodynamic line utilize ingredients harvested during corresponding phases of the moon.

After falling in love with Salvador Dali at his museum in Figueres, we caught one of three buses out to the cliffside town of Cadaques where you can get to know Dali a bit more intimately by touring his house. Full of odds and ends, including mini cages where he kept crickets and a polar bear draped in jewels, his house also includes spectacular views (including this one) of the serene Port Lligat. Tips: You must book tickets in advance to tour his house, and double-check the bus schedules because there are only three buses per day that go from Figueres - Cadaques and back.

Japadog is one of those odd and wacky combinations of a hot dog with Japanese toppings, but it works! I had the Terimayo, a teriyaki-drenched dog topped with seaweed. Not substantial for the $5 price tag, but a good snack. The location on Robson is dine-in, and there are carts across the city.

One of Budapest‘s most history-laden spots, the enormous Heroes’ Square is framed by art museums near the City Park. But the main focal point here is Millennium Memorial, a tall column and colonnade structure completed in 1905 that commemorates the Hungarian conquering of the area a thousand years before (hence the name) and the founding of Hungary in 1896. The statues decorating the memorial depict the seven chieftains of the Magyars, and the figure atop the column is the archangel Gabriel. Fun fact: The first underground subway in continental Europe, built in 1896, terminated here. Be sure to visit at night because the square is even more majestic when lit up.

Far and away Seattle‘s most iconic structure, this U.F.O saucer on a stick is an Atomic Age baby—it only dates back to the 1962 World’s Fair. A 41-second elevator still whisks guests to the observation deck, which really ladles on the natural beauty when the clouds lift and “the mountains are out.” The Needle underwent a glorious $100-million “space-lift” in 2018. Innovations include floor-to-ceiling glass walls with benches that angle backwards (designed for great selfie angles—seriously!). The landmark also added the world’s first and only revolving glass floor, spinning under the Atmos Wine Bar. A café still serves quick bites, but the full-service restaurant has yet to reopen in early 2019. Below sprawls the Seattle Center’s carnival rides, science exhibits, world-famous glass art garden and the MoPop, a superb rock and sci-fi museum that resembles Jimi Hendrix’s smashed guitar when viewed from above

This is where everyone stops to smell the roses in the Rose City. Celebrating its centennial in 2017, the International Rose Test Garden is the nation’s oldest continually operating rose test garden (where varieties are evaluated for characteristics such as disease resistance, bloom size, and fragrance). Originally conceived as a way to preserve different varieties of European roses from the destruction of World War I, the garden today contains 10,000 plants across 4.5 acres in Washington Park. Best of all, it’s completely free, whether you want to compare green thumbs with professionals or take in the views of Mount Hood while breathing in the perfumed air.

When I stepped into the grand lobby of Québec’s Le Château Montebello, I felt like I was entering Paul Bunyan’s living room. Giant timbers braced a three-story-high ceiling, and a massive fireplace in the center radiated warmth in all directions. After checking in, I joined the guests gathered around the six-sided hearth and sank into a leather club chair. I spent the rest of the day by the fire, sipping hot toddies and napping, as the comfort of the crackling flames sent me and the other fireside dozers snuggling deeper into our cushions. I had come to ski some of the 65,000 acres of wooded backcountry that neighbor the resort, but the château was so welcoming, I found it hard to leave.


Often described as the world’s largest log cabin, the lodge and two other main buildings were constructed in 1930 from 10,000 red cedar logs and 500,000 handmade wooden shingles. The houses and the vast surrounding forests were long owned by the politically prominent Papineau family, and until 1970, the estate remained a private nature retreat for Canada’s upper class. As I walked through the château’s halls, the intricately carved banisters and exposed beams reminded me of the great western lodges in the U.S. national parks—only without any grumpy tourists demanding to know where the animals are.

In the guest rooms, deluxe amenities such as flat-screen TVs and rain-dome showerheads upstaged anything found in Yellowstone or Yosemite. Despite the modern perks, rawhide lampshades and other rustic details helped my suite retain its frontier appeal. When I got up to pull the plaid drapes closed that night, I watched a horse-drawn sleigh pass by, glowing in the moonlight against the dark ribbon of the frozen Ottawa River.

Without fresh snow to ski the next morning, I was left to explore the lodge’s other activities. I opted out of getting scrubbed with maple sugar at the spa or unsuccessfully flirting with French-Canadian women by the fire, and instead devoted the day to learning the inscrutable rules of curling. The château has an indoor ice rink dedicated to the sport, a national favorite that’s best described as a combination of shuffleboard and falling down a lot. My instructor was Henri, a kindly sexagenarian who, like many in Québec’s western Outaouais region, seemed more comfortable speaking French than English. As it turns out, kindly reassurance sounds the same in either language. But as my backside repeatedly hit the ice, Henri’s patient polyglot insistence that I was doing “une belle job” grew progressively less convincing.

After my rough-and-tumble day, I dined in the white-tablecloth Aux Chantignoles restaurant. Québecois cuisine dominates the menu, and I followed a dinner of tender venison osso buco with a slice of Québec’s famously sweet and jiggly sugar pie—think pecan pie sans pecans. Snow fell just in time for me to ski through the nearby forest on my last day. I spent a long afternoon there, gliding among stands of birch, pine, and spruce in the rolling Laurentian Highlands. Now and again, I paused to admire one of the countless frozen lakes, their smooth surfaces dotted with tracks left by moose and white-tailed deer. I skied in the silent wilderness until just after sunset. As the scent of a wood fire began to tickle my nose, I grew eager to cozy up by the hearth again. I turned back toward the château’s stone chimney, its rising plume of smoke signaling for my return.
This appeared in the November/December 2010 issue.

Just 45-minutes north of Belize City, Altun Ha is a complex of Mayan ruins dating back hundreds of years. Once the “treasury” for the Mayan people, Altun Ha is one of the most important Mayan sites in the country. Go on a tour of the place with Foolish Dreamzzz, a locally owned operator that will take your group at any size (and the price per person doesn’t change, whether you’re in a group of one or ten). Ask for Kendis Ferguson, the owner and a former history and social studies teacher. He and his company go above and beyond to make sure guests have all their questions answered, and he’ll even make sure you get to climb to the top of the ruins—something not a lot of tour guides in the area make the time to do. The views from there, of course, are amazing.

Hot chocolate may not sound like a Peruvian classic. However, this country grows some of the best cacao in the world, and sampling the local chocolate can be an exquisite experience. Be sure to visit the ChocoMuseo, a Latin American chocolate museum and workshop chain with locations in both Lima and Cusco. Here, you will find hot chocolate prepared fresh from pure, organic cacao bars – a truly decadent experience. You can customize your drink from a wide variety of chocolate types, based on place of origin and percent of pure cacao.

Chile’s national folk dance is a stylized depiction of the mating ritual between a rooster and a hen. Sounds silly? When danced with gusto—the man jangling his spurs loudly, circling his partner like a proud rooster strutting his stuff, and the woman, ever-resistant, flirtatiously waving her white kerchief—it can be utterly moving. Children are taught the cueca from an early age and dance in traditional costumes during the week leading up to the September 18 national independence observances. Establishments known as fondas are also set up for a week in September as temporary venues for traditional cueca (even as some complain there’s more and more cumbia, less and less cueca), and there are clubs open year-round where families—including Grandma—learn and practice the dance.

There are a few countries in the world where the ocean encroaches deep into the heart of the desert: Qatar is one of them. There only 30 singing sand dunes sites in the world and Qatar has one of them. The combination of these two unique features makes a desert safari in Qatar an unforgettable experience. Several companies offer 4x4 desert safaris which include everything from the thrill of dune bashing—the drivers go up and down giant dunes—to stops at Bedouin tents for dates and tea, full BBQ dinners at campsites, overnight camping, camel rides, and shisha stops, among others. Singing sand dunes, also called booming sand dunes, are rare dunes of sand that emit an audible acoustic reverberation when the actual grains are disturbed or moved. Luckily, catching the singing dunes doesn’t require a tour company. It requires the right combination of sand particle size, temperature and humidity for sand dunes to “sing” and some sand-boarding down the dune to create an avalanche. The bigger avalanche the louder the sound is.

Cicada Lodge is run by the native Jawoyn people and is the only luxury accommodation in Australia’s awe-inspiring Nitmiluk National Park, roughly four and a half hours from Darwin. The word Nitmiluk (pronounced nit-me-look) means “cicada place” and refers to an Aboriginal creation myth where a Jawoyn man hears the sound of cicadas from deep within a gorge. That’s only the beginning of the indigenous influence here. Aboriginal dot paintings hang on bedroom walls; unheard-of ingredients flavor the foods; and indigenous stories and traditions enliven tours that local guides lead throughout the park’s 13 gorges. The wood-paneled restaurant and pool deck, connected by glass doors, form the centerpiece of the lodge. They serve as the communal gathering place for meals, sunset drinks, and leisurely downtime. In 2014, the lodge won the prestigious Gold Plate award for its modern twist on “bush tucker” (indigenous food).

Located in the middle of New York harbor, less than half a mile from Manhattan (and even closer to Brooklyn), 172-acre Governors Island feels like a world unto itself, far from the bustling city. It has played a key role in the defense of New York at various points and two fortifications here, Fort Jay and Castle Williams, reflect that history. From 1966 to 1996, the island was a Coast Guard station; since it closed, the city, state, and federal governments have discussed various plans for the island’s development. In the meantime, it is open to the public for six months each year, from May 1 to October 31, when it is possible to wander among the Coast Guard barracks, visit the commander’s house, and bike around the mostly car-free island. Ferries depart from both Manhattan and Brooklyn starting at 10 a.m. and running until 6:15 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. During many weekends in the summer, art fairs, food festivals, and other events help draw visitors to the island, but even if you go on a day without anything special scheduled, a journey here provides a refreshingly different perspective on New York.

Following a multi-million-dollar overhaul in 2015, this ranch-style Hill Country resort—which is part of the Destination Hotels collection and less than 20 minutes from the airport—has emerged as a spot where both families and the adults-only crowd feel at home. For the former, there are plenty of places for fun on the 550-acre property, including five pools (one is just for kids, with two water slides and a toddler splash area), an arcade (for ages 13 and up), tennis courts, and miles of scenic trails. The hotel even has a partnership with high-end baby gear label Babiege, which grants guests discounts on crib, stroller, and accessory rentals they might need to enjoy a day out. Meanwhile, grown-ups will appreciate amenities like two championship golf courses, Texas-inspired treatments at the Loma de Vida Spa & Wellness (set on one of the highest points in San Antonio, with views to match), an adults-only pool, and private poolside cabanas (available for a fee), which come stocked with fridges, HDTVs, local snacks, and a personal attendant.

The 496 guestrooms also cater to a variety of needs. The main rooms and suites feature great views, NEST products, rain showerheads and plush furnishings, while the villas set on the golf course offer plenty of space for families, plus a separate reception, complimentary golf carts, oversized tubs, and their own pool bar, cafe, and market. For those seeking some privacy, there’s SEVEN, a 21-and-over floor with a dedicated concierge, lounge, upgraded bath products, private check-in, and more. As you might expect, the selection of eight restaurants and bars is equally varied, ranging from a grab-and-go market, poolside grill, and casual cantina, to the fine-dining Signature, with menus by James Beard Award-winning chef and San Antonio native Andrew Weismann.