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On the non-descript, busy corner of Bucareli and Morelos streets in Mexico City is a café with a famous history: Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra met here at Café La Habana several times, chain smoking and drinking strong coffee, to plan the Cuban Revolution. Nowadays, you can still get excellent coffee—and pretty good food—while you plan something a little less dramatic (but more enjoyable), like your vacation itinerary. Old journalists and businessmen congregate here for hours on end while salt-of-the-earth, slightly surly waitresses take your order and bring you your food and drink. Come for breakfast and order their chilaquiles, motuleños, or molletes, and wash it down with an espresso or café americano.

At Sewall’s Point in the Harbour Bay Plaza on S.E. Ocean Blvd. (3720 ), you can dine in an authentic Italian restaurant on fresh, tasty fare. Renato’s has been in this location for 18 years pleasing their regular customers and many newcomers each year. This is a family owned restaurant that is run by Renato & Josephine Maira whose roots are Sicilian. Josephine makes sure to stop by each table and chat with the diners. She is friendly and cheerful. The staff is helpful and professional. The restaurant’s decor is all Italian from the authentic Sicilian hand painted donkey cart to the murals of different cities and towns in Italy. Family recipes from grandparents and parents are successfully used in Renato’s. The food is well prepared and tasty. Try the Antipasto Misto, Chicken Scarparello, or Linguine Vongole. Don’t forget expresso and desert. The wine list is excellent and extensive. There is outdoor patio seating as well as the indoor dining rooms. On Friday and Saturday evenings, Zoltan Racz entertains with international accordion music. Try Renato’s Italian Ristorante & Grill. You won’t be disappointed if you like authentic Italian food. Another plus: they accept reservations. (772) 219-9600

I have to admit, I didn’t want to like this place. I used to come to this location (previously known as Smokey’s) for years to eat great local food and enjoy a laid back vibe... While getting gas, of course. But then the previous West Indian owner moved away to Antigua only to be replaced by a statesider. I thought my days of liming at the solitude gas station with so many other locals and eating great West Indian fare were over. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d say the new owner has gone out of his way to make Ziggy’s an active and positive member of the local community, but everything he’s done just has this natural feel to it. Like he’s not even trying, he just IS a part of the community. Local foods like roti, johnny cake, and more still find their home at Ziggy’s. Plus now they’re accompanied by frequent charity events, eating contests, concerts, and even dance competitions... All at an awesome gas station. It may seem odd to suggest stopping by a gas station, but you’d be missing a great new addition to Crucian life without a visit to this libation station.

Had the tastiest Laing Pizza during a trip to CamSur (Camarines Sur), Bicol Region, Philippines. This is a great example of fusion food which combines an Italian pizza with a very local Filipino dish called Laing. Laing is a dish made of gabi (taro) stem and leaves and coconut milk, which originated from the Bicol Region. Since Bicol is one of the few regions in the Philippines that love to eat spicy food, Laing is heavily spiced with siling labuyo (red hot chilies). Different versions have come about adding a bit of bagoong (fermented shrimp) or meat to the dish. With the Laing Pizza we ate, the spicyness of the Laing combined with the gooey cheese of the Pizza simply wakes up those taste buds! I would definitely want to go back for more :-) You can try this at the cafe inside Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC) in Camarines Sur, which is a popular venue for several world events involving wakeboarding. You can also do some wakeboarding yourself or get some lessons if you’ve never tried it. It’s fun! There are several accommodation options inside the complex from budget to high end.

The Elliott Bay Book Company is the Seattle bookstore and, thankfully, survived its move from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill with soul and towering cedar bookcases intact. Elliott Bay lost a significant chunk of square footage during the move but gained a home right in the heart of Capitol Hill. Which makes it even easier to execute the ideal lazy Sunday afternoon combo: new novel + Fonte latte and one of the book-size housemade muffins from the on-site café (if it’s sunny, make a beeline for the grassy Cal Anderson park, just across the street). The food is northwest downhome—unpretentious salads with local greens, wholesome soups—but the abundant outlets and cozy café vibe make up for any food misses.

Try it there: The lemon crepe

Bring it home: Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and tickets to a Neptune Theater reading

One of my favorite dive sites on the west coast of Puerto Rico is Crashboat in Aguadilla. This shore dive is easily accessible for all levels of diving, and you’re guaranteed to see something amazing on this artificial structure. Crashboat is named for this once Air Force based marina, where the “crashboats” would deploy to retrieve the crashed planes from training sessions of Air Force pilots. It was later abandoned and turned into a recreational area for locals and dive enthusiasts. Scout the pilings for seahorses, frogfish, octopi, and lionfish. At maximum depth of 30 feet, find a sunken base where bigger fish like to hide. Bring your flashlight to scope out the interior. Not a diver? No problem. Enjoy the sandy beaches, reggaeton music, and aromas of delicious Puerto Rican food all day long. One entire side of this recreational park is lined with street vendors selling food, handicrafts, and drinks. Want that true Puerto Rican vibe? Want to see how the locals relax on a weekend? Crashboat is your place. But if you’re not interested in the crowds, come here in the morning on a weekday. I dive here regularly, and I avoid crowds by diving early. Enjoy!

When Southern Ocean Lodge, the flagship property of Australian hotel brand Baillie Lodges, opened in 2008, it was Kangaroo Island’s first true luxury lodge, known for its cinematic spot atop grass-covered limestone cliffs, with curved guest suites facing the namesake seas. Surrounded on three sides by national parks, Southern Ocean Lodge connected travelers with Australia’s powerful natural landscapes. Then in early January 2020, wildfires consumed more than half of Kangaroo Island, reducing the ecological paradise to sandy hills and blackened branches. Southern Ocean Lodge was a casualty of the blaze.


As AFAR’s Katherine LaGrave reported in her feature on the island, rebuilding began in earnest in February 2022, with the goal of becoming more sustainable: “The new lodge will use 25 percent less energy than the original lodge, and diesel fuel consumption will be halved. There will be rainwater harvesting, reliance on a hybrid solar-and-battery system, and elevated boardwalks to minimize impact on the health of coastal plants. Smart landscaping will create a sort of buffer around the lodge.”



Along with the new sustainable choices, the lodge has replicated the footprint of the original property, with 25 guest rooms slightly reoriented to optimize sea views. A new ultra-premium suite, the Ocean Pavilion, has up to four bedrooms and bathrooms (or two separate suites) with an outdoor terrace and private pool. And the ever-popular main lodge still has a Great Room with a suspended fireplace and a deck with a plunge pool that juts toward the sea.

The classic cocktail list at The Rarebit is hard to beat: Moscow mules served in gorgeous copper mugs, Manhattans with a touch of Benedictine. The food menu is composed of similarly solid throwbacks: a pork chop with mac and cheese and green beans, a perfect chicken club sandwich.

This restaurant feels like you stepped back in time - think Mexico in the 70s. The story goes - it all began in the VW van in Playa del Carmen. Tacombi used to sell tacos out of the van, and now he has a nice, cozy spot in Soho where the van is parked. It’s a garage with lights strung in the air. It just feels cool to be in. The design is great, but the food is even better. Virtually any tacos you order are wonderful. I also recommend the guacamole appetizer - yum! And don’t leave without ordering a drink.

Don’t expect to find any Beijing residents on Wangfujing Snack Street, home of spiders, scorpions, starfish and pretty much anything else that can be skewered and cooked. This is firm tourist territory, a place for visitors to test their mettle when it comes to snacking on creatures that have six or eight legs or float about in the sea. It’s almost a rite of passage, to experience foods that most locals would turn their noses up at, and one that usually ranks among the top memories of a trip to Beijing. Scorpions on a stick seem to be particularly fascinating to visitors. In fact, during the Beijing Olympics it would have been easier to make a list of the visiting journalists who didn’t write a story about them. But, and this seems to be rarely mentioned, not everything on snack street has a ‘Man v. Food’ feel. The stalls offer far more identifiable snacks. Fried dumplings. Steamed buns. Mountains of noodles. Jellied acorn and chestnut. Corn. And given the overall cleanliness of the spot, perhaps due to its high tourism profile, it is generally safe to eat here. So, don’t feel you have to stick to the scorpions. The steamed buns will do, too.

The coffee may not be the best in Siem Reap and the food can be hit and miss. But there are few more relaxed places to hang out than the wooden tables and benches at the front of this sunny cafe opposite the riverside. Owned by two Melbourne sisters who do a lot of charitable work, it’s a good spot to meet expats and there’s a noticeboard promoting volunteer opportunities and other ways to give back.

With a fantastic location by Hoan Kiem Lake and some of the best-prepared Vietnamese food in the Old Quarter, this stylish venue is onto a winner. The dishes here are very much old-style Vietnamese. There are no bells and whistles or attempts at fusion, but down-home creations such as pork steamed in coconut, fried tofu with lemongrass, and shrimp in chili sauce are right on the money.

Vietnamese food is widely regarded as one of the world’s healthier cuisines. There’s nothing particularly holistic or nutritious about this traditional favorite however. A local variant on steak and eggs, the dish is a calorific wonder. Steak is sautéed in butter on a sizzling platter, an egg is added and some hot-dog style sausages complete the picture. Mop it up with a banh mi baguette and wash it down with a glass of potent coffee.

For decades, the venerable Geronimo, situated in a 1756 adobe, has been serving a bevy of culinary delights. From the house favorites like peppery elk tenderloin to New Mexico lamb chops, the food is accessible and the timeless milieu is intimate. Sit on the front patio with a cocktail for the full Canyon Road people-watching experience. Inside, the stylish series of small dining rooms showcases wood floors, taxidermy, fireplaces, and beamed ceilings.

Come summer, locals flock to the tranquil patio for al fresco dining. The new chef is the likable Marc Quiñones, whose kitchen churns out Southwestern food with molecular gastronomy. Commence your meal with the award-winning tortilla soup or green chili scottish salmon tartare. For dinner, the seasonally changing menu features dishes like organic chicken with goat cheese polenta, and strawberry brined duck breast.