Canada’s Vancouver Island, just off the coast of British Columbia, is one of the best places in the world to see wild orcas. You can sign up for a kayaking trip out of Telegraph Cove or opt for a boat ride along the Johnstone Strait where pods of orcas spend their summer. Mr. M & […]
A Different Point of View in the Catskills
Every once in a while, Mr. M & I used to feel Manhattan’s concrete jungle closing in on us. When we needed to break free, my favorite escape was the Catskill region in upstate New York. A ninety minute drive from this skyline… … is this one! Day #11,132: Despite getting mildly lost on the […]
On the Ice in New Zealand
I did not expect to find myself on top of a glacier. Glaciers are, universally speaking, fairly Epic. You really don’t need to be on top of one to appreciate it. Besides, doesn’t that sort of stunt require dangling precariously above frozen crevasses with ice picks for hands? Fox Glacier sits frozen on the west […]
An Autumn Weekend in Vermont
It’s impossible to complain about the weather in California. Well… it’s certainly possible to complain about the weather, but you’ll sound like an ass and will get serious side-eye from anyone living someplace where Storm Watch 3000 means something more substantial than “maybe it’ll rain.” In fact, just one year ago, Mr. M & I found […]
The Land of Fire & Ice, Part Prir: Hot Spots
Day #11,402: We woke up to… sun! One way to save money in a country that’s insanely pricey- and Iceland is insanely pricey, even to us New Yorkers- is to live like the locals. Faced with a $14 per person continental breakfast at our motel, Mr. M & I fled to the town’s grocery store. […]
The Land of Fire & Ice, Part Tveir: Feeling Icy
Grouchy While Traveling is an inexcusable sin. There’s no crying in adventuring. But if this blog is actually chronicling my days and not just sugar-coating life, I gots to be honest. Day#11,401: I woke up grouchy. Maybe it was Iceland’s midnight sun shooting laser beams of light past our flimsy hotel room curtains (and leading […]
The Land of Fire & Ice, Part Einn: Independence
Days #11,399-11,400: By some turn of witchcraft, it takes less time to get to Iceland from NYC than it takes to make my usual pilgrimages home to LA. Four and a half hours after leaving JFK, Mr. M & I touched down near the barren, moonscaped town of Keflavik. Mood: Stellar. While Icelandair has the […]
India in August
Remember the Seinfeld episode-in-reverse where the gang heads to India for Elaine’s frenemy’s wedding? I always laugh at that scene where the groom’s (Indian) parents urge Elaine to stay home and just send a present instead. “India is a dreadful country,” the mother says. “Do you know they still have the plague?” Well, plague be […]
High Above Manhattan
One of my very most favorite places in New York exists thirty feet above the city. Beginning in 1847, an actual railway ran down the very busy 10th Avenue on the west side of Manhattan. Like seriously down the middle of the street. A freight train. When the train started colliding with pedestrians & their […]
The Land of Fire and Ice
Life is pretty darn fantastic when I’m given the opportunity to buy a new travel book. The occasion, you ask? Mr. M & I are headed to Iceland for the 4th of July weekend! From the pictures I’ve come across in my trip planning, Iceland seems to offer up unbelievably gorgeous natural scenery: waterfalls, glaciers, […]