What fantastic day we had in the Coachella Valley! We met up with Dick Hoffman, a 17-year veteran guide with Desert Adventures, who piled us into a 1981 Jeep CJ, that holds eight passengers, with three across seating in the back. We set off to explore the oasis that surrounds […]
Palm Springs was a surprise after the drive through the desert. After passing so many chain restaurants and big box stores, it was a treat to arrive downtown to find people walking around the sidewalks, and to duck into local stores and closely spaced businesses. Our first stop was the […]
In the evening light after a very warm day in Long Beach, Naples Island was full of families with kids splashing in Alamitos Bay and others embarking out in the sunset on paddle boards, one girl chatting on her cell with no fear of the consequences of falling off the wobbly […]
When we set up a trip to Southern California for our February vacation, Long Beach was one of the cities suggested to me by California tourism. I had no idea what I’d see in Long Beach, I only knew that the Queen Mary had been docked here since 1967, and […]
We’re flying to Los Angeles on Saturday, and we’ll pick up a car and drive to Long Beach in the afternoon. That’s where the Queen Mary is permanently docked now. We will start out Sunday on a whale watching and dolphin cruise and later check out Shoreline Village, which was […]
It’s an institution that I’ve never set foot in. The white restaurant, set back from road, with the big parking lot in Hadley, across from the Mountain Farms Mall. The crowded lot said a lot. Indeed the place was packed when Ed, John and I showed up for lunch. We […]
I have been trying hard to improve my GoNOMAD newsletter opening rate, realizing that you can’t just assume that people will open every email. You have to put more into it. I did some reading and was quite inspired by a blog that challenged my thinking. Though the blog maintains […]
New York City is leaping ahead of the rest of the country with a plan that’s just now starting service to install free Wi-Fi kiosks all over the city that provide the fastest internet, eight times as fast as the average apartment served by Time Warner Cable. It’s an […]
Today’s a funny kind of day. I woke up feeling terrible and had two new interns coming in to learn the ropes in the office at 9 am. But I was very prepared–I decided to hire one of my former interns, Danielle Aihini, to teach the two new interns all […]
I’m sort of an irregular skier, but I’m fascinated by how the sport has evolved and how different it is in different parts of the country. Today I just finished skiing my second day at Mont Tremblant in Quebec, where just about everyone is friendly and kind. Nearly every single […]
Tonight we had a nighttime adventure in the deep dark woods of the Laurentian mountains in Quebec. Our group of 21, ranging in age from 6 to 65, met up at the base lodge of Mont Tremblant and tried on snowshoes, then we took the gondola straight up to the […]
Here I am in the land of poutine. Never heard of it? You are probably in the majority, because the only place I’ve seen poutine regularly appear on menus is up here in Quebec. Some times it will be a novelty item, available far and few between in New England, […]