Tag archives: vacation

Working Vacations with Los Padres Forest Association
By Joanne A Calitri   |   December 6, 2022

Coming out of Thanksgiving and heading into the holidays that mark the end of the year – if you are thinking you may want a vacation in 2023, love being outdoors in the wilderness, and want to do something to help our natural forest in California, check out the Los Padres Forest Association website. There […]

Families in Paradise: “Are we there yet?”
By Leslie Westbrook   |   May 3, 2022

How can you — or your kids — not be happy when the GPS navigational voice instructs: “Make a left on Vacation Road.” Especially after that relentless, age-old question: “Are we there yet?” Even a high school friend of mine’s face lit up when I told him I was heading to San Diego’s Paradise Point. […]

South of the Border, Down Baja Sur Way
By Leslie Westbrook   |   March 29, 2022

La Paz, Baja California Sur, México. Sometimes, just getting to your travel destination and safely back home is good enough. But when you return and can brag about snorkeling with the biggest fish in the world, which have 300 rows of teeth and don’t eat humans, that’s something. Whale sharks (which are neither whales nor […]

Going SLO in Spring
By Leslie Westbrook   |   March 1, 2022

Rome, Italy. Postponed.  Las Vegas, Nevada. Posponed.  Loreto, Baja, Mexico. Posponed. Spring 2020 — this was my dilemma (as a longtime travel writer with several assignments in place), when a nasty little virus called COVD-19 began wreaking havoc with the world. It was a year the world remembers well – and not particularly affectionately. Italy, […]

Some Like it Hot! Water. Food. Sun. Art… Not Necessarily in That Order A travel dispatch from greater Palm Springs
By Leslie Westbrook   |   June 10, 2021

I recently fled the post-COVID couldn’t-wait-to-travel-again-May-gray blues for a five-day escape to the Coachella “sink.” It’s not really a valley (this is a misnomer), but a geological basin, I learned on a lively San Andreas Fault Red Jeep Tour.  I went to visit a few friends, have a little R&R with pool time, learn more […]

Having a White Whale of a Time in Tuscany
By Ernie Witham   |   October 3, 2019

I’ve learned a few things over the years traveling with my wife. For one thing, she never packs enough socks. “Are those my Wednesday socks? I packed a pair for each day and now I’ll be a pair short!” “We got married in California. It’s a community state. Your socks are my socks.” “Oh yeah, […]

Buonasera!… again… and again…
By Ernie Witham   |   September 19, 2019

Turn right,” Jeeves, our Garmin GPS told us. Right would have taken us over the cliff. “Jeeves is lost,” I said.  “Swell,” Pat, who was driving, said. We were trying to get back to the tiny Tuscan village of Castiglione d’Orcia where we were renting an Airbnb just inside the Porta, the entrance into the […]

The Wilds of the Inland Passageway
By Ernie Witham   |   September 12, 2019

Cold?” Jackie pointed at the overhead heaters in the solarium ceiling on the back of the Alaskan ferry, Columbia. “With those things on the other night I felt like a French fry.” We had met Jackie earlier at breakfast. It was so crowded we had to sit at the counter. A young construction guy beside […]

Winter in Iceland
By Dale Zurawski   |   May 2, 2019

Walking off the plane and onto the icy runway, the message from Icelandair’s screen came to mind; the most amazing thing about Iceland is not the fact that it’s the third windiest place in the world, it’s the fact that hardly anyone lives in the first and second places. Don’t worry, Iceland is worth the […]

No Furniture? No Problem
By Jon Vreeland   |   February 15, 2018

What does a community of under 10,000 people do when a half-inch of massive deluge melts a recently charred sector of the San Ynez mountainside in a five-minute period, lathering a tranquil little village in a swathe of murderous muck and boulders, all in the early hours of a still, aphotic morning?  If you are […]

Summer Classic: A Vacation on the Coast of Maine
By Jerry Dunn   |   December 14, 2017

“There’s No Such Thing as ‘Fun for the Whole Family’.” – Jerry Seinfeld Funny! … and true? Recently, I had the chance to run a field test. When I turned (a boyish) 70, my wife gave me a remarkable present: I could choose a trip anywhere in the world. My mind flooded with ideas: seeing […]