Florida features so many destinations, and hotels are so numerous, that making a choice can be overwhelming. Even narrowing down a list of prospective hotels can be daunting. At the high end, chances are you won’t really go wrong no…
So said a divorced mom of two to me about going through life a bit solo right now. I am always surprised when otherwise outgoing people suddenly become needy and clingy when confronted by an adventure that they have to…
I had no idea what a huge deal a snowflake’s refusal to morph into an Olympic ring could be until the global coverage of the snafu at Friday’s opening. That such a commotion was made about a snowflake seems to…
Watching Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine on DVD, I am once again, and surprisingly so, drawn to San Francisco. An unlikely tourism vehicle, the film focuses on a selfish and largely unlikeable society woman played by Cate Blanchett who married up…
Another year, not enough travel! I’d hit the road all the time if my checkbook would let me. But I am grateful for all of the places I have been so far and to have goals about where I want…
Some places stick in your memory even decades after you’ve been there. There’s magic in their atmosphere, or good fairies floating in their mirrors, or memorable scents in their soaps that bring serenity on a visit. No matter how far…
Sitting at an outdoor café three blocks from the Rome Termini one morning 24 years ago waiting for my friend Julie to arrive, I had no appreciation of the folly of our planning. In the days before cell phones, all…
If I’m not reading stories, I’m trying to live them, and there’s no better place to do that than while traveling. I’m not so much seeking escape as looking for a going-to. No matter how long I’m in a new place, I want to feel like I live there.
That’s harder for me in the big hotel chains in the United States, but living my dream, bit by bit, is far more possible in places like Florence. The last time the Youthful Adventurer and I were there, we walked from the train station, rolling our suitcases along the ancient sidewalks to Hotel Alessandra, then up the stairs to the tiny elevator, and then up to the second floor (which was the third, in my mind) to a charming safe harbor.
Our street-front windows allow us to watch the tourists below; we linger over breakfasts and savor our coffee; I’m grateful the Youthful Adventurer has managed to abandon his penchant for too sweet cereals during our time here. We are in the breakfast room when I meet a woman from London who in the space of 20 minutes tells me all about contemporary politics in the UK and the specialized tour she is taking in Florence to learn all about Galileo. I am reminded that all of the beautiful churches we are visiting on this trip can’t mask the misdeeds of some of their leaders. The threat of science to the Church seems remote to my life, but it wasn’t to Galileo, who managed to rile religion with his ideas that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Church didn’t kill him, but Galileo was accused of heresy, tried, convicted, and sentenced to house arrest.
I’d never have learned all of this in a large hotel, where I would have sat, alone or with my son, and not talked to strangers. It’s the smaller experiences, the kind you can get in inexpensive, unpretentious, old hotels, those build in the 1500s, that make the trip.
—Lori Tripoli
Indulging in some multigenerational travel with the youthful adventurer, the Bashful Adventurer books a stay in the Hotel Suisse Rome. Will it work out?
Three times on my recent trip to Cancun I wound up on a Gray Line tour, and my experiences ranged from “highly recommend—would sign up again” to a less-than-entirely-enthusiastic “you get what you pay for.” Working in 700 locations around…