If a timid traveler needs just one book to catapult from a shelf, hit her on the head, and thrust itself into her backpack, it’s Lidia Yuknavitch’s Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books 2010). Take the travel guides, yes, but bring along a work that will get you on the plane, get you to the Via…
Category: Adventuring
Amusement Park Politics
I don’t know how many times I visit Florida’s Epcot before I realize Russia and former Soviet-bloc countries are not represented in its World Showcase pavilions. France and the UK most certainly are on its map, as are Mexico, Morocco, even China. But where is Russia? Czech Republic? Latvia? It turns out that back in…
On Lake Vacations
If I live on a lake, do I really need to vacation at a different one?, I wonder as the Brawny Sherpa, the Bonus Adventurers, and I jump into the car and head north toward Lake George, N.Y. I laughed when a Manhattan-based editor asked me whether, as a resident of a more rural part…
Greening My Road Trip
Sigh. We all know it’s less than environmentally correct to hop into the car on one of the most traffic-ridden weekends of the year, but sometimes we all just need to get away. Two environmentally cool things about my road trip to Lake George, N.Y.: Seeing a farmer’s market at a travel plaza on the…
August Anywhere: Beaches
Mid-Mid-August, end-of-summer, work slowdown, mind elsewhere, vacation, a break, who can concentrate? I am here, but my head is at the beach. —Lori Tripoli Planning a beach vacation? Consider these destinations: Gulf Getaway: Oasis in Condo-Land Biscayne, Largo, West My Kind of Camp: The Jersey Shore Stay in a Sandcastle on Coney Island
Not Shopping
My riffs on street art and graffiti in Germany, Italy, New York City, Mexico, Ecuador, and Russia are not meant to be exhaustive catalogs of either street art or graffiti in any of these places. Instead, they are meant as a reminder to travel with your head up. At home, too often, my focus is…
7/11/1779: Feeling Bedford Burn
It’s hard to envision bucolic Bedford, N.Y. as a war zone, but it was one during the Revolutionary War. British forces traveled up Guard Hill Road and then burned all but one of the houses in the village 235 years ago today. How often I drive on Guard Hill and think only fleetingly about its…
Newport: Trinity Church, Where Were You in the Revolution?
Visiting Trinity Church in Newport, RI, the Bashful Adventurer can’t help but wonder how religion and politics intertwined during the American Revolution.
Watch with a Tourist’s Eyes
How many times do I visit Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. before noticing a plaque about George Washington’s meetup with Comte de Rochambeau, a French general sent to help with the Revolutionary War? I volunteer at the hospital for years; I visit friends and relatives there over a period of decades, but it…
Where We Should All Be on July 4th
In between barbeques and fireworks on Independence Day, travelers might take a few minutes to visit a cemetery containing Revolutionary War dead and give a bit of thanks. Imagine taking on a super power in a place where there were no gunpowder manufacturers—and winning. For those with the courage to serve, thank you. —Lori Tripoli…