We recently had an absolute blast traveling to this exotic paradise with long time friends and our grown kids. Our dear friend Pam has lived on the island for 30 years and insisted on taking us to her favorite spots. We were able to experience Oahu from a locals perspective and now you will benefit too from her awesome ideas!
Lucky for us, Roni McGuire, an almost Empty Nester, took a chance and reached out to me via email. Why not she thought? Roni was looking for an additional way to market her exquisite rental property in East Hampton. So she researched empty nester travel writers and thought she and I would hit it off. She was right. After several phone conversations we have easily become fast friends. Empty nesters have so much in common and can connect on so many levels. We all totally understand each other from a parental perspective as well as a myriad of other topics.
Yes, it’s true, the Los Angeles Times is packing up and moving from Downtown Los Angeles. The new owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, announced in April, that he is vacating their historic, architecturally significant home and taking The Times to El Segundo because he could not reach a satisfactory lease agreement. The new building is just about twenty miles (but a long commute) from Downtown. The landowners wanted to increase the rent by $1 million per month. Wow!
This news came as a huge shock to the employees of the newspaper and Los Angeles history will be forever changed. The fearless leader of our Happy Hour Hiking Club, author and columnist Chris Erskine, has worked for the LA Times for twenty-eight years and he was able to arrange a special tour for us just before they all left for good.
Trying to decide what to see in Seattle is a major challenge, but a fantastic problem to have! The city is so amazing and there are so many tasty restaurants, picturesque spots and fun bars. Time and again many friends and colleagues ask me where to go and where to eat in Seattle. These personal recommendations are our absolute favorites and are places we go on a regular basis. This list does not include every single touristy activity – you can get those from another travel site or guide book. Of course there are several insanely great shopping areas (Downtown and University Village are our favorites) and a visit to the Flagship Nordstrom is a must.
Angela, my dear friend from college and avid traveler, has returned to the blog to share their luxurious adventure in Portugal. I didn’t know nearly enough about this incredible country, but now I know that a trip to Portugal must be at the top of my travel adventure list!
Portugal had been on our travel radar for some time. Between reading about it on travel sites, seeing Porto featured on my favorite fashion blog, and one of our daughters having visited Lisbon when she was studying in Madrid years ago, that was enough to whet our appetites.
Happy Friday! If you missed it…You can find this week’s post about == > How to Stay Fit When You Travel ===> HERE My Friday Roundup: Links to Awesome Stories You Have Probably Not Seen. Don’t you love it when someone else does the work? OMGee 20 Books everyone ill be talking about this Summer! …
Well, first of all this is a TALL order. Second of all, it takes some work. Third of all, nobody’s perfect, especially me.
I think there is a misunderstanding that when someone sees a post of an amazing restaurant dish or fabulous handcrafted cocktail, they assume that we eat this way all the time. No, not true at all. By the same token when we post happy things on Facebook all the time it implies that our lives are perfect! Nope, not true either! Read on my friend…
Here’s one more adventure to share from our recent trip to New York City.
It was late April, surely it was time for the arrival of Spring in New York? Right? The weather has been so strange this year. For most of the country and my friends in the Mid West and in the East the temps were still extremely chilly and they even endured a recent snowstorm. Ridiculous!
While on my recent trip to Nebraska in late April it was freezing cold and there was snow on the ground. What? When I agreed to attend an ecotourism conference in Kearney, Nebraska did I ever imagine it would be this frigid! Ha, joke’s on me! And there’s more…
It seems that lately since the whole Facebook privacy scandal, social media has become more of a negative than a positive. There are certainly a great number of attributes I do not like about it, but there are plenty of things social media does well.
Using Instagram as a referral system is definitely a popular activity and many people (like me) use it as an important food and travel resource. Prior to traveling to a new city, I peruse the hashtags and check out the restaurant accounts and often find some pretty yummy things. Receiving a New York City restaurant recommendation from a reliable source and not just from YELP is a much better scenario. At least for us, it is. I do trust those sites, but when the Editor in Chief of Bon Apetít Magazine recommends a local, smallish, out-of-the-way little restaurant and says “It is some of the best food I have had in a while”, I listened!
We are a family that shares links we find in the news. All six of us have many of the same interests and no one has the time to scour the web to find everything. Nick’s girlfriend Kylie is always on top of the newest and coolest restaurant news. Alex and Nick are especially good at finding super cool info, that I have never heard of. Brent and Craig pass on business and sports news.
My interests lie in a variety of subjects like home design, travel, recipes, fashion and newly published books. We typically text each other on our family group text, but for today’s post that wouldn’t quite work for you and me, would it?
Get updates on new podcast episodes, blog posts, and travel news that I'm excited to share with you!
