Tag archives: traveling
The world knows and loves Rick Steves – our shared Global Citizen whose dispatches from the Olde World edify and ennoble. Let’s imagine Rick. His blue button-down shirt is neatly tucked into dark blue jeans, his brown leather shoes are well-worn, pliant, and have thick clod-hopper soles, his inimitably cheery baby blues smile from behind […]
From my kayak, there was no touching down on any beach on Vandenberg Air Force Base. This remote stretch of rugged Central California Coastline is off limits to Joe Public, even if the only member of the common man within the region was a salt-encrusted, sunscreen-smeared paddler in search of empty surf. I was paddling […]
The sounds and movements were more than familiar to us. The knocks, snorts, sneezes and galumphing led us to the most northern and newest northern elephant seal colony in California, and the world. The Lost Coast in Northern California’s Humboldt County, and beneath the mighty King Range, offers refuge for lots of wildlife; seabirds, raptors, […]
The last time I visited Oceanside, in northern San Diego County, was a decade ago. There was a lively restaurant, The Flying Pig Pub and Kitchen, which survived COVID (that I did not revisit this time) and a lone little Victorian cottage, the “Graves House” sitting in an empty, weedy beachfront field. More popularly known […]
Our short but harrowing lift, from La Bella Palermo to the car rental agency, was thanks to a hair-raising ride by our very own Parnelli Jones. Our taxi driver seemed both skeptical and disdainful of the fact that I, a “woman of a certain age,” would be sharing the driving in Sicily with my friend […]
They behaved like rambunctious children – playful, and inquisitive. They’d also never seen a kayaker before. Three-month-old northern fur seal pups were almost knocking me out of my kayak while paddling around Point Bennett on San Miguel Island. May and June are an exciting time to be on the Channel Islands National Park. There’s anticipation […]
A half mile up Scorpion Canyon on Santa Cruz Island, I could hear the deep barks and bellows of raucous California sea lions. Their symphony of bawls carried beneath the low canopy of dewy fog hovering above the Santa Barbara Channel, and the Channel Islands National Park. It was 4 am, and as time crept toward […]
If it’s good enough in this century for Madonna, Sir Paul McCartney and Zendaya, (whom I just missed by a day) – and in the past century frequent visitor Winston Churchill, as well as U.S. Ambassadors Joe and Rose Kennedy, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats, and other political and literary movers and […]
Plenty, as usual, it turns out. Before checking into my second Hawaiian hotel (one of four on my eight-night islands foray), I had a fantastic brunch/lunch at Istanbul Hawaii, a delightful Turkish restaurant opened five years ago in the Kamake’e Corridor of Ward Village. Turkish native Chef Ahu Hettema, along with her mother Nili Yildirim […]
I traveled to the Hawaiian Islands for eight nights and visited four hotels this past spring for three reasons: 1. To see my dear friend of half a century – the amazing octogenarian artist, Dr. Masami Teraoka and his family who live on the island of Oahu, while reporting on my tourism stops. 2. To give […]
It was another 2:30 am wake up call to drive from slumbering Carpinteria out to the Carrizo Plain National Monument. I was chasing another breathtaking sunrise in partly cloudy weather, another hopeful moment with whatever grassland fauna revealed itself. Although it would’ve been real easy to sleep in, wildlife waits for nobody. It would’ve gnawed […]
My cosmic arrival, after a short flight from Honolulu, on the scarred and traumatized island of Maui, began auspiciously with my Uber driver Giuliano and his purple unicorn. A lanky, charming lad, the yoga instructor/wellness coach said he was “into shamanic sounds healings.” Giuliano and his talisman (along with a crystal heart dangling from his […]
After bushwhacking and rambling across three mountain ranges and crossing two rivers between Nira Camp in the Los Padres National Forest and the Carrizo Plain National Monument, amazingly I didn’t find a single tick on me. It was December 2023, and fortunately, the same went for my five comrades as we spent seven days and […]
As I set foot into the legendary Rioja wine region, I knew I was about to embark on a journey like no other. After enduring countless delays, my long-awaited adventure – to Rioja, Spain, for the prestigious Rioja Wine Educator Certification Course – felt like a triumphant victory. Nestled in the heart of Spain, Rioja […]
Why travel? To celebrate a special occasion? Birthday, anniversary, retirement, new job, you name it.For a change of scenery? To alleviate boredom? To explore new regions, to be pampered or just sneak off and indulge? Whatever your reason, I love flopping onto a freshly made bed in a hotel room – preferably with a view […]
The little North Coast town of Jenner was still asleep as I slid my kayak off the boat ramp and into the glassy waters of the Russian River, a couple hours north of the San Francisco Bay. I had a solid head start, maybe 90 minutes of paddling before sunrise would light up the tallest […]
There’s nothing more SoCal picturesque than cruising down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, in case you’re not a Californian reading this story) on a sunny summer day. I headed to one of Laguna Beach’s stellar spots: Crystal Cove and Montage Laguna Beach, perched elegantly above the Pacific and adjacent to a lovely seaside public park […]
As I do most days after leading a kayak tour at Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island, I took a stroll with my camera after everyone had left the island and returned to the harbor in Ventura. As small waves crashed on the deserted, cobbled shoreline, I noticed something odd approaching the beach just before […]
Just before COVID, the British journal New Scientist offered a tour to Madagascar, and I immediately placed a deposit. More than 20 years ago, I had attended a talk on Madagascar, which piqued my interest but also only offered a bleak interpretation of its conservation. (For a fuller discussion, see my article titled, “A Lesson […]
Santa Barbara Travel Bureau co-owners Charles and David de L’Arbre and his family left Brussels, Belgium, in May 1940 just ahead of an advancing German army. Charles’s father packed their things, filled the family Buick’s gas tank, threw another tank of gas in the trunk, and took off. Charles recalls that his grandmother was walking […]
