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Top Travel Days of 2024, A Stop at The Rock of Gibraltar

As soon as we got our passports stamped, walked into Gibraltar, and met our gregarious guide, John Lopez, I knew we were in for a treat. Within moments, John was commenting on our daughter, Melanie’s latest purchase in Marbella, a sweater adorned with very large strawberries. “Ah, you’ll be easy to spot in a crowd,” John joked in his slight British accent.

The next four hours was a whirlwind of a tour on this unique spit of land at the southern edge of Spain, told by us by the best possible guide, someone born and raised in Gibraltar. Who better to explain the complex history of this British protectorate of some 38,000 people surrounding this jagged monolith that rises 1,300 feet high. As we drove alongside the Rock of Gibraltar, stopping to visit a long cave, a labyrinth of tunnels used by military from the 1800s through World War II, and, of course, see the adorable monkeys that Winston Churchill loved having here, John would weave rhapsodic tales of his youth combined with the rich history of this place (while placing those same monkeys atop our kid’s heads). We would learn that this was the spot where Britain’s hero Lord Nelson sailed his fleet directly into the Spanish cotillion winning the famous Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Gibraltar is also where the Spanish dictator Franco cut off this piece of land from 1969 until 1985, placing a lock on the border so no one could cross, upset that the British would never give the land over to Spain. That was during John Lopez’s youth, where he would spend his boyhood with friends going through every tunnel in the storied Rock.

Our family of four was on the sixth day of a 9-day trip that brought us to Barcelona, Marbella, Gibraltar, and Malaga in the beginning of April. Gibraltar seemed like the least interesting locale when we put together the itinerary. But our son, Jake, insisted on going and it ended up being memorable.

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Favorite Travel Days in 2011, Rafting and Rock Climbing with Austin-Lehman Adventures in Alberta

Each January, I like to look back at the prior year of travel and pick my five favorite travel days that come to mind. Not to boast about where I’ve been on assignment, but to point you in the right direction. You’ll be happy to find yourselves in any of these five locales.

in late July, my family of four took a memorable six-day, five night trip into the Canadian Rockies with the highly reputable outfitter, Austin-Lehman Adventures. Based in neighboring Montana, few if any outfitters know this mountainous terrain better. Each day was jam-packed with adventure, like taking a glacier walk on the famous Icefields Parkway, biking down a backcountry road surrounded by snow-capped peaks on the outskirts of Banff, and taking walks away from the masses to a lonely lake in Lake Louise. Yet, it was hard to top the day we spent in Kananaskis Valley, an hour outside of Calgary. In the morning, we rafted the Kananaskis River and the afternoon rock climbed on the face on Mt. Yamnuska. The river was a rip-roaring ride on glacial-fed waters that certainly cooled down when splashed. My 15 year-old son, Jake, got a wake-up call when he was thrown out of the raft and we had to pull him back in.

At Yamnuska, I followed my daughter up the rock face twice, peering down over the U-shaped valley once atop. It was wonderful to share my love of adventure with my wife and kids and to be in the more than capable hands of the ALA guides. My kids had never rafted or rock-climbed before that day and are now hooked on both sports. My detailed story on the six-day trip will appear in The Boston Globe this spring and I’ll be sure to pass that along. 

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Ogunquit Still My No. 1 Beach Town in New England

To celebrate a big birthday for my mother-in-law, 14 members of the family made their way to Ogunquit, Maine in mid-July for 3 nights. I haven’t been back to Ogunquit since I wrote my cover story for Yankee Magazine on the Top 25 Beach Towns in New England, naming Ogunquit over Provincetown as the best beach town in New England. I was happy to see the article from the July/August 2012 issue framed on the wall of The Beachmere Inn, where we stayed. After a memorable weekend, I can honestly say that I made the right choice naming Ogunquit my number one beach town. I ditched the car in the parking lot and didn’t see it again until I left. The view of the Atlantic and the 3 ½-mile stretch of beachfront from the Beachmere was just as glorious as I remembered. We would stroll down the sloping lawn to the Marginal Way, and either take a left to hit the beach or veer right to walk along the rugged shoreline to the restaurants in Perkins Cove. The big birthday dinner was held in a private room at MC Perkins Cove, a restaurant I first discovered when it debuted, reporting for Boston Globe Magazine’s Best of the New issue. The meal and service were both exceptional. So was our first night’s dinner at Oarweed at an outdoor table overlooking the Atlantic, digging into the freshest lobster I’ve had in a long time, washed down with a Blueberry Ale. 

Yes, both P’town and Nantucket have excellent restaurants and beaches. But where Ogunquit excels is theater and other cultural offerings. Gershwins’ An American in Paris, staged at the historic Ogunquit Playhouse, was a fantastic rendition of this complex play, featuring tap dance, ballet, and songs (see it before it closes on August 4th).  We visited the Ogunquit Museum of American Art to see the Lois Dodd show, only to be serenaded by the poetry of Richard Blanco, who just happened to be there that day. Blanco is best known as being the poet who spoke at President Obama’s second inauguration and his words, which were paired with photography on exhibit, are incredibly moving. Ogunquit, I have a feeling I’ll be returning far more frequently in the future. 
 
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Time to Relax at Lake George

Staring in late May, I’ve been to Miami, Bermuda, DC, the entirety of the New England coast, Chicago, Banff, Jasper, Vancouver, and Saltspring Island. All great trips that have led or will lead to travel articles. But I can’t say I was relaxed on those jaunts. I usually had a notebook in hand researching each destination. On the 16-day Canadian Rockies journey with the family, we had to transfer to 7 different hotels and traveled by car, train, ferry, and plane. Tomorrow I head to Lake George to see the whole Jermanok clan, including my dad, sister, brother, nieces, and nephews. This is a special retreat for me; a 30-mile long lake nestled in the Adirondacks that I learned to sail even before I learned to walk. Not having to worry about an assignment to write, I can pick up my Schenectady Gazette at the local grocery, grab a cup of Joe, and head back to the docks of our cottage to chill. If I’m a feeling a bit hungry in the morning, I’ll drive to Lone Bull for a huge stack of pancakes. Then it’s off to Goony Golf for a round of miniature golf, a sea kayak paddle around the Sagamore, or playing on the high ropes course of Adirondak Extreme. The finest vacation is often the one you return to each year, not having to worry about new sites to see or restaurants to try. Things rarely change on the shores of Lake George and that’s exactly the way I love it.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend! I’ll be back on September 7th.
 

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Time to Party With Bonhomme at Winter Carnival

If you love Paris in the springtime, then you’ll adore Quebec City in the wintertime, where, for 17 days, the party never stops. Quebec City’s Winter Carnival is the largest in the world, attracting more than one million people. I was one of those fortunate people to arrive in this fortified city on the first day of the 2013 Winter Carnival. I spent the morning sledding down an ice chute, viewing the impressive ice castle, made from 1600 blocks of ice, eating maple syrup on snow, and playing a human game of foosball. Attached to bars with seatbelts, you slide all over the ice trying to kick the ball into the goal. But the party really started on Saturday night, when top DJs from Montreal and Toronto played a mesmerizing mix of hip-hop and electronica to a crowd of revelers outside the ice castle. Locals carry cane-like red sticks filled with a potent drink called Caribou, made of whiskey, red wine, and maple syrup, which certainly added to the dancing frenzy. When Bonhomme, the popular snowman and revered host of the festivities started to boogie, the crowd went wild.
 
This is just the start of the 58th edition of the Quebec City Winter Carnival. Still to come is Le Grande Virée, a dogsled race that cruises through the heart of the historic Old City, and the ice canoeing competition, where paddlers sprint across the turgid waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway. New this year is a video installation, where filmmakers project images onto four of the iconic buildings in town, creating a 3-D interplay. There’s also a brasserie, serving 25 microbrews from across Quebec. So if you have no plans yet for February vacation week, it might be the time to experience some joie de vivre in Quebec City. 
 
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Top 5 Travel Days of 2015, Exploring Cappadocia

When Mount Erciyes poured lava over central Turkey thousands of years ago, the volcanic ash formed a surreal, lunar-like landscape consisting of cone-shaped “fairy chimneys” and layers of soft volcanic rock called “tufa.” Early Christians found the pervious terrain ideal for escaping persecution by Romans and Arabs. When wet, the tufa could be easily carved like soap to make caves out of the pinnacles as well as underground cities descending hundreds of feet below the surface. Tunnels were carved into the soft volcanic rock that venture a mind-boggling 7 and 8 levels underground. They lead to rooms that were used to sleep, eat, pray, along with advanced ventilation systems and a well to retrieve water.

 
This past July, Lisa and I returned with the kids to Cappadocia to revisit this otherworldly terrain. One of our favorite jaunts was a hike with guide, Mehmet Gungor, accompanied by his dog. We were all by our lonesome in the stunning Rose Valley, hiking in and out of caves. Early the next morning we took a magical hot air balloon ride over the terrain and then toured the underground cities. We rented a car our entire time in Cappadocia and it was easy to drive through this rural part of central Turkey. We made it to the mountain town of Güzelyurt, where we found more underground cities and churches from over a millennium ago. We never felt unsafe driving on the backcountry roads of Cappadocia. On the contrary, surrounded by spectacular scenery and very little traffic, it was a great part of the world to cruise. 
 
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Seeing is Beleafing

Vermont is rolling out fresh video each week this autumn to give wannabe leaf peepers an accurate assessment of what they’ll see when heading to the state. In the first video in the “Seeing is Beleafing” series, Jen Butson, an old friend from Ski Vermont, gets the plump assignment of going hot air ballooning over Lake Champlain and surrounding rolling fields. The webpage VermontVacation.com/fall will keep you updated with foliage reports and feature weekly recommended driving routes, events, deals and another celebration of the season, Apple to iPods, where visitors to 20 Vermont apple orchards can search for wooden apples and win an Apple iPod, beginning September 7.