Top Travel Days of 2024, A Whirlwind Tour of Stockholm

Stockholm was the second stop of a 10-day trip to Scandinavia in mid-November organized by the tour operator we love to work with in this part of the world, 50 Degrees North. We didn’t have much time in the city, sandwiched between stops in Copenhagen and Swedish Lapland, near the Arctic Circle. We dropped our bags off at The Lydmar, a small boutique property where the walls are covered with large photographs of anything from Iggy Pop to a wet dog. The location is ideal, smack dab in the center of the city, an easy stroll to Stockholm’s Old Town (Gamla Stan) and even less time to catch a ferry to one of the many nearby islands.

We caught a short ferry to the island of Djurgården, where we would find one of the highlights of the trip, the massive Vasa warship that sank in 1628. You really can’t understand how huge this 68-gun ship is until you see it. But once you do, you’ll understand why it sank almost as soon as it launched from being top heavy. It remained intact on the bottom of the Baltic Sea until the 1960s, when they finally had the engineering skills to miraculously get it on land. Also on the same island is the ABBA Museum, where you can follow the history of the band members as they made their way from playing small folk festivals in Sweden to becoming one of the most legendary pop bands of all time. Remarkably, they only toured for 6 years, but they amassed quite an empire through the hit play and movie, Mamma Mia, and now “ABBA Voyage,” a hologram spectacle in London that sells out nightly. According to Samuel, the GM at the Lydmar, Benny Andersson from the group still works out regularly at a gym next door to the hotel and you can see him roaming the city like a humble guy.

That night, we would dine on reindeer in the same restaurant that Nobel Laureates dine after receiving their awards at City Hall. Surrounded by the ten women I was traveling with all week, the waiter, who had a sense of humor, would arrive with each dish, saying, “Ladies and Steve, this is your next course…”

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First Stop on My Trip to Southeast Asia: Bangkok

Guest Post and Photo by Amy Perry Basseches  
 
"Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be."
Anthony Bourdain
 
With this quote in mind, and Bourdain’s 2001 "A Cook’s Tour" in my backpack for inspiration, I set off on my first foray to Southeast Asia. Would I too feel my travel fantasies fulfilled? My son Jake had spent 3 weeks in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos during the summer of 2016; I was eager to follow in his footsteps. 
 
Bangkok is a bustling city, full of travelers from all over the world. I stayed in a hotel overlooking the Chao Phraya river, and savored my activities while moving in step with millions of others. With my guide Kim, early on Sunday morning, I set off for Wat Pho and Wat Arun, two of the famous temples in Bangkok. Wat Pho is home to the 46 meters-long "Reclining Buddha," and it is one of Thailand’s oldest temples (built in the 16th century). While there, I saw a classical Thai dance lesson being taught. On Sunday mornings, Kim said, classes are offered free to local schoolchildren. We then crossed the river to Wat Arun, considered by many as one of the most beautiful temples in Thailand. Climbing up high, and looking back toward the river, was a highlight for me. 
 
The next day, our entire group visited the Grand Palace, an over 50-acre complex of buildings, the official residence of the Kings of Siam since 1782. Signs are everywhere, stating: "Buddha is not for decoration. Respect is common sense." This is especially noticeable outside the famous Temple of the Emerald Buddha, where people throng, a few of them tattooed with, you guessed it, images of Buddha. Sigh. 
 
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Strolling Hampstead Heath

There’s an excellent exhibition currently on display at the Morgan Library in New York on the Romantic Movement’s influence on landscape design. One of the mottos of the movement came from a line in a 1731 Alexander Pope poem, “Consult the genius of the place.” Translation: Preserve the wild, unadulterated beauty of the grounds and don’t overmanicure. I though about that line while walking last week in London’s Hampstead Heath with my family, friend Claire, and her adorable daughter, Evie. The rolling hillside is rich with old growth forest, shaded trails, long stretches of lawn, and streams, where we wound up feeding ducks and coots. After a week of fighting crowds at the National Gallery, Covent Garden, and the Tower of London, it was wonderful to spend the afternoon at arguably London’s best attraction, one of its many exquisite parks. On a weekday, Hampstead Heath was relatively quiet and off the beaten track enough to savor the serenity with locals. Only a few miles north of the city hubbub, it’s the perfect oasis.
 

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Salt Lake City’s Urban Renewal

Not unlike many cities in North America, the wide streets of downtown Salt Lake City were practically deserted once the business day ended. Workers might stay late to catch a performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or have a business dinner at Christopher’s Prime Steakhouse, but there were relatively few options to lure you to the downtown corridor. 
 
Fast forward two decades later and Salt Lake City has become one of the most desirable cities to live in the country, a low-key version of Denver surrounded by similar majestic peaks. With its proximity to Alta, Snowbird, and Park City and the promise of a healthy lifestyle, Salt Lake City has seen a population explosion spurred on by folks yearning for a better quality of life. No longer is the city, home to the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lacking in diversity. In fact, the latest figures show that almost half of the population of 170,000 is not Mormon. An ethnic population hovering around 35 percent has led to an explosion of indigenous fare and a growing reputation as a foodie destination. Even a thriving bar scene has started to emerge downtown.
 
The full story on Salt Lake City’s urban renewal can be found in the November issue of Global Traveler magazine. 
 
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Miami’s Den of Tranquility

While we’re on the subject of Miami, I drove the family over to my favorite hideaway in the area last week, the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Coral Gables. This lush oasis is a mix of ponds, palms, ferns, big birds, and whimsical sculpture. One step inside the serene environs and I’m staring at an anhinga drying its wings in the sun next to giant polka dotted pumpkins created by Japan’s Yayoi Kusama. One of Dale Chihuly’s colorful works of glass perfectly blends in with the orchids and big-leaf ferns in the conservatory. But it’s the serpentine trails that take you into a waterfall-laden rainforest shaded by vanilla trees, under the Spanish moss hanging from a southern live oak, and past the massive roots of a 70-year old baobab tree that keeps me coming back to this 83-acre gem. Add the large collection of herons and warblers that are fortunate to call the Fairchild home and you have the perfect rendezvous.
 

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An Exciting Visit to the Train and Floating Markets Outside Bangkok

On our second day in Bangkok, we met our great guide, Amy, from Trails of Indochina, at 7 am outside our hotel, Anantara Siam, and drove nearly 90 minutes southwest of the city to see the Train Market. Every day in the morning, a train runs on tracks between a bustling outdoor market. We walked along the tracks and viewed the bins overflowing with fish, squid, meat, pork, chicken, fruit, clothing, you name it. Then a horn blows and the shop owners quickly move their bins away from the tracks as visitors scramble behind a red line with very little space to spare so they don’t get hit by the moving train. It’s a frenetic yet exhilarating display of humanity in action, yet even more insane when you realize the train is only carrying tourists looking down at you with their cameras. I’m sure at one time, the market supplied genuine passengers on long train rides with produce for their ride. Anyway, we tried an assortment of tasty fruit, like rambutans and longans (similar to lychee fruit), sweet finger bananas, juicy mangosteens, and a wonderful mango smoothie.

Then we drove another 15 minutes to take a longboat on murky canal waters past houses on stilts to the Floating Market. In one of those rare Anthony Bourdain-like moments, there was a woman cooking pad thai in a large wok over a propane tank in her longboat in the mass of boat traffic, diesel fuel spewing everywhere. So we had to sample and it was probably the tastiest pad thai I’ve ever tried. The noodles were so fresh they practically melted in your mouth. Every bite I’m thinking "this is so yummy, am I going to get sick? I’ll have one more bite." Then we walked over to a market selling souvenirs and more food stalls selling coconut pancakes, barbecued pork kebabs, and sticky rice, squeezed out from a small plastic bag. All delicious and, for the record, my stomach was fine the entire trip to Hong Kong and Bangkok. 
 
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Skywalk Saint John Set to Open This Month

While in New Brunswick several weeks back, I was fortunate to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the new skywalk set to make its debut this summer. Saint John will now be the third spot in North America to open a skywalk, in addition to the Grand Canyon and Jasper National Park. Unlike those two skywalks, which are designed as semi-circles, the Skywalk Saint John is more like a long plank extending more than 25 feet out from the building. Look down through the glass flooring and you get an exhilarating view of the cliffs, bridge, and a unique tidal shift called a reversing falls. A series of rapids in the Saint John River can be seen switching direction in the churning whirlpool below. A 10-minute film will explain this unique phenomenon caused by the tidal shifts on the nearby Bay of Fundy. Below the skywalk, the Reversing Falls restaurant offers those same glorious vistas thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows. Expect freshly caught yellowfin tuna, halibut, lobster, oysters, and provisions from local farms once it opens.