New England in a Nutshell to Be Published July 2nd

Heading out with your child this fall to look at colleges? Well, we’re happy to report that ActiveTravels has already designed itineraries for college tours in New England and New York, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, the Southeast, and California. Tell us the colleges you want to tour, and we’ll package it together with hotels, restaurants, and sites along the way. Also have a look at this story I wrote for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine on 20 college towns in the Northeast. It’s a pretty good tip sheet on where to stay and eat and what to do when you’re in each one of these college towns, including Boston. If you are going on the college tour this year, have a look. 

Last week, we had three clients miss their flight connections and one ActiveTravels member break his clavicle and ribs on a motorcycle accident in Phuket, Thailand. Before our clients even got off their planes, they were rebooked and ready to go on the next available flight. No standing in line for hours at the customer service desk with all the other passengers. The man with the broken bones is still healing in a hospital, but we were able to cancel and reschedule his first-class flight with a slight change fee. In this Do-It-Yourself World, you’re led to believe that you can easily book travel on your own. That’s certainly true, but when a mishap happens, which is inevitable when you travel, it’s good to have someone working on your behalf while you’re still on a plane with no WiFi.

Once on Cape Breton, most travelers make a beeline for the headlands of the National Park or the rugged coastline that drops precipitously into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But don’t make the mistake of missing the interior or what locals call the Highlands. Head to a sweet spot like Margaree River Valley and you’ll find a ring of rounded summits peering down on verdant pastures dotted with sheep, cattle, and sleek, dark French Canadian horses. You’ll also find the rolling waters of that legendary salmon fishing river, the Margaree, snaking though the spectacular scenery. This is the authentic Cape Breton, where you can spend a night at the classic Normaway Inn, have dinner from a chef who taught alongside Jacques Pepin at Manhattan’s French Culinary Institute, and then be treated to a foot-stomping fiddler concert every night from June through October. Last night in the Normaway’s library, I was fortunate enough to listen to a father and daughter play fiddle and guitar, while on piano, was the hotel’s housekeeper, who’s toured with Natalie MacMaster and Waylon Jennings. Here, in the heart of Ceilidh “kay-lee” country, it’s a good bet that your waiter or bellhop has played to a packed crowd and can dance the two-step, either in a nearby barn or in a packed concert hall. Seeing this threesome play last night in an intimate setting, stomping my foot and clapping my hands to the fast-moving fiddle, is one of those authentic travel experiences that I’ll remember years from now, when those rugged cliffs of Cape Breton have faded into the sea.