6 Ways to Relieve the Post-Vacation Blues
If you’re like me, when you return from a trip – be it 3 days or 3 weeks – those post-vacation blues hit hard while still on the route home. Sometimes they’re beastly enough to make me think “Geez, if I had just stayed home I wouldn’t have to deal with this.” As if it makes my real life look awful. Not to say that deters me from ever TAKING a vacation. The truth is that it’s hard to come down from that high. It’s obnoxious to face reality again (bills, work, eating healthy and...
read morePassport Power!
Dear Passport, Let’s just start with the hard truth. I’ll be honest – I never really gave a second thought about having you. Growing up you were kind of on par with my library card – something mom made me apply for. Gripping you in my playground-stained hands at the age of 9 when I took my first trip out of the country (remember Alberta?) was cool, but I didn’t know why. All I know is I’ve never been without you since, and the older I get, the more I appreciate you. Your wonderful leathery...
read moreObligatory TBEX 2011 Round-up, CG-style
Photo ©KirstenAlanaPhotography/Galavanting HA! Just when you thought the TBEX 11 articles were over….BAM you get another one! Enjoy :) So…jumping right back into work after 3 high-speed days of TBEX wasn’t easy. Its kind of like cooking Thanksgiving dinner and then getting up the next morning to make brunch for 30 people. I dreamt about TBEX. I shamefully played hooky from yoga class to start uploading pictures. I made lists on the train to and from work of all the minutiae I needed to work on to step up my...
read moreThe Road to Sin City is Paved with….Coffee and Pretzels
I have residue from chocolate-covered pretzels smeared on my fingers and coffee cooling all-too-quickly in the cupholder. It’s almost 1:00am, way past my bedtime. And I am on the road to Las Vegas – a town I have never liked. Vegas, a place where patterned carpets blind the sober eyeball, cheap buffets seduce the weak, the ringing of slot machines and the clack-clack-clacking of stacked chips numb the eardrums and the stale smell of cigarette smoke creeps into your belongings that, like a bad case of bedbugs, leaves...
read moreLA Times Travel & Adventure Show, March 19-20
Where can you find people from Moab and Mongolia in the same place? How about Taiwan and Temecula? Ecuador and Ketchikan? If you said a Carnival Cruise, well…you might be right. But the definite answer is the LA Times Travel & Adventure Show, held each spring at the Los Angeles Convention Center and featuring over 100,000 square feet of space crawling with enthusastic tourism reps from all over the world. In today’s economic landscape, tourism is what is keeping many countries afloat, and for a lot of places the one...
read moreCéad míle fáilte! It’s March 17.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos from the Emerald Isle, taken between 2009 and 2010. I love being Irish (hi, Grandpa!), but today we truly ALL are. Guinness says so (see photo above). So sláinte! All photos copyright...
read morePop Your Collar: An Afternoon Sailing with Corks Away Wine Cruises
Boats kind of make me nervous. Maybe its because I got chucked off of one in rough waters around Key Largo when we tried to go snorkeling in a storm. Maybe its because I got seasick on the way to Catalina Island in 8th grade. Or maybe because I have a numbing fear of the Pacific Ocean, whose cold, dark waters beckon with all the grace and charm of a razor-toothed barracuda. But ply me with a couple of glasses of wine on a beautiful day, and I could probably find boating bearable, if not actually enjoyable. Even though...
read moreHow Norway Got Kicked Off My Bucket List, and Other Tales of Travel A.D.D.
Before we begin, Captain Obvious is compelled to point out a couple of noteworthy specifics relevant to this post, namely: 1). The globe is quite large, and 2). There are manifold ways to experience it. Now that’s out of my system, let’s take a look at (coincidentally) the post with the most hits on my blog ever – which I did a year ago - about my Travel Bucket List. We have some major housecleaning to do here. Some items must merely switch positions on the list, others just hafta go entirely (sorry Norway,...
read moreTop 10 Places and Things to Do in Los Angeles
Originally written for and posted on GotSaga as a guest article, January 2011 One of the biggest challenges as a native Angeleno is trying to direct friends and colleagues in Los Angeles where to go while visiting. Not only am I battling a multitude of frustrating cliches (celebrity-fueled trends, celebrity-frequented neighborhoods, celebrity-owned restaurants, traffic, smog, etc.) but frankly, to narrow down the overwhelming amount of opportunities in this sprawling metropolis is nearly impossible. The truth is that the cliches DO exist. ...
read moreCruise Food: A Look at the Underportioned, Overpriced and Out of This World Cuisine at Sea
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly….” Famous last words. Oft-uttered by those faced with tertiary helpings at a holiday meal, trying on an expensive piece of jewelry, or offered anything gratis, anywhere. On vacation, as Cameron Diaz succinctly put it in The Holiday, you are supposed to “vacate your life.” Things like not exercising, saving money, getting reasonable amounts of sleep and perhaps most of all, indulging the palette (not to mention the stomach) are thrown asunder in favor of sweet, beautiful...
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