I had to show my passport, proof of vaccination and a 2-day old negative Covid Test result. I was surprised that I needed a Philippine Health pass. My online research didn’t mention any need for that. Fortunately, I was directed to a website that allowed me to fill it up online.

It's a town time forgot – or maybe it just refused to move forward. Serene and unpretentious, Amelia Island remains in the 1900s – reveling in its long, colorful history, quite aware it no longer has to prove anything to the rest of the world.

For those who love the beaches and beauty of Santa Barbara, but want a slower paced, less touristy atmosphere, the small town of Goleta is only a couple miles up Highway 1, on the same stretch of coast known as the American Riviera. 

Once upon a time, the joke among those in the cruise industry was that the cruise vacation was something for the "newlywed" or the "nearly dead." I remember those jokes, as well as a time in my own life when I would be embarrassed to say that I was even going on a cruise. One day it occurred to me; how else could I see six Caribbean Island nations in eight days or explore a series of major Alaskan cities that are inaccessible by road in under a week? I quickly became a champion of the cruise experience.

The aroma of food and the line of people in front of food trucks was the first section I gravitated to. It was a Friday evening and proud parents corralled their children to mingle with other well-behaved kids. I imagine this was the big event of the week for these hard working families. Spanish chatter competed with the sound of blaring music from the musicians on stage. I helped a family take selfies as we lined up for delicious $8 hot dogs. “Are you sure you want the Azteca Hot Dogs?” warned the food truck cashier, “it’s really hot.” “Yes!” I proudly retorted. Of course, I was expecting all those spices. No Mexican is worth his salt if he can’t stand a little heat. Among the hungry crowd were sprinkles of teenage Mariachi performers filling their tummies before their big performance.

The first thing you notice is the fragrance; where the intoxicating scent of the tiare flower announces to your senses that you are in a magical place, overflowing with tropical vegetation and soothing trade winds. It is the same perfume that the English seamen on the HMS Bounty first encountered; but they came not for flowers, but for breadfruit, intended as a new food staple for their African slaves in the West Indies. But that was another time and another emotional place. Today, Papeete, located on Tahiti Nui ('Big.), is Tahiti's vibrant capital city and gateway to her islands. Roughly one-half of all of the Tahitian islands' population live in this city.

I am planning my first trip to Italy. I want to see Rome, Florence and Venice. I plan on arriving in Milan. Friends have told me to quickly bail out of Milan and use it as a place to head out to more historic places. Should I ignore the city and go on my way? --- Susan of Portland, OR

Picasso even famously sketched and painted Angela Rosengart herself. Another floor features David Douglas Duncan’s photographs of Picasso at work in his studio, including a few shots from October, 1963, with Angela sitting in a chair, as Picasso draws her. “I had to sit there and endure the looks from his eyes,” Angela tells me. “The looks were like arrows.”

When the couple, there for their 20th visit, commented that it was the first time they had taken the house tour -– one of the staples of the Mohonk Mountain House experience -- I asked what they had been doing all those years. Liz and Dan Gleason from Haddon Heights, NJ replied: “There’s just so much to do all the time, you just can’t fit it all in. Every year, there’s a new surprise. This year, it’s the Smiley family parlor.”

People and art have been recurring themes in Deb Roskamp's photographic studies. In The People of Guadalajara, Ms. Roskamp explores the relationships between the Mexican people and the great plazas, cathedrals, architecture and sculptures of Guadalajara. Considered to be the most Mexican of Mexico's cities, Guadalajara has long been a favorite domestic tourist destination for Mexican families. Ms. Roskamp captures the joy, excitement and spirit of locals and tourists as they experience the city's great art, and thus become part of the artistic landscape themselves.

Nestled on the far eastern border of Washington State, Spokane was originally the home of The Spokans ("children of the sun"), who were drawn to the hunting grounds and abundance of salmon in the Spokane River. This changed with the arrival of the first European settlers who established a trading post and eventually a railroad industry that built the city.

The show is presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), the folks who brought us the amazing and highly acclaimed Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. For the record, the Folksbiene is now in its 107th season, making it the longest consecutively-producing theater in the States, and not insignificantly, the world's oldest continuously-operating Yiddish theater company.  Harmony is being presented in the same location as Fiddler, in downtown Manhattan's Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, staged in the intimate Edmond J. Safra Hall. So, if you are going to be in Manhattan any time in the next month or so, snag a pair of tickets, as the show is selling out quickly.

This is the day we set aside to visit Mariposa Grove.  After our usual breakfast, we headed to the camp to pick up Maria and Kathy to accompany us.  The drive to the grove took close to an hour, longer than it would have taken if we didn’t stop, but we stopped often to photograph various highlights, including a panaromic view (also known as the Tunnel View, when the photo is taken upon exiting a tunnel on the highway) of El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridal Veil Falls, and much of Yosemite Valley.  We also saw Horse Tail Falls.  One of the things I’d hoped to see in Yosemite was climbers going up the sheer granite valley walls.  At one point, we actually saw six climbers going up El Capitan.  Binoculars were needed to verify the number.  When we saw them, they were just beginning their climb.

The quilt barns represent an agricultural heritage, providing a connection each family has to the quilt and that the quilt has to their history. From inception to installation took about 6-8 weeks, and the quilters’ guild worked closely with the farm owners on design, colors and concept.  A lot of research went into identifying existing quilt designs which represent what the family wanted, and when none existed, an original design was  painted. Many are on farms over a hundred years old, with 10 on Century Farms which not only refer to their age but also the fact that they have been inhabited by one family all that time.

Traveling to Locations Close to Home is the theme of our latest T-Boy Society of Film, Travel & Music’s poll. ‘Close to Home’ can mean by foot, car, scooter, motorcycle, skateboard, drone, skis, surfboard, blimp, parasail, parachute or human cannonball. It’s always fun to see our many T-Boy writers – writers who have been regularly delivering original content that cannot be found anywhere else on the globe – address joyful, memory-filled locations, which are in their own backyard.

It's a city where anything goes, where everyone feels comfortable. A city of contradictions. It's a city that's part Left Bank, part island getaway. A town where tacky sits comfortably with tropical vegetation on the same barstool, Bacchus, blues and beignets share the same plate.

These intelligent Corgis come in earth color shades where some are fluffy, others are brindle. I believe the further away you go from the black and sable Corgis, the further away you are from the pure-bred Royal Corgi. Naturally, our very own two Corgis are pure-bred (and we have the papers to prove we spent a fortune for them). Hey, when you've spent an arm and a leg on something, you need to brag in order to recuperate your loss, right?

With its jagged mountain peaks that jolt vertically from the sea, stunning waterways, cascading waterfalls, tiny fishing villages and mountain farmhouses, the fjords of Norway would be my pick for the most visually striking place on the planet. I'm not exactly going out on a limb when I say this. Two of Norway's most famous fjords, the Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord, have already joined the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Egypt, and the Grand Canyon as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And National Geographic Traveler Magazine also rated Norway's fjords as the top travel destination in the world in their first "Index of Destination Stewardship" –  an elite list of the least spoiled, great places on earth.

Built in 1926 by the Spillman Engineering Company and brought to Griffith Park in 1937, the merry-go-round boasts 68 horses. Each horse is finely carved with jewel-encrusted bridles, detailed draped blankets and decorated with sunflowers and lion heads.

I made my first trip to Quebec City (population, just under 3.5 million) in 2019, and despite having been to many other destinations in Canada several times apiece, Quebec City had eluded me.  And I can honestly say, shame on me. The city and its environs offer the sensation of a more "exotic" trip abroad, and yet, it is in our backyard—and everyone (and I mean everyone, including the bus boy clearing your restaurant table) is bi-lingual. There is much to see and do in this appealing town, not merely in the Old City (Vieux-Québec), which is a UNESCO World Heritage site (and the only walled city north of Mexico).

Although the Sea Turtle Art Trail is what first captures the imagination, a visit to the Sea Turtle Rescue Center is a good place to start the journey. Injured turtles from the Laguna Madre Bay often discovered by tourists and fisherman are brought to the hospital for rehabilitation and usually recover enough to be released back into the wild. The Center offers tours of its many residents in various stages of recovery, an extensive education program involving lectures and field trips and overseas the conservation program which patrols the beaches during nesting season from March to August to help the moms lay the eggs and the babes to find their way to safety once hatched.