“At Hanauma Bay,” the concierge at our Waikiki hotel told us, “you’ll see more people than fish.” She advised us to skip this popular Oahu snorkling destination and take a kayak or catamaran tour instead. But the tours were pricey and Hanauma Bay, a thirty minute drive southeast of downtown Honolulu, was only $7.50 each
Blog
Travel Musings
Pieces of Heaven
Flipping through the Turkish Airlines magazine on our flight home from Istanbul last summer, I came across this quote by turn-of-the-century French writer, Jules Renard, emblazoned across a full page photograph of a luxury villa development on Turkey’s Aegean Coast: “On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.” While I wouldn’t have
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California
Fear and Regret at Alamere Falls
Alamere Falls, located on the southern end of Point Reyes National Seashore, spills over the edge of a thirty-foot cliff and into the Pacific Ocean below. A “coastal waterfall” or “tidefall,” it is a fairly uncommon natural phenomenon, with only twenty-five of its kind sprinkled around the globe. San Francisco, where I live, is just
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Napa & Sonoma Wine Country
Wining & Dining Among the Vines
It’s a cool evening in mid-August, and I’m in the Russian River Valley vineyards of Sonoma-Cutrer, chatting with the winery’s head winemaker, Mick Schroeter, about his recent trip to Talon Fish Lodge, in Sitka, Alaska. While there to host a wine and food pairing event featuring Sonoma-Cutrer wines, Mick had the chance to go fishing,
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San Francisco
Dipping Into San Francisco’s History at the Site of the World’s Largest Swimming Pool
Every summer since they were five, my now nine and eleven-year-old daughters have attended a week or two of summer day camp at the San Francisco Zoo. As a result, every summer I learn all sorts of interesting animal facts, like: zebras are black with white stripes (and not the other way around), there have