I wake early to birds and make my way to the kitchen where my friend is heading out the door to drive her teen daughter to school.
Drive? I raise my eyebrows. The weather is gorgeous. We’re in California, for heaven’s sake.
“Nobody walks in LA,” my friend laughs. It’s my first visit to her place, this home they rent in Hermosa Beach, with views of the Pacific if you look out the second floor window.
Nobody walks?
I lace up my shoes, the screen door slapping shut behind me.
Walking tours are not only a fantastic way to explore a new place, they're also pro-environment, sustainable, and hands down the best way to interact with the people that live there.
Free walking tours are now offered in hundreds of cities all over the globe, allowing you to gain deeper insight and a local perspective at zero cost. Free Montreal Tours has put together an excellent list of completely free walking tours around the world, so be sure to have a look when planning your next trip!
Contributor Ann Abel entitled her heartfelt feature for this show I Lost My Job, My Marriage, and My Home, So I Climbed Kilimanjaro. Ann won a North American Travel Journalists Association Award for this story. Deservedly so. It's a compelling kickoff to our exploration of the routes and wonders of summiting Africa’s highest peak, even drilling down to what to bring. And then we talk girl power in tackling such challenges, and other places where women and wilderness are coming together. Cue Mother Superior's solo in The Sound of Music.
Aka Girlie Badass—Native Traveler feature contributor and award-winning travel journalist for Forbes, Robb Report, Departures, Afar, National Geographic Traveler, Islands, Brides and more. Will try almost anything once.
Dervla Pinto is a “Destination Expert” for Kensington Tours, a custom-tour company based in Toronto. She’s traveled to 58 countries across six continents and studied in Tanzania, where she climbed Kilimanjaro at age 22. Not surprisingly, she’s an Africa specialist, but also has a soft spot for countries like India, Vietnam, and Bolivia.
The owner of Wild Women Expeditions, Jennifer Haddow. She's also Editor-in-Chief of the new Wild Women Magazine. See below an excerpt from the first issue's letter from editor.
"I wanted to read stories about these wild women, who favour cooperation over competition, connection and compassion over ego and fear. Women who are bold and brave adventurers and warriors who protect what we love. Women who are deeply dedicated to the conservation of wild places and who step lightly on the land..."
Check out WWM's first issue:
(From travel writer, Ann Abel)
(From Kensington Tours Tanzania expert, Dervla Pinto)
(From MEC, Rozanne Pilbeam)
Picture this:
It’s 2am and I’m in a tent pitched on snow. I haven’t felt my fingers or toes in a few days. My head hurts. I’m coming down with bronchitis. I’m clutching a hot water bottle inside my sleeping bag but still shivering too hard to sleep. At least I’m excited to be getting this journey over with tomorrow.
I've fallen in love with Southern Arizona, thanks to the contributors and guests of today's show. San Francisco-based journalist Breena Kerr shines a light on the colourful, quirky afterworld of old copper mining town, Bisbee. I love this piece. Megan Kimble of Edible Baja Arizona reveals Tucson's rich, inclusive, community-based food scene, of which great restaurants are just one thing. And the writing of award-winning author/journalist Tom Miller beguiles me. Even if you never go to Southern Arizona, you'll be better off for having read one of Tom's books. I know I am. Nine more to go.
San Francisco writer, Breena Kerr, takes us to Southern Arizona's wild west afterworld in her Native Traveler feature, The Ghosts of Bisbee.
Award-winning author and journalist, Tom Miller, shares his affectionate, funny, always clever take on his beloved Southwest.
Edible Baja Arizona editor Megan Kimble reveals the wide-ranging, community-wide vision of food in Tuscon that helped the city earn a recent UNESCO World Food Heritage Designation.
A great overview of why Tuscon has been catapulted onto a world foodie stage.
There are food deserts, those urban neighborhoods where finding healthful food is nearly impossible, and then there is Tucson.
When the rain comes down hard on a hot summer afternoon here, locals start acting like Cindy Lou Who on Christmas morning. They turn their faces to the sky and celebrate with prickly pear margaritas. When you get only 12 inches of rain a year, every drop matters.
Coaxing a vibrant food culture from this land of heat and cactuses an hour’s drive north of the Mexican border seems an exhausting and impossible quest. But it’s never a good idea to underestimate a desert rat. Tucson, it turns out, is a muscular food town.
(Thanks to Breena Kerr and the Town of Bisbee)
We love the insight here, both into the borderlands of Southern Arizona and Linda Ronstadt.
We are driving outside Naco, Ariz., near the Mexico border, on a two-lane blacktop under a half-moon and stars. The distant mountains are lost in shadow, and there’s not much to look at beyond the headlight beams and the rolling highway stripes.
In the middle seat of the minivan, Linda Ronstadt is talking about her childhood.
If you think North Atlantic gales and cottage getaways are an odd pairing, well, you're not alone. But you'd be wrong. The Danish way is full of such seeming contradictions. Come along on this enigmatic North Atlantic road trip.
Hygge (pronounced "hoo-guh"), a Danish term defined as “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being,” is said to have no direct translation in English, though "cozy" comes close.
It was a finalist on the Oxford Dictionaries' 2016 Word of the Year shortlist, and for good reason—over the last year, the concept of hygge has become something of a global obsession. For a closer look at this uniquely Danish concept and its international appeal, check out this article from The New Yorker:
Ah, those inscrutable Danes—bold yet reserved, stylish yet unaffected, pragmatic yet mysterious in a steely Nordic way. Even their most cherished of holiday regions feels infused with bits of contradiction. The Jutland Peninsula is in many ways Danish cottage country, but it’s also a window to the sort of oblique Danish sensibility. Our road trip exploring this ethereal North Atlantic strand began in Billund—the hometown of LEGO. It was a few years ago now, but here’s the story of that journey.
Copenhagen has rightly earned a name for itself as one of the best culinary destinations in the world, thanks largely in part to the much-lauded Noma. But it's not the only reason Denmark should be on your foodie bucket list—Henne Kirkeby Kro, a cluster of homey, thatched cottages nestled in the Jutland far west of the city, has a charm (and a mouthwatering menu) all its own.
From smørrebrød to flæskesteg, Danish cuisine is the best part of any trip to Denmark—and no city does ultra-local, modern dishes better than Copenhagen. Take a look at The Telegraph's list of the best new restaurants in town:
