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by Kate Dernocoeur, Guest Blogger Wooden chopsticks are delightful for placing morsels of a meal into your mouth. The experience is so different from using a metal fork to stab or shovel food. (OK, maybe it’s somewhat frustrating until you get the knack of it, but I recommend learning. The...
by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger. The deliciousness of any good experience in life is the savoring of it, before, during and after. Beforehand is the time of eager anticipation. The actual journey is always made better by being mindful and present to moments as they happen. Afterwards come the...
by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger, “Thank you, kind stranger.” Thus begins the paragraph in my journal about my arrival in Kyoto. Despite maps and a good sense of direction, I had no idea which way to go to find the hotel. A couple stopped to help (and thus missed their crosswalk light). The...
by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger As I huffed and puffed my way up Yufu-dake, a beautiful notched mountain just south of the Kunisaki Peninsula on Kyushu (Japan) recently, the memory of what it takes to climb a mountain flooded back to me. Yufu-dake isn’t large, by world standards—just...
Tips from Other Travelers… by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger My early days of adventure travel were bolstered by slim travel volumes, such as those from Lonely Planet. Among the best of my resources was the thin tome, “Southeast Asia on a Shoestring.” The finest travel advice, though,...
By Peggy DePersia, Guest Blogger Whenever I pass through an ‘entrance’ route to a national park, I get goose bumps of anticipation. I have learned to understand that I am guaranteed to experience something special: a sighting of a unique creature, a spectacular scene of a natural wonder, an...
by Guest Blogger, Peggy DePersia Hey, we’re driving up the road to Bellingham. Do you have a recommendation for a good place to have lunch? I figured a young clerk at the funky bookstore in Fairhaven, Washington would know a good place to have lunch in a college town like Bellingham. Indeed,...
by Peggy DePersia, Guest Blogger I have long been enchanted by early 20th century small town architecture and vintage postcards. What is the connection? you say. Often the vintage postcards are all that remain of the structures that held such promise for developing or growing towns. In...
by Judy Bereza, guest blogger I have a new favorite museum. In fact, it is so high on my “Great Museums of the World” list, my husband and I became members, even though it is 4,000 miles away. Small comfort: we now receive their exquisite magazine so we can read all about the wonderful...
by Linda Laughter, guest blogger Most Michiganders are familiar with our own special island, but evidently visitors have found our secret. Trip Advisor voted Mackinac Island the number one vacation destination in the USA. Located in Lake Huron, we are fortunate to have this...