Living the Good Life (Affordably) In and Around Traverse City, Michigan
Posted on 07/26/2019, 1:15 AM
In some ways, the Inn at Black Star Farms recalls Tara from Gone with the Wind. Guests are greeted in a marble-floored lobby embedded with a black star (hence the name) in front of a grand curved staircase wide enough for hoopskirted damsels to make a glam entrance. The property is not, however, from that era or located in the South. It's in Michigan's Leelanau County and was built in the 1980s...
Do Travelers Lose Their Moral Compasses on the Road? A Surprising Study
Posted on 05/29/2019, 7:00 AM
My friend Deborah "borrowed" her favorite wool blanket from a hotel when she went on a business trip. Shannon, another pal, put her able-bodied daughter in an airport wheelchair to jump to the front of a Southwest Airlines boarding line so they could snag seats together. And Dave, a charming guy I know from college, owns a cane for the sole purpose of limping into airports so he can plausibly c...
Talking with Frances Mayes About Her Latest Book, 'See You in the Piazza'
Posted on 05/01/2019, 2:00 PM
Frances Mayes, author of the memoir Under the Tuscan Sun, is to Tuscan travel what ketchup is to Russian dressing. For tens of thousands of vacationers, her tale—both the book that sat on the New York Times bestseller list for two years, and the Diane Lane film that fictionalized it—was the reason they chose to go this bucolic and beautiful corner of "The Boot." Now Mayes has a new book called...
This Website Gets You Free Room and Board in Many Countries, Says Arthur Frommer
Posted on 04/22/2019, 10:00 AM
When I first learned that a granddaughter of mine was planning to spend three months in Japan earning her room and board through work performed as a volunteer, I was concerned and suspicious. It was only after we had heard from previous volunteers of this sort that I grew calm about this partial use of her “gap year” from college. The organization that plans such volunteer work in countrie...
_-_EBGeisha.jpg "How to Get a Geisha Makeover in Japan")
Arthur Frommer: The Safest Destinations Are Named. Guess Who's Not a Leader?
Posted on 11/27/2018, 2:00 AM
A well-respected international consumer organization has picked the safest countries in which to travel, and the United States is nowhere among the leaders. Which are the world’s safest countries in which to travel? In these days of terror and climate change, that question is posed by a great many would-be tourists. An international organization recently researched that question, and to no o...
.jpg "Frommer's' Best Places to Go in 2019 List")
How Much of What You Spend Stays in Your Destination? G Adventures Knows
Posted on 10/19/2018, 11:15 PM
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce Poon Tip (pictured) for our radio show. Bruce is the founder of G Adventures, one of the most important small-group adventure operators in the world. Currently the company has 10 distinct brands of tours as well as both expedition and river cruising branches. It’s considered by many to be one of the travel industry's most innovative tour companies....
I’m Now One of Those People: A Traveler with an Airbnb Horror Story
Posted on 10/18/2018, 3:00 PM
It didn’t happen because I’m a careless idiot, or a very picky, persnickity traveler. It happened because I’m a (bit) lazy. I was heading to Chicago for work and an unrelated convention had sent hotel prices through the roof. To save a great deal of money, I decided to book a room in the apartment of a friendly-looking lady who has cats. (OK, the real reason was the cats—yes, I’m that kind of mid...
A New Women's Travel Magazine Hits the Newsstands (and the Internet)
Posted on 09/14/2018, 9:15 AM
A new travel magazine debuted this month, called Unearth Women. I spoke with Nikki Vargas, its Editor-In-Chief and co-founder, about what the first issue holds, and what this new publication promises to female travelers down the line. Pauline Frommer: Why do women need their own magazine? Why can’t they just read Afar, or Condé Nast Traveler, or one of the other travel magazines out there?...
Exult in the Pleasures of Solo Travel with This Distinguished Book
Posted on 08/29/2018, 6:00 AM
It isn’t often that a newspaper reporter publishes a truly distinguished book about the sensations of solitary travel, the rewarding emotions you feel when abroad by yourself in a strange city. Yet that is the achievement of Stephanie Rosenbloom of The New York Times in her recently published Alone Time. Rosenbloom, a staff columnist for the Times, is known for her extremely lucid and help...
Georgia in Hawaii: O'Keeffe's Forgotten Island Travels
Posted on 08/01/2018, 2:15 PM
Georgia O'Keeffe had a strong sense of place, and that place was usually New Mexico. But having a powerful affinity for one locale didn't leave the painter immune to the allure of others, as she discovered, seemingly to her own surprise, during a 1939 stay in Hawaii. "My idea of the world," she wrote in a letter sent from the islands to her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, " . . . h...
WWOOFing: Explaining a Different Way to Travel, Farm by Farm
A Life-Changing Conference for Would-Be Travel Writers and Photographers
Posted on 06/20/2018, 11:15 AM
Over the course of the year, I give about a dozen speeches on travel across North America. Inevitably, when I sign books afterwards, a familiar scenario will play out. I’ll hand back the book on which I’ve just scrawled my name and notice that the individual standing in front of me looks very, very nervous… and doesn’t want to move away from the table. He or she will chitchat for a few minutes be...
A Return to Northern Michigan With No Repeat Experiences
Posted on 06/14/2018, 12:30 PM
I’ve always taken the stance that when you return again and again to the same place for vacation, you’re only setting yourself up for ennui. I figured there were a few exceptions to this rule—namely, cities like Paris and Tokyo that are so huge and varied that you'll never exhaust the possibilities. But for the most part, I believed that vacations should be about the stimulating, the new, the un...
