Category: Islands and Beaches
A Tale of Two Cyclades: Mykonos and Tinos
What’s your ideal vacation vibe? See and be seen, or soak it in and explore? Glitz and glamour, sashaying down shop-lined streets, or sturdy shoes and stamina, clambering along less-trodden trails? Celebrity-spotting in nightclubs, or gazing at starry night skies? If you yearn for a vay-cay Venn Diagram that embraces the best of both styles, opt for a pick-and-mix escape to the Cyclades archipelago, dividing your time between Mykonos and Tinos, two wildly diverse Greek isles anchored in the blue-green Aegean Sea. Read more in my story for GoWorldTravel.
Essaouira: Morocco’s Exotic Beach Town
Discover the Funky Cool Medina of This Breezy Boho City
Baked by the North African sun and buffeted by a persistent ocean breeze, the Moroccan coastal city of Essaouira lies about three hours west of Marrakesh. But its wave-lashed walled medina, wedged between the wild and windy Atlantic and an arc of modern suburbs, seems to exist in a parallel universe that transcends geographical boundaries.
Essaouira is an improbable mishmash of ancient Arabic and Berber culture, groovy surfer dude vibes, and 21stcentury Boho chic. It’s a mix of bustling souks and high-end art galleries, fishing shacks and sushi bars, traditional hammams and detox yoga retreats…the sort of place where you can take a camel ride on the beach in the morning and visit the organic Val d’Argan winery in the afternoon.
Shops line the Skala de la Kasbah in Essaouira’s medina.
Taking Big Risks On The Big Island Of Hawaii
Killer waves may be the least of your worries.
“Do you get the feeling,” my husband hisses in my ear, “that maybe we shouldn’t BE here?”
We are standing in the middle of Kilauea Iki Crater in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. Steam vents issue super-heated mist that rises, wraithlike, from the barren, lunar-like surface.
Here and there, giant slabs of crust are piled upon one another like asphalt after an earthquake, and deep fissures create jagged scars across the face of the crater.
I cautiously sidle up to the rim of one nasty gash and peer down, half expecting to see a river of red-hot lava, but it’s dark and seemingly bottomless. There are no barriers, no ropes, nothing to keep me from falling in but my own common sense.
Of course, if I had common sense, would I be hiking across a volcanic crater? I’m forced to concede that my husband may have a point.
That’s the Big Island for you. Bewitched by its wild beauty, you find yourself pushing your limits, drawn—quite literally—to life on the edge. (more…)