Travel Spotlight
Up-Close Series
Check out all the photos in our Up-Close Series, including California, Scotland, and more.
Win a Trip (or Five)
We've scoured the Internet for this week's best travel contests. Score a free trip from our Travel Contest Round-up.
Foods from Afar
When Lindsay's brother Ben came for a visit, we taught him the basics of Los Angeles living: eating a street taco.
Wine in Temecula
This past summer, we finagled our way into a wine tasting tour of Temecula with our friend Ryan.
Lucerne: City Hike
Just trying to find a weak point in the fortress – the element of surprise is always key when you’re raiding a city of its chocolate reserves…
Traveling Without A Stroller…tldr: naps≠travel
Our four days in Denver have been 100% stroller free. It sounds like crunchy parenting, but it was really just an overly ambitious experiment in packing light. Isla’s taken in her first baseball game (and first Airbnb), whiling doubling the number of breweries she’s visited.
In other news, Mom and Dad are toast. This is our second trip with Isla, and we see more and more why people don’t travel with kids. It’s hard. It’s unpredictable. It may or may not be worth it.
My God, I’d rather go to Europe than go to heaven.— William Merritt Chase
Belligerent on Bikes in Ayutthaya
If there is one travel habit that makes our emergency health insurance worth while, it’s our competing love for bicycling and beer. Luckily, this dangerous habit has never caused us any real bodily harm. Although I’m sure were both psychologically scarred from the stupid mishaps of our beer and bicycling adventures.
DISCLAIMER: We do not condone or support bicycling and drinking.
The Ruins of Ayutthaya
Fudge You: The World’s Saddest Fudge Shop
Continuing our journey into North Beach’s culinary greatness, we got a behind the scenes look at how fudge is made. To our dismay, the fudge was not made by Oompah Loompahs, but by the worlds saddest, most facially pierced confiseurs imaginable. Perhaps the social consciousness of the city prevents them from truly enjoying their work…for the excitement they demonstrated made it seem as if they had had to crawl through picket lines protesting tooth decay in order to get to work.
I asked them which was their favorite flavor of fudge. Neither fudgeteer had one.
We particularly enjoyed the peanut butter pie fudge.
North Beach: Don’t Call it “Little Italy.”
We started our foodie tour of North Beach with the most important component of Italian cuisine: carbs. As we explored San Francisco’s traditionally Italian neighborhood, our guide led us through a bakery which has been around essentially as long as the city’s Italian population.
After sampling the Italian French Bakery’s biscotti and coconut macaroons, we dove into a fresh baguette and quickly realized the sour stuff’s not the only loaf in town.
Our food tour of North Beach was courtesy of Local Tastes of the City. In addition to walking tours of North Beach, they also offer bus tours and walking tour of Chinatown.
Up-Close Series: San Simeon, California
Hearst Castle
Four hours north of Los Angeles and four hours south of San Francisco, on the famous and winding Highway 1 is Hearst Castle. Designated as a National Historical Landmark, it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a State Historical Monument. Hearst Castle is an accredited museum filled with irreplaceable art, and architectural elements, both indoors and outdoors.
The enormous house sits atop of a hill surrounded by sea and land. In Morro Bay, a town a bit south of the castle, I spoke to a fisherman who told me he could see the lights of the castle 7 miles out in the Pacific. At the Visitor Center which sits at the base of the hill, we read about Mr. Hearst and his conglomerate of movie making, investing, art collecting and most famously newspaper and magazine publishing. One can begin to draw conclusions on how the man was when alive by reading his letters and stories about his controversial style of journalism, relationships and spending habits. I, as a fan of the film Citizen Kane couldn’t help but whisper “Xanadu”, as we were lead to the observation deck in the visitor’s center.
Matterhorn: Cool Name, Cool Mountain
Above cheese, above chocolate, above bears, my favorite thing in Switzerland was undoubtedly the Matterhorn. And it’s an uncanny feeling to love a mountain.
I wanted to see the Matterhorn the way some girls ache to see the Eiffel Tower. (Well, I was one of those girls who ached to see the Eiffel Tower.) Just as my Eiffel fantasies are tinged with berets and baguettes, my dream of the Matterhorn echoes with “Fahoo Fores, Dahoo Dores” and smells of Who Hash and roast beast.
Travel Contest Round-up: January 20, 2015
Win a 10-Day Foodie Adventure with Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Students only: win a $300 gift certificate for travel through Student Universe
Make your way to COLOMBIA with Inside Hook and Skift
Get your island on with T+L’s $25,000 Island Vacation Getaway Sweeps
Bienvenido a Miami – Headlines and Heroes is giving away a trip
Throwback Thursday: Wine Tasting in Temecula
Since leaving Europe, we often pine for ways to feel like we’re back in the old continent. Be it buying an espresso maker to get our cafe con leche fix, taking long strolls through Pasadena (while pretending we’re in Paris), or constantly looking out for blood sausage on the menu.
Europeans, especially the ones of the Southern variety, take great pleasure in these activities, and we’re doing our best to keep them even though we’re far away. Luckily, one of the more accessible and easily transferred traditions is the liberal drinking of wine. Celebration? Pinot Noir. Stressed out at work? Rioja. Eating Steak? Chianti. Mom made Salmon? Chardonnay. Grandma died? Syrah. Tuesday night? Malbec. Anyways, we love drinking the stuff, and I swear to Dionysus we’re responsible adults. So this past July when we heard my sister’s friend Ryan Erlbaum decided to spend some of his inheritance money from a distant aunt to rent a limo and take us to Temecula, I immediately maneuvered our way into an invitation.