After six visits to Italy over nearly forty years, I thought I had Rome down to a science. My first time? The summer of 1988. I was 18, sweating through Milan and pretending I knew how to drink espresso properly. Since then, there have been family trips with my husband and son (2010–2016), a girls’ escape in May 2023, and a few others sprinkled in for good measure. I always planned for what the guidebooks and glossy magazines insisted was “peak season,” convinced that summer

There’s a strange thrill in telling people you’re heading to Naples. Watch their expressions shift from polite curiosity to thinly veiled panic, as if you’ve just said you’re holidaying in a live volcano. “Oh, Naples,” they say, in the same tone you'd use for a friend who’s just announced they’re dating a known heartbreaker. “Are you... sure?” The warnings come thick and fast: It’s dangerous! It’s dirty! The traffic is apocalyptic! You’ll be robbed blind! The garbage situatio

Hvar Island, Croatia Discovering Croatia Before the Crowds: Our First Trip in 2008 I still remember the look on my son’s face when we...

Europe Train Travel I’ll admit it: I’m hopelessly, romantically biased toward train travel in Europe. Not in a beret-and-wine-glass kind...

*If you’re short on time, the condensed 10-day itinerary with accommodation links is listed below. * Prague, Czechia Where your trip...

A 10-day road trip through Czechia. A trip we won't soon forget!

Cesky Krumlov (Yes, It’s More Than Just Prague) Let me start with this: Prague is as beautiful and atmospheric as everyone says — and as...

Śmigus-Dyngus Ah, Easter. For some, it’s all hot cross buns, pastel eggs, and vaguely competitive egg hunts at the local park or...

Back in 2018, my husband and I did something a lot of people only daydream about over coffee and Pinterest boards—we took an 8-month...

As a kid, I’d sit on the floor flipping through those glossy pages of National Geographic or watching Lorne Green's Wild Kingdom ,...