This is part II of my annual Jimmy Awards for best travel experiences of the year, ranging from great pasta at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver to an incredible wine cellar in the Bahamas and an amazing (and surprising) guitar player on the Queen Mary 2. Thanks to everyone that helped along the way! BEST SAILING TRIP: A sunset cruise with the folks at the Santa Barbara Sailing Center in California. I love Santa Barbara, but this was my first time on a sailboat in the region. They do a great job, and we had a stunning sunset. If Read more
Oahu
Two new experiences on a great Hawaiian island. I’ve been to Oahu at least seven or eight or maybe even 10 times. But I’d somehow never stayed the night anywhere other than Waikiki Beach and had only driven to other parts of the island a couple of times. This time I decided I needed to see a little more, so I managed short but wonderful visits to the Makaha area and the windward coastal areas between Kaneohe and Turtle Bay. My Dad and my sister were with me on most of my Oahu visit, so we made a point of Read more
Fabulous food. Sumptuous surroundings. And a truly Hawaiian feel. The relatively new Four Seasons O’ahu (it opened in June, 2016) is one of the top resorts on the planet, a beautiful and lush property in the booming Ko Olina region of Hawaii’s most populous island. It’s less than an hour’s drive into Waikiki and a half hour from Honolulu, but it’s truly a world away. My sister and I were treated to a fantastic night at the resort, which sits alongside a circular lagoon next to the Disney Aulani resort. It’s a great part of the island, relatively dry and Read more
I got news of a remarkable study the other day from Resonance Consultancy, which did a report on 121 U.S. cities and ranked them according to their “experiential quality.” It strikes me as a bit of an inexact science, but the idea behind the study is a very good one that involved analyzing consumer comments on various websites to determine not just actual numbers of who goes where but the level of engagement and happiness people feel when they go to a destination. In a press release they sent, Resonance officials said industry folks know about visitor county,, spending and Read more
We all want to save a buck. Or three. With that in mind, the folks at gobankingrates.com have put together lists of the 10 cheapest and 10 most expensive cities to visit in the U.S. I’m quite familiar with many of them and have some thoughts of my own, so I’m offering three free things to do in some of the most expensive cities. And, just for fun, free things to do in the cheapest cities so you can REALLY save. We’ll start with the most expensive on the list. In order, from most expensive on down, were New York Read more
