Greetings from my rental in Antibes, France, where I’m staying for three days. My rental is terrific, and I will be giving it a full review after I leave (next stop is Provence, and I just came from Avignon). But first, I wanted to share with you my five tips for finding a great vacation rental. In addition to Antibes, I’ve stayed in rentals in Lisbon, Seville, Copenhagen, Newport, Breckenridge, Park City and St. John, USVI, so I consider myself somewhat of a pro.
Here are the five things that I always ask about when I inquire about a rental (even if it’s in the listing):

Remember when I was worrying about how difficult it would be to travel with a two-and-a-half-year-old? Well, I got over that… Switzerland and France, here we come!

Every time I thought about where I wanted to go this summer, my mind kept coming back to the South of France. I was last there 12 years ago with my sister, and I just loved it. I knew I needed some sort of beach destination for my beach-loving toddler, but I also needed some culture to satisfy my own wanderlust.

I love museums, and I have a memory from a couple of years ago (in my pre-blogging existence) of reading a travel magazine (have Googled this article to no avail) and seeing beautiful photos of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. I can recall thinking, I’d really love to go there. I can remember feeling puzzled why something called the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art was in Denmark. And then, upon realizing that this museum is not even located in Copenhagen, I dejectedly thought to myself, I’ll probably never get to go. Well, I got to go! And it was fantastic!

Sandhammaren is the best beach in Sweden. It’s also the only beach I’ve been to in Sweden, so don’t take my word for it. The Aftonbladet (the famous Swedish newspaper we all know about from the Steig Larsson novels) said it was the best beach in Sweden. And with the long stretch of uninterrupted coastline, warm (surprisingly warm!) Baltic waters, soft, light sand and inviting dunes, I’m more than willing to believe that Sandhammaren is the best beach in Sweden. It’s located in Osterlen, the southeastern tip of Sweden.

Did you know that Sweden has its own version of Stonehenge? Neither did I until shortly before I visited this mysterious Megalithic monument called Ales Stenar (which translates to Ale’s Stones) in Kåseberga, Sweden. For our second day of sightseeing in Skane, Elisabeth told us we were going to Ales Stenar, a historic site that’s like Stonehenge. I was instantly intrigued. I’ve never been to Stonehenge, but I’ve always wanted to go. A Swedish Stonehenge sounded pretty good to me. After an amazing lunch at Olof Viktors in Glemminge and then we were off an uphill trek to Ales Stenar.

Glimmingehus looks rather imposing; a big stone box just sitting on the vast fields of Skane, Sweden.Whether this well-preserved Medieval structure should be called a castle or a fortress is up for debate: it was was meant as a fortress rather than a residence, although it’s not believed that there was ever a battle there. Another source of debate is whether we should be calling the castle/fortress Swedish or Danish because this region was part of Denmark when it was built from 1499-1506. But what’s not up for debate is that how family-friendly this attraction is. In a small outer building across from the castle/fortess is a playroom full of blocks!

There are beautiful roses in Kivik, a charming fishing village located in Skane, the southernmost county in Sweden. So beautiful that they don’t even look real! That’s because Sweden can be a bit rainy and then sunny and then rainy again. You know that phrase, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a little while”? I had had always heard that for Ithaca, NY, and Scotland, and it’s certainly true for Sweden in the summer as well. Southern Sweden is covered in lush, green rolling hills and accented with bright flowers, and I guess you just can’t get those colors without a little rain, which we experienced last July.

If you want proof that I wasn’t expecting much from our impromptu day trip to Kent, Connecticut, here you go: I didn’t bring my camera. Yep, all of these photos are taken by my iPhone 4 because I didn’t think that that our Memorial Day trip to Kent was going to be anything to blog about. Northwest Connecticut, the foothills of the Berkshires, is a beautiful area, but I’ve been there so many times throughout the years that I wasn’t expecting to see anything truly different. But the impressive waterfall at Kent Falls State Park blew me away — I was glad to be wrong!

South Africa is often thought as a “bucket list” destination, the kind of dream destination that you’ll visit someday. But instead of putting it off, how about doing it right away… like making it first place you go after you get married? South Africa has become an increasingly popular honeymoon choice as it offers so many varied — yet unique — experiences. Amanda and Neil had shared their incredible South Africa honeymoon with Travelogged.com; now, they approach their second anniversary, here’s a look back at their perfect three-week itinerary.

Nature and art lovers, unite! No need to make the difficult choice between spending time outside or looking at art when it comes to Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY, a sprawling sculpture park in the beautiful Hudson Valley. There actually is an indoor museum here, but I was too busy trying to cover as much of the 80 acres of rolling hills as I can, seeing works from Alexander Calder, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin and more.