What takes 2,250 pounds of icing, 415 pounds of dough and 17 pounds of candy corns? That would be Gingerbread Lane, and you can find 152 houses along this most coveted address at the New York Hall of Science (aka NYSci) in Queens, NY. We visited for the first time this past Saturday, and it […]

The other evening, I was out with a group of women in New York City. When the conversation turned to winter plans, almost a third of the group was headed to Florida — including me! Ah Florida, it’s the kind of place Americans totally take for granted. Almost everyone has some kind of Florida memory, whether […]

Fall foliage has peaked in New York City’s Central Park, and as usual, it’s magnificent. Yesterday was Jazz and Colors, my favorite Central Park event in which 30 jazz ensembles play the same set in different locations all over the park for the whole afternoon. Last year, I brought an almost two-year-old who was sort […]

In the fourth grade, I did my State Report, a rather long and involved project for the time, on Mississippi. I didn’t know when I’d have the chance to visit The Magnolia State until I received an invitation to speak on the Social Media panel at the 2013 SATW (Society of American Travel Writers) Convention on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi. So here was my opportunity to visit the Deep South, y’all. My 44-hour stay (from Monday late afternoon to Wednesday at noon) was short but sweet. And full of shrimp.

Whenever I go through a longish stretch of not traveling, I console myself with the fact because I live in the ultimate vacation destination: New York City. Living here is like one long staycation… Ok, maybe not. But my husband and I did get to experience a true staycation when I was hosted by The […]

It’s been more than a year and a half since, Gossip Girl went off the air and I still miss it. So I certainly wasn’t going to pass up my chance to take a tour of The New York Palace, which has just completed a $140 million renovation. This luxury hotel, famous for its large courtyard that faces Madison Avenue, played a starring role in Gossip Girl, as almost half of the main characters have lived there (or even own it) at some point in the show. The Palace always looked good on TV, but this new facelift makes it absolutely spectacular. As Mayor Bloomberg said in his speech at last night’s grand opening party, “Serena van der Woodsen would definitely approve.”

When I arrived in Lake Placid, New York, after a five-plus-hour drive in August, I was very excited to see Lake Placid itself. I was so excited that I erroneously assumed that the lovely lake in the town of Lake Placid (of which I had a great view from the High Peaks Resort) was Lake Placid. But no, it was Mirror Lake. I didn’t see Lake Placid until I went to the famous ski resort of Whiteface and rode the Cloudsplitter Gondola.

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!

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.

With a massive children’s museum, a pedestrian-friendly riverfront, and (free!) electric shuttle buses taking tourists around town, Chattanooga has a lot to offer families with young children. After years of living in London, frequent guest blogger Jill Martin Wrenn loves exploring around her home base of Atlanta. So when she wanted a family-friendly weekend getaway within a two-hour drive from her home in Atlanta, they headed to Chattanooga.