Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Peter at Santa Maria del Popolo, which I believe portrays a bunga bunga party gone horrible wrong.
Almost six years to the day since my first visit, I’ve returned to Rome (“all roads…” or something like that). Highlights of that trip included seeing Catholic stuff, getting smitten by Caravaggio, and having an Italian chotsky vendor at the Forum demonstrate his mastery of English by having me verify the accuracy of every synonym he knew for male genitalia (I was impressed).
Rather than crashing at a hostel though, this trip I’ll be staying at the Rome Cavalieri, a hotel I included in my first article for Air Canada’s enRoute, which focused on hotels that give their art the full-on gallery treatment (the Rome Cavalieri has $8 million worth of the stuff—just behind the front desk and it employs a full-time art historian).
When I visited Hawaii’s Big Island during a six-week stay in the state in 2008, I had just one disappointment: I never saw an active lava flow (stupid nature, you erupt when I want you to). When I returned last August on assignment with Photo Safari Hawaii for enRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight magazine, however, the Kilauea Volcano cooperated. (Yes, that’s the same Kilauea Volcano’s that’s spewing lava 100 feet in the air today—that might be a bit too much cooperation.)
In February’s issue, I wrote about my day-long private photo ecotour with Photo Safari Hawaii:
Brian Ross, a fine art photographer and Photo Safari Hawaii’s owner, and Sian Olsen, one of his guides and the owner of Kohala Kayak, were not only excellent photography instructors, but their deep knowledge of the Big Island impressed as well. They were good company for 13 hours.
I’d taken a photography class previously with the Smithsonian Institution, but it centered on the mechanics of using the camera and got tedious. While they customize the experience for each group, Brian and Sian focus on the composition of fine art photography. This approach proved a lot more engaging—and provided plenty of fantastic photos of the Big Island, home to 10 of the Earth’s 15 types of climatic zones and the most diverse weather of any similarly sized area of land on the planet:
You can follow our travels on this map from the Hawaiian Style Cafe in Waimea, where I had a, um, great Hawaiian-style breakfast and turned on the MotionX iPhone GPS app at 7:28 a.m., to the Fairmont Orchid hotel, where I was dropped off at 8:52 p.m.
A map of my day with Photo Safari Hawaii created with MotionX iPhone GPS app.
Access to the area where the lava from Kilauea Volcano was flowing was cut off during certain hours except for locals, some of whom still had houses there. One said we were with him and a security guard, who knew otherwise, let him drive us to where the lava was flowing. In takes a certain type of guy to live near an active flow: in this case, think if Francis Ford Coppolla had cast Jack Nicholson as Dennis Hopper’s character from Apocalypse Now.
And it takes a different type of guy altogether to cultivate vegetation and create walking paths on top of the Kilauea’s volcanic ash: think Adrian Brody on speed playing the littlest nerd in Revenge of the Nerds.
In addition to Brian and Sian, mahalo to the Big Island Visitors Bureau and Jessica Ferracane and Becky Ryan at Irondog Communications for coordinating my visit, Jaisy Jardine at the Fairmont Orchid, and the local who got us close to the lava flow.
enRoute‘s Higher Learning section focuses on “an international crash course in anything from cheese making to scuba diving to ranching, told from a personal perspective but in such a way that it teaches the reader about both the activity and the place it’s taught. It’s a two-page section, 450-words (in English and in French) and includes a sidebar with suggestions for where to stay and eat.” If you have ideas for similar experiences, please let me know.
Photos: Zach Everson and courtesy Brian Ross
Videos: Zach Everson
Map: Google Earth via MotionX iPhone GPS app
In the January issue of Air Canada’s enRoute I shared some pointers from a poker lesson I took in Las Vegas with two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Mark Seif.
Mark was a fantastic teacher during our session at Caesars Palace last August, so much so that I left the poker room up $55 when I played on my own the next day (your results may vary). Winning money at poker was a new experience for me, I enjoyed it greatly, and I hope to do it again.
It’s mentioned in the itinerary section on the last page, but it merits repeating: if you’re looking for a dining splurge in Vegas, eat at Bradley Ogden in Caesars. It’s joined the pantheon of meals that I stay up late at night thinking about.
The piece ran in enRoute‘s Higher Learning section, which focuses on “an international crash course in anything from cheese making to scuba diving to ranching, told from a personal perspective but in such a way that it teaches the reader about both the activity and the place it’s taught. It’s a two-page section, 450-words (in English and in French) and includes a sidebar with suggestions for where to stay and eat.” If you have suggestions for similar experiences, please let me know.
In addition to Mark, much thanks to Naomi Strasser and Sherri-Lyn Brown at Aerial Communications Group and Brandy Bell at Harrah’s Entertainment for coordinating my visit. (And thanks to my daughter for crawling for the first time two hours before I left for Vegas. If it’d been two hours afterward, I probably would’ve quit travel writing and just entered Bloomingdale’s executive training program.)
A trip to San Diego in June marked my daughter's first dip in the Pacific Ocean.
Just over a week into 2010, I became a dad. During the year I realized though that any concerns I had about parenthood—and my new editor-in-chief gig at Louisville.com, which I also started in January—impacting my travel were unfounded.
Here are my travel highlights for 2010 (and while my daughter didn’t go on all of these trips with me, she did make it to 14 states and Washington, DC in her first year):
A road trip to Milwaukee and Chicago in March marked my daughter’s first trip out of Kentucky; I talked about the experience on a podcast for UpTake and mentioned our Chicago hotel room’s wonderful view in enRoute.
As much as I enjoy traveling, it’s nice when a big event comes to me. In May it was the Kentucky Derby, which I wrote about for BlackBook and oversaw Louisville.com’s best week of traffic ever (November’s Breeders’ Cup did well too).
While family was the focus of my June visits to San Diego (brother’s wedding) and Kamiah, ID (to see my grandmother), I wrote about San Diego restaurant Jsix’s chef’s kitchen experience for BlackBook.
In June I made it back to New York City for TBEX, a travel bloggers conference, and finally got to meet in person a lot of folks I’d only known on the tubes. They were terribly disappointing exceeded high expectations.
Coming from a small family (no aunts or uncles), my wife’s family’s annual reunion just outside of Morgantown, WV is a can’t miss—I’m serious.
In Columbus, Ohio for my brother-in-law’s wedding, I stayed in a hotel where James Thurber use to live.
In August I flew to the The Big Island of Hawaii on assignment for enRoute to take a fine art photography class with Photo Safari Hawaii.
Later that month Las Vegas was the destination for another enRoute assignment, this time to take a poker lesson from two-time World Series of Poker champ Mark Seif.
I wrote about looking out over Gerald Ford’s grave site from my hotel room in Grand Rapids, Mich. for UpTake and visiting the art fair with the world’s largest prize (if not the best art) for Gridskipper.
On Columbus Day weekend we trekked to Watoga State Park in West Virginia for another of my wife’s family reunions (it’s a big clan).
At Thanksgiving I returned to my hometown of Reading, Mass. for the first time in 17 months, the longest I’d ever gone without a visit; I reviewed the accommodations at my parents’ house for UpTake (executive summary: meh).
For the second year in a row, I visited China with the Ritz-Carlton (this time it was Beijing); I won’t complain if trips to China with that hotelier become an annual tradition. Culinary highlights already have been posted on Gridskipper.
It was fantastic to get back to Washington, DC and see our friends. I wrote our stay at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington DC about for UpTake.
For the third time in four years, both my wife’s family and mine gathered in the neutral playing location of Deep Creek Lake Maryland for Christmas.
My writing focuses on travel and culture. I've contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Air Canada's enRoute, BlackBook, Budget Travel, Deadspin, and Louisville Magazine. I'm also the editor-in-chief of Louisville.com and BlackBook's Louisville City Editor.
My writing focuses on travel and culture. I've contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Air Canada's enRoute, BlackBook, Budget Travel, Deadspin, and Louisville Magazine. I'm also the editor-in-chief of Louisville.com and BlackBook's Louisville City Editor.