By Mary Bergin New Glarus, Wisconsin, is a village of 2,247 residents that takes pride in being known as “America’s Little Switzerland.” Located 30 miles southwest of Madison, the community supports a männerchor (men’s choir), kinderchor (youth choir) and jodlerklub (choir of yodelers). The mournful sound of meters-long alphorns (used long ago by the Swiss…
By Tom Adkinson A farmer’s work never really ends, but there are a few breaks in the action, particularly when autumn harvest season winds down. The harvest season is a time of celebration – both literal and psychological – and today’s literal celebrations go way beyond the farmer and his or her family. Autumn means…
By Rich Grant People have been knocking back beers together for 6,000 years. The planet’s oldest known recipe comes from Mesopotamia in today’s Southern Iraq. It provides directions on how to turn old bread crusts into a thick, dark, warm beverage that, upon consumption, makes you feel exceptionally good. There have always been taverns…
By Beth Reiber I went to Japan some 40 years ago to write travel articles but ended up staying a couple of years, first as editor of a travel magazine published in Tokyo and then to write the first of several guidebooks on Japan. My Frommer’s Japan guidebook alone ran more than 600 pages and…
By Liz Campbell Perched at the edge of a precipitate drop, my first thought would NOT be, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to dive off here?’ But, in Queenstown, New Zealand thousands of tourists don’t agree. The logo of AJ Hackett, the first commercial bungee jumping facility in the world, is Live More, Fear Less, and…
By Mark Orwoll Traveling every summer from New York to the Jersey Shore, my family and I often stop at one of the many service areas on the Garden State Parkway. They are…functional. Take the Connie Chung Service Area, southbound only, at mile marker 153. Non-East Coasters might think that’s a line from The Onion…
By Jacqueline Swartz Whether it’s your first time, or you are returning, maybe for the umpteenth time, Paris seduces. What is it about this city that makes it one of the most visited places in the world? That makes people pull up stakes and move to the City of Light. What drew painters like Degas,…
By Jeff Book The Dixie Highway was a big deal in its day. Conceived in 1914 to promote commerce and tourism, the pioneering road network ultimately measured some 4,000 miles, in mostly parallel routes stretching from northern Michigan to Miami. Much of it later was absorbed into the interstate highway system, distinguished by numbered shield-shaped…
By Richard Varr I’m crawling on my hands and knees in the cramped and low-ceiling belly of the HMB Endeavour to reach the so-called Great Cabin at the ship’s stern. Imagine calling the 18th century brigantine home for just over three years with one of the few creature comforts being drop-down hammocks swaying at the…
By John Gottberg Anderson The tuk-tuk driver reclined on a padded seat in the back of his motorized transport, neither a surrey nor a golf cart but something in between. “Hey, bong, nice to see you today,” he said as I passed, using the catch-all greeting so frequently used in this Southeast Asian nation. “Where…