Buddy trips are a wonderful way to have both a great time and get some economies of scale on the cost side. The only issue with this type of trip is in the details and the details are what makes a trip marginal or fantastic. The first and most important decision that needs to made above and beyond anything else is who is going to be the lead person on the trip. You cannot do this with more than one person heading up your group. Trust me, it can turn into a disaster. At the ou

I see myself as a good cook, not great but certainly serviceable. One dish I always thought I could pull off was a terrific cacio e pepe, perhaps the simplest Roman pasta dish imaginable. One evening, I was watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations where he was highlighting an unspecified restaurant in Rome that made "to-die-for" cacio e pepe. (For those who may have missed Italian 101, cacio e pepe is cheese and pepper pasta or said more simply, Italian, adult mac and chee

There are four cities that I know exceptionally well, Boston, Edinburgh, London and Rome but certainly none better than my hometown of Boston. That's why I thought it made sense to start by giving you my thoughts on Boston as a destination. If you're anything like me, I always start researching a trip to a new destination around my stomach. I know that sounds a bit bizarre but I look at it this way: the one thing that I know I will do when I am away is eat and drink. The muse

The first thing you notice about Locanda San Vigilio is its prominent position at the tip of a small peninsula. It's not so much that's it's on the lake as it is, in the lake. It's hard to imagine a more breathtaking location. Certainly that is a significant part of the hotel's charm but it is far more than that. The hotel is not as well put together as say, J.K. Place in Capri, but you wouldn't expect that from a place that has been welcoming guests since the year 1500. Amon

My first trip to London was in 1961 when I was five years old. Since, I have journeyed back 100+ times and at one point, I lived there for 2 years. My Mum immigrated to the States from London by way of Italy and her (and my) large extended family calls the Big Smoke home. To me, it's like a second home. Over the years, I have slept at a variety of places from relatives' homes, bandbox, 2-star rated hotels to the best luxury hotels in the world. They all provide the same thing

What the world needs now is....not another travel site. Geez - I know that and thought long and hard about starting yet another one. How could I differentiate it? What was I looking to get out of it? Did I want to monetize the site? Did I have the time? Even though all of these questions have been left unresolved, I plastered the site up anyway. The big question is: why? I love traveling and most of the things that go with it. I like gaming the system for points and free upgr

I never tell stories out of school. Ever. But this one happened so long ago that the participants can comfortably blame it all on youth and ol’ demon alcohol. It was one of the funniest stories ever brought back Stateside by this group – well, it was funny for us. After a long day of golf in Scotland’s East Lothian, our group decided to dine at a respectable restaurant rather than eat off of crumpled newspapers from the local chippie that we frequented all week. None of us we

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was one of America's most beloved humorists and writers. While he is best known for his two books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I always loved the tales he told in The Innocents Abroad. In 1867, Twain embarked on a tour of Europe and the Middle East with some other American travelers. The trip was funded by a newspaper where Twain was on retainer. While the trip was primarily about visit