[MOUSTIERS-SAINTE-MARIE, FRANCE] — Moustiers in eastern Provence is the gateway to the great Gorge du Verdon. The Grand Canyon of France. And an Adventureland of fun, with trekking, boating, canyoning, climbing and just plain gawking at all the natural beauty. Driving up from southern Provence, you first drive over the high and flat Valensole plateau, home to some of the largest and most stunning lavender fields in France. Miles and miles of sweet purple flowers, as far as the eye can see. After driving across the plateau, you dip down into some of the most luscious, golden wheat fields you’ve ever seen. Picture perfect, dancing in the breeze Moustiers is freakishly cool. Surreal. Almost looks like painted illustrations in
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[GORGE DU VERDON, FRANCE] — All along the skinny serpentine road that follows each side of the Gorge due Verdon canyon rim are cool slot canyons to explore. Canyons like this awesome hike below the jaw dropping Point Sublime. I wasn’t planning on this hike. Just stumbled on it and kept going. The path descends to follow along the water, climbing up ladders and disappearing into cool dark tunnels, emerging on the other side. When I say tunnels, I mean pitch black tunnels. “Signs warn you should have a headlamp. “Hahaha, we don’t need no stinking torchiers.” I mumbled to myself as I entered that last and longest tunnel.” Okay, click this video, turn your sound up and then start reading: Well, they were serious. Unbeknownst to
[SARTÈNE, CORSICA] — I was having dinner by myself the first night in Corsica at Domaine du Murtoli — one of the most exclusive resorts in France — and sitting back and grinning at all the natural wonder before me in this candle-lit treehouse of a restaurant hidden under the maquis trees. Barefoot waitresses in linen frocks darted under the leaves, brining drinks, appetizers and cute smiles. Around the corner came a vision, the most perfectly tanned specimen on this planet. Valérie, the proprietress of this magical haven (and a former model and mother to four beautiful children). She floated on a cloud up to my table and I gulped. “Bon soir, my name is Valérie. How was your dinner? Did you see your little friend?”
[CORSICA, FRANCE] — You know when you’re in a rental car in a foreign land and you’re on a steep impossible skinny one lane road with dropoffs of hundreds of feet and wondering “what the hell am going to do if another car comes the other way???” I was in exactly in that situation, on a steep rocky road, barely wider than my car, pointing downdowndown on my way to the a sleepy fishing village I was told was a gem. The crazy road was a bunch of zig-zags all the way down to the sea, each turn more precarious than the last. My clutch skills failing on the steep hill, killing the car as I rounded the tightest bends. When you’re traveling with someone else, you kinda
[SCANDOLA NATURE RESERVE, CORSICA] — Okay, who’s been to the Scandola Nature Reserve in Corsica? Non? Strap in. You’re about to see something really amazing. You gotta gotta go do this. A huge natural preserve in the northwest of Corsica, with the most dramatic rock formations, canyons and wildly shaped rocks you’ve ever seen, plunging right into the sea. Dwarfing everything in their midst, namely you. It’s like being in a one-armed Grand Canyon, with the deep blue Mediterranean sea on the right side, and every color and shape of rock you’ve ever seen. On the northwest corner of Corsica, you can really only see it from a boat, dramatic jagged cliffs of every shape and size and color, changing from cove to cove, none of them looking
[CORSICA, FRANCE] — “Emmm, Monsieur Dan, please be careful. The water is deep enough, but there ees a big rock down there. So you must jump out from the cliff to not hit it, but not too far. Or you will hit the beeg rock.“ That was my super-cute young French guide, shouting above the roar. I was canyoning in Corsica for the first time. We were standing on top of a huge stack of elephant rocks, a swift stream was zooming under our feet, funneled into a torrent off the edge of this cliff, crashing twenty feet five below. We were high, high up in the raspy mean mountains of inner Corsica, a lush island in the middle of the Mediterranean, that thrusts out of the
[CORSICA, FRANCE] — Smack in the middle of the deep blue Mediterranean Sea are two big islands, Sardinia and Corsica. Almost like twins, ripped apart, both jut out of the sea like breeching whales, with huge mountains in the middle and some of the best beaches in all of Europe, if not the world, ringing their rocking shores. Corsica is a magical adventure land, with an infinite amount of sporty things to do. Hiking. Climbing. Canyoning. Snorkeling. Sailing. Boating. Or just sit on the beach. The middle is spiked with enormous shark-toothed mountains, some as high as the Alps, often dotted with snow year-round. It’s only 200km long, but with a wild spread of geography that would rival entire countries 100x its size. And we’re
[GÈDRE, FRANCE] — I always wanted to go on some great hikes in the French Pyrénées, but I could never figure out where. As I finally figured out after all these years, the Pyrénées aren’t just a single group of mountains, but a bunch of groups of Pyrénées spread all along the French/Spanish border. So when you think, as I stupidly did, “Oh I’ll just go hike in the Pyrénées” you’re instantly in over your head when you finally try to Google it and figure out where to go. There’s the Pyrénées-Orientales in French Catalonia (which I wrote briefly about in another earlier post), the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in Basque country near San Sebastian, the Midi-Pyrénées, the Haute-Pyrénées and several other subparts. And then there’s the complementary Spanish Pyrénées on the very other side and
[DORDOGNE & PERIGORD, FRANCE] — You don’t read much about Dordogne in the U.S. travel press. But the French know about it, almost keep it all to themselves. But the British found it long ago, in fact, this was one of the great battlegrounds of the Hundred Year’s War between the nobles of France and England. Now wealthy Brits have snapped up a lot of the incredible houses and chateaus. But I just want to give you a taste of what it looks, feels and tastes like. I was on a random two-month drive through France, seeking out long-remembered places I’ve always seen (often in my French texts) but never had a chance to visit. Click on a pick below and you can follow along. More
[PRAGUE] — This is going to be a pretty easy post for you, more of a postcard travelogue. I think I am the last guy to visit Prague, but I slapped it on to a Christmas trip to Brussels just to see what it’s like and have some beer. Pretty city. Too many tourists for me. I feel sorry that it was so overrun. But it definitely is pretty. These are the best things I’ve found. Click to open the slideshow and follow along. Last visited Christmas 2015
[BRUSSELS] — Trying to do a Mileage Run at the end of the year to top off the tanks, I found a cheap flight to Brussels, perfectly timed between Christmas and New Years, back by the end of the year. The sad terrorist attacks had just occurred and I wanted to show my support but not letting those acts change our world. Plus, my hunch was right that the airfares and upgrades would be cheap with a lot of cancellations. I left on Christmas Day, went to Brussels, a day trip to Antwerp at some of my Instagram followers on-the-ground suggestions, then shot over to Prague for a couple of days. After all these years going to Europe, I’d never gone to either country, so
[ANTWERPEN, BELGIUM] — So I was posting live pics of Brussels on my Instagram and someone who follows me shot back “You should go to Antwerp.” Hmmmm, never thought about going there. And this whole trip was a last-minute. “It’s a quick train ride and cooler, smaller and more artsy. Not boring like Brussels.” Really? I’d never even communicated with her before, but her IG name @devils_food_made_in_heaven was intriguing enough, she’d been to amazing restaurants all over. “Yes, you should definitely go to Antwerp!” commented another person I’d never communicated with… a very stylish hotel owner in France (who just happened to be eating in San Sebastian, Spain just right then.) Wow! Two people I’d never spoken with/written to, now telling me to go to
[BOLOGNA, ITALY] — Bologna was about 237th on my list of places I wanted to visit, but when a Rome school buddy of mine suggested we meet there to eat, I jumped at the chance. Man oh man what a gorgeous city. Almost every block is covered with some sort of portico, centuries old. I was there in October, so the warm autumn sunlight weighed heavy on all the nooks and crannies of the city. Each corner revealing some beautiful hue of red, with the perfect patina. You walk around the corner and BOOM, another amazing palette of colors. And the reflected light gave off a glow that washed the whole city in red. There’s reason why Italians have always called Bologna “La Rossa” (The Red
Here’s a quiet little video summary I made of a fabulous two week trip in Morocco in April 2015. I tried to capture the sights, sounds and incomparable experiences of all of Morocco. Marrakesh, the High Atlas Mountains, the desert oasis of Skoura and camping in the Sahara. If you want more detailed information of all the sights in this video, check out the Morocco page on my website. Lots of great pictures, information, maps and links to other resources to help you plan your trip. Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.
[DALMATIAN COAST, CROATIA] — Highly recommend you try and swing a sailboat charter in Croatia. You can backpack or ferry between islands, but having your own steam allows you to duck in and out of the thousands of islands along the Dalmatian coast. These pics are a companion post to my boat pics, following along our route chronologically so you can get a feel for how you can visit a completely different place every single day, without leaving your boat. You pick up your boat in the surprisingly cool Split, then poke your way amidst the islands towards Dubrovnik. The itinerary is your own. Only a start and end date. The rest is up to you. You can get a boat of virtually any size to match
[KEARNEY, NEBRASKA] — When you first get to the river, it’s 6am and pitch black. You feel your way down a path, heading toward The Noise. You want to get there before they see you coming. Slowly, the shrieks get louder and louder as the first light slowly begins to open its eyes. Suddenly, you start to make out shapes stepping out of the darkness. Big dark masses grow more detailed the lighter it gets. What you thought was an island or sandbar is actually a throbbing, humming mass of birddom. And they suddenly appear out of the darkness, like the invasion of Normandy on DDay. Hundreds of thousands of them, nearly covering the shallow river from shore to shore. We wait while the first pilot
[MONTE ARGENTARIO | MAREMMA, TUSCANY] — Maremma is the southern edge of Tuscany and goes from the hilly and ferrous inland to the varyingly wild-horse-roaming, swampy and rocky coast. A lot of people just hang out in eastern Tuscany — what Conde Nast Traveller funnily dubbed Chiantishire — and don’t know much about “Hidden Tuscany”, the underdeveloped and handsomely rugged western side. Where we’re going now is Monte Argentario, once an island, but like my stomach, grew beyond its britches, loosened the top button and is now double-belted to the shore. Go check it out on google maps. Some call Monte Argentario the Capri of Tuscany, but I think it is more of its own special thing, much much mellower, less crowded and more treed. Long
[SATURNIA, TUSCANY] — Just a few miles from Pitigliano is a cool sulfur hot springs called Saturnia. Just a nice little natural stop to have lunch among all the undiscovered hill towns of Maremma. It’s not much more than a slit in the earth on the side of the road, but it is still cool. If you want a fancier spa-like experience, check out the Terme di Saturnia resort a few blocks up the road. The springs date back to the Pelasgi, who were before the Greeks, before the Etruscans and waaay before the Romans finally hung out here in 200BC or so. So like me, the springs are very old but dependable, bubbly and naturally effervescent. 😜 Last visited October 2012
[PITIGLIANO, MAREMMA TUSCANY] — One of the great medieval hill towns of Maremma in western Tuscany is the quiet little town of Pitigliano. Not overly crowded, no cars in the city center, it’s a great town to stop in for a walk ’round and have a nice long lunch. Here’s a great guide that says it better than I could. Pitigliano — just a hoot to say fast — which looks more El Greco than Grosseto. Driving inland from the sea, this fairytale town rises between the trees and rolling hills and feels like you’re looking at it through a stereoscope, which technically I guess your eyes are, but you get the point. Oh wait … 3D glasses, better analogy. A fortress on three sides and
[HANA, MAUI] — I was in Maui in 2015, the week before Thanksgiving scoping out a new project and got a chance to stay at the cool Travaasa experiential resort on the totally chill side of the island, at the receiving end of the Road to Hana. A lot of people take the white-knuckle drive, turn around and drive back the same day. But Hana is a world away from the Resort Crazy, white sock/white sneakers and muscle shirts (when did those come back in style? And why?) at the other end of the island. This is the way to do it. I love me some nice hotels and seek them out all over, but few can compare with the views of these bungalows, smack overlooking