off duty travel

I FIRST HEARD of the hotel Basin Harbor from my neighbor, a man so resolutely traditional I believe I once saw him wearing a sport coat while clipping flowers in his garden. “You’ll love it. It’s like the resort in ‘Dirty…

I WAS STANDING near my husband, both of us perched carefully on the edge of Twentymile Creek Cascades, while a half-dozen light blue butterflies the size of nickels fluttered around our boots. We could hear the water rushing over…

For the Time Capsule series, we spotlight a cherished restaurant, hotel or landmark that’s changed remarkably little over the years. This week, we visit the Manago Hotel in Hawaii. THEN In 1917, Kinzo Manago and his wife,…

MALLORCA’S reputation today as a jasmine-scented, jet-set paradise can make it hard to swallow tales of the Spanish island’s formerly hardscrabble history. Frédéric Chopin, who spent the winter of 1838 on the island with his…

IN THE GROWING field of outdoor hospitality, a new collaboration is giving the often folksy #vanlife crowd a luxe way to escape. Collective Retreats, a company that’s created glamping compounds in unexpected places such as…

IT’S ONE OF those end-of-the-earth places. The westernmost part of Iceland that overlooks the frigid Atlantic is a primordial world of sharp, snow-capped peaks, moonlike landscapes and sparkling fjords. But that wasn’t the main reason we…

LOCATED AT the end of Florida’s 113-mile Overseas Highway, Key West inspires unabashed revelry, even in the steamy summer. Maybe that’s because, as one of the southernmost points in the contiguous U.S., it feels more Caribbean than…

MY FIRST NIGHT in Mykonos, a few weeks ago, the whitewashed hillside windmills overlooking the port were still, but I had all the fresh air I craved merely by being on the island. I was sitting on the stone steps of a seaside bar…

IN MID February 2020, I spent a few days in Siem Reap, the Cambodian city just outside the ruins of Angkor Wat. One night, I went to see the drag queen show at the Barcode nightclub where I watched a performer named…

YOU’LL BEGIN your 433-mile traverse across the Buckeye State by crossing the Ohio River on a car ferry, heading into the wild Northwest Territory. That’s your first clue that Ohio is nothing like a flat, monotonous cornfield. The…