Holiday Gift Guide for Travelers
I used to be an awesome gift-giver: homemade sea salt blends, hand-knit scarves, custom-printed stationary. I can see my friends and family nodding their heads right now – “yep, you sure did!” (the operative word being did.) The thing is, I’m a parent now with a job, housework, and virtually no free time. And so, my […]
Thanks for Reading. Really.
It’s snowing in Nanaimo. That’s on Vancouver Island, for those that don’t know. If you follow me on twitter, you know that my family has been in British Columbia for a week now. Like much of the Pacific Northwestern states below us, snow, ice, and arctic-blast winds have been our frequent companions for the past […]
Art Meets High Style at Tacoma’s Hotel Murano
There I was, in the lobby of the Hotel Murano, a revamped boutique hotel in Tacoma’s downtown that I had never before heard described without use of the adjective swanky. But I’ve grown tired of that word, I must confess. And as I sat there the morning after our stylish stay, sipping deliciously strong coffee […]
Win a Stay in the San Juan Islands
Why do you travel? For some people, travel is a way of life. I know people who’ve ditched their jobs, hoisted on a backpack, and traveled the world on a shoestring, forever changed. For others, travel is an escape, like the young couple I know who are saving up all their vacation time to swap […]
Romancing the Camel on San Juan Island
Joshua Johnson is a Seattle-based travel blogger who specializes in social media content creation and promotion. His website is Travel Media Ninja, and his personal blog is right here. Josh also writes for the popular travel site The Travelers Notebook and heads the team at the travel video site MatadorTV. Don’t miss the camel video […]
Oysters and the Santa Train
BRITISH COLUMBIA Do you love to shuck and slurp slippery oysters? They’re even more delicious at the source. On Vancouver’s rugged, spectacular western coast is the town of Tofino on Clayoquot Sound, host to the Clayoquot Oyster Festival November 18-20, 2010. The region has reason to celebrate their bounty; they harvest 50,000 gallons of Pacific […]
Scenes of Tacoma
“I’ve seen Tacoma… from the interstate.” Well, it’s time to make a change. For years now, we’ve heard about how Tacoma’s downtown has been revitalized. And, it has. It’s walkable and vibrant and filled with art, as anyone who has made the trip to visit the Museum of Glass or catch a show at Pantages […]
Cozy Cabins on a Budget at Grace Haven
I have cabin fever. No, not that kind-the other kind. The kind where you’re crazy for cabins. I’m crazy for cabins – cedar walls, steaming cups of cocoa, cozy fires, wool blankets. Love them. First, I told you about staying at my friend’s cabin in Winthrop. But we couldn’t stop there. No, there was another. […]
At the Cabin
I grew up in the Midwest. Illinois, to be precise. In Illinois, we had cornfields and soybeans. To the north up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, though, were big trees, lakes and… cabins. On occasion, I’d know someone whose cousin’s girlfriend’s grandparents owned one of those lakefront cabins, and up we’d go to relax a little, […]
Earthbox Inn is an Oasis on San Juan Island
I’ll happily pitch a tent almost anywhere when I am sleeping outside. But when it comes to indoor accommodations, I can be a hard person to please. Too many bed and breakfasts go crazy with floral prints, or cabin themes, or what have you. Go corporate and you can get stuck under a terrible watercolor […]
