After a week in County Kerry following an itinerary full of (gorgeous) tourist attractions, Max and I set off for the Wild Atlantic Way, traveling the coastal route from Galway to Clifden. With no real destination in mind, we took narrow winding roads that lead to secret beaches, got chased by a sheep dog, managed to get our rental car stuck (then unstuck) on a road-turned-cow-path, and pulled over more times than we could count. Read More
From cable cars over open water, to sheep herding demonstrations, ruins, and cliffs, we had the best time exploring County Kerry, Ireland and the surrounding area with my family this past fall.
On a recent trip to Ireland, Max and I spent a few nights at Bothar Bui, a historic seaside compound that overlooks Kenmare Bay on the Beara peninsula. While we hadn’t planned on traveling to the southern part of the country, the property came heavily recommended to us and we were NOT about to pass up the opportunity to soak in that tub! Read More
Big Sur is MAGIC. Pure, jaw-dropping, twisting and turning, magic. Max and I slept under the redwoods and spent our days driving up and down the coast; backtracking often because it was THAT beautiful. I’ll never forget just how breath-taking it all was (and how good of a sport Max was to pull over every 50 feet or so for a photo). We were so smitten we have since returned countless times and have loved getting to know the California coast that much more.
Oh, LA! You were better than we ever imagined. We were warned about the traffic, the smog, the heat. So when we arrived and the skies were clear, the weather was in the high 60s, and it was nothing like the Boston road rage we were accustomed to, you can believe Max & I were smitten. Read More
Salvation Mountain was one of those detours that ended up being a whole heck of a lot farther and more desolate than I had imagined. Leaving Joshua Tree National Park through the southern border, we drove along the Salton Sea to Slab City, home of Salvation Mountain. Vermont-born Leonard Knight set out to spread love, creating a folk art oasis in the 1980’s with some 100,000 gallons of paint. At 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide, the painted adobe clay structure towers over the playa of the Sonoran Desert and is straight out of a strange, beautiful dream. Read More
No landscape could be more different from that of New England than the desert, which is precisely why Max and I made sure we spent a few days exploring Joshua Tree and its surrounding terrain during our California road trip. With an ever-growing community of creatives flocking to the desert, it has become a hip destination known not only for the unique landscape but also the stellar food, shops, and culture.
California has to be the best for in-state road trips. Without crossing any borders, you can cover vast terrain; from desert, to oasis, to rocky coastal cliffs, and dense redwoods. You can experience both smog and fog, which coincidentally look the same but are regarded as completely different depending on where and who you talk to. Before Max and I relocated to California, we flew out from Boston and went on a two week long road trip. We cruised around Palm Springs, camped in Joshua Tree, took a pilgrimage to Salvation Mountain, AirBnB’d in Los Angeles, and drove the coast-hugging Highway 1 through Santa Barbara and Big Sur. We pitched our tent in the redwoods and then crashed with friends in San Francisco. It was such an epic trip I’ve decided to dedicate a few blog posts to it, starting with Palm Springs!