travel

Maybe It’s Time I Learned to Drive?

Road Trip

This morning, I came across an NYT article that I completely related to: being a non-driving New Yorker during the summer.

As the article details, sure, it’s fine to not drive for most of the year. It’s a pain to have a car, especially in Manhattan. But during the warm months, when all you want to do is escape every weekend to the beach or the mountains, you kind of wish you could drive there yourself:

No surprise, then, that this is the season when some nondrivers begin to wonder whether their aversion to life behind the wheel is enough to outweigh the anxiety it can occasion.

I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned it here, but I don’t drive. I have a license, but that doesn’t mean anything. When I took driver’s ed (14 years ago!) they just prepared us for the road test: meandering around quiet side streets below 25 miles per hour. That hardly constitutes driving. And since you can’t get licensed in NYC until you’re 17, I got mine, then, a few weeks later, left for college in Boston, where I also didn’t need a car.

As a result, I was never a proficient driver. My spatial awareness was non-existent—I could never tell how wide or long my car was. I was terrified to go fast. And change lanes. And drive at night. And go over bridges and through tunnels. And drive next to trucks or concrete barriers.

I made a few attempts to drive more frequently, while living in Boston after college. But I still sighed with relief upon moving back to NYC, knowing I’d be perfectly fine never driving again.

Until the last few summers. As my beach and weekend trips became more frequent, I wished I could take over, once in a while, to give my sister, Peter or Evan a break from driving me to Long Island, the shore, or whatever the destination. I started wishing I could drive myself to the beach on the weekend—windows down, cheesy music on full blast—instead of schelpping for hours on crowded, noisy trains.

At this point, it’s been about eight years since I’ve driven. But I’m getting to the point where I want to feel comfortable behind the wheel. I even found Citi Driving School, on the Upper West Side, that has lessons specifically for nervous drivers. It focuses on all the things I’m scared of: driving at night, on highways, bridges and tunnels.

I’m planning on taking it sometime. Maybe next year, to be ready for summer 2015.

Are there any other non-drivers/late drivers out there? What made/will make you finally get behind the wheel?

(Image via Pinterest; please let me know if you know the original source. Also, follow me on Pinterest here!)

Awesome Aerial Views of Airports

I don’t particularly enjoy the in-flight experience, but I do have an affinity for airplanes. They are, after all, the vessels that can take us anywhere in the world.

I have a pretty bad case of wanderlust, at the moment, so I’m particularly loving Holding Pattern , a wonderful Tumblr that showcases awesome aerial views of airports. It’s a side project from Lauren O’Neill, a Brooklyn-based designer and art director.

As she describes it:

During layovers, I often find myself observing the activity on the runway and thinking that I’d love to see this from above. With a creative block on a project, I took to google mapping airports and was enamored by the beautiful satellite shots on my screen. Since then, wanderlust has often inspired me to get lost in the satellite imagery of various destinations even when I’m glued to my desk.

O’Neill seeks out and crops all theВ Holding Pattern В images—and they’re stunning to behold:

RVV, French Polynesia, via Holding Pattern

RVV

CPH, Denmark, via Holding Pattern

CPH

MAD, via Holding Pattern

MAD

BOS, via Holding Pattern

BOS

ATL via Holding Pattern

ATL

(Images viaВ Holding Pattern ; found via Chris Guillebeau)

Clark Little’s Incredible Wave Photography

It hasn’t felt quite like summer, over the past few weeks. The weather has been cool, cloudy and rainy–more like early spring or fall. I’m hoping that the last few weeks of summer will heat up, so I can cram in as much beach time as possible.

But even if it stays this way, I can beach vicariously through Clark Little‘s amazing wave photos.

Little is a surfer-turned-photog who lives and mainly shoots on Oahu’s North Shore. He captures shorebreaks by jumping right in and getting under the waves. (I think it takes a surfer to have that much fearlessness and confidence in the ocean!) His resulting shots are pretty incredible:

North Shore, Oahu | Clark Little

North Shore, Oahu | Clark Little

By Clark Little

By Clark Little

Little has a new book out, the aptly title Shorebreak . It’s one that I’d love to have around my apartment year-round—especially during the chilly winter months when I’m dreaming of the beach!

(Images by Clark Little; I first learned of Little through my friend Tania, and of his new book via NPR)

Aldo Crusher’s Amazing Cityscapes

Aldo Crusher‘s illustrations just make me happy.

The Mexico City-based artistВ has two gorgeousВ series, CosmГіpolisВ andВ CosmГіpolis Pt.2, where he depicts cities around the world in whimsical, colorful detail.

They’re incredibly wanderlust-inducing.

IВ don’t think I need to say more about how awesome they are—the images speak for themselves.

Cape Town, by Aldo Crusher

Buenos Aires, by Aldo Crusher

Banff, by Aldo Crusher

Vienna, by Aldo Crusher

(Images by Aldo Crusher; found via Design Taxi)

My Favorite Quiet Beaches

On Saturday, I went toВ RockawayВ to get my beach time for the week. As much as I love being by the ocean, I’ll admit that I was feeling a little weary of crowds.

Most NYC-area beaches—Rockaway, Jones, Robert Moses, Long Beach, Coney Island—are pretty packed on the weekends. And for good reason! Everyone wants to get away, even if only for a few hours.

I do love seeing so many people escaping the city and enjoying the sand and surf. But the overall experience isn’t all that relaxing. You’re surrounded by others—and their conversations and music—at all times. While there, it’s hard to feel calm and peaceful when you can barely hear the waves over all the din.

I’ve been lucky to travel to beaches that have been both beautiful and deserted. This weekend, I was thinking about them and wishing I could transport myself back to:

Water Cay, Eleuthera, Bahamas

Last year, Mal, Peter, and two friends and I rented a house on Eleuthera. We stayed in a sparsely populated part of the island, and our house was set on a gorgeous, private beach:

Cotton Bay, Eleuthera

Each day we got to enjoy the soft sand and blue waters without seeing a soul.

OurВ rental also gave us access to the owner’s boat and a captain who could take us out. Of course, we had to take advantage of that! Our captain, Sidney, took us toВ Water Cay, a tiny islandВ off Eleuthera’s Caribbean coast. It was absolutely deserted, with calm, clear water and fine white sand.

Water Cay, Eleuthera

It was easily one of the most spectacular beaches I’ve seen in my life.

 

Big Corn Island, Nicaragua

Mal and I went to Big Corn Island in August 2009. The island, and its sister, Little Corn, are located about 40-miles off the coast of Nicaragua, in the Caribbean. They’re known for being remote and relatively undiscovered by tourists. At the time, that certainly proved true.

We flew to the island on a tiny prop plane, and as we descended, I could barely spot any signs of life. Big CornВ looked deserted. And once we got out of the plane, weВ saw that it basically was.

To be honest, I felt a bit uneasy at just how isolated the island felt. There had been a spate of armed robberies against travelers on the islands, right before we arrived. The first night, our hotelВ was a ghost town—just two or three other rooms were occupied. And the phones and internet were down. The sun set at 6 p.m. and plunged the island into pitch darkness.

But during the daytime, I was able to forget my misgivings a little, thanks to this amazing beach we had to ourselves:

Big Corn Island, Nicaragua

In case you’re wondering, I felt much safer on Big Corn, as the days passed. A small documentary film crew arrived at our hotel from the mainland, as did a few more Nicaraguan travelers. Mal and I had a great time chatting with them—it was just enough people to make the hotel feel less like a horror-movie-waiting-to-happen, but not nearly enough to make the place feel crowded. And the island was just so wild and beautiful, it was impossible not to feel affection for it.

 

Long Beach Island, NJ

New Jersey?! Yes, that’s correct! We rented a house on LBI in early June, before summer season really started—which meant that every day, the beaches looked like this:

setting up on the beach

Sure, LBI doesn’t haveВ fine white sand and crystal-clear water. But it was still a nice, deserted beach that we had all to ourselves for days. I’m so nostalgic for that!

What’s your favorite quiet beach?

Travel App Review: Hotel Tonight

My DC trip was super-last minute. And ridiculously so, since Evan and I had long been planning to go away that weekend.

But we’d gotten so caught up in planning that we ended up not planning anything. For weeks, we debated whether we should do DC, or a Jersey beach town, or maybe Philly or some other place in between NYC and DC. We finally decided to do DC on Friday morning—i.e. the day before we were to go wherever we were going.

That meant that we weren’t able to book a hotel in advance. But it seemed like an opportunity to test out Hotel Tonight, an app I’ve been curious about.

Hotel Tonight’s premise is that each night, hotels have vacant rooms. Instead of letting them be missed opportunities for profit, why not offer them up at discounted rates for people who want/need last minute places?

The catch is that you can only book hotels the day of. And you don’t know what hotels and rates will be available until that day.

Hotel Tonight doesn’t release the day’s deals until 9 am. After that, you can search for your destination city and enter whether you need a hotel for one to five nights. Then your results come up.

I spent some time in the app on Friday, to see if we’d want to use it the following day. I was impressed with the slick, user-friendly interface. Each hotel option has a nice photo and its location, price for the night and, in most cases, the normal rate. Helpfully, hotels are also classified as “Hip,” “Luxe,” “Solid” or “Basic.”

Hotel Tonight, DC Options

Hotel detail pages include many more photos, both from the hotel and other users; its user-rating; its location plotted on a map; and other basics facts, like room size and Wifi costs.

I especially liked Hotel Tonight’s “Why We Like It” notes, like: “Big, funky, chilled-out guest rooms with pops of pop art and Lite-Brite-esqie color” (for the Hotel Helix). They gave me a sense of the place, and tips on the hotel’s perks.

I felt that the app offered a good number of options (about a dozen), and prices seemed fair. Most were in the $99 to $150 range. High-end places in prime locations fell into that upper tier.

Hotels Tonight also has a weeklong forecast, where they note whether they expect to have many or few good deals.

Even though I was a little scared to wait until the morning of our trip to book, Evan and I decided to go for it. I figured the worst that could happen is that we wouldn’t find anything good, and end up at a hotelВ near the airport—not exactly the stuff of human hardship.

On Saturday morning, a little after 9, I opened the app. The Donovan House, a hotel I’d had my eye on, the previous day, was still an option. The price had gone up to $140 from $135. But that was still better than the rate that the hotel offered on its official site: $180.

Evan and I felt that $140 was reasonable for a hotel in a major city, in a prime location, with a roof deck pool, on a Saturday night. So we booked it.

Hotel Tonight

We were very happy with our choice. Check-in was as smooth as if we’d booked through the hotel’s site.

Our room was nice…

donovan house room

Desk at the Donovan House, DC

…and we enjoyed hanging out at the pool.

H&E

While Hotel Tonight worked for us in this case, I don’t think I’d use it in many other scenarios. If we were staying somewhere for multiple nights—and planning in advance—we would have shopped around for a better deal, or booked an Airbnb.

But for a one-night, super-last minute trip to a city, I couldn’t have been happier. I’d definitely use Hotel Tonight again, in a similar situation.

24 Hours in Washington, DC

This weekend, Evan and I took a super-quick—and super-last minute—trip to DC. Even though we just had 24 hours in the city, we made the most of it!

We found a good deal at the Donovan House (more about that in my next post), a Kimpton hotel conveniently located just a few blocks from the White House and the National Mall.

To be honest, we chose the place because it had a roof deck pool. Though we arrived late afternoon, we still squeezed in a few hours poolside, with wine and soft tacos, before the sun set.

donovan house pool

Evan and I had a hard time choosing where to get dinner. Peter’s cousin, who lives in DC, had recommended two restaurants, Brasserie Beck and Sette Osteria, that both looked awesome. To further complicate the matter, we went through Eater’s list of essential DC restaurants, as well.

Finally, we decided on Jaleo, Jose Andres’ tapas place. Though the restaurant has been around for more than 20 years, it was recently renovated and felt new—it was hopping on Saturday night. Evan and I chose to bypass the 45-minute wait for a table and eat in the bar area, instead. We found a cozy table right away.

Everything on the menu looked amazing. We went with two tapas and one paella—which was both the right and wrong decision. On the upside, the shrimp and calamari paella was epic. It was served in a huge pan and cooked wonderfully—the rice puffy and slightly crisped. The downside: the Iberico ham and chorizo/potato tapas we had were even better. And we would’ve loved to have tried more, if we hadn’t ordered the giant paella.

paella

Jaleo was near the National Mall, so we decided to see the monuments by night.

It’s a little spooky, since it’s not well-lit. But lots of other people were doing the same, and it’s no wonder. The monuments are stunning when they’re lit up against the dark sky.

washington monument b&w

washington monument

lincoln memorial

lincoln
washington monument from the lincoln

The next morning, we slept in, spent a little time at the pool, and then drove 20 minutes to Falls Church, Virginia for lunch. Peter’s cousin had told us about a shopping center, called Eden Center, that had good Vietnamese food.

The place was basically Little Vietnam. Neon signs in store windows advertised their specialties and a DJ blared Vietnamese music in the parking lot.

Our first stop was Song Que for banh mi. We asked the guy working the counter which sandwich was the best and he said it was the lemongrass beef. Sounded good to us!

banh mi

It was probably the best banh mi I’ve had. We gobbled it up.

Evan and I felt we had to get pho there, as well, so we went to Eden Kitchen for a delicious bowl.

pho

With only a few hours before my train, we headed to Georgetown to pick up a few things and walk around.

georgetown cobblestones

I loved the cobblestone streets and pretty architecture.

georgetown home 1

georgetown home 3

georgetown home 4

All too soon after, I had to say goodbye to Evan and board a train back to NYC. Twenty-four hours in DC definitely wasn’t enough. We’re hoping to make another trip back there when we’ll have more time to spend.