Hawaii’s own undeveloped islandAcross most of Lanai, Hawaii, “there is barely a swaying palm tree, beach umbrella, sparkling pool, or splash of tropical color” to be seen, said Adam Nagourney in The New York Times. Though the island is being made over by its new billionaire owner, Larry Ellison, it now offers mostly a raw, arid beauty, plus evidence of its long history as a pineapple plantation. Ellison dreams of transforming the island into “a laboratory of sustainability,” with its own multicrop farms, desalination plants, and even a university. Two Four Seasons resorts already offer the chance to experience a luxury Lanai. But you can also rent a Jeep or four-wheeler and head off on the “bone-jarring” dirt roads to find your beaches and bluffs. Some of Lanai’s best snorkeling can be found near the ruins of a temple in the waters below an 80-foot cliff known as Kahekili’s Leap. Off Shipwreck Beach, the waves still beat up against the “rusted hulk of a Navy destroyer.”
Iowa’s ‘Little Denmark’If only Christian Jensen could see what he started, said Andrea Sachs in The Washington Post. In 1868, the Danish immigrant and his family became the first settlers of Elk Horn, Iowa, a village that’s now the largest rural Danish settlement in the United States. A good half of Elk Horn’s 650 residents claim Danish descent, and they show their pride by flying Danish flags on Main Street and maintaining two heritage museums. One is housed in a 60-foot-tall windmill built in Denmark in 1848 and rescued by town residents in the 1970s. Nearby Kimballton is the other half of “Lille Denmark,” and is home to a sculpture garden featuring characters from Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. For a taste of Scandinavia, stop into Elk Horn’s Danish Inn, where many of the specialties are “brown, meaty, and unpronounceable.” For many Danish tourists, it’s just like home—except that the nearest ocean is half a continent away.
Cycling the Natchez TraceThe Natchez Trace is a much more pleasant corridor to travel than it was 200 years ago, said Melanie Radzicki McManus in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Back when the old Indian trail served as a major trade route for our fledgling nation, heat, swarming insects, and packs of bandits made traveling the Trace so perilous that it was known as the “Devil’s Backbone.” But all 444 miles from Natchez, Miss., to Nashville are now a National Scenic Byway, and my husband and I have only fond memories after pedaling the entire length last fall. Our first day took us past a 35-foot Indian mound and the Trace’s only remaining 18th-century inn, and the next few days rolled by “in a kaleidoscope of vivid colors, sounds, and smells.” Gorgeous as the landscape was, what delighted us most were various “quirky and unexpected” happenings—like being passed by a pack of gleaming Corvettes driven by smiling senior citizens.
A World’s Fair at 50If you go looking for remnants of the 1964 World’s Fair, bring your imagination, said Beth J. Harpaz in the Associated Press. Intriguing relics of the event still
grace Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, N.Y., but visiting the area today is “as much about 21st-century Queens as it is a walk down memory lane.” A half-hour ride from midtown Manhattan on the 7 train brings into view a few World’s Fair icons: a “stupendous” 12-story steel globe, the flying-saucer towers of the long-shuttered New York Pavilion, and two NASA rocket ships that stand in front of the New York Hall of Science. An October reopening is scheduled for that museum’s “otherworldly” Great Hall. Until then, nostalgia seekers might be best advised to enjoy today’s park amenities and let the Fair relics—like the carousel outside the Queens Zoo and the scale model of New York City housed at the Queens Museum—pop up where they may.
Road tripping through Vermont“Few road trips warm me like a drive through Vermont,” said Joe Crea in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Leaf peepers sing the praises of the state’s autumn foliage, when hillsides turn “calico in Technicolor splendor.” But any season is “a glorious time to visit,” as I was reminded this summer when my wife and I made a freespirited loop through the state’s western half. After wandering around Bennington, a picturesque college town, we drove narrow roads past hypnotizing streams and through lush, green forests as we headed north. “Postcard-perfect, steeple-spiked villages” inspired regular stops, and we dawdled, too, in “more luxe than ever” Stowe and in Montpelier, the “rough-hewn” capital. On our leisurely drive south from Burlington, the well-stocked Vermont Country Store in Weston provided another light diversion. “Every one of us has his or her Vermont. Go there. It’s a beautiful place.”
A shrine to swimming in South FloridaFort Lauderdale’s International Swimming Hall of Fame offers plenty to dive into, said Robin Soslow in The Washington Post. Entering the wave-shaped building a block from the beach, I expected to see plenty of photos and medals. But for the next couple of hours, “it’s the surprises that anchor me.” Who knew the two-piece bathing suit was invented by a woman who used it while crossing the English Channel in 1926 or that Benjamin Franklin was such an athlete? Screen idols like Johnny Weissmuller enjoy tributes, and there’s even a short film breaking down how Rodney Dangerfield executed a “Triple Lindy” dive in the 1986 comedy Back to School. “Somber subjects get equal time,” though, and the history lessons stretch back centuries. Later, I spot a plaque outside that honors protesters whose 1961 “wade-ins” desegregated Fort Lauderdale’s beaches. The marker “adds to this swimming pantheon’s depths.”
Zip-lining through wine country“Small town” hardly begins to describe Santa Margarita, Calif., said Jackie Burrell in the Contra Costa Times. But “there’s always been something special” about this sleepy burg, starting with the way wine grapes have flourished here since Spanish missionaries planted the first cuttings in 1787. Perched atop the Cuesta Grade near San Luis Obispo, the town has only one bar and one restaurant open past dark, but the first is an 1858 saloon where Willie Nelson has performed, and the second is an “unbelievably” good steakhouse. Still, “the vines are the thing,” and there are multiple ways to enjoy them. On a vineyard tour, we learned that the bears that roam the area never touch 15 of the 16 varieties grown there. “Bears are wine snobs,” said our guide. “They only eat pinot.” We hit some tasting rooms, too. But that was my reward for surviving the day’s big thrill: soaring over those famous vineyards on an 1,800-foot-long zip line.
An Oregon town’s boozy renaissanceBend, Ore., has made a remarkable comeback, largely on the back of beer, said Diane Bair and Pamela Wright in The Boston Globe. This city of 80,000, located on the eastern edge of the Cascades, offers gorgeous scenery and abundant outdoor recreation, yet it fell on hard times when the local timber industry shut down. We began a recent visit where the renaissance started: Deschutes Brewery, which since its 1988 founding has spawned 10 other local craft breweries and become a national powerhouse. But “Beer Town USA” isn’t a one-industry locale, having recently been named by Entrepreneur magazine as the most entrepreneurial city in the country. Boutiques and trendy restaurants line downtown streets located just steps from a protected river and 20 minutes from the bike trails and ski slopes of Mount Bachelor. A can-do attitude permeates Bend—“one of the coolest and most eclectic mountain towns in the country.”
Daytona Beach’s easygoing neighborAbout half an hour south of party-friendly
Daytona Beach lies “an unspoiled gem as quiet as the morning sunrise over the Atlantic,” said Jim Abbott in the Orlando Sentinel. In Florida’s New Smyrna Beach, the scene is decidedly laid-back. West of the Intracoastal Waterway lies the mainland Canal Street Historic District, an area rich in such nonbeach attractions as galleries, antique shops, and a history museum. Near the beach, on pedestrian-friendly Flagler Avenue, “the diversions range from touristy souvenir shops to homegrown businesses that cater to the whimsical and the practical.” Pick up a rental surfboard before strolling toward the sound of the ocean and the 13 miles of white-sand beach that remain the town’s main draw. To the south, the pristine Canaveral National Seashore is shared by 310 bird species; to the north, a pet-friendly 2-mile boardwalk offers water views in both directions. Best of all, there’s much beach in between.
Thoreau’s storied hometownConcord, Mass., is rich in history, but it rewards those who approach it the way I imagine Henry David Thoreau did, said Nancy Shohet West in The Boston Globe. Thoreau wrote Walden while living in Concord, of course, and you can swim in Walden Pond or stroll the path around it and visit a replica of his cabin. Which suits me: “When it comes to sightseeing, I am at heart an 8-year-old” who would rather ride my bike, wander the woods,” or eat ice cream on Main Street than seek out exhibits about the Transcendentalists or the first battle of the Revolutionary War. That works here. Tour guides lead bike tours to the historic sites, and you can reach them by river after renting kayaks on Main Street. And even I’m not above being delighted by a chance encounter with a historical artifact—like wandering into the Concord Free Public Library and discovering manuscript pages from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
The Alamo, still larger than lifeYes, the Alamo is “worth remembering—and maybe some rethinking, too,” said Christopher Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. The mission house turned garrison in San Antonio might be Texas’s most famous building, a fact that made me think it would be larger. It was in this small compound, now dwarfed by surrounding buildings, that a band of about 200 American rebels died in 1836 battling for Texas sovereignty against a Mexican army numbering from 1,800 to 6,000. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were among the rebels, and their valor made them national icons—while the Alamo itself became “a symbol of doomed bravery.” Guests now wander through the building, admiring Crockett’s vest or Jim Bowie’s knife or reflecting in the “welltended” garden outside. As I stood inside the shrine’s frail walls, imagining the carnage and heroism that once occurred there, the Alamo “didn’t look so small after all.”
Harvard’s reimagined museumsAfter six long years, Boston’s overhauled Harvard Art Museums have finally opened, said Holland Cotter in The New York Times. A recent renovation has combined “three very different museums”—the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Arthur M. Sackler. Now bunched together at the site of the old Fogg, the museums maintain the old building’s fa?ade and courtyard, but “nearly everything else is new.” Celebrated architect Renzo Piano expanded the space and capped the addition off with a “clunky” pyramid roof. His interiors work better: Though the Asian galleries feel cramped and the Early Italian Renaissance gallery is too open, the enlarged facility “feels like a new space rather than just a tinkered-with old space,” and it retains various classical touches. Naturally, the art is the real draw, including works by van Gogh and Picasso, as well as a stunning 8th-century Buddha chiseled from the sandstone wall of a Chinese cave.
The ‘best town’ in AmericaA love of nature and an entrepreneurial spirit helped Duluth, Minn., earn Outside magazine’s “best town ever” honors this year, said Stephanie Pearson in Outside. Located on the western edge of Lake Superior, the city offers 6,834 acres of park space, 178 miles of hiking trails, 16 trout streams, and skiing on nearby Spirit Mountain. The city isn’t stopping there. Once Duluth Traverse reaches its 100-mile completion target, the in-progress project will be “one of the largest urban mountain-bike trail systems in the world.” Duluth even hired an “outdoor czar” to further boost activities. This love of the land carries over into businesses like spirit manufacturer Vikre Distillery and beermaker Bent Paddle Brewing Co., both of which use water from Lake Superior in their products. But it’s the passion of the citizens that really makes the city stand out. As Mayor Don Ness recently said, “In Duluth, you know you’re alive.”
California’s overlooked volcano parkLassen Volcanic National Park is simply “unmatched in the park system,” said Rosemary McClure in the Los Angeles Times. The landscape features “clear alpine lakes and quiet meadows full of wildflowers, and ground that bubbles, hisses, and smokes from volcanic activity.” Indeed, this park located about three hours north of Sacramento lays claim to fumaroles, lava beds, steaming water—all thanks to magma flowing beneath the surface. There’s even an active, 10,500-foot volcano, Lassen Peak. Though I enjoyed these intense sights during a recent visit, I also found calmer pleasures. I took a sunset walk around Manzanita Lake, saw stunning views of the Cascade Range, and walked through a meadow “as a parade of ducklings marched by.” Curiously, Lassen is expected to attract only 400,000 tourists this summer, compared with the nearly 4 million Yosemite will draw. But that’s just another of Lassen’s many upsides: no crowds.
Dolphin-watching in FloridaFew places offer better dolphin-spotting than Florida’s Marco Island, said Marjie Lambert in The Miami Herald. Many visitors come for the “sweet crescent of sand” on the island’s gulf-side coast, which is lined with hotels and condos. Others come for the canoeing or kayaking, or to scour the sandbars for seashells. The shops of Naples are just 15 minutes north, and Marco Island offers a more relaxed atmosphere for a waterfront dinner when the shopping’s done. I, for one, most enjoy taking a boat tour from the island aboard the Dolphin Explorer, a 30-foot catamaran whose team of biologists can identify 200 local dolphins by the notches in their dorsal fins. The last time I joined the three-hour excursion, we spotted a bald eagle chasing an osprey and a great white egret snatching fish from the waves before we encountered the ultimate dolphin-watching experience: Seeing a mother teach her newborn how to swim.
California’s redwood giantsStanding beneath a redwood, you “feel belittled in the best possible way,” said Christopher Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. I recently made a pilgrimage to see the tallest trees in the world, driving north from Leggett, Calif., and plunging into the forest at multiple stops. Leggett’s famous Drive-Thru Tree, a 315-foot redwood, provided a gateway to the string of national and state parks ahead. Wherever you wander amid old growth, you “consider the centuries towering above you.” But my favorite moment came at Founders Grove, where I hiked half a mile to see the Dyerville Giant, a 360-foot redwood that was 2,000 years old when it fell in 1991. A “graveyard hush” surrounded the prone behemoth as I walked its length from tip to roots. From its lower trunk, though, was growing a new redwood already 10 feet tall. “Who knows? With 2,000 years and a little luck, the new giant might surpass the old.”
