May 9, 2008 Last-minute travel deals A new Orlando resort; Stowaway savings; Family sailing school

May 9, 2008 Hotel of the week: Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa Many hotels emerge unrecognizable after major renovations, said Valli Herman in the Los Angeles Times. But the $35 million makeover of this “hugely popular” 30-year-old desert resort has left it so refreshed “you can hardly see the scars.” Set on 240 acres. . .

May 8, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . An Alabama ghost town, and more Claiborne was a thriving port on the Alabama River in the mid-1800s, said Sarah Kershsaw in The New York Times. Today only a few original homes still stand near “an overgrown river landing and three 18th-century cemeteries.” At its peak in the 1830s, Claiborne’s population reached about 5,000. Back then the town—an hour and half’s drive northeast of Mobile—was surrounded by cotton gins. Then yellow fever and cholera struck, and after the Civil War the town was looted “for days, leaving little behind.” Claiborne became a ghost town when trains made the shipping of cotton by steamboat obsolete. Agee Broughton, who lives in one of the few remaining houses, gives occasional tours of about a dozen . . .

May 8, 2008 This week’s dream: Offbeat adventures in Wales

May 1, 2008 Last-minute travel deals Hawaiian villa discount, Jet Blue’s points giveaway, Canadian rail’s twofer,

May 1, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . A reinvented Hawaiian island, and more Lanai, the smallest of Hawaii’s major islands, is now reinventing itself “as a resort destination.” Lanai has only 30 miles of paved roads and not a single . . .

May 1, 2008 Hotel of the week: Observer’s Inn “Talk about a room with a view,” said John Flinn in the San Francisco Chronicle. This unusual B&B, “high in the mountains above San Diego,” has its own observatory. Four powerful telescopes under a retractable roof give guests dazzling glimpses of open-star clusters, faraway galaxies, and spiraling nebulae. The largest scope. . .

May 1, 2008 This week's dream: In the Merry Pranksters’ footsteps

Apr 24, 2008 Last-minute travel deals An Italian wine tour, Escape to South Korea, Cruising inland waterways

Apr 24, 2008 Hotel of the week: Brig o’ Doon House The actual Brig o’ Doon, or bridge over the River Doon, rises “just beyond the back door” of this small roadside guesthouse in southwest Scotland, said Paul Rogers in Travel + Leisure Golf. The postcard-perfect Scottish village of Alloway, an hour’s drive south of Glasgow, boasts the thatched-roof cottage in which Scotland’s beloved poet Robert Burns was born in 1759. . .

Apr 24, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . Death Valley in the spring, and more “Hottest, lowest, driest,” said Janet Fullwood in The Sacramento Bee. That’s the quickest way to describe Death Valley, though it’s a bit like “describing chocolate as brown.” In this legendary slice of California near the Nevada border, just west of Las Vegas, the sun . . .

Apr 24, 2008 This week's dream: The ‘angelic’ Irish Whiskey Trail

Apr 18, 2008 Last-minute travel deals Club Med family plan, Music in Moab, A new Kauai resort

Apr 18, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . A hidden cultural enclave, and more Pacific Palisades, an enclave tucked into California’s winding canyons and hills between Malibu and Santa Monica, is “the valley that time forgot,” said Finn-Olaf Jones in the Los Angeles Times. Founded in 1922 as a Methodist retreat, the village . . .

Apr 18, 2008 Hotel of the week Hotel des Artistes

Apr 18, 2008 This week’s dream: Colombia’s exquisite colonial jewel

Apr 10, 2008 Last-minute travel deals D.C. baseball special, Hidden Paris, Canadian rail at half-price

Apr 10, 2008 Hotel of the week: The Mimslyn Inn Franklin Delano Roosevelt once went camping at the nearby Shenandoah National Park, said Cindy Loose in The Washington Post, but his wife, Eleanor, sensibly chose to stay here. Just 90 miles from Washington, D.C., the Mimslyn Inn is “an architectural gem” that seems like it belongs in Gone With the Wind. It boasts an elegant lobby. . .

Apr 10, 2008 Getting the flavor of ... Today’s Key West, and more Chickens still cross the road at the intersection of Duval and Truman, said Mike Williams in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Other reassuring sights in laid-back Key West are drunks “wandering arm-in-arm out of Sloppy Joe’s” and descendents of Ernest Hemingway’s cats lapping water from a public urinal that the author once took home from a bar. But there’s more to do here these days than . . .

Apr 10, 2008 This week’s dream: Peering into the volcano

Apr 3, 2008 Last-minute travel deals Spa indulgence; Falling in love again; ‘Spring on Sale’

Apr 3, 2008 Hotel of the week: Plaza Hotel New York’s landmark Plaza Hotel is back in business, said Beth J. Harpaz in the Baltimore Sun. The hotel, now a National Historic Landmark, opened in 1907. Guests have ranged from Marilyn Monroe to the Beatles. After a three-year, $400 million renovation. . .

Apr 3, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . Communing with sheep in California, and more Bleating sheep awoke us, said Jessica Garrison in the Los Angeles Times. Groggily, we made our way outside and were greeted by a vision of “golden hills, graceful oak trees,” and scores of lambs in the morning sunshine. We were staying just northeast of San Luis Obispo, at the Rinconada Dairy, a 52-acre sheep ranch that . . .

Apr 3, 2008 This week’s dream: Argentina’s ‘hothouse of cool’

Mar 27, 2008 Last-minute travel deals Aboard the Queen Mary 2, Rocky Mountains by rail, BritRail for seniors

Mar 27, 2008 Hotel of the week: Hotel San José Boutique hotels don’t usually have concrete floors, said Lauren Viera in the Chicago Tribune. Nor do they normally offer “sterile, white bathrooms” or beds with no duvets. But “this rehabbed 1930s motor lodge” has the advantage of being in the heart of one of Austin’s hippest neighborhoods, the funky South Congress strip. Located at one end of this string of chic shops, restaurants. . .

Mar 27, 2008 Getting the flavor of . . . Jogging through San Diego, and more Strap on your running shoes, said Hugo Martin in the Los Angeles Times. Instead of seeing San Diego from “a stuffy tour bus,” you can take in the city’s sights and sounds while also “burning off unwanted pounds.” An hour-long running tour costs $60 and begins at 7 a.m. My guide and I started . . .