John Oseid

The largest of Spain's Canary Islands, Tenerife with its massive Teide volcanic peak is a nature lover's utopia. It's also famously one of the top resort destinations for Europeans who flock to its big beach properties lining the southern coast.
However, those looking for alternatives, specifically a discreet luxury experience or a small historic hotel, have plenty of choices around the island. The same holds true for sampling Canarian cuisine such as the signature papas arrugadas, or wrinkle...

It rises 12,200 feet high and its caldera measures ten miles in diameter. The UNESCO World Heritage volcano of Teide which dominants the Canary Island of Tenerife is, after those on Hawaii, the Earth’s highest volcano as measured from the sea bed.
Yet, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Teide, unless perhaps you recognize it as the backdrop to "One Million Years B.C.," starring Raquel Welch’s fur bikini.
A mere 62 miles from the coast of Morocco, Spain’s seven Canary Islands—thought ...

From John Singleton Copley and John Singer Sargent to Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, it's a stunning collection. No, you are not in New York’s Met, but rather in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Were the Alabama capital’s excellent arts museum located in a small country, it might well be the prime attraction.
That Montgomery's cultural affairs are a rich offering is no surprise to many. And certainly, the opening to great acclaim last year of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice h...

Chatting softly in Spanish, Marilys massaged my scalp and fed me mango slices — and for this refined lady’s hour of service, I paid a mere 10 bucks. Marilys worked her magic in a hair salon in the colonial center of San José, Costa Rica’s capital. As she blow-dried the last clippings off my cape, it hit me that I had developed a wacky — and cheap — travel obsession.
Adventure seekers can circle the world for the perfect piste, whitewater, or wave. Tchotchke lovers can hunt for trophies. Foodi...

We live in a new age of memorials. Many finely rendered monuments and grand museums have gone up nationwide in recent years to honor—often belatedly—past heroes and events; all the while, anachronistic statues routinely come down these days as we reevaluate the parameters of memory and honor.
In the Alabama capital of Montgomery, considered the birthplace of the modern Civil Rights movement, the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice is as starkly powerful a creation as any, both elegant...

You know Utah's former mining town of Park City best for its Sundance Film Festival and for the XIX Olympic Winter Games (Salt Lake 2002). You likely didn’t know that its Park City Mountain Resort, with 348 trails and 41 lifts over eleven-square-miles, is of late the largest ski resort in the United States.
Which means that there is always something new developing here at this Vail Resorts property just a half-hour from Salt Lake City. Most recently, Vail Resorts added to its RockResorts port...

Having just finished fishing, some are surfing into shore, while others are busy applying their feathers with waterproof preen oil that they gather from a gland near their tail.
To watch a colony of Magellanic penguins go about their business up close is a fascinating and entertaining look into a gorgeous species that lives in a fragile state. The new Ventus Australis ship that plies the waters of Tierra del Fuego provides you the rare chance to do just that and much more.
Credit: Ventus Aust...

Nicely appointed with a small metal sculpture of a ship hull sitting on the coffee table, the intimate Yámana Lounge was designed as a quiet space. With ample-sized windows and 180-degree-views, the aft lounge—named for an indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego—is just the place to take in the Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel's spectacular Glacier Alley as you sail along on the brand new Ventus Australis.
The aptly named Ventus—"Southern Wind” in Latin— joins its sister ship Stella to...

If South Beach is one of the premier bustling oceanfront districts belonging to any city in the world, its South of Fifth section at the barrier island's southern tip is the ultimate turf for those seeking serenity with their sun. When you pull into the porte-cochère at the Stanton South Beach, you'll be treated there to days of tranquility along a quieter portion of the celebrated and most-unquiet Ocean Drive.
A complete renovation of the Stanton rooms in 2013 was followed up last year with ...

From sweeping porches and a grand staircase to delicate Tiffany glass panels, all have been restored to their original glory, along with a heart pine floor upon which sits a grand player piano.
With the ribbon cutting last December in Belleair, Florida, a paean to the Gilded Age lives on as the Belleview Inn. Lining one side wall in the lobby, vintage photos of the likes of celebrities such as Babe Ruth relaxing over a round of golf and early-century bicycle racing enthusiasts attest to the r...

The white sand beaches of Clearwater make Florida's Gulf Coast city a perennial number one in resort rankings. There, at the Sandpearl Resort you can enjoy the property's 700-foot-long stretch of pristine beach and wander well beyond. Or, you might just doze in a beach lounger or opt for a cabana by the lagoon pool. Either way, all are just the sorts of activities that you’d expect to experience at a premier beach resort.
But look more closely during your stay, specifically in a lobby nook ne...

Carolina Diaz is a winner. The Chef di Cucina at Terzo Piano restaurant in the Art Institute of Chicago has an infectious enthusiasm for her craft and oodles of personality. And now, she’s also literally a big winner as she was just crowned Master of Pasta at the 2018 Pasta World Championship in Milan.
Over two days in late October at this seventh edition of the competition sponsored by the Barilla pasta group, Diaz bested sixteen other chefs who came from around the world as she took the cro...

In 1607, the very first Europeans who arrived on the Eastern Seaboard did so at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The exact location is now aptly known as the First Landing.
Virginia Beach’s historic and newly renovated Cavalier Hotel lies just a few miles from that very spot. Back in the 1920s, the Cavalier (covered in this earlier post) was the bee's knees and today makes for a great launching point for local history, as well as for soft adventure jaunts. All of which can, and should, be fol...

It came close to being demolished, but now it’s on the National Register of Historic Places and a part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. Nearly a century after it opened, Virginia Beach’s elegant and spacious Cavalier Hotel is back in a big way.
Nostalgia comes at a high price, to be sure. In the case of the Cavalier it took four years of intense work and a bill of some $85 million to bring the property back to its refined self after decades of decline.
And it was all worth it. It’s remarka...

Pink and gray dolphins pop up spontaneously all around your skiff. Never mind trying to anticipate and get your camera ready for a killer travel shot. Even your local and well-trained Aqua Expeditions naturalist can’t tell when and where the next ones will come flying out of the Amazon waters.
But with dolphin populations thankfully quite healthy in Peru’s fragile Amazon region, it's a treat to soon become dolphin blasé during your cruise on the Aqua Expeditions Aria Amazon. After all, even a...