Travel writer with a love for covering world music. Graduate of Columbia School of International Affairs. JohnOseid@gmail.com
The Sayre Mansion: An Historic Inn Thrives In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Long before we enjoyed our modern swift means of transportation and luxuriated in our new work at home era, living close to the job was the next best thing. Robert H. Sayre knew that well, and wisely built his fine 1858 mansion within short distance of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s vast steelworks that came to define much of industrial America. As the closest of associates of industrialist Asa Packer, Sayre rose from chief engineer of the Lehigh Valley Railroad to becoming a founding hand at the ...
The Sayre Mansion: An Historic Inn Thrives In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Long before we enjoyed our modern swift means of transportation and luxuriated in our new work at home era, living close to the job was the next best thing. Robert H. Sayre knew that well, and wisely built his fine 1858 mansion within short distance of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s vast steelworks that came to define much of industrial America. As the closest of associates of industrialist Asa Packer, Sayre rose from chief engineer of the Lehigh Valley Railroad to becoming a founding hand at the ...
The Pays D’Enhaut Region: Swiss Prealps Within Easy Reach
Just east of Lake Geneva in the canton of Vaud, hamlets in the mountainous Pays d’Enhaut region are easily reachable by train and less buzzy than their neighboring posh Bernese villages.
Switzerland’s French-speaking Vaud is one of the nation’s largest cantons, occupying an enviable stretch of northern and eastern Lake Geneva. But just head on a short jaunt up the mountains and suddenly you are in quintessential pre-alpine villages in the Pays d’Enhaut district that lies in the Vaud Alps at t...
Montreux: Much More Than A Famous Jazz Festival
The Swiss city of Montreux is known for hosting one of the world’s great summer music festivals. With its Lake Geneva setting and facing stunning Alpine peaks, it’s a prime destination year around.
The small Swiss city of Montreux on Lake Geneva is famously linked to its legendary July jazz festival. The grand event can serve, though, as a launching platform for plenty more themes and sites to explore here along what they call the Montreux Riviera, and venturing up to the stunning Prealps tha...
Lake Geneva’s Terraced Lavaux Vineyards Gaining Deserved Notice
If Switzerland hardly jumps to mind as a wine producing nation and the white grape variety Chasselas rings no bell, expect that to change as the stretch of steep Lake Geneva shoreline called Lavaux gains ever more recognition.
Between Lausanne and Montreux in the canton of Vaud, Lavaux’s south-facing terraced vineyards are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town of Vevey makes an ideal base for exploring this section of the broader area known as the Montreux Riviera.
You can dispel with though...
Lake Geneva’s Terraced Lavaux Vineyards Gaining Deserved Notice
If Switzerland hardly jumps to mind as a wine producing nation and the white grape variety Chasselas rings no bell, expect that to change as the stretch of steep Lake Geneva shoreline called Lavaux gains ever more recognition.
Between Lausanne and Montreux in the canton of Vaud, Lavaux’s south-facing terraced vineyards are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town of Vevey makes an ideal base for exploring this section of the broader area known as the Montreux Riviera.
You can dispel with though...
Lake Geneva’s Small City Of Lausanne Sees Big Things Happening
You might know the Swiss city of Lausanne best as the Olympic Capital. You may be aware too that it enjoys stunning views of the French Alps across Lake Geneva. Among French-speaking cities, however, this capital of the canton of Vaud may not be big on your travel radar just yet. Some big new cultural openings and urban developments should change that fast.
With its various quartiers from the lakeshore to the upper old town spread over plenty of hills like a mini-San Francisco, you’ll appreci...
Scribner’s Catskill Lodge Makes For A Blissful Dog Retreat
A former motor lodge, Scribner’s Catskill Lodge was reinvented as a mod rural getaway. With its Pupstater welcoming program and nature all about, it also happens to be a top dog friendly property.
Times are good for the growing number of pet loving travelers out there who are enjoying ever greater and smoother accommodations for their furry companions. Less than three hours from NYC, and a short drive from Woodstock, Scribner's Catskill Lodge takes the pup good times next level.
Scribner's ha...
Hutton Brickyards: A Hudson River Cabin Retreat Is A Dog Paradise
Some 150 years ago, kilns and factories that made New York’s bricks went up on the Hudson River. Today, the Hutton Brickyards site is now a woodsy retreat whose vast acreage will make your dog happy.
It’s a good bet that few New Yorkers have any idea where the bricks all around them in the five boroughs ever came from. Simple answer: A short way up the Hudson River. Today, one of the biggest brick making operations that goes back a century and a half is now the Hutton Brickyards, a retreat ma...
A Revived Montauk Yacht Club Goes Extra Dog Friendly
Dogs, like us, are quirky characters and come with all variety of tastes and habits. Your wonderful dog may or may not hanker to break routine and go on holiday. Your dog typically may not enjoy swimming either, nor even appreciate an oceanside get away. But your highly-adaptable dog can change their spots, and definitely will get a kick out of your stay together at the Montauk Yacht Club in the far reaches of the Hamptons.
In this new world of super dog friendly establishments, you couldn’t ...
Bentonville, Arkansas Booms With Arts And Outdoors Offerings
As travel ventures go, arts and cycling are about as incongruous as you can imagine. Or, are they? Not in Bentonville, the small Northwest Arkansas town known mostly by outsiders for its Walmart connection. The city is booming with newcomer residents, and in a few short years visitors have been packing museums and hitting bike trails galore. And, you can do it all in one day.
Let’s start in the middle, as in Bentonville’s main square that is getting revitalized on all four sides. After severa...
In Arkansas, The 21C Bentonville Hotel Mounts Another Fine Art Show
Art hotels are a booming business these days, with some reaching new levels of outstanding curatorship. Cue the small 21C group of art hotels in southern and midwestern states for being among the finest. In Northwest Arkansas, the 104-room 21C Bentonville opened a dozen years ago at roughly the same time that the city’s celebrated Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was established. With the new show Dress Up, Speak Up: Regalia and Resistance, the property continues to make a name for itse...
The Momentary: A Big City Cultural Hub In Little Bentonville, Arkansas
It’s always a shame when the nation’s great industrial past gets erased, when an old factory or warehouse that would make great a community space gets erased for gigantic generic condos. Well, Bentonville is doing it right. The Northwest Arkansas town has hit it big in developing an adaptive reuse project dubbed The Momentary, a satellite cultural hub of the city’s already celebrated Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
And fortunately, it smells just fine inside, considering that this is ...
Artist Kaws Opens At Arkansas’s Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art
It’s a wonderful thing these days that we can find fine art in the most unexpected of places. Head down a trail along a wooded ravine at the edge of Bentonville, Arkansas and suddenly up pops the celebrated Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (CB). Then take the artist KAWS whom you couldn’t miss if you tried for his larger-than-life pop characters that are beloved by worldwide audiences and serious collectors alike. Put them together and you now have the captivating exhibit KAWS: FAMILY t...
Discovering The Heart Of Malta At The Xara Palace Relais & Châteaux
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