John Oseid

As you walk the hallway to your room at the Fasano Salvador, it’s not hard to imagine the sound of dozens of reporters and editors clacking away at their typewriters as they did decades ago. The property in Brazil’s Bahia state capital of Salvador takes up a fine old 1930s landmark building whose original newspaper occupant’s name of A Tarde still stands above the portal. Opened in late 2018 after three years of restoration, the hotel is the Fasano Group’s seventh property.
Overlooking Salvad...

A writer for Australian food and travel magazines who recently completed a television series about Balinese home cooking, Maya Kerthyasa grew up absorbing cooking and life lessons from her grandmother who comes from an Ubud royal family.
And some of those lessons soon can all be yours too when chefs and culinary experts such as Maya will be on board the brand new Silver Moon, Silversea Cruise line’s first ship to incorporate their equally brand new S.A.L.T., or Sea and Land Taste, culinary pr...

In time to celebrate Silversea Cruises’ 25th anniversary, the line’s new ship Silver Moon touched water in late summer of 2019 at the Fincantieri shipyard in Ancona, Italy. For longtime fans and newcomers to the line, now is the time to book a suite on Silver Moon’s May 4 maiden voyage from Athens (Piraeus), a seven-day, round trip which makes calls at Mykonos, Kusadasi, Rhodes, Santorini and Nafplion.
The ninth ship in the Silversea fleet, the 40,700-ton Silver Moon is one of five luxury shi...

As authorities have wisely suspended next month's Carnival in Salvador, Brazil, the following chronicle provides tips for visiting the city when the exciting event returns in 2022, or at any appropriately safe time that comes before.
After Rio, Brazil’s most famous Carnival takes place in Salvador, Bahia and by many accounts it is the country’s most authentic. But anytime of year, visitors of late to this Atlantic coast city now find some thirty-five miles of beaches turned more user-friendly...

As authorities have wisely suspended next month's Carnival in Salvador, Brazil, the following chronicle provides tips for visiting the city when the exciting event returns in 2022, or at any appropriately safe time that comes before.
With one of the largest and finest natural bays in the world, the Brazilian state of Bahia was logically named for the Portuguese word that means bay. At the eastern entrance of the Baía de Todos-os-Santos—or All Saints Bay—the city of Salvador has grown over fiv...

As authorities have wisely suspended next month's Carnival in Salvador, Brazil, the following chronicle anticipates the exciting event's return in 2022.
The Brazilian city of Salvador earned its UNESCO World Heritage designation for many reasons, not least of which is that this capital of Bahia is the cradle of much of the nation’s culture, from food and Afro-Brazilian roots to music and its ultra-authentic Carnival.
Not as famous internationally as Rio’s Carnival, Salvador’s is gaining ever ...

Famous for its vast and stunning state and national parks and monuments, Utah, with the exception of its world-class skiing, is not thought of by many as a winter destination. But should you head in the winter to magnificent and largely empty parks such as Arches and Canyonlands (recent Forbes story here), you may find to your surprise and delight that you could get snowed in before you even set out from Salt Lake City.
And therein lies your chance to slow down before you hit the highway and ...

It’s a blessing that Americans cherish their magnificent national parks and a curse that in summer the park roads and hiking trails can be as backed up as lines in a theme park. Lucky are those who cruise in winter into the southeastern Utah town of Moab and discover that nearby Arches National Park is utterly crowd-free.
Instead of competing with many of the more than 1.5 million annual visitors who scrabble to take in more than 2,000 spectacular natural arches, you’ll think that with so few...

There are handfuls of designated wine routes around the world that wine lovers and the curious can follow for hours by car. And then there are some that are out of this world. The drive from Salta to the wine town of Cafayate in northwest Argentina takes more than two hours on a single lane highway and you wish it wouldn’t stop as you meander through the stunning red, purple and pastel cliffs of the Quebrada de las Conchas, or, the Gorge of Shells, within the Calchaquí Valleys. Herewith is wh...

These days, Mendoza is a known commodity world-wide for its fine wines and dramatic setting facing the Andes. As visitors journey to the Argentine city and province of the same name, they will find that the 700-square-mile Uco Valley to the southwest of the city is now overflowing with many of the region’s most dynamic and mod wineries and lodges.
Particularly with many professional and newly-minted hobby vintners arriving from abroad in recent years, the Uco Valley scene is still changing ra...

Having climbed in status over recent decades to rank among the Napa Valleys of the world as a top wine territory, Argentina’s Mendoza province, within the wider Cuyo region, is of late ever more accessible as a destination in and of itself.
A booming enotourism arena needs ample lodging, of course, and happily plenty of fine hotels and resorts have sprouted in this far western region with a breathtaking Andes backdrop. Herewith a primer on where to start your quest in this area that produces ...

Kentucky is, of course, famously known as the Bluegrass State for that rich meadow grass which has long provided dandy pasture home to the state’s equine inhabitants. Right now at the fine Speed Art Museum, visitors to Louisville can gain a deeper appreciation of Kentucky’s thoroughbred history and traditions through a brilliant exhibition devoted to the works of painters who documented horse life in the Bluegrass regions just beyond the Ohio River city.
With some one hundred paintings gather...

With new hotels, restaurants, museums and the urban return of a handful of bourbon makers, downtown Louisville’s Main Street and its famous stretch called Whiskey Row have been barreling back strong of late.
Last month, in a big further leap forward toward bringing ever more activity back to the once forlorn strip of Whiskey Row’s brick and cast iron Renaissance Revival treasures, the Hotel Distil officially opened with a huge bash that brought out the city’s swells.
As the name clearly indic...

On the ground floor, an enormous and solid chunk of black Orizaba marble from Mexico has been transformed by Manolo Valdés into the sculpture Reina Mariana. In the lobby, La Ronda (1993) is an enormous oil on canvas by Guillermo Roux that draws the attention of every guest. More on these visual treasures below.
These days, many fine hotels double as art galleries. The Palacio Duhau—Park Hyatt Buenos Aires is just such one, with its historic neo-classical main villa alone being a work of archi...

Never ones to rest on their laurels, purveyors of that quartet of delights that reign supreme in Brussels—that is, cheese and chocolate, beer and fries—continue to develop their delicious commodities. Here are a handful of top producers in the Belgian capital who open their doors to the public, some of them located in parts of the city that were until recently much off the beaten path. And with the city gaining ever more pedestrian zones, you can enjoy walking off your calories going from one...