John Oseid

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...

We all yearn more and more these days for moments when we can tune out from the electronic world. For those looking for the ultimate extended timeout, hey, why not hit the Amazon? And why not the more remote Peruvian waters where the river actually begins, and which are far less trafficked than the long stretches through Brazil?
Of course, you’ll still want to cruise the mighty river in comfort and style. Thankfully, nearly a decade ago Aqua Expeditions launched the handsome Aria Amazon river...

These days the traffic flow on plenty of downtown St. Louis streets is restricted by construction barriers in front of busy work sites. But the work is thankfully not about tear-downs of historic buildings as continues in many major cities (talking to you, NYC), but a restoration of this city’s downtown that has seen its ups and downs over decades.
Just this past summer, St. Louis celebrated the rebirth of its most famous landmark, now known as the Gateway Arch National Park (this reporter's ...

Long before architect Eero Saarinen’s great Gateway Arch landmark went up fifty years ago on the Mississippi River, St. Louis was once the nation’s fourth largest city and exploding with wealth and activity. Contemporaneous with the Summer Olympics, the 1904 World's Fair was an event of a magnitude seldom seen today.
While the entire United States has lost a great amount of its heritage architecture from that era, St. Louis fortunately still has a great deal to admire.
Credit: Dan Donovan/St....

Are you in a hotel or a bold contemporary art museum?
You may not always be looking for drama when you select a hotel. But you can expect big time visual spectacles from the moment you enter The Opposite House in Beijing’s Sanlitun district. And expect it you can each time you come down to the Atrium lobby and discover ever more visionary pieces and objects of contemporary art that you missed the first time.
Part of one of the quarterly Atrium exhibitions curated by the local Red Gate Gallery...

We live in the age of hubs, from massive airport hubs down to posh new condo dwellings that market themselves as the epicenter of a hot downtown scene.
In St. Louis of late, a handsome and huge terrazzo floor map depicts how that Midwest city was the original hub that helped make emergent America tick.
From Mississippi River traffic to all the trails that spread west—Lewis and Clark, Santa Fe, Mormon, et al.—St. Louis was once at the heart of it all and grew to be the nation's fourth-largest ...

In this age of the hotel mega-lobby as trendy theme park and party central, how refreshing to enter a property that doesn’t really have one. How satisfying it is to glide up a cocooned escalator to a landing with sublime works of art, while a custom-designed ginger verbena scent envelops your senses.
In a few months, The Upper House in the Admiralty section of Hong Kong Island will enter its decennial anniversary year as one in a quartet of properties under the banner of The House Collective ...

Count yourself lucky that you never had to consume Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic as perhaps some of your forebears did in the late-19th century. Edwin Wiley Grove concocted the quinine-based elixir with a sugar and lemon kick to it as a promise of mitigating the symptoms of malaria. The "tasteless" tonic turned Edwin Wiley Grove into a very rich man.
Credit: The Omni Grove Park Inn
Today, in Asheville, North Carolina, you can reap the benefits of the later creative visions of this pharma magn...

Ibu Fera is a magician. She practices the black arts you might say. Or certainly you’ll think so once you’ve closed your eyes and fallen under her spell. A former Buddhist nun, Ibu Fera will guide you into blissful dreaminess during her Sacred Nap ritual at the Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan.
As you hang in a silk hammock in her breezy bamboo bale, a pavilion surrounded by rice fields, her soothing mantras and life of Buddha storytelling will put you under, and then bring you back refreshe...

Sometimes, seemingly small tweaks can have a big payoff. Just in time to celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay last summer completed a two-year property-wide renovation. Yes, the 156 thatched-roof villas and residences are as magnificent as you'd expect at this legendary property off the island's southern point.
The small tweak in question, however, concerns the property’s Taman Wantilan pavilion restaurant, a name whose meaning reflects the Balinese com...

Launched this spring, the Seabourn Ovation promises guests fine culinary experiences by celebrated chef Thomas Keller and dynamic musical numbers based on the works of Sir Tim Rice. Passengers on the small luxury ship will delight as well in designer Adam Tihany's elegant high design concepts.
Guests won't be expecting fine art perhaps, let alone lots of it. But they are in for a great treat to come. As part of his design work, Tihany also brought on board the curator and advisor group ArtLin...

Keller, Rice, Weil & Tihany. No, it’s not a high-powered law firm. But on the new small luxury ship Seabourn Ovation you are reaping the benefits of a few creative geniuses having lent the ship their respective talents.
Chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se fame created the Seabourn culinary themes, while three-time Academy Award-winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice is the inspiration behind a spirited cabaret production. Dr. Andrew Weil brought his mindful living practices to the Spa....