Boldly Go Solo

So much to experience along the Slea Head loop on the Dingle Peninsula in Western Ireland

I hadn't heard of the Dingle Peninsula until a few years ago during a "girls weekend," when a friend presented a bottle of Dingle Original Gin from the Dingle Distillery for another friend and I to taste.

Then when I was researching a trip to  Ireland last year, the travel literature suggested that if visitors had time for just one tour in the west of Ireland and had to choose between the Ring of Kerry and the shorter ring road on the Dingle Peninsula, the choice should be the latter. 

And so it was, although it would have been nice to be able to do both.  

I recently wrote about my trip around the Dingle Peninsula for the Boston Globe. I didn't travel solo, but it's a place you would enjoy as a solo traveler - if you're willing to drive a standard shift car on the left-hand side of the road.

Or you could join a guided tour of the Slea Head drive and let someone else do the driving. A quick web search shows plenty of companies that will take you around this Irish-speaking region.

Specialty beers, cars from the good old days and relaxing massage. This is Hershey, Pa.?

Children and chocolate. That is what most people think when they think Hershey, Pennsylvania.

But it's entirely possible to have a grown-up weekend in the town that chocolate built.

Mine involved visits to a winery, a brewery, a spa, an outlet mall and an antique car museum. All for a travel story for The Burg, a monthly community newspaper for Harrisburg, Pa.

I've written about Hershey way more times than I need to count. Somehow I keep ending back there! Each trip has been fun...and different. Including a falconry  experience.

This time, I started at the spa in The Hotel Hershey. In the parking lot, I could see the roller coasters of the nearby amusement park and Chocolate World in the distance. But those were two places I bypassed all weekend.

Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrates Peru

The culture of Peru is on display on the Mall in Washington, D.C., until Sunday. Catch Peru: Pachamama (Mother Earth) if you can. 

Most of you can't, but I would say put the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on your travel to-do list, should you ever visit D.C. in late June or early July.  

The Smithsonian does a great job of bringing in people, culture, crafts, food and more, from places all over the world.

Last year the themes were Kenya and China. Other years, states or cities have been represented. The festival planners go all out to bring in artists, craftspeople and performers.

And the exhibits can be astounding. From Smithsonian's website:

In recreating physical settings for the traditions represented, the Festival has built a horse racetrack (from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol Building), an Indian village with forty-foot-high bamboo and paper statues, a Japanese rice paddy, and a New Mexican adobe plaza.

Five fun things to see and do in Toronto, ON

Toronto, Canada, is full of food, fun and adventure. Who knew?

I was bowled over by my recent visit to Toronto. I had visited Montreal with my family when I was a kid. It had that French vibe and it felt like you were in Europe. And my dad could have fun practicing his bad French. 

But I always thought of Toronto as a modern city without much character. I knew you could go up the CN Tower and see the whole place. But what exactly was there to see?

Well, let me tell you. I only had a few days to explore but I wish I'd had weeks. Below is my short list of things to do and see when you travel to Toronto but it hardly begins to tell the story. For starters you can:

Hop on and off the 501 streetcar along Queen Street

The 501 streetcar route is one of the longest in North America. With a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) day pass, you can hop on and off all day, visiting the many, many shops and restaurants all along most of the line. Bakeries. Clothing shops. Stores selling cool kitchen gadgets. Shoes, shoes and more shoes. 

My first day, I went east from the center of town with a group of people from a travel bloggers conference I was attending. A freelancer for the Toronto Star who writes on urban life, guided us through back streets in Corktown, settled by the Irish in the 19th century. Corktown turned seemlessly into Leslieville. If we'd continued east, we would have hit the beach at the end. But we had to head back. It was only, as the Gilligan's Island people said, a three-hour tour. 

Another day I walked...and walked...west to the Gladstone Hotel before turning back, catching a streetcar east and then another north to Chinatown.

A Titanic museum in Branson, Missouri?

There's a half a ship on the main drag in Branson, Missouri, with a Las Vegas-like marquee out front saying:

                TITANIC

                 NOW

             BOARDING

            9 am - 9 pm

A Titanic museum in the Midwest, hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean? I was prepared to be underwhelmed.

Instead, I've been talking about it ever since. If this museum was meant for children, I must be a big kid. 

I tapped out my first-ever Morse code message. ("Ellen in trouble"). I started a timer and stuck my hand in a tank of water set at the temperature of the ocean that April night in 1912. I was in pain after about 15 seconds.

I tried to walk on three different decks that had pitches of varying steepness, demonstrating what it was like to hang on as the ship was sinking. I needed both hands on the railing to pull myself up the steepest one.

Sitting in a recreated lifeboat, I pushed buttons and listened to the stories of the people who had been in them. I patted two real dogs - Molly and Carter - two King Charles Spaniels whose trainers at the museum talk about the dogs known to have been on board the ship.

Telephone tours of the Portland Museum of Art's Winslow Homer exhibit

If you call 207-228-0300, you can hear an audio tour of the current exhibition, "Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine at the lovely Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Not that you should try this at home. Without the paintings in front of you, it could be dull.

It's mainly if you're interested in hearing what the museum's telephone tour is like. Call that number and press #2 for the painting, "The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog, 1894," #6 for the painting, "The Lifeline." And so on.

But, really, as I said, for this to be worthwhile, you really should be standing in front of the paintings as museum personnel describe them. I just thought that it was interesting that the museum has found a way to bypass audio headsets and fees by having patrons use their own personal tour devices. 

Perhaps other museums do this as well and I'm late to this game?

The exhibition features paintings, etchings and watercolors by Homer, the great American artist who painted many maritime scenes, and lived and painted in Maine in his later years. I continued to call that number for explanations throughout my visit.

Maine lighthouses open to the public in September

Any lighthouse fans out there?

On September 15, lighthouses in Maine will be opening their doors to visitors. You can climb the towers of the state's lighthouses situated on the coast, on islands and along rivers.

The fourth annual Maine Open Lighthouse Day will take place rain or shine. (Like the London Olympics?)

The event is the largest of its kind in the country, according to Maine's tourism office, and is meant to increase awareness of the state's maritime heritage.

Lighthouses always have a mystical feel to me. Ocean waves crashing ashore nearby. Thoughts of ships relying on that strong beam to navigate. The sea smell. Rocky coasts.

Did George Washington ever travel solo in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia? Hm...

Old Town Alexandria is one of those cute cobblestone historic areas that modern Washingtonians love to visit. A few authentic cobblestone streets remain, but most streets are paved.

Still, many of the sidewalks are bricked, which lends an old-fashioned feel to the 15-plus blocks of unique galleries, shops and restaurants.

I've written two travel stories on Alexandria for different newspapers. Today being Presidents' Day (the merged February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, our first and 16th presidents), I figured I'd rerun one of the stories here. (This one ran in the Kansas City Star and the St. Petersburg Times.)

Read about George Washington's haunts, other Virginia history and the Alexandria of today. It's easy for solo visitors to get to Old Town Alexandria without a car. The Metro system drops you off within walking distance of the locations mentioned in the following story:

"Alexandria paints picture of the past"

George Washington liked to ride over from his Mount Vernon home to Gadsby's Tavern in this Potomac River town to drink, discuss the successful Revolution and attend a banquet from time to time. Two-and-a-half centuries later, people still head to Gadsby's Tavern, and other bars and restaurants in Alexandria, to drink, talk about the war and, once in a while, attend a fancy dinner.

10 travel tips for great adventures, come what may

The following 10 tips come from the Trusted Adventures travel alliance,a group of nine travel companies. The travel tips are meant to help people have a rich travel experience, come what may.

Unexpected events may include changes in plans, volcanic ash, oil spills and other "have-to-roll-with-the-punches" events that all travelers should be ready to face and deal with.

"How mentally prepared you are can make the difference between a meltdown and a good laugh," says Brad Moss, executive director of the alliance.

Meltdown people, you know who you are! But travel usually comes with a degree of delay and uncertainty and you shouldn't expect perfection. So think about how to plan for problems and ease the discomfort should they arise.

10 Tips to assure a better vacation:

1. Plan extra sightseeing activities and build in some extra time, in case you face delays, miss connections or lost baggage. (If in Atlanta, check out the aquarium!)

2. Make sure you have a carry-on bag with a change of clothes, food, books or other entertainment, chargers and anything else you can think of that will keep you busy and happy when you face delays or other snafus. For me, those snafus have been lost luggage. Too many times. So the change of clothes is mucho important.

High Museum of Art in Atlanta presents cool European design exhibit

Worth visiting: The High Museum of Art's exhibit on European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century. In Atlanta.

I was going to blog about the High Museum but my friend Diane beat me to it. So I'll just point the way to her post called "Way High Design at Atlanta's High Museum."

She mentions how excited I was to find two pieces in the museum that I actually own versions of. It's true!

A Philippe Starck tea kettle and an Ikea watering "can" (made of a plastic or polymer of some sort. Mine's green but it comes in several colors. Very inexpensive.)

It's exciting to see things you own in a museum exhibit. Well, not always. Once, I saw the Texas Instruments calculator my father had owned in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. Mostly I felt old.

But I was intrigued by the High Museum exhibit and the experience was enhanced by feeling a part of it. I have to confess, though. The kettle was never really my taste. It was a gift. But it has elicited more comments that anything I own. Some sneers. Some compliments.

Diane runs a photo of the kettle that the museum provided since we weren't allowed to take photos. Here is the kettle on the stove, where it should be.  In someone's kitchen.

In this case, mine.

Photos: 

Bambu vases by Italian designer Laura de Santillana. Photo by Ivan Baj for Arcade-Italy

Hot Bertaa Kettle by Philippe Starck. Photo by Ellen Perlman

Bengtsson Slice Chair. Photo by Martin Scott-Jupp