Robert Q Travel Byron's Blog
He mixes drinks, but doesn’t stop there. ‘Rob’ the robot bartender also speaks 8 languages, tells jokes and even dances too!
When we can cruise again, you won’t want to miss the world’s first humanoid – and interactive – shipboard robot bartender, who will make you the perfect cocktail to toast your return to cruising and travel.
When MSC Cruises launches its newest flagship this spring, it will have at least one exclusive feature.
The futuristic MSC Starship Club lets cruise guests feel like they’ve walked into a sci-fi movie as the sidle up to a bar that would look right at home in a space ship. MSC tells us the Starship Club was half a decade in the making, the result of experts in robotics and automation, digital media, interior design and of course, mixology and entertainment.
After placing your order in one of the bar’s ‘vertical digital cockpits’, you can watch as Rob shakes up your order from a menu of 16 signature ‘cosmic cocktails’ – alcoholic and kid-friendly – or a beverage of your own creation using dozens of ingredients including spirits, juices and syrups, mixes and garnishes.
Meanwhile, an LED ticker tape strip above the robotic island tracks the status of your drink. And the 3D holograms and immersive digital art wall add to the atmosphere.
Just like any good bartender, Rob’s got a ‘schtick’, chatting to guests, sharing jokes and responding to guests with human-like facial expressions and hand gestures – even dance moves.
When Rob is not preparing cocktails, he’s working the room. His AI programming gives him the ability to recognize guests passing by, greet and striking up a conversation with them.
The MSC Starship Lounge is just one of the 21 indoor and outdoor bars on board the 6300-guest Virtuosa, along with 11 dining options including a new concept for MSC: Indochine, with fusion Vietnamese/French cuisine.
Virtuosa and her sister ship Grandiosa are the two largest ships in 18-strong MSC Cruises' fleet. So there’s plenty of room for five spacious pools and one of the biggest and most elaborate waterparks at sea.
The Virtuosa will also be home to the longest LED dome at sea over top of the Galleria Virtuosa of a dozen boutiques and places to gather, lounge, sip and enjoy live entertainment.
And for those who like a quieter, more intimate cruise experience, the MSC Yacht Club is a luxury ‘ship within a ship’ with 24-hour butler service, private access to suites, dedicated restaurant, lounges, pool, whirlpools and spa space.
The ship will also be highly equipped with cutting-edge technologies and environmentally conscious capabilities.
After completing short cruises in the Mediterranean, Virtuosa will be deployed to Northern Europe in summer 2021 with a range of itineraries to the Norwegian fjords and Baltic capital cities.
#DreamNowCruiseSoon
Images: MSC
Every 10 Years, This ‘World’s Fair’ of Flowers Upstages Netherlands’ Tulip Time. Don’t Miss Floriade 2022
in Netherlands
If you thought Tulip Time in the Netherlands was the ultimate garden travel experience, you haven’t heard about Floriade.
Horticulture is famously the Netherlands’ most ‘colorful’ industry. The country sells half of the world’s ‘floriculture’ products and over three-quarters of the world’s flower bulbs. It’s number one in greenhouse horticulture and leads global exports of cut flowers, ornamental plants and even trees.
One of the most magnificent Dutch travel experiences is an early spring – ‘Tulip Time’ – visit to Keukenhof, the world’s largest spring flower garden featuring 7 million spring bulbs including over a thousand varieties of tulips alone. But even this experience – marvellous for visitors as it is – is actually a functioning, outdoor trade show exhibiting the best and latest bulb varieties for buyers from around the world.
Tulip Time, where a drive through the southern provinces of the Netherlands reveals fields of blooming tulips as far as the eye can see, and Keukenhof garden tours, luckily take place every year.
Floriade happens only 10 times a century.
Some call it the ‘World’s Fair’ of horticulture, and the next one is in 2022, just in time for travel-hungry people to ensure their post-pandemic travel plans include the opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime collection of vivid memories.
Floriade is the largest public event in the country, drawing 2 million visitors over six months between April and October to its vast displays of almost any plant that grows, in stunning gardens, installations, pavilions and greenhouses.
The exhibition moves around, with this Floriade taking place in a purpose-built, ultra-modern, 150-acre ‘garden city’ built on land reclaimed from the sea near Amsterdam.
The theme in 2022 is ‘Growing Green Cities’, with exhibitors from the Netherlands and around the world displaying green solutions and next-generation innovations and inventions for enjoyable, liveable and sustainable urban centers.
Like the term ‘World’s Fair of Horticulture’ suggests, Floriade offers 40 inspiring country presentations which will also house a spectacular greenhouse complex, a cable car over the Floriade park, pavilions with sustainable innovations and a vibrant arts and culture programme. An electric scale-model train moves visitors around the vast site, and a 35-meter high, 850-meter long cable car provides an incredible view of what will seem like the Garden of Eden below.
Other highlights of Floriade include: an international collection of plants, flowers and trees and 14,000 bulbs organized alphabetically ‘A to Z’ in nearly 200 sections of a vast arboretum like you’re walking through a plant encyclopedia, Alice in Wonderland style.
A visit to Floriade includes culinary experiences, entertainment and culture, and the intersection of horticulture and art, like the ‘life artwork’ project ‘Bobbing Forest’ consisting of 20 recycled sea buoys from the North Sea, planted with Dutch Elm trees even as they ‘bob’ in the water, which you can view from the cable car or on a tour boat that departs from a waterside terrace.
The theme even has a double meaning, since the site is set to become a new urban district once the expo closes. Its name will be ‘Hortus’, meaning ‘garden’ in Latin, and some future homes have already been built that will serve as pavillions during Floriade and in a perfect ‘green’ re-purposing, revert to homes afterwards.
How To Floriade
Like many other ticketed events, it pays to be part of an escorted group with guaranteed access and no need to line up with people waiting for tickets.
Amsterdam is the jumping off point for both Floriade and the Netherland’s spectacular spring flower garden Keukenhof.
It’s also a hub for land, ocean, and river travel, which means there are options for people of all travel styles to immerse themselves in the breathtaking beauty and inspiring innovation of Floriade.
Here are a few of our favorites:
LAND TOURS:
Check out: Trafalgar
Trafalgar’s guests on tours like Amsterdam Explorer and Best of Holland will spend a full day at the Floriade, and “Dive Into Culture” and discover what it would be like to live in a city which is built with environmental sustainability at its core. You’ll explore the location's three districts, each with their own theme – Food, Health and Energy, and the ‘Green Island’, along with live entertainment, cultural shows and culinary delights. In addition to Floriade, you’ll cruise the canals or bike through Amsterdam, taste cheese in Gouda, learn how pottery is made in Delft, and taste exquisite chocolate.
RIVER CRUISES
Check out: Uniworld, Avalon Waterways, Tauck, Scenic and Emerald Cruises
Luxury, boutique river cruise Uniworld is including Floriade as a ‘Choice Excursion’ on three of its 2022 itineraries, including the new Dutch Delight, as well as European Jewels and Remarkable Rhine and Historical Holland cruises on the cosmopolitan, richly elegant River Empress ship. Uniworld guests will have enjoy a full day excursion to Floriade, where you will stroll the expansive arboretum, sample healthful foods and learn about developments in sustainable architecture and energy.
Ultra-luxury river cruise line Tauck includes the Floriade experience on select Rhine River cruises in 2022. One of the things that sets the cruise line apart are its ‘Tauck Exclusive’ private shore experiences, which in this region of Europe, can include things like a pre-opening visit to the open-air Zuiderzee Museum; a private evening at the acclaimed Mauritshuis museum, where you will view masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer (including his iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring) and others and have dinner with live music for you and your fellow guests only; a cruise on the IJsselmeer aboard a century-old sailboat; and tease for, “a special Dutch treat at Floriade 2022.
Avalon Waterways is offering travellers on 8-day Active Discovery in Holland & Belgium, and Tulips of Northern Holland sailings (as well as a number of Rhine and multi-river cruises) the opportunity to sail, enjoying the only open-air balconies in river cruising with floor to ceiling, sliding glass windows facing your bed, then stop and smell the roses at Floriade, a featured, included excursion, giving guests the chance to join the celebration of phenomenal flora in all its finery and fill their senses with color, fragrance and fantastic food.
Scenic has increased its 2022 departures for Windmills, Tulips and Belgian Delights cruise, and for cruises from April to October, you’ll visit Floriade. The luxury river cruise line will also offer a two night extension to visit Floriade to Danube, Rhine and multi-river cruises between end of April to October that take care of all your planning and logistics for you, and allow you to spend as much time at Floriade as you like.
Sister line Emerald Cruises has similar options.
OCEAN CRUISES
Check out: Crystal
Ultra-luxury Crystal cruises include Floriade on sailings on their legendary ocean ships calling in Amsterdam, including London-roundtrip Gardens and Gateways, as well as London-Stockholm and Copenhagen-Reykjavik.
ASK US ABOUT THE BEST WAY FOR YOU TO FLORIADE IN 2022.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Images/ renderings courtesy Floriade
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Social media has an acronym for it: FOMO, or ‘Fear of Missing Out’.
Over the last year, we’ve been missing out on a lot. A lot of get togethers, events, family celebrations… and a lot of travel. Finally, it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, with travel starting to pick up this year, and gaining real speed in 2022.
If you’re anything like us, you feel like you have a lot of catching up to do.
In addition to all your favorite travel experiences, the 2022 calendar of events is packed with events and natural phenomena that are always worth the trip.
- The return of live music and theater worldwide.
- All the famous races, from the Kentucky Derby by horse, to one of the Grand Prix by car, the Tour de France by bicycle, and the America’s Cup at sea.
- Carnivale. Wimbledon. Day of the Dead.
- Fashion Weeks, Christmas Markets, St. Patrick’s Day parades.
- The Great Migration of Africa’s Wildlife on Safari, Cherry Blossom Festivals, Wine Harvests
In normal times, these things happen every year. Whether you’ve enjoyed them often, or they’re still entries on your bucket list, if we’ve learned anything from a canceled year, it’s to seize the moment and do it while you can.
But there are even more reasons to travel in 2022, and this is where FOMO sets in. Next year has an extraordinary abundance of events that only happen a few times in a century. Once in a lifetime? Maybe not. But your FOMO instincts should be tingling.
Mark Your Calendar
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed, and now the Summer Olympics take place in Japan in 2021, but the Winter Olympics are still on schedule for February 2022 in Beijing.
The World Games is a quadrennial event too, one that allows athletes to compete in dozens of sports uncontested at the Olympic Games, including acrobatic gymnastics, karate, orienteering, tug of war, waterskiing, and squash. They are held between Olympic Games. With the Summer Games bumped from 2020 to 2021, the 11th World Games were also rescheduled to July, 2022, in Birmingham, Alabama.
August 2022 brings another multi-nation, multi-sport games that take place every four years. At the upcoming XXII Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, 5000 athletes from dozens of countries compete in 20 summer sports that bring together the former members of the British Empire.
That’s not all that’s happening for sports fans in 2022.
One sports event held every four years is the most widely viewed and followed in the world – beating out the even the Summer Games. The FIFA World Cup brings whole economies of diehard soccer fans to a standstill, and the fan culture in bars and cafes – and for some fortunate fans, in person – is legendary. The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held over nearly a month at the end of the year in Qatar, the first time for it to be held in the Arab world.
World Expos (formerly known as World’s Fairs) showcase the excellence of nations in arenas other than sports - like technology, agriculture, design and architecture, energy, ecology and more, with vast displays and events held for months twice a decade. Inventions like the telephone, color TV’s, touch screens, Ferris wheels and even ice cream cones were unveiled at World’s Fairs, which also debuted landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Seattle’s Space Needle. Expo 2020 was postponed, and now takes place from October 2021 through April 2022 in Dubai with the theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.’
FOMO Tip:
No matter what’s on your travel list in 2022, we have one big travel tip: book early.
With people using their stored-up travel credits, and everyone looking to make up lost travel time, some events and blocks of tickets are already selling out.
If you have a Fear of Missing Out of any once-in-a-lifetime trip in 2021 or 2022, now’s the time to start planning your trip with your travel advisor.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
By: Lynn Elmhirst, Producer/ Host BestTrip TV
Image: Getty
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If you remember Saturday night TV dominated by a double-header of feel-good, travel-inspired shows, with the ‘Love Boat’ followed by ‘Fantasy Island’, this is the end of an era.
The ‘Love Boat’ is sailing off into the sunset. Princess Cruises’ most famous ship, the Pacific Princess, has left the fleet.
Princess Cruises tells us that, in its years at sea, the Pacific Princess sailed, “more than 1.6 million nautical miles, including 11 unforgettable World Cruise voyages and countless cruises to exotic locales.”
But its real legacy is pure fiction.
The Pacific Princess popularized modern cruising to millions of TV viewers through its star role as the ‘Love Boat’. In the romantic comedy/ light drama by feel-good TV producer Aaron Spelling, the zany antics of Captain Stubing and his team, as well as shipboard lifestyle aboard the Pacific Princess, became part of TV viewers’ lives for 250 episodes and 3, hour-long popular TV specials years after the series wrapped.
The series was based on a non-fiction book ‘Love Boats’, written by real-life cruise director, Jeraldine Saunders.
Long after the wrap of the ‘Love Boat’ TV series, its spirit sailed on, with an enduring relationship with Princess Cruises, which continued to invite the ageing cast to ship naming ceremonies and events.
As recently as 2015, Pacific Princess sailed a ‘throwback cruise’, recreating the cruise line’s very first itinerary to the Mexican Riviera in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Princess Cruises. Cast members sailing with this special cruise included Gavin MacLeod ('Captain Stubing' and Princess Cruises Ambassador), Fred Grandy (Gopher, the chief purser), Ted Lange (Isaac, the bartender), Bernie Kopell (Doc, the ship’s doctor), Lauren Tewes (cruise director, Julie) and Jill Whelan (Vicki, the captain’s daughter). Together with the guests, they celebrated the role the show played in Princess Cruises’ five-decades-long history introducing the cruise line – and cruise vacations – to an audience of millions.
For that cruise, Princess debuted a featured, Valentine’s Day cocktail ‘The Isaac’ in honour of the character of Isaac the bartender and his scarlet jacket. Actor Ted Lange, even demonstrated ‘The Isaac’ (and revived his signature ‘grin-and-point’ move) in this video, complete with era-appropriate funk soundtrack.
“Most people don’t know that while I was serving up drinks on the Love Boat, I also became a licensed bartender in real life,” said Lange. “If a bartender recognizes me, he or she always wants me to try their special drink. Now, I’m excited for everyone to try my special drink and I know they are going to love it. Like the song says, “come aboard, the Isaac’s waiting for you!”
Enjoy ‘The Isaac’ at home to celebrate your own Valentine’s Day, the legacy of the Love Boat, and a return to cruising!
‘The Isaac’ Ingredients:
2 oz white rum
2 oz pomegranate syrup
½ oz fresh lime juice
splash of club soda
lime slice(s)
2 pineapple leaf spears
Preparation:
Fill highball glass with 2/3 ice or desired amount of ice. Into a cocktail shaker, add ice, white rum, pomegranate syrup and lime juice. Shake and strain into highball glass, filling just to the top of the ice. Top off with club soda and garnish with a fresh lime slice and two pineapple spears.
True fans of the ship will be able to rediscover the Pacific Princess under a new name. The ship has been bought and added to the fleet of boutique cruise line Azamara.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Canada’s Far North is one of the world’s Last Frontiers – and a true polar travel experience. The country’s Northwest Territories extend from the 60th parallel into Arctic Ocean islands all the way to the North Pole.
At half a million square miles, the Northwest Territories is six times the size of the UK, but has only about 45,000 residents.
Boreal forest thrives at the southern end of the NWT, which thin out before disappearing after the ‘tree line’, with tundra and ice stretching across islands in the Arctic Ocean.
Unsurprisingly, the region’s breathtaking natural wonders, wildlife, and the culture of its native peoples draw intrepid visitors above the 60th parallel.
Celestial Wonders Heighten Your Senses
Capital city Yellowknife is the Northern Lights capital of the world. The aurora borealis dance autumn and winter, 200 nights a year in the crystal-clear dark skies of the NWT. Nature’s ultimate light show is a life-changing experience for visitors from around the world.
Midnight Sun and White Nights at the height of a summer that lasts only a few weeks. During mid-summer, the sun barely sets, creating an other-worldly experience.
Polar Nights are at the opposite end of the spectrum, with a winter that’s dark almost around the clock, especially above the Arctic Circle where the sun does not rise for nearly a month!
Larger Than Life Places Capture Your Imagination
Expedition cruises through Canada’s Northwest Passage follow a fabled route through the Arctic from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, visiting some of the world’s most remote communities and seeing rare scenery along the way.
(Virginia Falls, Nahanni National Park Reserve Photo Credit: George Fischer/NWT Tourism)
Virginia Falls takes your breath away at nearly twice the height of Niagara Falls and four acres in size. It's the centrepiece of Nahanni National Park Reserve, which is one of the territories’ UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Kraus Hot Springs – geothermal springs and pools are found in a number of places in the mountains of the NWT, but Thermal pools are common in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories. Kraus Hot Springs may be the most famous, as they are a popular stop for paddlers right on the shore of the South Nahanni River.
Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada's largest National Park, the 2nd largest in the world, and another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its most famous resident is in its name, but the park is home to a vast richness of far north biodiversity.
(Buffalo in Wood Buffalo National Park, Photo Credit: Darren Roberts/NWT Tourism)
Great Slave Lake in the North Slave region is the deepest Lake in North America with over 2000 feet of mysterious depths.
Great Bear Lake is the largest lake in Canada, with an area larger than the entire country of Belgium. It’s a fisherman’s dream, and holds the world record for biggest sport-caught Lake Trout that weighed in at 72 pounds!
Speaking of sports, NWT’s Ulukhaktok has the most Northern golf course on the planet. In Florida, golfers sometimes have to make way for gators. In NWT, watch out for wandering muskoxen!
The Souvenir that’s ‘Forever’
One NWT attraction isn’t about its stunning geography. It’s about sparkling geology.
NWT is the home of Canadian diamonds. Only developed as a viable industry beginning in the ‘90’s, Canada is now one of the world’s top 10 diamond producers, which it says is an ethical alternative to so-called ‘blood diamonds’.
Just how much bling are we talking about? Tens of millions of carats of diamonds are extracted each year, worth billions of dollars.
The largest diamond found in the NWT to date is a whopping 552-carat, extremely rare, yellow diamond the size of an egg! It was found in 2018, blowing away the previous record for a Canadian diamond, a 188-carat white specimen called the ‘Foxfire’ found in 2015 that was worth an estimated $10 million.
Canada’s three diamond mines are in a remote corner of the NWT. Yellowknife, hundreds of miles southwest of the mines and the largest city in the NWT, is the hub for the diamond industry.
(Canadian Diamonds. Fischer/ NWT Tourism)
You can’t visit an actual mine, but Yellowknife’s NWT Diamond Centre has interpretive displays where you can learn about the geology of the fire and ice of Canada’s Far North that resulted in deposits of the delicate, but virtually indestructible stones we value so highly. You can also watch diamond cutters at work, transforming rough stones into rare gems.
It’s also where you can treat yourself or your sweetheart to a sparkling souvenir of your visit to NWT – and symbol of your love.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Top Image: Wood Buffalo National Park Dark Sky Preserve Photo Credit: Peter McMahon/NWT Tourism
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The catchy saying is known around the world and has even been inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame.
‘Virginia is for Lovers’ debuted over 50 years ago, explaining to readers of ‘Modern Bride’ why they should honeymoon in Virginia.
Over the next half-century, ‘Virginia is for Lovers’ has come to mean a lot of different things to different people. It’s not just newlyweds who love Virginia, nestled between Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains.
Ways to Fall in Love in Virginia
Virginia is the cradle, the battlefield, and the bedroom of American history. Jamestown, founded in 1607, was the first permanent English colony in the New World.
(Thomas Jefferson's plantation, Monticello/ J Looney)
Right next door to Washington, the ‘Commonwealth’ is home to the estates of eight early Presidents, as well as hallowed battlefield and military sites.
Places like Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains are fabled backbones of Virginia’s natural history. Lush with flora and fauna they are host to fables and current-day outdoor activities, from trail to mountain biking, epic hikes with breathtaking views, camping and backpacking.
Descend from Virginia’s heights to sea level, and you collide with history again, along with current-day thrills.
The rich waters and shores of the Atlantic in Virginia are not only where those first English colonists landed. Today, Virginia Beach holds the Guinness World Record for the longest pleasure beach in the world. Sandy shores stretch for 35 miles, which are also the northern-most warm water beaches on the Eastern Seaboard.
Humans aren’t the only ones who love the fertile waters of storied Chesapeake Bay.
‘Virginia is for Lovers’ takes on new meaning when you discover the state’s most famous local seafood. Oysters thrive in eight different coastal regions in Virginia, each giving a different complex flavor and texture to the mollusk that’s widely considered an aphrodisiac due to its suggestive appearance and abundance of zinc.
This food of love tastes best in proximity to the state’s bay breezes, salt water, sunshine and dockside views, and travelers can join Virginians eating oysters in the state year round, at traditional Chesapeake Bay oyster roasts, marquee events like oyster festivals, as well as at local wineries and breweries and of course, fine dining restaurants.
We may not be traveling to Virginia right now, but we can still infuse a little Virginia love into our own stay-at-home Valentine’s Day or any day we want to share some love, with this delicious oyster recipe, shared with us by Virginia’s Hotel Roanoke.
With a prestigious AAA Four Diamond Designation testifying to the quality of its dining and hotel experience today, the Tudor-style Hotel Roanoke dates back to the latter half of the 19th century, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We bet local, fried oysters have been on the menu since the beginning. Here’s an upscale version to change up a romantic evening at home.
Hotel Roanoke’s Fried Oysters with Crab & Caper Beurre Blanc
Serves 2 as a light, shared treat
· 4 Fresh Medium-size Oysters
· 1 cup Ground Cornmeal
· 1 cup Buttermilk
· Micro-Arugula
· Deep-fat fryer
Beurre Blanc:
· 1 tsp Chopped Garlic
· ¼ Cup Chopped Onion
· 1 cup White Wine
· 1 cup Vegetable stock
· 2 cup Heavy Cream
· 2 Tbs Hard Butter
· ½ cup Lump Crabmeat
· ½ cup Capers
· Salt & Pepper to taste
To make Beurre Blanc, place garlic, onion, white wine, and vegetable stock in pot. Bring to a boil and reduce by half. Add heavy cream, bring to the boil and reduce until sauce consistency. Turn off heat, then whisk in hard butter a little at a time until fully incorporated. Strain, then add crab and capers. Season to taste. Leave until needed (covered in warm place).
Heat oil to 360 F. Dip each oyster into buttermilk (coat thoroughly) then into cornmeal, shake off excess, then carefully drop into hot oil. Fry until golden brown (1-2 minutes), drain dry. To serve, place a little sauce in bottom of one or two plates, and then top with Oysters and a few sprigs of micro-greens.
Enjoy with someone you love, and dream of traveling again soon!
Images Courtesy www.virginia.org/
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
We love airports, don’t you? After a year without travel, we can’t wait to see the bustle, feel that unique buzz of people excited to be off on a new adventure in a new place…
Of all the sights and sounds of a busy airport, the one that’s guaranteed to make you smile is the earnest, adorable faces of hard-at-work security dogs.
We may not be going to the airport and heading off to new destinations right now, but the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is taking a small detour from its serious mission of airport safety, and has found a way to share some of the endearing sensations of the airport with travel lovers at home.
For the first time, the TSA is making its annual TSA Canine Calendar available to the public as a digital download.
The calendar features 13, real TSA explosive detection canines from airports around the USA, one for each month, and one for a look ahead to 2022. In addition to a heart-melting image of a TSA Canine, there are some fun facts about the dog and the program.
Rea, pictured above from the calendar, for example, is October’s TSA Canine. She is a German Shepherd who works at San Francisco International Airport. Her favorite treat, we learn, is rawhides, and she enjoys hiking and any toy ‘stuffed with a squeaker’.
TSA Canine teams across the country submit photos to celebrate National Dog Day in August, and this year’s 2021 calendar pups were chosen from dozens of entries.
It’s a fun face on the agency’s somber business of safety, and gives us a glimpse inside one aspect of travel we might not otherwise think about.
The TSA has more than 1,000 specially-trained dogs, teamed with human handlers, deployed around the country, with their super-hero sniffing abilities contributing to security and screening.
TSA Canines are chosen from seven breeds of large dogs, from German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, German Short-haired Pointers, Wirehaired Pointers, Vizslas, or Belgian Malinois. 300 canine candidates complete their 12-16 weeks of intensive training every year in the TSA’s Canine Training Center in San Antonio, Texas.
There, the dogs learn to adapt to busy airport environments and work with their human handlers to detect specific scents. They practice working in different areas of airports including a mock terminal, an airport gate, a checkpoint, the interior of an aircraft, light rail station and cars, cargo facilities, parking and open air spaces, as well as baggage claim, where most of us as passengers see their focused, energetic work.
TSA Canines at the training center also learn to work in different transportation environments in addition to airports, including bus, ferry, rail, maritime ports and mass transit.
Wherever you cross paths with a TSA Canine, their friendly doggy faces are a welcome sight. The dogs are trained to be sociable in their public duties, but they are working to keep you safe and the TSA reminds us not to try to pet or feed any of the dogs on duty.
We’ll just have to gaze at their irresistible puppy dog eyes in the TSA Canine Calendar to admire them… and dream of our return to travel.
Are you missing travel? Evidence tells us that travel benefits us more than getting a fresh tan, new social media posts of us having fun in some exotic location, or even new stories to entertain our friends and family.
When we had the privilege of unrestricted travel, we took for granted all the benefits it brought, including real benefits to our health that research was beginning to reveal.
The old cliché that laughter is the best medicine could really be said of travel. Maybe not quite a magic potion, like the fun image above suggests, but something that explains how our missing travel is not just nostalgia.
Lynn Elmhirst, Producer/Host of BestTrip TV, explains 6 reasons how a return to travel will help our health as well as our enjoyment of life.
Recently, I was the guest expert invited to speak about ‘Travel in the Age of COVID’ on a radio show and podcast called Aging Better in Uncertain Times, and it encouraged me for a couple of reasons.
Not only did the conversation between me, broadcaster Gord Martineau and Dr. Fabio Varlese include valuable information about how to stay healthy while traveling, which you might expect, we also talked about why travel itself is a pursuit that’s good for us.
It inspired me to gather some of the latest information that makes the health ‘case’ for travel. It…
1. Boosts Your Immune System
My farmer grandfather used to say every kid should ‘eat a peck of dirt’ before they were 10 to stay healthy. Granddad was on to something. Research shows being in contact with new bacteria can help develop stronger antibodies, make your gut stronger, and build your body’s resistance to diseases.
Of course you should continue practicing hand hygiene on the road, but studies suggest exposure to new environments help make our bodies adapt and makes us stronger.
2. Increases Our Activity
Working from home likely isn’t doing much to help us achieve our goals to move more. Travel does.
A new environment encourages us to get out and experience it, whether it’s walking the streets of a new city, along the beach of our resort, cycling through vineyards, or even trying a more active or extreme sport. Movement is health, and nothing gets us more active than a new destination.
3. Strengthens Our Hearts
First they told us moderate amounts of wine and chocolate were good for our hearts. You can add travel to that list, too. Life doesn’t get much better than this, does it?
Heart health and travel has been studied in both women and men. Reportedly, women who vacation twice a year are substantially less likely to suffer a heart attack than women who travel only once every few years. Men who skip an annual vacation are at a 20% higher risk of death overall, and that jumps to a 30% higher chance of dying from heart disease.
Another, long-term study revealed that women in their middle years who travel more have less likelihood of having heart problems 20 years later, and the same study found travel also helped with blood pressure.
4. Supports Our Brains
We want our brains firing on all cylinders now… and protected from ailments like dementia in our later years. Happily, travel helps our brains throughout our lives.
New experiences, which are the essence of travel, including new scents, sounds and minor challenges like navigating a different town or language, give our brains a workout, and that is good for creativity and mental health in the short term, and the new connections we build in our brain as a result of processing new sensations help reduce the risk of dementia and even Alzheimer’s in the long term.
Researchers say the more engagement and immersion we have in a new location and culture, the more our brains have to adapt, and the more powerful the brain stimulation results.
5. Reduces Stress and Depression
This one is a no-brainer. You can tell – and research agrees – that taking a vacation makes you feel less anxious, better rested, and lifts your overall mood. Studies confirm these effects linger for weeks after our return home, reinforcing how important regular vacations are for our mental well-being.
One study revealed 90% of people showed significant stress reduction after just the first couple of days of a vacation, along with a more positive outlook on life.
Another showed that women who vacation twice a year are less likely to suffer from depression than those who take a holiday less than once every couple of years.
6. Increases Happiness
I don’t want all this good news about the health benefits of travel to actually depress you, considering we can’t do all the traveling we want right now.
You’ll be happy to hear that even planning a trip provides a direct increase in happiness. Anticipating your vacation, one study shows, is much more powerful than the anticipation of acquiring objects.
So planning a trip during our pandemic downtime can help us stay cheerful and happy until we can travel again. Crack out the guidebooks along with that wine and chocolate and here's to your good health!
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Top Image courtesy Open Jaw
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Amid political drama, it’s easy to forget that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC isn’t only the address of one of America’s branches of government - or a family home, America’s original work-from-home venue before WFH became a ‘thing’.
The White House is also a global symbol of the historic roots of democracy. And it’s one of the pre-eminent museums of the history of the United States.
It wasn’t always that way. This year, the White House Historical Association celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Six decades doesn’t seem very long, considering the history of the site. While the Republic began in the 18th century and the current White House dates back to the early 19th century, prior to 1961, the White House was no museum. It was treated as a rather ordinary executive mansion – one that changed occupants every four years, without any permanent caretaker of its legacy.
When the Kennedy administration moved into the White House, famously elegant and history-minded First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy discovered a hodge-podge of furnishings and design. One observer even noted much of the White House at the time contained non-descript ‘department store furniture’!
She immediately made it her mission to transform the White House into a museum of the history that had taken place within its walls, and a repository of the legacy of the ‘People’s House’ that would tell future generations the story of the building of a nation through the art, artefacts and furnishings that touched and reflected the lives of the nation-builders and two centuries of presidents and their families.
To assist her in her mission, she established the White House Historical Association. Entirely with donated funds, they scoured America and the world, tracking, recovering, acquiring and restoring, or re-creating art, furnishings and décor items that reflected the history of the White House.
Just a year later, on Valentine’s Day in 1962, the First Lady gave a televised tour of the White House Restoration that had record-breaking viewership and won the notoriously shy First Lady an Emmy award for her on-camera appearance. You can watch a clip of the tour here.
Her own legacy, the White House Historical Association, provides continuity throughout successive administrations, continuing to preserve and share the history and legacy of this living museum, even acquiring new pieces to reflect that history continues to be made even today. Since its founding, the Association has invested over a hundred million dollars – still entirely donated - to maintain and expand the White House as a museum.
You couldn’t call the White House ‘shabby’ now. Vivid colors in rooms with names like Blue Room, Green Room, Red Room, the sheen of gilded vases and clocks and frames that date to the earliest days of the Republic, sparkling chandeliers, a piano given by Theodore Steinway to FDR carved from mahogany with American eagle legs, iconic portraits of Presidents and First Ladies all the way back to George Washington, the State Dining Room that’s the country’s most exclusive dinner invitation, and a whole room dedicated to crystal, flatware, and china, used by nearly every President, as well as state china designed for different administrations provide something to inspire every visitor to the White House.
The White House today sees a million visitors each year in addition to the dignitaries, heads of state and culture and business who are welcomed through its doors.
The 60th anniversary of the White House Historical Association coincides with a year of disrupted travel, but thanks to Google Arts & Culture, you can still take a virtual tour of the White House, indoors and outdoors. Don’t miss the Vermeil Room, where portraits of First Ladies, including White House Historical Association founder Jacqueline Kennedy, hang in honor.
To celebrate its anniversary, the White House Historical Association has issued a new logo with the image of the White House South Façade in 1961; a signature book ‘Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration’; a special tribute to Mrs. Kennedy in addition to the annual luncheon to mark her July 28th birthday; and new episodes of the Association’s ‘The 1600 Sessions’ podcasts that bring experts and luminaries into discussions about the defining times and people who made history the White House.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Image: National Parks Service
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The steamy, historic-fantasy Netflix series ‘Bridgerton’ couldn’t come at a better time to brighten our stay-at-home winter blahs. We aren't surprised it's shattered Netflix viewership records.
Bridgerton is an early-19th century, light-hearted romp of an historic romance on steroids. Bridgerton follows the intrigues of the young Bridgerton family and their high society friends, enemies and potential mates, their scheming mamas, and the revelations of Lady Whistledown's scandal sheets.
It's fantasy and eye candy of the highest order, with impossibly beautiful and sexy and famously diverse cast members, all outfitted in lovelier-than-life, Empire costumes that wouldn't look out of place on a runway, set against the sumptuous backdrop of British Regency-era elegant, lofty neoclassical architecture and sets with sweeping staircases, rooms where pastel silk walls match light-as-air upholstered furnishings and decadent carpets, all under glittering chandeliers.
(Above and top; courtesy Netflix)
Some of the most spectacular Bridgerton interiors (like the Bridgerton and Featherington homes) were purpose-designed and built sets.
But much of the series was filmed in the very real English city of Bath, where you can still capture the spirit of Bridgerton on your travels. Its natural, therapeutic springs were discovered by the Romans and became a feature of high society English life during the Regency era (immortalized in the works of Jane Austen). That sparked a building boom that transformed Bath, which retains an abundance of graceful period architecture and connection to Regency England today.
(Courtesy Bath and North East Somerset Council)
Our friends at Visit Bath have revealed a list of Bridgerton filming locations you’ll want to explore on your next trip to Britain.
Royal Crescent
One of Bath’s – and England’s - most iconic landmarks, Bath’s Royal Crescent is a breathtaking backdrop for filming. The Crescent – built between 1767 and 1775 – is arranged around a perfect lawn overlooking Royal Victoria Park and forms a sweeping curve of 30 protected, historic terraced houses.
You won’t miss it in Bridgerton or want to miss it in your own social media posts.
(Visit Britain/ Joanna Henderson)
No.1 Royal Crescent
The exterior of No.1 Royal Crescent is used as the home of the Featherington family, where Lady Featherington schemes to find husbands for her three daughters in competition with the beautiful Bridgertons. In real life, No.1 Royal Crescent is a museum which has been decorated and furnished just as it might have been during the period. The rooms feature historic furniture and objects that reveal what life was like for Bath’s fashionable residents, both upstairs and downstairs.
Bath Street
Bath Street, with its cobblestones and colonnades lining both sides of the street, appears in the first trailer for the show and is used for several street scenes. At the end of Bath Street is the Cross Bath and Thermae Bath Spa. That’s why this area is known as the Spa Quarter, where the region's natural, underground springs bubble to the surface at a temperature of 46 degrees F.
Unadorned by shop signs and capturing eighteenth-century Bath perfectly, the street easily slips back into a vision of its historic past.
Abbey Green
Tucked away behind the Roman Baths, you’ll find The Abbey Deli (previously called Pickled Greens), on Abbey Green. You’ll quickly recognize its typically-Georgian/Regency bay windows. In Bridgerton, the café stands in for the Modiste – a dress shop where much intrigue unfolds.
Beauford Square
Beauford Square, used for more street filming, is a square of two-storey cottages built in 1730. The south side is formed by the original frontage to Theatre Royal Bath, and in the center is now a small rectangular lawn, enclosed with wrought iron railings.
The Assembly Rooms
Bridgerton’s fictional high-society events and lavish balls, where the characters dance and socialize, share and create gossip, require equally grand and elegant sets.
Bath’s real-life Tea Room and Ball Room of the Assembly Rooms make perfect, grand backdrops for the sumptuous ball scenes full of glamorous and vivacious costumes and hairstyles. In a sense, they return to their own roots, when the venues were the social epicenter of Georgian Bath. When they are not in use as meeting and event spaces today, you can visit them and imagine yourself twirling and romancing the evening away.
Bath’s Assembly Rooms are home to spectacular, original Whitefriars crystal chandeliers and the largest eighteenth-century room in the city.
The Guildhall
The Banqueting Room at the Guildhall was also used for ball scenes in the series. The elegant Georgian venue, with grand staircases and elegant plasterwork, ornate gilding, historic paintings and soaring ceilings.
(The Holburne Museum, courtesy Visit Bath)
The Holburne Museum
The exterior of the Holburne Museum stood in for Lady Danbury's grand home in Bridgerton. On the impressive approach to the building, its elegant façade and gardens hint at its real-life grandeur and history as an elegant hotel.
Wander around Bath, you feel transported back to the Regency era of England and to the fictional lives and lifestyle of the Bridgertons. You can almost imagine someone passing you one of Lady Whistledown’s society-shaking gossip pamphlets!
(Courtesy Visit Britain/ Simon Winnall)
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Image copyrights as noted above
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It looks like something out of a science fiction film, but it could be the way you get your very next aerial tour of Singapore.
In a world first, after two years of tests and collaboration with the island city-state and a decade of development of its technology, ‘Volocopter’ is set to make no-pilot air taxi services a reality.
While other cities around the world experiment with driverless cars as a stepping stone to unmanned taxi service, Volocopter has unveiled pioneering ‘Urban Air Mobility’ (UAM) in this South East Asian destination.
Volocopter air taxis are helicopter-like, 2-person craft that take off and land vertically. They are emission-free and, according to the company, a quiet way to take passengers directly to their destination. With no pilot.
In this video, you can see the historic, Volocopter air taxi demonstration flight in the very heart of Singapore, with the triple towers of the city’s iconic Marina Bay urban resort in the background. It gives you a sense of what UAM will look like flying through the skyline – and can you imagine the view for the two people inside?
Volocopter says it expects its first route in Singapore to be a tour for visitors to the city. The touristic route of its southern waters would include views of the Marina Bay skyline usually reserved for the elite in their private, piloted helicopters.
While pilots for aircraft file flight plans, unmanned Volocopter flights would be something like train trips, with pre-determined routes and stops or stations.
That’s not all. The company envisions routes with terminus stops linking to follow-on connections that could eventually include cross-border flights. At that volume purely touristic and awe-inspiring UAM crosses over to the realms of business travel and commuting for residents, enhancing regional movement and significantly improving everyone’s travel experience to Singapore's closest economic centers.
Believe it or not, Volocopter says its autonomous air taxis will be operating in the next three years. At launch, it might be a one-of-a-kind, bucket list ride in one of the most spectacular cities and futuristic skylines in the world, a high-tech version of a balloon ride over the other-worldly landscape of Cappadocia, a camel ride in the shadows of the Great Pyramid, or a rickshaw ride through the back lanes and courtyards of historic Beijing.
Ultimately, Volocopters may bring a whole new dimension to the lifestyle and travel experience of urban centers around the world.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Image: Volocopter GmbH
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It’s made of an astonishing 10,000 western red cedar logs, and ‘logs in’ at a whopping 4-million cubic feet of volume.
Fairmont Le Château Montebello lays claim to being the biggest log building on the planet. A massive lobby and rotunda anchor four wings extending out in a star formation that’s painted dramatic black on the outside, but retains its natural warm shade on the inside.
Phenomenal, 70-foot log rafters support the atrium lobby, with a central, three-story stone fireplace, a mezzanine overlooking the stunning space, and a 3rd-floor balcony with a perspective over the wonders of its pristine, old-growth forest surroundings.
This incredible building is topped by half a million hand-made cedar shakes, and boasts over a hundred miles of carved wooden mouldings.
The best part? It’s not the private, waterfront retreat of a reclusive billionaire. As one of Canada’s iconic, former railway, ‘castle’ hotels, any visitor to the Montebello region of Quebec near the Canadian capital of Ottawa, can experience this riverfront resort in the midst of a 300-acre forest reserve.
Unlike many of its sister historic Fairmont hotels which evoke French chateaux in Canada’s great urban and wilderness destinations, Château Montebello stands alone as a breathtaking example of contrasting castle grandeur in rustic style.
The resort is an incredible architectural and construction feat, and an astounding vision of hospitality, with a rich history.
Historic Pedigree
The property dates back to the 1600’s, part of the original land grants from the French King to settle ‘New France’.
In the late 1920’s, its new owner envisioned an exclusive, private wilderness retreat for the country’s political elite from nearby Ottawa and business leaders from Montreal only a bit farther away. Original club directors included the Premier of Quebec and a host of nation builders: the presidents of the National Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Which may be why, despite the onset of the global economic crash in 1929, the project went ahead. A special spur of the CPR rail line was built to bring deliver the massive logs to the site, and 3500 workers and artisans worked 7 days a week, around the clock using unprecedented electric lighting at night to complete this visionary ‘log cabin’ in a mind-boggling 4 months.
On Canada Day, July 1st, 1930, the private members’ club opened, with a grand masked ball as its spectacular launch on the world’s social scene.
For the next 40 years, the who’s who of the Canadian elite played, networked, dined and celebrated family milestones at the club and its waterfront, wooded 300 acres. Non-Canadian club members included European royalty like the Netherland’s Queen Juliana and Princess Grace of Monaco, and a glitterati of guests included international and Hollywood royalty, even US President Harry Truman who expressed a desire to fish his ‘first Canadian trout’ on his visit to Ottawa in 1947.
From Private Club to Luxury Resort
In 1970, the club re-opened as a resort and bucket list destination for any discerning traveler. Now, Fairmont Le Château Montebello is known world-wide for its one-of-a-kind setting as well as rustic-chic flair, warm French-Canadian hospitality and cuisine.
Other buildings have been added to the resort, including a separate log cabin, accessible by underground tunnel, with a 75-foot indoor pool – the largest in Canada – at the foot of totem poles that support the roof.
Vast spa, sauna, and fitness facilities enhance the 40+ on-resort activities surrounding Chateau Montebello. Swim and sunbathe next to the pool or river. Boat in to the marina. Play 18 holes of golf, a match of tennis, or try your hand at iconic Canadian winter activities like dog sledding, curling, ice-skating or cross-country skiing. In the warm spring and summer months, or during vivid autumn colors, you can hike and cycle tranquil woods and paths.
The resort brings holiday celebrations to life, too. Imagine a traditional Canadian Christmas within the vast log walls and beams, and the tastes and sights of a Quebecois maple sugar shack experience in early spring.
90th Anniversary
Fairmont Le Château Montebello celebrated 90 years as a one-of-a-kind landmark of architecture and hospitality on July 1st, 2020. The pandemic has postponed, but not canceled, celebrations, which have been rescheduled to Canada Day, July 1st, 2021.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Images courtesy Fairmont Le Château Montebello
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Can we hit the reset button on 2020? Usually, at the beginning of each year, we look forward to new ships guests will be among the first in the world to experience in their inaugural seasons.
But in 2020, more than a dozen new cruise ships sailed out of their shipyards only to sit empty, waiting for cruising to resume to welcome guests on new cruising adventures.
BestTrip TV’s Lynn Elmhirst provides her list of favorite vessels from the class of 2020 you’ll want to turn back the calendar and add to your ‘new ship’ cruise collection.
American Cruise Lines’ Jazz and Melody
This cruise line floated out not one, but two ships during COVID, which paused, but didn’t quench travelers’ thirst to rediscover America by water. American Cruise Lines welcomed American Jazz and American Melody in 2020. They are the 3rd and 4th ships in ACL’s ‘Modern Series’.
No paddlewheels here. The American Melody and Jazz feature clean lines and contemporary elegance with a grand, multi-story atrium, a patented opening bow and retractable gangway, elevator access to all decks, and sweeping expanses of glass and panoramic views.
175 guests enjoy 100% private balcony, spacious accommodations, indoor and outdoor dining with world-class gastronomy using local ingredients; numerous lounges; several open-air & shaded sundecks; Library; Chart Room; Game Room; Fitness Room & Yoga-Wellness Studio. Not to mention the inclusions like cocktails before dinner, wine and beer with meals, itineraries with complimentary shore excursions, and daily entertainment and destination enrichment.
The ships' inaugural sailings in 2021 are on the fabled Mississippi.
Regent Seven Seas Splendor
Regent’s Seven Seas Explorer has been called the most luxurious ship ever built – and early in 2020, her sister ship, the Splendor, was set to take on that mantle herself.
Splendor is the second ship in Regent’s ‘Explore Class’ of lavish ships. But after a spectacular naming ceremony by godmother, former supermodel Christie Brinkley, the Splendor’s inaugural season came to a halt.
When it begins a new inaugural season in 2021, the Splendor’s 750 guests will finally get a chance to experience this all-suite, all-balcony ship some have called a ‘work of art’. The ship boasts more than an acre of Italian marble, 500 crystal chandeliers, a multi-million dollar art collection, and among the largest balconies at sea.
Returning Regent guests will enjoy the new iterations of favorite, included restaurants, and Italian restaurant Sette Mari at La Veranda debuts over-water alcove seating that extends over the ocean.
A new gourmet Culinary Arts Kitchen and a first-of-its-kind globally inspired spa for Regent featuring treatments and techniques from across cultures also make their debuts on this Regent ship inaugural season guests have waited a year to experience.
Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady
It was the first ship of a brand new cruise line, fronted by the famous entrepreneur who added cheeky fun to air travel - and was set to upend the definition of cruising.
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Voyages came out of the gate strong early in 2020 with the launch of its 2800-passenger Scarlet Lady. But only a few media and travel advisors experienced the Scarlet Lady’s ‘rebel luxe’ style of cruising in Europe as the ship was en route to its Miami homeport - before the pandemic brought the ship’s triumphant inaugural season to a halt.
Virgin Voyages expects to re-launch mid 2021, welcoming guests who’ve been waiting over a year to experience the ship’s more than 20 included restaurants, champagne on demand at the push of a button, the first tattoo studio at sea, tables in suites designed to dance on, and ‘detox/retox’ lifestyle Branson has made famous.
The Scarlet Lady sails on shorter, long-weekend-type itineraries that include a late-night call at the cruise line’s new private beach resort in Bimini, the Bahamas, an Ibiza-style/ music festival inspired experience with DJ’s and bonfires on the beach.
Celebrity Cruises’ Apex
Mid 2020 saw the delivery of the second of Celebrity Cruises’ 3000-passenger Edge-series ships in a virtual ceremony. It then sailed to join other Celebrity ships waiting off America’s coast for cruising to resume.
The Edge, and now the Apex, have one of the most unique ship designs at sea. A bright orange, cantilevered venue called the ‘Magic Carpet’ appears to cling to the side of both ships as it travels up and down to different floors, operating as a lounge or dining venue or even a tender launch area at sea level.
In addition to the Edge’s trademark ‘Magic Carpet’ re-appearing on the Apex, other Edge features like ‘Infinite Veranda’ staterooms, nearly 30 dining venues, outdoor plunge pools and a luxurious, exclusive ‘Retreat’ lounge, restaurant and outdoor space for suite guests reappear on the Apex.
Silversea: Silver Origin and Silver Moon
A two-fer of new ship deliveries for this 6-star cruise line in 2020, so afficionados of Silversea’s European, ultra-luxury cruising style have lots to look forward to in 2021.
Silver Origin is Silversea’s first newbuild specific to a destination, and it will sail year round in the Galapagos.
They’re calling it ‘the most elegant ship ever to sail the Galapagos’. It also marks the most environmentally conscious ship the cruise line has ever built, mindful of the uniquely-sensitive Galapagos islands. It’s an ultra-luxury vessel designed for deeply experiential exploration of the Galapagos with a team of Ecuadorian expert guides, an interactive ‘basecamp’, and 8 Zodiacs.
Just 100 privileged guests on Silver Origin will enjoy all-suite accommodations with ‘Horizon Balconies’, its signature butler service for all, 2 restaurants including local Ecuadorian cuisine, and state of the art technology as well as the simple, primal warmth and social interaction of a fire pit in the Explorer Lounge at the end of a thrilling day ashore (pictured, top).
Silver Moon is a sister ship to the Silver Muse, expanding outdoor spaces and re-imagining public spaces including restaurants and guest-favorite indoor gathering space and evening piano bar, Dolce Vita.
Understated luxe décor and amenities embrace the Silver Moon’s 600 guests in comfort, and dedicated butlers, stocked in-suite bar, 24-hour in-suite dining make your suite on the Silver Moon feel even better than home.
The Silver Moon also debuts the line’s new culinary enrichment programme, S.A.L.T., which is an acronym of ‘Sea and Land Taste’. It gives guests the opportunity to explore a range of destination-focused gastronomic experiences—both on-board and ashore. Three new venues: a restaurant, test kitchen and bar, form a hub of culinary discovery on Deck 4 of the Silver Moon as part of the S.A.L.T. program.
Princess Cruises’ Enchanted Princess
Princess Cruises’ 5th Royal-class ship was delivered in a low-key way in the fall. When the Enchanted Princess sails in 2021, 3600 passengers will get to experience all of the cruise line’s latest innovations and amenities, including all of its ‘Medallion’ wearable digital device conveniences as well as the multi-story atrium Piazza, glass ‘SeaWalk’ and 80% balcony staterooms.
The Enchanted Princess also boasts some unique features, including a new suite category called Sky Suites with Princess’ largest private balconies, located at the top of the ship and giving their guests a view of the ship’s ‘Movies Under the Stars’ from their suites.
In addition, the new ship has a new concept Sanctuary, with more private cabana capacity, and a Wakeview pool at the aft of the ship. 2021 will also see another sister ship, the Discovery Princess, sailing its own inaugural season.
#DreamNowCruiseSoon
Images courtesy of their respective cruise lines.
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This January, two powerful forces for wellness travel converge: yearly New Year's resolutions to become or rediscover our best selves, and this year, the pandemic that's both kept us from traveling, and for many, fostered a lifestyle that may not have kept us at our peak.
In the travel era BC (Before COVID), wellness travel was already one of the most popular, and growing, vacation styles.
Since COVID, the idea of wellness travel has taken on a new dimension – now, ALL travel has a ‘wellness’ element as concerns about staying safe and healthy have already transformed how we travel.
Wellness travel means many things to many people, from extreme diet or fitness programs, meditation, yoga or other mind and body practice retreats, even a luxury resort with wide-ranging spa treatments that restore and renew and reset us even as we delight in an escape to a beloved destination.
COVID has added to our range of wellness vacations, with interest in programs designed to boost our immunity and elevate our self-care to thrive under the intense pressures of the times.
And COVID has offered us new ways to approach wellness travel. Work from Home and School at Home have inspired people and families to consider months-long escapes to dream destinations, where they can participate in local activities and resort wellness programs that don’t have to end after a few days, but can become core elements of daily life abroad.
If a wellness retreat or wellness vacation seems like an ideal post-COVID trip for you, here are my top 6 tips for making it a success:
1. Homework:
As in, work with your travel advisor to do yours. It’s really important you find a program that exactly matches what you hope to achieve and how you hope to achieve it. Make sure the program’s goals match your goals, and how they are going to help you achieve them matches how you want to develop yourself – and spend precious vacation time.
And of course, make sure every point of your journey has comprehensive health and safety plans and follows best practices to protect your health – the very foundation of any wellness vacation.
2. Be Open to New:
These times have broken the mold of our daily lives, why not shake it up when it comes to your approach to renewing your mind, body, or spirit? New treatments and ancient therapies are more commonly available and a wellness vacation is an ideal time to try something new as you’re immersed in the charms of a new destination.
3. Location:
There are wonderful and interesting health and wellness resorts, retreats, cruises, and spas all over the world, but you should choose a vacation that’s a reward for you in and of itself. Someplace that is a dream for you to travel to, so when your program is getting tough, or your muscles are a little achy, you can interact with your destination and experience that as your reward and boost your spirits to keep up with your wellness program.
4. Check on qualifications:
Verify the qualifications of the wellness practitioners where you’re going, as well as their record of success. You’re putting your health in the hands of people you’ve never met, and almost all fitness or fasting or therapies or treatments come with risks. Make sure you’re in the hands of experts who know what they’re doing and they’ve done it lots of times before.
5. Do your prep work:
Cold turkey is one approach. But it might be painful. So if there’s prep work you can do to be primed for your wellness program – from starting to cut out sugar, or beginning or increasing your regular fitness or wellness regimen, it can only help you achieve your desired results.
6. Travel with a wellness buddy:
You know you’ll meet great, like-minded people at your wellness retreat, but it’s amazing to have someone with you who you know will be there to support you. It’s not always easy getting to the top of the hill, or maintaining that juice fast, or dealing with overwhelming emotions of a wellness retreat, so it’s nice to know you have someone to lean on and share strengths to achieve the change you’re looking for.
It also means that when you go back home, you have that person who’s had the same experience, and they can help make sure you take all the practices and techniques you’ve learned home with you along with the memories of a travel experience that we’ve all been waiting on for so long.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
By: Lynn Elmhirst, Producer/ Host, BestTrip TV
Image: BestTrip TV
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A year from now, one of the travel events of our lifetime will be over.
Not only will 2021 see the return to travel we’ve all longed for; on December 4th, 2021, a total solar eclipse will take place.
A total solar eclipse, where the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, completely blocking out the sun for a short period of time, is as mystical and as primal an experience for us modern humans as it has been for all of our ancestors before us through time immemorial.
Antarctic waters are the only place in the world with 100% visibility of this awe-inspiring astronomical event. The remote site also means no ‘light pollution’ from surrounding human population centers will interfere with the full impact of the eclipse.
And luckily for travelers, December is Antarctic summer, when waters are most navigable.
Luxury expedition cruise lines with ice class ships for navigating polar seas have planned sailings to view the Solar Eclipse as no one else in the world will be able to see it, in exclusive, deluxe lifestyle.
One life-changing event. 3 ways you can be in the right place at the right time.
(Image: Silversea)
Silversea
This ultra-luxury cruise line has three of its polar expedition ships sailing in Antarctic waters for the Solar Eclipse.
The Silver Wind sails on November 20th for 22 days from Buenos Aires, Argentina, returning to Ushuaia, Argentina. The Silver Explorer sails 13 days round trip from Ushaia on November 26th, and the Silver Cloud sails round trip from Ushaia for 11 days on November 30th.
Be on deck with fewer than 250 guests as the brilliance of Antarctica is plunged into darkness, and gaze amazed as the changing light and sharpening shadows highlight Antarctica’s beauty.
The line’s onboard Expedition Staff is highly educated in everything from penguin spotting to taking the perfect glacier photo.
Silversea’s one-of-a-kind combination of exploration and ultra-luxury mean air and pre-cruise hotel, gratuities, multiple restaurants, in-suite and ship-wide wine and spirits, butler service and in-suite dining, shore excursions with guided zodiacs and parkas are included.
(Image: Silversea)
It means you’ll be enjoying small group adventures by day, the magnificent Solar Eclipse, and sharing experiences with like-minded new friends in the lap of luxury by night.
Atlas Ocean Voyages
This new cruise line’s first, luxury, small expedition ship launches in 2021. The Antarctic Solar Eclipse will be part of the World Navigator’s inaugural season. With its ‘new ship’ smell still fresh, and the very latest in environmentally friendly technology that uses less fuel and disturbs the sea floor and wildlife less than other ships, it allows guests to get closer to Nature and protect it, too.
(Rendering: Atlas Ocean Voyages)
During your 12-night voyage round-trip from Ushuaia, departing on November 28th, 2021, you and fewer than 200 guests will be treated to roundtrip airfare, gourmet dining and top beverages, butler service for all suites, enriching classes, and complimentary adventures in select destinations.
Get up close and personal with the masses of seabirds, seals, and whales of the region’s waters and shores. Long, summer days close to the South Pole give you ample time to kayak or paddleboard some of the clearest waters in the world as they reflect the ice-blue sky and glaciers back at you.
On December 4th, you’ll be sailing through icy waters, and be able to see the total solar eclipse against a backdrop of mammoth icebergs.
Ponant
This French cruise line’s newest ship is also the first, luxury hybrid electric polar-class vessel. Ponant is known for its refined, French design, onboard ‘art of living’ and commitment to cuisine alongside robust environmental and authentic expedition credentials.
(Image: Ponant)
Your regional flights to and from Argentina’s ‘end of the earth’ jumping off point, Ushuaia are included with your voyage as Le Commandant-Charcot departs on November 30th, 2021 on its 15-day, once-in-a-lifetime expedition sailing to the Antarctic during the total solar eclipse.
Just over 250 guests will make the ‘badge of honor’ sailing from Ushuaia through the Drake Passage en route to the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea ice pack on December 4th. You’ll be able to disembark the ship onto the ice pack where, according to Ponant, “the pristine white creates a high-pressure zone that will allow for clearer skies”, a rare privilege enhanced by naturalist guides and on-board scientists.
In addition to viewing the eclipse, guests can participate in expeditions for scientific activities like water sampling and visiting research stations, explore by hovercraft, hot air balloon, and snowmobile and polar diving, and enjoy expert seminars that make their experiences even more meaningful.
(Image: Ponant)
If experiencing the Antarctic was on your bucket list, the Solar Eclipse in December of 2021 will make the trip of a lifetime truly legendary.
Imagine seeing the total Solar Eclipse over the pure, clear skies of the most remote continent, experiencing rare wildlife and epic scenery, and raising a glass to your life-changing journey embraced in luxury and comfort.
#DontMissThis
Top, Solar Eclipse Image by Jan Haerer from Pixabay
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In BC (Before COVID) times, viral airline safety videos had fun with things like fastening seatbelts. Times have changed.
Alaska Airlines gave the COVID travel era the new type of safety video we really needed right now.
The video above is a send-up of the 80’s music classic Men Without Hats’ ‘Safety Dance’. If you want to compare it and get a real blast from the past, here’s the original 1982 new-wave Men Without Hats’ classic.
Alaska Airlines’ version was released just before the holidays, and it’s already racked up more than half a million views.
Already aptly-named, the airline parody’s ‘Safety Dance’ lyrics speak to new safety protocols in the post-COVID age of travel.
“We can fly where you want to. We can leave your house behind,” sings a man with a British accent, just like Men Without Hats, “But if your friends don’t mask and why don’t they mask, well they won’t fly this airline.'
In addition to announcing their requirement for passengers to mask up, the airline safety video touts its own extra efforts to keep fliers safe, like hand-washing, and 'air that's clean and disinfectant machines zapping germs like an arcade space fight.'
80’s lifestyle references to arcades and first generation video games are matched with 80’s-style choreography. Actual, Alaska Airlines employees, including members of Alaska Flight Attendant Drill Team, who the company explains dance through the streets of Seattle for the city’s Torchlight Parade and other events around the country, rehearsed at home to participate in the (safe) video shoot in one of the airline’s hangars in Seattle.
Alaska Airlines’ ‘Safety Dance’ hits all the right notes of high school nostalgia for Gen X, who is the natural audience of 80’s music, as well as new fans among new generations of Millennials and Gen Z, right down to the masked pilot playing the keytar deadpan.
Until now, our favorite thing about Alaska airlines has been the ‘wine flies free’ policy that encourages visitors to the West Coast’s famous and up-and-coming wine regions to buy whole cases of local wine. We also love their charity work this winter, handing out free hockey sticks and balls to families in the Seattle area to get kids outdoors playing street hockey.
Wine flies free, hockey sticks for kids, PLUS a sing-along, 80’s nostalgia safety video that helps make us all feel safe to begin traveling again?
More and more, Alaska Airlines seems to be not just an airline, but a lifestyle. And our kind of people.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If this year’s altered holiday celebrations left you wistful and nostalgic for full-bore Christmas festivities, there’s a river cruise that gives you a chance for a re-do.
Christmas in July on the Danube comes without snow – but it does come with plenty of seasonal cheer on Uniworld’s S.S. Maria Theresea.
On two sailings in July, the Maria Theresea will have her halls decked out in full holiday splendor as she sails between Passau, Germany and Budapest, Hungary, calling in popular Christmas destinations like Vienna, Linz, and Bratislava.
You’ll even have the opportunity for an excursion to magical Salzburg, the location of the iconic holiday movie The Sound of Music.
In addition to elegant festive trimmings, Uniworld has planned a program of events to re-live the holidays.
The region’s famous Christmas markets will be re-created on board for you to stock up on the souvenirs and holiday treats. Guests can also experience Christmas cheer during gingerbread house decorating and ornament making workshops. Uniworld says holiday movies will be playing on the in-room entertainment systems, and Santa himself will make a summer trip from the North Pole to the Maria Theresea for photos that may be the best holiday card ever. And who wouldn’t get into the Christmas ‘spirit’ during a holiday cocktail class?
The ship’s chefs will be crafting menus of holiday cuisine, and you’ll be toasting your brilliance at your seasonal do-over with summer versions of winter favorites, like frozen hot chocolate and chilled egg nog.
You’ll feel transported not just to some of the favorite ports of call on a Danube river cruise, but also back to the holidays.
It’s an inspired way for families to re-live the best of the holidays in Europe, together aboard one of the most beloved river cruise ships on the Danube.
Uniworld’s Christmas in July sailings coincide with school holidays and also feature the cruise line’s Generations Program, with savings and exclusive activities for kids as well as dedicated Family Hosts. We assume the Family Hosts will have plenty of fun things for the kids to do so the grownups can linger during festive cocktail making classes, just for starters!
Family singletons may also be able to take advantage of Uniworld zero supplement offers so they can join the whole family for this European river cruise do-over of the holidays, too.
#ChristmasInJuly
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Images courtesy Uniworld.
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
At long last, 2020 is wrapping up, and a New Year full of hope is just around the corner.
This feels like the kind of year you’d toast the year past as early as possible, then call it a night, hoping when you wake up in the New Year, we will have turned the page on the disappointments, challenges, cancelled travels and special events missed during the past year.
No need to wait for the clock at home to strike midnight on December 31st. The global pandemic means that this year more than ever, countdowns have gone virtual, giving you several opportunities throughout the day to enjoy other cities’ New Year’s celebrations and kiss 2020 goodbye.
Dropping the Ball in New York
For many in North America, NYC’s glittering, Swarovski New Year’s Eve Ball drop is the definitive countdown and hallmark of the New Year. The tradition dates back a century to a ban on fireworks in New York City, and is now immortalized in popular culture with a televised show and one of the biggest crowds of the night. Usually, millions watch on TV, and billions also watch around the world as a million people fill Times Square to join together in bidding farewell to the departing year and celebrate collective hope for the year ahead.
This year, organizers are live streaming the Times Square Ball drop at the stroke of 12 to capture the same spirit in an online global community.
Futuristic Neon in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time in North America, meaning you could be drinking mimosas for brunch in Florida, New York or Toronto on December 31st as the New Year strikes in Hong Kong.
(Above and top renderings courtesy of Hong Kong Tourism Board)
For the first time ever, the pandemic is sending Hong Kong’s New Year Countdown Celebrations online. To share its world-famous neon artistry against ultra modern architecture framing historic Victoria Harbour and its belief in a hopeful and resilient future, the Hong Kong Tourism Board is showing a live countdown clock on its website beginning at 11 pm local time. As the clock strikes midnight, video featuring the glorious illuminations above Victoria Harbour and other landmarks, plus greetings and blessings to the world, will play.
Fireworks and Laser Show in Dubai
Midnight in Dubai on December 31st is 3 pm that afternoon Eastern time, easily justifying popping a champagne cork for the live streaming of one of the world’s most spectacular New Year’s celebrations: fireworks and a laser show at one of the architectural marvels of the Middle East.
Already breathtaking at 2722 feet, the Burj Khalifa is even more wondrous on New Year’s Eve. People are also welcome to share 35-character New Year’s wishes to display on the world’s tallest building during the show by sending a message to Burj Khalifa’s social media accounts using the hashtag #BurjWishes2021.
Ringing in the New Year – Old School
Maybe the Year of COVID is the year to revert to ushering in the New Year using traditions that pre-date fireworks, laser, or ball-dropping extravaganzas.
For centuries, cultures around the world have developed traditions to bring health, happiness, hope, and good fortune to celebrants – and we need those blessings now more than ever.
Here are some of our favorite ways to start the New Year right, and you can do them all while in the safety of the self-isolation at home we’ve been asked to observe this holiday season.
Eating Grapes - Spain
It’s simple and delicious. Spaniards ring in the New Year by consuming a grape for every chime of the clock at midnight. Those 12 grapes also happen to correspond to the upcoming 12 months, bringing good luck for the entire year ahead. Wine makers are said to be at the root of this tasty tradition.
Ringing in the New Year - Japan
Buddhists try to avoid the 108 earthly temptations on earth to achieve nirvana. So on the last day of the year, Japanese go to their local temple – many at the peaks of mountains of this volcanic nation – to ring the temple bell. Monks ring the bell all 108 times, and members of the public file past the bell, ringing it once to cast away bad deeds and bad fortune to be pure and receptive to all things good in the year to come.
Welcoming a Guest in Scotland
After religious Christmas was suppressed in Scotland, New Year’s – or Hogmanay - became the Scots’ primary winter celebration to banish the dark months, and welcome new light, warmth, and wellness. In addition to the lighting of bonfires and toasts of whisky, Hogmanay’s signature tradition includes ‘first footing’.
The first person to cross your threshold in the New Year brings you good luck for the year ahead. For a culture fearful of marauding blond and red-haired Vikings, a dark-haired man was the best luck for a ‘first footer’. Even someone already in your home can exit to come back in as a first-footer, bearing salt ‘for the tears every life brings’, bread or shortbread ‘to soak up your tears’, or coal ‘to warm your hearth’.
Luggage to go in Columbia
This South American country may be home to our favorite of all the world’s New Years traditions. To bring prosperity and good fortune, Columbians carry money and lentils, both symbols of wealth and luck, with them on New Year’s. That’s easily understood. It’s another tradition – picking up empty suitcases at midnight and running around the block to help a year full of travel to materialize – that gets us really excited, especially for 2021.
Wishing you a happy and healthy year of good fortune and inspiring travels!
#HappyNewYear
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Image credits as noted above.
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
We can’t travel on a luxury cruise ourselves right now– or do many of the other things we love to do around the holidays - but “Let Them All Talk” lets us take an armchair escape during the break, and imagine ourselves along for a ride on one of the most famous ships afloat.
We couldn’t ask for better company for our silver screen journey. Starring three-time Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep, Academy Award® nominee and multiple Emmy® Award winner Candice Bergen and two-time Academy Award® winner Dianne Wiest with Oscar®-nominated Lucas Hedges (“Manchester By The Sea”) and Gemma Chan (“Crazy Rich Asians”), “Let Them All Talk” is directed by another famous Academy Award® alum, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh of “Ocean’s Eleven” series and “Erin Brokovich” fame.
Even with this host of Hollywood royalty, for a luxury cruise lover, the real ‘star’ of the film may be the Queen Mary 2. “Let Them All Talk” was filmed on board one of British luxury line Cunard’s epic ‘Three Queens’ ships on a single, actual Transatlantic crossing from New York to England last summer before COVID.
WATCH the movie trailer here.
Smart, Witty Comedy…
Meryl Streep plays a best-selling author invited to accept an award in England, but she can’t fly. Her new agent, played by Gemma Chan, persuades her to cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 as a ship’s lecturer, which will also give Streep’s character time to work on her much-anticipated new book. She insists on bringing her nephew (played by Lucas Hedges) as an assistant, and two best friends from her college days (Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest), along for the cruise.
Things get complicated with competing agendas and comic twists and turns of relationships old and new. One friend hasn’t spoken to the author in years, believing her to have based the plot of her biggest best-seller on her own marriage break up, while the other, a grand-motherly free-spirit, tries to make peace between the old friends. Meanwhile, the literary agent is along on the Transatlantic crossing to find out what’s happening with the author’s next book, while the nephew struggles to juggle his author aunt’s needs with her friends’ demands – at the same time falling in love with the literary agent who’s trying to entice him into sharing what his aunt is writing.
A stellar cast like this can do no wrong – and all of this acting superpower in a witty, ‘comedy of manners’, is set against the backdrop of the legendary ship and its lifestyle.
… Meets a Luxury Crossing
Most of the film takes place on board the ship. Watch for the grandness of the Queen Mary 2 when the characters arrive at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on departure day, as well such loved on board locations as the Commodore Club, Queens Grill dining room, Queens Grill suites, the library, the Royal Court Theatre, and the decks outdoors with the genuine – computer-generated! - North Atlantic seascape beyond the rail.
Even the ‘extras’ who appear behind the main characters are genuine guests on the sailing who opted in to being part of the filming on board.
The film showcases the Cunard flagship's elegance, sophistication and style, and provides the viewer a real sense of the leisurely pace and beautiful setting of an iconic sailing and Cunard’s signature itinerary: the Transatlantic Crossing.
Sailing with the Stars
Meryl Streep: “There’s a lot to see and hear in this movie, and a lot that’s funny. And like midnight on the Mid-Atlantic-- just misty mysterious.”
Dianne Wiest: “The weather on the crossing was a wonderful thing. A day might begin with dense fog, so dense you could see nothing, neither the sea nor others. Then, the fog would lift and there would be a silver gray, the gray that filmmakers would do anything for, and then rays of sun would streak down and a brilliant blue appear and bits of light sparkling everywhere you turned.”
Candice Bergen: “The crossing on the Queen Mary 2 was heaven. It is a magnificent ship, beautifully maintained and elegantly designed. It was a perfect experience.”
Director Steven Soderbergh: “The ship looks as good on camera as it looks in person. It’s not like when you get up close and the camera has eroticized the ship. It really is that nice!”
Gemma Chan: “There is definitely a feeling of being away from the wider world, from city life and all its
distractions which I think you couldn't replicate in a studio. Every day had a rhythm to it that I think we all settled into - watching the sunset each evening and dolphin spotting were highlights.
“During the crossing, my character interacts the most with Lucas Hedges' character. It was fun to get to explore the ship and build a relationship whilst mingling with real passengers in the planetarium and, most amusingly, in the late-night disco.”
Perfect Timing
“Let Them All Talk” is being released just when we most need a reminder of what we’re missing while cruising is shut down – and a mood-booster for an altered holiday season.
HBO Max begins streaming “Let Them All Talk” on December 10th.
#WatchNowCruiseSoon
All Photographs by HBO Max
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
One’s in Austria, and the other in America. But they are bound together in the pop culture celebrations of the season.
Have you figured it out yet? The hint is in film and music.
Both Salzburg and Stowe are destinations tied to the Trapp Family legend. You likely know it as: The Sound of Music, a movie that’s become essential holiday family viewing – and singing - for every generation since the early 60’s.
The film is the – very fictionalized – story of Maria von Trapp, who, while deciding whether to become a nun, became governess to the unruly children of Austrian nobleman and naval officer Captain von Trapp. As Nazi Germany threatens expansion into Austria and demands the services of the unwilling Captain von Trapp, Maria bonds with the children, teaches them to sing, and falls in love with their father.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: CNNTRAVEL'S INTERVIEW WITH THE CURRENT GENERATION OF THE TRAPP FAMILY
Dirndls and warm welcomes in Salzburg today© Austrian National Tourist Office / SalzburgerLand Tourismus / Andreas Hechenberger
A Story Beginning in Salzburg…
Against the backdrop of the Alps, the cobblestoned, historic city of Salzburg, home to the birthplace of Mozart and a famous music festival, and the family’s stately home in the countryside, the Trapp family sings their way to family harmony, wedded bliss between the Captain and Maria, and ultimately, a dramatic escape from the Nazis.
The movie, and its music by legendary duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, swept the Oscars won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and cemented the image in 20th century popular culture of Julie Andrews singing the title song while frolicking in the Alpine meadows with the children. You can probably sing along to any of the movie’s songs that have become standards in addition to the title song. Admit it: right now, you’re humming the tune of Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi, or My Favorite Things.
…and Continuing in Stowe
In real life, the Trapp family’s departure from Salzburg was not so dramatic – or hand-in-hand, singing while hiking over the mountains. It made for a great movie ending, but in fact, ‘over the mountains’ from Austria was Germany! So the family headed by train to Italy, and ultimately, the States.
The singing part was true, though. In the early 40’s, the Trapp Family Singers toured the US performing. Ultimately, the family settled in Stowe, Vermont, “on an enchanted farm with sweeping mountain vistas reminiscent of their beloved Austria.”
Soon, the family was welcoming guests at a 27-room family home/ lodge, which has evolved into today’s Alpine-inspired Trapp Family Lodge.
Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, courtesy Vermont Tourism
While the town of Stowe has only a few thousand citizens, it’s a destination powerhouse, known as the ‘Ski Capital of the East’ due to the 117-ski run Stowe Mountain Resort, and there’s even the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum nearby.
Situated on 2500 acres of mostly wooded, hilly Vermont that changes with the seasons between Winter wonderland, verdant springs and summers, and stunning New England fall colors, the Trapp Family Lodge offers country resort living along with cross-country skiing and mountain biking trails, as well as the best of rural Vermont with wagon and sleigh rides, a working farm that also produces the state’s famous maple syrup as well as its in-house, German and Austrian-style beers.
A beer hall, servers in dirndls, an ongoing commitment to live music, and tours by current family members and memorabilia help to keep the Trapp Family Singers’ story – and connection to the family’s origins in Salzburg – alive.
But Why Christmas?
At no point in the film is Christmas mentioned or represented. The scenes all take place in the summer, on green meadows or on sunny streets of Salzburg and gardens of the family villa. But to this day, The Sound of Music is tied to the holidays.
Soon after its release, TV broadcasters capitalized on families together indoors in the holidays by airing beloved, family-themed films, and the award-winning, sing-along The Sound of Music became a feature of the holiday season.
The movie even got a resounding endorsement of a new generation in 2013 when it was rebooted as a live, holiday TV musical starring Carrie Underwood.
And the wish-list song “My Favorite Things” early on became a Christmas standard you’ll hear repeatedly on Christmas music stations.
It regularly also gets repurposed and re-worded in other productions and even commercials. Again this year, you’ll find millennial Anna Kendrick singing about her favorite things for a Frito Lay commercial.
Proving that not only is The Sound of Music timely for the holidays… it also seems to retain perennial appeal.
And that planning a trip to either Salzburg, Austria… or Stowe, Vermont, is the perfect pilgrimage for lovers of any age or generation of The Sound of Music.
#SingNowTravelSoon
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
You may not be celebrating the holidays as usual this year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create some new holiday entertaining traditions.
While we wait to travel and celebrate again, here are two recipes for ‘spirited’ holiday drinks from favorite destinations to warm your heart and remind you of better times ahead.
Perfect for a virtual holiday cocktail party, long winter evenings binge-watching holiday movies, or trimming your tree, these recipes can be made for one or more to share.
Gluhwein
Warm wine makes winter better. All the iconic Christmas tastes, sights and sounds of Germany’s Christmas markets, from the fir trees and handmade toys, fires roasted nuts and sausages, are enhanced by its warm and aromatic signature drink. Warm, often spiced, wine, can be found throughout Europe, like mulled wine in England, or vin chaud in France.
Gluhwein is Germany’s version. While the combination of citrus, fruit juices, spices – and even color of wine! – varies, one thing stays the same. Gluhwein translates roughly to ‘glowing wine’, referring to the red hot irons from the fires that were originally stuck into the wine to heat it up. That should give you a sense of the long history of Gluhwein. There’s a gold-plated Gluhwein tankard dating from the early 1400’s that’s attributed to the German aristocrat who was the first grower of Riesling grapes.
Cologne Christmas Market, Germany © GNTB/Wojciech Grabowski
Although most gluhweins you’ll see at Christmas markets in Germany involve red wine, this recipe, from AmaWaterways, uses regional white wines you’ll get to try on one of the river cruise line’s Danube or Rhine cruises during the summer or during a magical Christmas market cruise.
Ingredients
- 3 cups of white wine (Silvaner or Müller-Thurgau)
- 1 cup apple juice
- 1/4 cup Franconian plum brandy (optional but recommended, as a little of the alcohol cooks out of the wine)
- 4 slices of orange
- 2 slices of lemon
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 5 allspice seeds
- 3 whole cloves
- 1 pinch of aniseed
- 1 tsp. honey (if you prefer it sweeter, add a bit more)
- Extra slices of fruit for garnish, if desired
Preparation
- In a medium-sized stock pot with a tight-fitting lid, combine all of the ingredients, except for the honey. Stir to combine.
- Cover and bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer, keeping the lid on, for 10 minutes. Be careful not to let it come to a boil again; if it boils too long all of the alcohol will be cooked out.
- After 10 minutes, immediately remove from the heat. Strain the mixture with a fine mesh sieve; discard the aromatics. Return the mixture to the pot and taste-test. Stir in honey, tasting as you go until you reach your desired sweetness.
- Ladle into desired serving glasses. Garnish with sliced fruit, cinnamon sticks, cloves, or star anise pods, if desired. Serve immediately.
Pair your Gluhwein with authentic German standards like hot sausages and pretzels, or seasonal festive sweets like stollen, fruit bread; gingerbread or lebkuchen; and glorious marzipan.
Rompope
The clue to this festive Costa Rican drink is also in its name. But it’s not like a rum punch found in the Caribbean. Rompope is Costa Rica’s answer to British egg nog or Dutch advocaat, composed of egg yolk, milk, sugar, cinammon and rum. Unlike egg nog, it’s cooked like a hot, boozy custard. Variations made with coconut milk, coffee, almonds or other nuts are popular in other parts of Latin America.
Rompope’s roots are believed to be Spanish colonial, with stories told of Spanish nuns making the New World’s first batches. Today, families often make two bottles ahead of celebrations, a grown-up version with the rum, and a non-alcoholic version for the younger members of the family. The kids’ version is also used for making cookies, cakes, ice cream and jellies. And the adult rompope can be strong; the rum is added at the end so the alcohol doesn’t cook off.
Courtesy Visit Costa Rica
It’s the sweet and strong traditional beverage of Christmas gatherings. And Visit Costa Rica has sent this rompope recipe for us to share in its celebration of the joys of the season.
Ingredients (4 servings)
• 4 cups milk
• 1 cups sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
• Rum to taste
• Nutmeg to taste
Preparation
Place 3 cups of milk, the sugar and cinnamon in a pot. Heat. Apart, dissolve the cornstarch and the egg yolks in the rest of the milk and add to the pot. Cook over low heat for several minutes. Cool and add rum to taste. Sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon before serving.
#HolidayCheers
#SipNowTravelSoon
Top Image: Nuremberg Christmas Market; copyright German National Tourism Board/ Jens Wegener
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Here we are at the holidays at last. It’s been a year of challenges and disappointments, with canceled or postponed trips that normally give us the relaxation, escape from the everyday… and something to look forward to.
But the holiday spirit of travel is still out there to lift our spirits this season and give us inspiration for travels to come.
We’ve assembled some of the best seasonal experiences you can enjoy at home this year, and even share virtually with friends and loved ones.
The Nutcracker
Long before Toy Story, the ballet with Tchaikovsky’s memorable score and a magical story line in the Land of the Sweets that has toys and treats and mice coming to life in exquisite choreography was entrenched as a global holiday phenomenon. Even people who aren’t interested in ballet make it a must-do holiday event. It’s most children’s first – and only – exposure to classical dance, and has inspired many a budding ballerina.
Screen capture from clip of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker - New York City Ballet. WATCH IT HERE.
With cultural institutions struggling even before COVID, The Nutcracker has become essential to the survival of local ballet companies. For some, holiday performances of The Nutcracker represent as much as 75% of their annual revenues!
This year, almost all productions have been cancelled due to COVID. But the show must go on. Across the country and around the world, ballet companies are offering streaming versions of their performances to replace live stage productions. Some even include additional, virtual experiences.
Ideal to curl up and watch – together or virtually – with the young ones in your life, here’s a list of US-based ballet companies you can support by buying tickets to their streamed performances.
Canada’s National Ballet has partnered with Cineplex to present an acclaimed version filmed in 2008 featuring principal dancers Sonia Rodriguez and Piotr Stanczyk as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Peter/the Nutcracker, along with 233 performers including 50 dancers, 98 children from Canada’s National Ballet School and high schools from across Toronto, 65 musicians and 20 singers from the VIVA! Youth Singers of Toronto.
The production will be screened at more than 50 theatres across Canada where theaters are still open, or you can stream it online through the Cineplex Store until Jan. 2.
Too hip for ballet?
Don’t miss The Hip Hop Nutcracker – a holiday mash up for cool kids of any age. Set to Tchaikovsky’s classic score, it’s a spellbinding contemporary dance spectacle with a cast of a dozen all-star dancers, a DJ, a violinist, and MC Kurtis Blow, one of hip hopʼs founding fathers, re-telling the lessons of love and the holiday season against a modern, urban backdrop.
KICK IT WITH THE ROCKETTES
Another staple of holiday season trips to New York, The Rockettes’ Radio City Christmas Spectacular has also been canceled.
(Screen capture from Promo for 2019’s Christmas Spectacular Starring The Radio City Rockettes; WATCH IT HERE.)
Well, you can’t keep The Rockettes down. They’ve decided to offer free, virtual dance classes to keep spirits up, share some of the secrets of their famous, leggy moves and dance numbers like the 'Parade of the Wooden Soldiers'… and even help you work off some of those COVID/ Christmas extra pounds.
The 50-60-minute classes are on The Rockettes’ Instagram Live weekly through to December 23rd, but will also be posted on their Instagram and Facebook pages if you miss the live class.
ANDREA BOCELLI 'S CHRISTMAS CONCERT
Andrea Bocelli’s Easter concert “Music for Hope” performance from Milan’s Duomo drew nearly 3 million simultaneous viewers, setting a record for classical performance on YouTube. Made available afterwards, it has now been viewed over 40 million times.
The world’s beloved Italian tenor is hoping to lift up the world’s spirits again at Christmas. “Believe in Christmas” will be live streamed from Parma’s stunning opera house Teatro Regio di Parma, modeled after La Scala, on December 12th.
The performance will include full-orchestra accompaniment to Christmas favorites and songs from the tenor’s latest album, 'Believe'. Surprise guest performances have also been teased.
Screen capture from Andrea Bocelli – Believe – Official Album Trailer. WATCH IT HERE.
Unlike his free Easter performance, Bocelli’s “Believe in Christmas” is only available on a single day, with tickets available at Ticketmaster.
SANTA TRACKER
Santa may be the ultimate Christmas traveler these days, logging more miles than anyone - and we know even COVID won’t slow Santa down!
As it has for over 60 years, the joint Canada/US North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and its US predecessor, have tracked Santa’s ‘flight’. It has become the ‘official’ source of Santa’s current position around the world.
Screen Capture from https://www.noradsanta.org/
It all began with a mistake: a local Colorado store ad misprinting the phone number for children to call Santa. It was actually the number of the Commander-in-Chief of NORAD’s predecessor’s hotline. In full Christmas spirit, Colonel Harry Shoup ran with it, having his staff ‘check the radar’ for Santa’s current position, and relaying the information to children who called.
The tradition continues today, with NORAD staff, family and friends volunteering to reply to calls and emails from children around the world.
Perfect for a shared screen video call with the special children in your life, you can go to NORAD’s online Santa tracker and follow his magical Christmas Eve journey together.
Wishing you the very best of the holiday season, and a joyful, better year to come, when we can all travel again.
#CelebrateNowTravelSoon
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
When the sun rises on the New Year, New Zealand’s location on the globe makes it the first country in the world to welcome 2021.
To get next year started on the right foot for the whole planet, Tourism New Zealand is launching a holiday initiative that generates hope, turns the disappointments of this year into something positive, and launches on Giving Tuesday, December 1st.
For the month of December, Tourism New Zealand will be planting a ‘Forest of Hope’ for 2021.
2020 has been a tough year, with cancellations, postponements, missed travels and weddings, graduations, birthdays and celebrations.
People from all over the world can submit their disappointments from the past year and New Zealand will transform them into hope, planting a native Kiwi tree for every entry.
The program is based on trees as Nature’s symbol of life and growth. New Zealand’s famously green islands are over 30% forest – that’s more than 8 million hectares of wooded land. Some native trees are found nowhere else in the world, including Kauri trees (pictured below), among the oldest trees on the planet, some estimated to have been alive over 4000 years!
(Kauri Trees, courtesy Trees That Count)
To take advantage of this symbol of renewal, readers can share their disappointments from the year on the Tourism New Zealand website’s 'Forest of Hope' page.
For every disappointment shared with Tourism New Zealand between December 1 and December 31, 2020, a native Kiwi tree will be planted along the iconic Queenstown bike trail in the Southland, or among the Wiapoua Forest in the Northland.
You can also give a gift of a tree this year to a friend or loved one, give back to yourself, or simply give back to the environment by purchasing another tree to be planted for a nominal donation.
(Trees That Count: Planting at Queenstown)
And once the country’s borders open for travel and New Zealand is able to welcome visitors again, people will be able to visit the tree they helped grow.
Tourism New Zealand is partnering with Trees That Count. It’s a local non-profit with a goal of planting 200 million native trees across the country. They are over 30 million trees towards that goal now, and estimate in the next half-century, the new native trees will cleanse the earth’s atmosphere of more than 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
(Tane Mahuta; photo David Kirkland)
It’s a wonderful way for us to feel connected to the earth and people on the other side of the world even as we dream of travelling again soon.
And Tourism New Zealand’s Forest of Hope is also and mindful - and thankful - way to say goodbye to this year’s disappointments and plant a seed of hope to look forward to better times ahead in 2021.
#HappyHolidays
Top Photo: Eastwoodhill Arboretum, Eastland, courtesy Tourism Eastland Inc
When you think of ships that cruise American rivers, you might picture paddlewheels, riverboat gamblers, and ladies with parasols.
But while some cruise ships exploring the United States by river pay homage to 19th-century American history, American river cruising doesn’t have to be an escape into a Mark Twain novel.
When American Cruise Lines launched its latest river cruise ship, the American Melody, this month, it became the 4th – and the second ship for the cruise line during COVID – in its acclaimed ‘Modern Series’.
No paddlewheels here. Instead, the kind of clean lines and contemporary elegance you might associate with upscale cruise ships anywhere in the world.
The American Melody and her sister ships feature 5 decks of eye-catching architectural details like a grand, multi-story glass atrium at the center of the ship, a patented opening bow and retractable gangway, elevator access to all decks for accessibility and ease, and sweeping expanses of glass throughout with unparalleled panoramic views both inside and out.
175 guests enjoy 100% private balcony, extremely spacious accommodations. And you’ll spend daytimes between a casual outdoor café; a signature Grand Dining Room with river views from every table; numerous spacious sky-lit lounges; several open-air & shaded sundecks; Library; Chart Room; Game Room; Fitness Room & Yoga-Wellness Studio.
American Melody and her sister ships redefine American river cruising from a design and architecture point of view. The American Melody, and sister ship American Jazz (its predecessor that was completed in 2020 but delayed its cruising launch due to the pandemic) provide a fresh, modern experience as they cruise the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers beginning in the summer of 2021.
The Modern Series joins the historic-style paddlewheelers and coastal ships in American Cruise Line’s fleet, and continues the same traditions of world-class gastronomic offerings that include local ingredients and regional cuisine, personalized service inclusive of daily pre-dinner cocktails, wine and beer with meals, itineraries with complimentary shore excursions, and daily entertainment that includes music, local culture, history and nature experts.
This modern twist on American river cruising is soon to become a common sight on America’s rivers, with a 5th American Cruise Line modern ship due in 2022, and 1 or 2 more each year in a rapid-expansion plan to meet a growing demand to rediscover America by water.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Images courtesy American Cruise Lines
Top Image: American Melody being launched into the Wicomico River at Chesapeake Shipbuilding, Salisbury, MD
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wine lovers have one more reason to get traveling again next year. In celebration of one of its oldest and most beloved products, Italy has declared its first-ever ‘City of Wine’.
The Italian association of communities that collaborate to protect and promote their regional wine designations held a competition for the new honor.
Barolo - the town with the famous red wine of the same name – was crowned ‘City of Wine’ for the award’s inaugural year in 2021.
Nestled between Genoa on Italy’s north-western coast, and the Alps to the north, the picturesque Langhe hills surrounding Barolo in Piedmont are nearly entirely covered by vineyards and have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The nebbiolo grape grown there is made into Barolo wine – so highly esteemed, it’s been dubbed the ‘King of Wines’.
Barolo wine is considered the most famous regional designation in all of wine-rich Italy. Not only does the wine have to originate only in the Barolo zone – that’s only 5 miles across at its widest point – wine must also go through a particular process. That includes a minimum of 3 years of ageing – half of that in wooden casks. Barolo is famously a wine high in tannin and much better aged, with some connoisseurs waiting more than 10 years for Barolo wines to develop the best flavor.
That’s put some modernizers – who favor a fruitier, quicker, less fermented version that appeals to modern and international tastes – at odds with die hard traditionalists.
You can decide for yourself at the abundance of wineries and wine shops that form the core of any visit to Barolo, and pair the wine with some of the region’s famous dishes at local restaurants. (Don't miss braised beef Barolo - in Barolo red wine sauce, with carrots, an iconic example of Piedmontese cuisine.)
To beat out half a dozen other competitors for the new title ‘City of Wine’, Barolo proposed an entire 2021 calendar of events, exhibitions, seminars, tastings and installations. They’ll celebrate the wine traditions, history of Barolo wine, and the natural cycle of the seasons.
City of Wine celebrations only enhance Barolo’s permanent features: the Langhe hills, Barolo vineyards, wineries, and wine shops. Add Barolo castle and its wine museum, the nearby, quirky Corkscrew Museum, and Barolo chapel standing in the middle of vineyards with its historic sanctuary for vineyard workers-meets-modern art installation to your essential 2021 pilgrimage to Italy’s first designated City of Wine.
#DreamNowTravelSoon
Images: Getty
Copyright BestTrip.TV/Influence Entertainment Group Inc or Rights Holder. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this material from this page, but it may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Get the Travel Tips
Get The Savvy Traveler Newsletter
Things we blog about
Places we've blogged about
- Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Africa, Anywhere
- Africa, Anywhere
- Alabama, Usa
- Alaska, Usa
- Amsterdam-zuidoost, 07, Netherlands
- Anaheim, Ca, United States
- Andorra
- Antarctica
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Antwerp, Vlg, Belgium
- Arctic Ocean,
- Aruba
- Asia,
- Asia, Anywhere
- Assisi, 18, Italy
- Australia
- Avignon, 93, France
- Banff, 01, Canada
- Bangkok, Thailand
