Happy New Year! As 2012 kicks off, I bring you this week’s Suzy Stumbles Over Travel. In case you are new to this site, each week I ask writers and readers to submit their favorite travel posts of the week. I read each submission, comment, tweet the article on Twitter, stumble the piece using Stumbleupon and place a link to the post on my Facebook page. The following week I select my five favorites to be featured here and the stumbling begins again into the next week. The goal of this series is to highlight travels that might not have received as much attention as we all would like. Just a Continue Reading
My Favorite Places of 2011 Wish You Were Here
Favorite places are not easy to come by and not easy to pare down. Sometimes we have too many and at times we don’t have enough. My favorite places of 2011 are highly subjective, as are all articles of this nature. I have been reading many “Where to go in 2012” articles and I can’t help but wonder about the author. These are their favorite places most likely of 2011. Every Friday, I feature a favorite place, a moment with a destination that moved me. The idea is to lend a weekly postcard, one I hope you feel is purely addressed to you. These places wish you were here, even if you can’t be. Continue Reading
Hotel Improvement: Lessons For The Hospitality Industry in 2012
I booked a night in between Dublin and Kilkenny in a nothing town, along a nothing road. The only hotel I could find in between here and there pictured itself far better than it was. I arrived to find nothing as it appeared on their website. In fact, the photographs online were for a different property. Looking back now, the website is mysteriously under construction. In 2011, I stayed in countless places across the globe, some the definition of perfection and others the definitions of grimy and gross. That hotel in Ireland, in between nothing and next to nothing, reminded me hotels should Continue Reading
Suzy Stumbles Over Travel: Week of December 26, 2011
I hope you all had a happy holiday weekend, filled with friends, family and fun. I am looking forward to bringing my stumbling series into the New Year this week, a series I have been doing for just under 2 years now. In case you are new to this site, each week I ask writers and readers to submit their favorite travel posts of the week. I read each submission, comment, tweet the article on Twitter, stumble the piece using Stumbleupon and place a link to the post on my Facebook page. The following week, I select my five favorite submissions to be featured below and the stumbling continues into Continue Reading
Milan, Italy Wishes You Were Here
The last place you will find me this time of the month is an indoor shopping mall. It is a place all should avoid for fear of being spritzed with the latest scent by a celebrity or for fear of being rundown in the parking lot by an SUV. However, the first place I found in Milan was just that, the original indoor shopping mall, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. What would become Milan’s idea of a shopping mall in the 19th century, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II opens up to a dramatic archway. Within a ceiling of steel and glass, you can still spot the heavens. It’s design takes on the shape Continue Reading
Sweet December Travel
He stirs the mixture of hot sugar, just one point in the process to create a simple candy cane. A father lifts his son on his arms to see the silver saint as an entire island elbows in between. And a lighthouse watches over a Christmas tree composed solely of lobster traps. I don’t often travel in December, mostly due to family filled schedules and of course the chaotic airport scene. After boarding a flight on Monday, a boarding process that took far longer than it ever should, I watched as people jammed their holiday gifts and jackets in the overhead bins, ignoring all announcements to leave Continue Reading
Suzy Stumbles Over Travel: Week of December 19, 2011
As I begin the mad dash for last minute holiday shopping, I bring you this week’s Suzy Stumbles Over Travel. In case you are new to this site, each week I ask writers and readers to submit their favorite travel posts of the week. I read each submission, comment, tweet the article on Twitter, stumble the piece using Stumbleupon and place a link to the piece on my Facebook page. The following week, I select my five favorites to be featured here and the stumbling begins again into the next week. Just a few things to keep in mind, please only submit one post per person each week. Leave your Continue Reading