Hanging with Hemingway at the World’s Oldest Restaurant

During the final moments of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the reader is invited to pull up a chair beside ‘ole Hem at the Sobrino de Botín in Madrid, an eatery that’s not only famous for its suckling pig and free-flowing rioja alta, but because after 300 years it holds the Guinness World Book of Records’ title as the…

Unearthing Hollywood Treasure in an Arctic Ghost Town

Dawson City, Canada’s favourite “living ghost town,” is finally starting to flesh out again after decades of falling into ruin. The Yukon settlement located about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle was born from the glory and greed of the Klondike gold rush, and ushered in 40,000 people in just two years. Today, its story…

Can I Interest You in a Giraffe Wine Safari?

It involves a jeep trek through the beachside hills of Los Angeles, lots of wine, and the (near) guarantee of a kiss from a celebrity giraffe named Stanley. At the “Malibu Wine Safari”, where the movie industry’s animals go to retire, here, you’ll find the kind of Hollywood-meets-hakuna-matata experience you never knew you needed… The safari grounds are…

Forget the Met Ball, Discover New York’s Secret Fashion Paradise

Nestled into a hilltop of northern Manhattan hides a veritable medieval oasis, older than the United States itself. A labyrinth of ancient French archways, turrets, and Gothic chapels that travelled across the Atlantic to find a new home here, it is known simply as “the Cloisters” to locals. The cavernous site could pass as a…

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George Washington’s Dinner Table Is Still Set in This Manhattan Tavern

Fraunces Tavern is a whisky-soaked lesson in some of the weirdest, most wonderful moments of American history . It was the go-to spot for all Revolutionary festivities, from the farewell dinner that a certain George Washington held for his officers in 1783, to the “Evacuation Day” party thrown by the governor once the British split. Whether it was…

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You’re Invited to the Executioner Island Slumber Party

Look carefully at the heart of the Long Island Sound in the night, and you’ll see it: a flashing white light, piercing the fog every ten seconds or so to steer boats away from the deadly shores of Execution Rocks. These are the icy waters where the British drowned their prisoners during the revolutionary war,…

Inside New York’s Greatest, Liveable Cabinet of Curiosities

Paige Stevenson doesn’t quite live in the same world as the rest of us. “People talk a lot about what it means to make art,” she says on the foggy Sunday morning when we visit her home, while biscuits warm in the oven, “I just think, why not live it? People get so caught up…

Brooklyn’s Best Kept Secret: A Wes Anderson Versailles

You know that great aunt who arrives early, and overdressed, to parties? The one who smells like powdered Shalimar, and guards every single family secret under layers of costume jewellery with her life? That’s Grand Prospect Hall personified. The four-story banquet hall is the last outpost of Victorian grandeur in New York, and for nearly…

A Rock Band’s Vintage Closet on the Run

Starling and Rein Irving are on the run. In a good way, mind you, and in extremely stylish fashion. You see, the 20-year-old-ish sisters have been making pilgrimages across the United States, with a collection of vintage treasures in tow. Their vessel? A 1959 green Chevrolet Viking bus they found abandoned in a field. Their…

Inside the Drawing Board of the Soviet Subway

It doesn’t get much better than this, especially for a morning commute: space-age chandeliers, marble statues, ‘golden’ ornaments, and a floor so clean you lick your lunch clean off it. Well, it’s all a part of the Moscow Metro, which has been shuttling Russians to-and-fro in opulent style since 1935. The stops were designed to…