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Category / Don’t Be A Tourist

The Night We Found ‘Sleepy Hollow’s’ Jack ‘O Lantern City

Every October in the woods not far from Sleepy Hollow, and yes, it’s a real place, jack ‘o lanterns spring up from the ground to form a whirling carousel and a herd of dinosaurs; a complete circus train a towering bridge — all made entirely of 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins. For locals, it’s just another year…

The Not-So-Lost World of the Parisian Salon

Once upon a time, in a pre-smartphone world, people had to make their own entertainment. And so enters the salon, an Italian-influenced tradition of gathering of artists, writers, musicians, dancers, philosophers and intelligencia that flourished during a period known as the ‘age of conversation’. Dating back to the 17th century, guests would assemble in the…

When Americans Dined (and Dated) in Cemeteries

When it comes to green spaces, we’re a bit spoilt in New York City. There are over 1,700 parks (even if it doesn’t always feel that way) for our picnics, parties, and general frolicking to unfold. But 150 years ago, parks were still a privilege for the upper-class in America, if they even existed at…

Paris’ Dusty Diary : A Peek Inside the City’s Most Secret Library

Guarded by a fortress of medieval walls cut from thick ominous sandstone, Les Archives Nationales means business. The former humble abode to a member of the French aristocracy, today this decadent sprawling chateau houses France’s most precious documents, each securely locked behind layers of mahogany-framed, etched-glass bookshelves. Formerly bequeathed the title “Hôtel de Soubise,” the…

Notes on Secret Versailles, After Hours

Have you ever wandered throughout the sacred black and white checkered marble halls of Versailles when emptied of the violent bustle of tourists? When such chaos is replaced by the whispered confessions of a lost era that float upon the still air. Once a week, when the Chateau closes its massive gold-gilded doors to the…

The Last Great Beatnik Café

Behind every generation of revolutionary writers, there’s usually a time-worn café. Hemingway had Paris’s La Closerie Des Lilas; Simone de Beauvoir, the Café de Flore. For San Francisco, the cradle of the Beatnik movement – or at least, its caffeine source – was the Caffe Trieste. High on a hilltop in Little Italy, Caffe Trieste was…

After Dark at the Shakespeare & Co in Paris

Paris is just one of those places in the world where talented people get together and make magical things. Filmmaker Spike Jonze and one of the few handbag designers in the world I actually think is worth raving about these day, Olympia Le-Tan, got together to collaborate on a short film set in one of…

Get Back to Nature this Fall at these Airbnb Fairy Compounds

There’s no return from the orbit of SunRay Kelley. Not that we’d ever want to leave the little compound he’s built in Washington state; it’s a wonderland of moss covered fairy houses and sparkling waterways, wood shingled roofs and Hobbit-sized windows that started welcoming visitors long before the days of quirky Airbnbs. “SunRay Shire,” as…

Behind the Curtain of New York’s Thriving Subculture of Fortune Tellers

Search “psychic” in New York City on Google Maps, and you’ll be flooded with addresses of not only psychics, but astrologers, tarot card readers, palm readers, and others invested in the business of the esoteric. This is a city where the supernatural thrives, where even in the midst of skyrocketing rent prices, a psychic –…

An African Vatican: The World’s Largest Church is a Colossal 1980s Replica

Like a mirage in the dusty haze that settles over the African bush, stands an almost exact replica of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. Upon its completion in 1989, not only did the lookalike structure ‘borrow’ the design of the Roman Renaissance dome and encircled plaza, but measuring in at 30,000 square metres, it even took St.…

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