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Category / Don’t Be A Tourist

30 Years Ago, You Could Buy a Lifetime, Unlimited First-class Travel Pass with American Airlines. Now They’re Regretting It.

The Golden Ticket worth every penny… Imagine without hesitating, you could fly to Paris, just to catch the latest exhibition at the Grand Palais, pick up a friend who needed a lift from Milan, maybe swing by the Greek Islands for dinner and be back home the next morning in time for breakfast. In 1981,…

5 Places to Fake an Endless Summer in Paris

Summer is over. The angry clouds over Nôtre Dame make it look too sinister, Sunday strolls in Montmartre are more melancholy in dreary weather and the rain-soaked gravel in the Tuileries does no favours for your shoes. It’s not exactly the makings of a picture perfect Paris. But if like me, you’re a little stubborn (a little in denial) and…

Adored by Many, but Loved by Chanel: A Forgotten Parisian It Girl

Proust, turned her into a fictional princess and Ravel turned her into music. Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec couldn’t stop painting her. Picasso was a confidante, Serge Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes, a best friend, and Coco Chanel – her “soul sister”; possibly her lover too. Belle Epoque Paris bloomed with opulence and a languid, if not…

Volunteering for Life on Mars, or Something Like it

Somewhere out in the Utah desert right now, there are a bunch of folks pretending to live on Mars. The simulated Martian habitat, known as the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), is the closest you can get to the red planet here on earth, where science projects are created for space, and tasks that astronauts…

Don’t Be a Tourist in New York: The Soundtrack

Of course Don’t be a Tourist in New York comes with its own soundtrack! It’s less about the Franck Sinatra clichés, and more about the sounds of gritty New York in seventies and the folk singers that flocked to the East Village in the 1960s. You’ll also find plenty of talent born and bred in…

The Book NYC has been Missing: Don’t be a Tourist in New York

I remember the moment I knew we had to write this book. I was fumbling around in the dark for a light switch in the attic of a salvage depot in Harlem. I was completely alone up there when those lights flickered on to reveal a room full of cobwebbed forgotten treasures, and in that…

I Found a Belle Epoque Theatre Hiding inside a Paris Shoe Store

I‘ve been spending some time lately getting to know the quartier of Barbès a little better. Had I ever listened to those funny people on the television who declared this neighbourhood a Paris “No Go Zone”, I would never have discovered one of the most surreal secrets in Paris. If you ever find yourself in the area, you must stop in at the…

The Forgotten Giant Arrows that Guide you Across America

If you’re ever really lost on a road trip across America, and I’m talking really lost (let’s say the battery on your smartphone just died along with that compass application you downloaded for situations just like this), perhaps you might be lucky enough to find yourself next to one of the giant 70 foot concrete…

The Mysterious Magic of Waterfalls

Waterfalls – nothing more, nothing less. This is a brief compendium of gelatin silver and antique postcards found in various archives, dedicated to one of nature’s most beautiful gifts. Maybe one of them can inspire your next adventure, or at the very least, just give your mind a cool break in the heat of summer.…

Surviving Summer in NYC with the Essential Ice Cream Bars

Come Summer, New Yorkers risk feeling like humans kebabs when they step out to the sidewalk, and we’ve concluded that the most reasonable remedy is to find an ice cream parlour. Whether it’s a zesty scoop from the Lemon Ice King in Queens, or behind the bougie doors of Serendipity 3, we’d like to rebrand…

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