Spring is Party Time in Nantucket
Nantucket knows how to throw a party, especially when the weather warms up. In late April, yellow is all the rage at the annual Daffodil Festival. Mid-May is time for the Nantucket Wine Festival, featuring Ming Tsai, Jasper White, Gordon Hamersley, and other Boston culinary elite sharing their talents. The Nantucket Film Festival comes to town in late June, usually accompanied by Ben Stiller, his famous parents, and “Fever Pitch” director Peter Farrelly. Buy tickets in advance for Farrelly’s Late Night Storytelling at the Rose & Crown, where directors, screenwriters, and actors share uproarious tales of their lives that often have nothing to do with filmmaking. The year-old Nantucket Hotel, sister property to the Winnetu on Martha’s Vineyard, is only a five-minute walk to Dreamland Theatre and the cobblestone streets of town.
There was a time when the west coast of Oahu was only visited by surfers bound for Yokohama Bay and hikers heading to the spit of wilderness at Kaena Point. This is the sunniest and driest part of the island, where steep cliffs plummet to the blinding white sand beaches. Then JW Marriott made the bold move to build their 387-room property, the 
Every March or early April, Lisa and I go to an annual 4-day travel conference arranged by our fantastic host agency, 
First started in 1750, Halifax’s 
This past January, almost exactly a year ago, my family spent several weeks in Israel. On our final day, we drove south of Jerusalem past Bedouin villages into the rolling hills of the Judean desert. This is where you find the mountain fortress, Masada, known as the site where the Israelites committed mass suicide rather than serve as slaves to the Romans in 73 A.D. Climbing Masada is a rite of passage for most people heading to the country. Fortunately it was January, so the heat wasn’t too bad as my daughter Melanie counted all 865 steps to the summit. As a reward for the hike, we brought the kids for a swim in the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth. It was late in the day, the waters were rough, and we forgot our towels. No one seemed to care as we floated in the salty sea, staring at the mountainous ridges of Jordan on the opposite shores. See the full story in 
No one in my family really wanted to get up at 7 am to paddle an outrigger canoe. The night before we had a memorable dinner at the