We’re not sure about everyone else, but we are sure about ourselves when it comes to travel: we are very particular about the experiences that we have, and we are suspicious of those who take the view that you can’t have an ‘authentic’ travel experience unless you somehow suffer. What nonsense!
What does it mean to be authentic anyway? Well, the dictionaries suggest that it has to do with being real, genuine, or not fake. When it comes to travel experiences, what makes something authentic (and why do travelers these days care, anyway?)? The latest craze for visiting slums in third-world countries is one of the more puzzling approaches for authentic experiences that we’ve seen.
Some travel writers seem to think that staying at a ‘quaint’ property is more authentic than staying at a ‘grand’ property, but who is to say that quaint is any more authentic (read: morally superior), than ‘grand’? And what about dining? Is it more authentic to eat street food in India or to dine at a high-quality Indian restaurant? Perhaps the risk of dysentery is what makes a dining experience authentic? Well, we think that’s just travel snobbery. Take a recent experience we had in New England.
As we love to do in the fall, we took a few days earlier this month to take in the fall colors in Maine and New Hampshire. Having not set foot in Bar Harbor, Maine in decades, we decided that it would be a good place to spend two days exploring the countryside and Acadia National Park (we suppose that a national park is authentic?) As we usually do, we sought out the fine dining experience in the village and found ourselves at a little spot called rather unexpectedly, Havana. What in the world were you doing in a restaurant named for the capital of Cuba in the middle of the Atlantic seaside in Maine? you might ask. Surely that couldn’t be an authentic Maine experience. Oh, but it was.
You see, that restaurant is owned and operated by a local restaurateur with a flair for the sophisticated. With an extensive travel background and a true respect for dining (not eating as we’ve discussed before), Havana’s proprietor with whom we chatted for a while during and after our dinner, has for the past 15 years been committed to “…serving local and organic meats, produce and seafood. [They] consistently search out New England farmers and fisherfolk to purchase products that are not only great tasting, but great for the environment and local economy as well…”[from their web site]. In addition to this, they have their own urban garden on a reclaimed urban plot. What’s more, this commitment to the local and the sustainable hasn’t gotten in the way of serving outstanding food accompanied by a wonderful, thoughtfully selected wine list.
Havana Restaurant (photo credit: Havana web site)
An authentic Maine experience? Of course. Eating freshly steamed lobster at a newspaper-covered picnic table might constitute what most travel snobs would define as authenticity, but there’s more to being authentic than the cheaper, lower-level experiences.
There is nothing inauthentic about being comfortable and happy while travelling. It’s authentically wonderful to have the privilege of making a choice. Be discerning about your own experiences and never be defensive about your enjoyment of your travel experiences.
The Discerning Travelers off to the ballet in Monte Carlo.
We’re counting down now – to London, that is. In about 10 days we’re off to celebrate two very important milestones in the lives of the Discerning Travelers.
On October 10 we’ll spend our 25th wedding anniversary (OK, we weren’t exactly ingénues when we married!) at a very special theatrical performance. When you have offspring who are performers (and we have two), there are many memorable performances through the years, but this one is especially poignant. Our now 23-year-old ballet dancer son has moved on – from Monte Carlo to London – to revisit the reason he started dancing in the first place. He’s a triple-threat musical theater performer. No longer even a wannabe performer, he is currently touring the UK in the newest remount of Cabaret starring pop idol Will Young, a production that opens in London’s West End at the Savoy Theatre on October 3. And on October 10 we’ll celebrate our son’s debut and 25 years of wonderful marriage. We’ll be having a glass or two of champagne late that evening for sure!
This planning has made us consider the joys of taking the time to see theatre productions when traveling. We can’t now remember the first time we attended a theatrical performance when away, but it was probably Cats in New York on Broadway (the US equivalent to London’s famed West End).
We’ve had a number of very memorable experiences. The first was on a trip in 2006 to London. It was spring break and we had son Ian with us. Seventeen-years old at the time, he was at the National Ballet School (Canada) and of course we had to plan on taking in a number of performances. Usually when we travel we don’t ever book theater tickets of any kind for the first day or night of arrival – you can never tell when you’ll be delayed and these tickets can be astronomically expensive. This time we took a chance, though. After applying some adolescent persuasion to his parents, Ian convinced us that we had to see famed French ballerina Sylvie Guillem in the Royal Ballet’s production of Romeo & Juliet at Covent Garden. The only hitch was that her very last performance was the evening that we arrived on an overnight flight very early that morning.
Ian takes in the beautiful interior of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in London.
Our usual approach to dealing with potential jet lag is to immediately get ourselves on the new time zone and carry on through the day as normally as possible, going to bed fairly early so that we can make up for lost sleep (no matter how much we spend on airline tickets to have space and flat-out beds, sleeping is usually a fleeting dream). If we were going to experience this R & J, however, we’d have to prop our eyes open for some hours that night – which we did.
What a terrific experience – but it will go down in our family history as the time we coined the phrase “DTP” – in other words, “drink the poison.” This particular production of R & J is excruciating for one particular scene at the very end of the ballet. Romeo takes so long to decide to “drink the poison” as he writhes in the pain of seeing his Juliet dead (at least he believes she’s dead – we all know the sordid story). All we could think of as we watched him on stage was, “For the love of God, Romeo, just drink the poison and put us out of our misery. We all know how this ends!” Well, of course he did drink it, he died, Juliet woke up, writhed in anguish and stabbed herself to death. Then we could sleep!
Ian at 17 in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre in London where we saw Billy Elliott. In just over a week he’ll make his own West End debut just down the road at the Savoy Theatre.
Over the years we’ve seen musicals like Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wicked in New York; Billy Elliott and Phantom of the Opera in London (actually we’ve seen Phantom several different places), and its sequel Love Never Dies. We’ve seen The Thirty Nine Steps in London (highly recommend that one), and ballets galore. One of the most memorable for us was the Matthew Bourne rendition of Swan Lake that we happened upon when we arrived in New York last year. As we sat in the bar at the Renaissance Times Square where we were staying, we noticed a very large billboard outside the window advertising this production, and it was in town for only a few days while were were there. This production is the one that Billy Elliott is in during the final frames of the movie and casts men as the swans. We had to see it.
We approached the concierge and asked him if it might be possible to procure tickets. With a twinkle in his eye, he told us that “anything is possible.” And so he did. But at the same time, we also learned that the concierges in New York hotels have access to online coupons that you can use for same-day tickets at the theaters thus avoiding that horrible, long line at the TKTS both in Times Square. It was worth every cent we paid.
Of course, we can’t forget all of the ballets we have seen in Monte Carlo when Ian danced there for three years. That included world premieres of Scheherazade on New Year’s Eve 2010, and last year’s new Swan Lake. And then we followed the company to Los Angeles last year and saw them on tour.
Theater experiences when traveling are entertaining and illuminating for more than just experiencing the production itself. The theater buildings themselves are so very interesting. The old (Covent Garden in London, The Garnier in the Casino building in Monte Carlo, most Broadway and West End theaters), the new (The Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, the Marquis on Broadway, the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Orange County California – so impressive).
Then of course there is the audience. Audiences around the world are also interestingly different. Ask anyone who has performed in live theater of dance in different countries and they’ll tell you that the response of the audience is very cultural. In some countries, at a ballet, there is no applause whatsoever between scenes or at the end of specific performances – the applause comes at the end of the act. This can be unnerving for audience members who are used to applauding whenever impressed by a performance, and you can just imagine what the performers must be thinking. In some places, a standing ovation is extremely uncommon, saved for only the most astonishing performances; in other places, it seems any performance short of god-awful inspires the audience members to jump to their feet. You just have to go along with the prevailing cultural response.
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo takes a bow at the end of the world premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Swan Lake at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo in late 2011.
We usually buy our most important theater tickets online before we leave to avoid disappointment. Often these days you can simply print off the ticket and the bar code is right there, like an online boarding pass. If you have time, you can have the tickets mailed, but that can be dicey if you don’t leave enough time. You can also pick them up at the theater when you get there – but remember to take with you some identification and the credit card you used to purchase online. And remember to book it into your day’s plans unless you want to wait in that line at the theater before the performance.
However you buy your tickets, just do it. It will be one of the most memorable parts of your travel experiences.
In February we headed out on our annual pilgrimage somewhere south to avoid a few weeks of nasty Canadian weather. Usually, it’s a simple hop to Toronto and then onward to – well, just about anywhere “down south” as winter-weary Canadians like to say. This year, our four weeks away found us on no less than ten – yes ten—airplane segments on three different airlines. Needless to say, there is going to be a certain amount of comparing going on.
Soaring over the Napali coast.
We began our trip on our trusty Air Canada to whom we are quite loyal. There is much for a discerning traveler to gain from being loyal. Travel blogger and co-founder of airfare-prediction site FlightCaster Evan Konwiser (who knows more about airline loyalty programs than we ever will) offers five golden rules for air travels that include, among others, never travel anywhere without earning miles of one sort or another and focus on one airline at a time (you can read the rest of the rules at The Golden Rules of Loyalty Programs, and you should!). We agree and have, indeed, gained elite status giving us some of the perks that make comfortable flying less of an oxymoron. However, it doesn’t always work out that you can fly on your favorite – or even on one of its alliance members.
Air Canada belongs to the Star Alliance so when we’re connecting to places where AC doesn’t fly, we usually book a Star Alliance partner (then we can still earn loyalty miles). This year, that meant flying on United Airlines from LA to Honolulu since we were stopping in LA for a few days enroute. Oh dear, when Dorothy realized she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, she was predicting how an Air Canada frequent flyer would feel when faced with what passes for first class (yes, that’s what our ticket said) on this partner airline.
Since we are among the older (one boomer and one beyond) members of the population, we have no issue with older workers. However, when flight attendants look like they should be lounging poolside at a retirement village in Florida, and have to turn sideways to make it up the aisles, we do begin to wonder how efficiently they would be able to move when faced with an emergency. And what’s with all that scowling at passengers? Then we had a great laugh when we saw the movie screen at the front of the cabin with its one movie on offer – we haven’t seen one of those since—well, since the last time we flew on an American-based airline a few years ago on our way to Puerto Rico (where Air Canada inconveniently does not fly). A word of advice to our dear American friends: You really need to take a lesson from your partners north of the 49th parallel and in Europe (see Lufthansa). Air Canada customers may complain as much as the rest of the flying world, but it’s clear to us most of the whiners haven’t traveled on American-based airlines lately.
We did, however, get safely to our destination relatively on time and with our luggage. Who can reasonably ask for more these days? Well, we can now that we’re-experienced Hawaiian Airlines – so our theory about American-based airlines doesn’t really hold up.
Our first experience with Hawaiian was some 10 years ago when we first ventured to Hawaii. On our trip between Honolulu and Maui, we were booked on Hawaiian. Our most vigorous memory of that event was the panic that preceded boarding: there were no assigned seats and the queuing began very early with a mad dash when the flight was called. Our heads were spinning by the time we finally got on board and found remaining seats. Needless to say that when we found ourselves booked on Hawaiian again, we were concerned. We could have saved ourselves needless consternation because Hawaiian Airlines is what we would call a flawless operation from beginning to end – and we took four of their flights in a two-week period.
In 2012 Hawaiian Airlines commissioned textile designer Emma Howard to design the Hawaiian pattern for the new uniforms. They are wonderful.
Where does Hawaiian Airlines find its people? To a person, they were flawlessly personable and helpful. When we arrived at the airport in Honolulu to catch our flight to Kaua’i we were hopelessly confused at the baggage drop-off. And we were not alone. The system did seem a bit foreign, but helpful agents were able to get us in the right line, and now we know how to navigate their system. (Let’s face it, the variations in policies regarding check-in and baggage drop off among airlines throughout the world is mind-boggling. It would be nice if they could get it together. This is a tall order, we fear though, since even the security screening rules differ wildly from one airport to another even in the same country – shoes on, shoes off, cases in a bin, cases not in a bin, sweaters on, sweaters off, aahhh…you understand and we’re digressing).
We were flying first-class on these flights, but since the distances are short and many of the airports small (not the case in Honolulu) we did not expect many amenities. We were surprised to learn that there are indeed first-class lounges in all the airports and more than one in Honolulu. Decorated in Hawaiian motifs, the lounges don’t offer much in the line of food or drink – not necessary in these cases – but they are quiet, air-conditioned oases.
We heard a number of announcements indicating that Hawaiian Airlines was pleased to offer their customers advanced seat selection which suggested to us that the change was fairly recent. Wonderful! Actually, the reason we booked first class was because of our fear of the panic for seats as a result of our initial experience. We needn’t have worried.
Once on board, the flight attendants were happy, helpful and fitted with delightful Hawaiian-inspired uniforms (with prints designed by Hawaiian textile artist Emma Howard) that made us smile. On these short flights, they even managed to get us a drink and a snack – Mai Tai’s were our drink of choice!
The people were wonderful—but perhaps even more impressive was the efficiency of this airline. With a mere 30 minutes turn-around time on each occasion, they managed to get the passengers and their luggage off the planes, the embarking passengers and luggage on and get away on time, all without seeming rushed. The morning we flew back from the Big Island to Honolulu on our way home, there had been a computer glitch earlier in the day that had caused some delays. Our flight arrived in Kona 10 minutes late, and with that planned 30 minute-turn-around we fully expected to be late, a situation that might have resulted in rushed connections. Not to fear, though! They still managed to get luggage and passengers off and on, and take off on time – a turnaround time of 21 minutes!
You might be thinking that we’re talking about a little turbo-prop plane with few passengers aboard, but they fly 717’s on these routes. These full flights had 123 passengers on board and they still managed it. We watched the baggage handlers efficiently moving luggage on and off the planes, and it seems to us that employees from other airlines could learn a thing or two. In all our years of travel we have never experienced such fast arrival of our luggage – and that goes for small airports throughout the Caribbean.
Despite the fact that Hawaiian Airlines is not a member of the Star Alliance and thus we did not accumulate any frequent flyer points for the four flights we took, we enjoyed every minute of it, will do it again (may try one of their trans-Pacific flights next time) and would recommend them to anyone!
We had a wonderful shopping experience at Recycled Rags during a recent trip to Corona del Mar, California
It’s finally here! The first day of spring, not a cloud in the sky and we’re dreaming of spring cleaning – cleaning out the closets, that is. And thinking about that reminds us of the fun we’ve had searching out the best consignment shops in various places throughout the world, most recently in California. It’s true that thoughts of shopping leave some travelers cold; but for us, we prefer to leave our shopping to vacation time – all the better to work hard, avoid the shops while at home, and spend hard-earned money on travel.
The fun of shopping on vacation lies not in the actual shopping itself (although occasionally we have what we refer to in our family as a real “shopping experience” wherein the excitement of the find is almost too much to bear); rather the fun is in the search for the shops themselves, searches that often take us to parts of cities that we might not otherwise visit. Those searches have often resulted in great city walks and serendipitous discoveries of fabulous restaurants. .
First, a bit of background: We are decidedly not antique people, and would not go around the corner for a dusty piece of old furniture (apologies to antique aficionados among our readers – but that just leaves more great stuff for you). We would, however, venture into shops that carry vintage clothing to poke about looking for a ‘find.’ Not necessarily what you would term a bargain. Sadly perhaps, we are not bargain shoppers. We look for value and a true experience. A discerning shopper knows that a bargain is often not truly ‘a find.’ Webster’s dictionary defines a bargain as “an article bought or offered at a price favorable to the buyer…” Well, a bargain is not good enough for it to be ‘a find’ in our view. The price has to be what we are willing to pay for the feeling, the experience, the emotion that the piece evokes. If it’s also a bargain, then so much the better.
Three recent experiences serve to illustrate the experience that can be had with just a little bit of planning.
We happened upon Caprice by accident the first time, but have returned several times since.
Our first real vintage find came in Nice, France. Just as you might expect, Vieux Nice [Old Nice] is home to a variety of interesting and off-beat shopping that includes vintage clothing and antiques. We happened upon this particular find as we wandered through the labyrinth of narrow streets that are now more often home to tacky tourist shops filled with snow globes and cheap T-shirts. However, this is France we’re talking about, and some of the streets are lined with quirky artists’ studios and galleries, scrumptious bakeries and wonderful shops that sell vintage clothing and handbags. This little one beckoned.
Located at 12, rue droite, Caprice had a welcoming vibe, in spite of its apparently chaotic displays. Don’t be fooled. There are some very real finds in this little store and the shop girls know where everything is – and often their provenance. .
As Patty made her way down the steep, narrow stairway to the basement level, Art found himself contemplating a red leather jacket he saw hanging over the stairwell. He asked the clerk if he could have a closer look at the item. She was more than willing to oblige, and brought the jacket to him. It turned out that it was an original Christian Dior from the mid-1970’s in the style of a blazer – soft red leather piped with white, a design that never goes out of style. But would it fit? There was only one way to find out.
Art beckoned Patty to return to the main floor to don the jacket. It fit as if it had been made for her. We were able to get a slight reduction in price for paying cash. Fortunately, we were carrying a bit of a wad of Euros! But, we were hooked on the idea of doing a bit of vintage and/or consignment shopping.
Sure, you need to see all the landmarks - but the addition of some consignment shopping can add another fun dimension to your travel. Washington D.C. is more than monuments!
In Washington D.C last year, we made it a point to research the consignment shops before leaving home. After all, we reasoned, what better place could there be to find clothing that might have been worn only once or twice to a diplomatic ball or cocktail party? We had our map and were easily able to find Secondi on the second floor of a building in DuPont Circle. If you’re in the market for some real upscale design pieces, this is the place. We came out with a mint-condition Dior handbag and a great story to tell.
And just last month, on a day trip along the tony coast south of Los Angeles, we researched the consignment shops in Corona del Mar. We visited several, but our favorite was Recycled Rags. What a fabulous place. Crammed with well-displayed and only slightly pre-loved clothing, the store is a treasure trove of labels and ‘finds.’ The shop staff was friendly and knowledgeable, chatting away while working feverishly to help.
With our 23-year-old son in tow, we were obviously hoping to find a place that also carries men’s clothing – and this one does (although Ian who loves nothing more than to browse the consignment shops especially in London, didn’t find anything in his size). We also shy away from pre-loved shoes; however, we pounced on several pairs of Tod’s women’s shoes that looked as if they must have been someone’s grand mistake. If they had ever been worn, it must have been only while the wearer was sitting or lying down. They were in new condition. And they fit! We happened upon another Dior bag (this time a little one) and happily exited the store with our finds. These Tod’s shoes that retail for over $400.00 were around $130.00. Heaven! And a terrific afternoon’s experience.
The Discerning Travelers’ Tips for Happy Consignment Shopping on Vacation
Do your homework. Part of the fun of traveling in general is preparing and dreaming about what’s to come. In the case of consignment shopping, the web is your best friend.
Find the names of shops in the general area where you want to visit and scour their web sites.
Read some reviews. What are people saying about the shops? What kinds of merchandise do they carry? Which ones resonate with you?
Map the location and incorporate some of the other attractions you’d like to see along the way so that you can put it on a walking tour.
Keep your expectations low. That way you’re more likely to be pleasantly surprised.
When you get there, take your time and think of it as a museum experience.
If you’re looking for pieces of clothing, remember that if the piece is actually older than the last couple of years, the sizing was different. In any case, try everything on!
The Discerning Travelers 
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