Fall 2018

Natal (the Portuguese word for Christmas) is a relatively unknown vacation spot in northern Brazil. Usually when people think of a Brazilian getaway, they think of Rio de Janeiro or Manaus, but for people who are looking to avoid the crowds and still experience Brazil in all of its beauty, Natal is a wonderful spot to visit, and not just during the holidays.

Christmas is just around the corner—still stuck on what gift to get for your travel enthusiast friend or relative? Here are a few recommendations sure to please any travel-lover.

Why do you travel? Is it to enjoy the satisfaction of tasting new foods, seeing new sights, or experiencing new cultures? If you answered yes to any of these, then you’re probably like most travelers. But let me ask you this: When was the last time you traveled in order to serve someone?

While it may be a winter wonderland in the USA, summer is just starting to heat up south of the equator. If you find yourself wanting a break from snowball fights and hot cocoa, consider taking a plane ride to Australia to soak up some sun! Here are a few of the best places to visit if you end up Down Under this season.

As you gear up for the Christmas season, you’ll probably have your holiday playlist on constant repeat. While this might be the most wonderful time of the year, you can only take “Frosty the Snowman” so many times before you need to switch it up. To add a little more variety to your Christmas tunes, take a listen to some of the favorite holiday songs from around the world. Here are just a few:

The day after Thanksgiving leaves Americans with an abundance of leftovers. Often, though people don’t know what to make with those leftovers, so they resort to turkey sandwiches and those last about a week. Spruce up your day-after-holidays with these quick and easy meals to repurpose your Thanksgiving leftovers.

Macy’s legendary Thanksgiving Day Parade will celebrate its 92nd year on November 22, 2018. Although the parade takes place in Manhattan, New York, it actually began as a costume parade in Newark, New Jersey. It used to consist of live animals, bands, and floats. Beginning in 1927, the live animals were replaced by animal-shaped balloons. The parade was so popular that by 1933, there were a million people who came to watch and experience the wonder of this event. The first time it was broadcast on television was in 1948, and it has continued to air every Thanksgiving morning ever since.

The Shimanami Kaido trail in Japan offers a unique way to travel—by bike. At seventy kilometers, this cycling trail connects the country’s main island, Honshu, with the fourth largest island, Shikoku, while passing through six smaller islands along the way.

If you’re a nineties kid and you ever find yourself in London looking for a place to grab a bite, try the Cereal Killer Café. Although this café won’t offer you tea and biscuits, you get an insanely vast variety of cereal and a total retro vibe. With 120 different cereals from around the world, there is something to satisfy everyone’s craving. After you pick your cereal, you get to choose from a variety of milks and toppings for a total sugar rush. But the wow-factor of the café comes from more than just the food—the decorations are a millennial’s dream come true. The upstairs of the café is covered with cereal boxes and memorabilia, and the basement is decorated like a nineties kid’s bedroom. You can even choose to eat your cereal as you sit on one of several twin beds with bedspreads that have prints of Garfield comics or The Simpsons characters on them. Want dinner with a show? No problem. The café comes complete with television sets that play reruns of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Killer food. Killer atmosphere. Killer fun. The next time you happen to be in foggy London town, make sure to grab a bite at the Cereal Killer Café to brighten your day.

Just across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, sits the iconic English-language bookstore Shakespeare and Company. George Whitman founded the current Shakespeare and Company in 1951 after being inspired by Sylvia Beach’s original bookstore and library of the same name. Beach’s bookstore became a gathering place for expatriate writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Eliot, to name a few. Following suit, Whitman’s Shakespeare and Company has served as a gathering place for authors such as Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Henry Miller, and countless others. At Shakespeare and Company you’ll find a broad range of antiquarian, used, and new books, as well as a café, a piano room, and several typewriters that patrons are invited to use to leave letters in the store for other visitors. You may even run into the cat who lives in the store. This bookstore is a must-see for any book lover who visits to be Paris.

Before reading this post, had you ever heard of the town Leavenworth, Washington? Unless you’re a local Washingtonian, probably not. What most people don’t know is that this quaint little town, hidden in the Cascade Mountains, is quite the Bavarian-influenced mountain resort. There are plenty of things to do in Leavenworth year-round, but it’s especially beautiful in the snowy winter months. Many people know that Germans love celebrating Christmas, and this Bavarian village is no exception. You can take a tour of Leavenworth’s reindeer farm, attend the Christmas Lighting Festival, enjoy the “Christmas in the Mountains” concert, and so much more. If you’re looking for a stunning winter getaway destination, Leavenworth should be at the top of your list. This spunky little town is sure to win your heart over the holidays.

Continued from The Murder Castle

There is something about dark and macabre stories that draws people in. Halloween has become a major commercial market in the United States over the last century, and the 2017 horror film Get Out was even a strong contender for the best picture academy award. Like it or not, humans are drawn to darkness. One of the most notoriously spooky places in the world is Transylvania, a region of modern day Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Transylvania is the legendary home of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula and the historic home of Vlad the Impaler—the main inspiration for the vampiric folk tale.

October brings crisp air and fierce competition as the best teams in baseball battle it out for the World Series title. Baseball is known as America’s pastime and has been around for over eighty years. Though today baseball has evolved to thirty clubs across the nation, we can all pay homage to the original teams and players. While the best players of today include players like Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, Khris Davis, and Jose Altuve, let’s not forget yesterday’s favorites like Lou Gehrig, Satchel Paige, Willie Mayes, and Nolan Ryan.