The Road Trip was designed with places like South Dakota in mind. Venture to Rapid City and you’ll have the chance to cruise with relatively little traffic, up and down the pine forests and granite passes of the Black Hills and through the awesome lunar-like landscape of Badlands National Park.  Add the most famous sculpture in the country, Mount Rushmore National Monument, and the herds of bison and bighorn sheep in Custer State Park, and you have a driving destination that’s hard to top. And all of these sights are in a state known for its affordability.  Whaddya waiting for?

No reason to rush out of Rapid City to Mount Rushmore. It’s only a 25 mile drive. Walk around and admire the retro Western architecture of the city, founded in 1876 by gold prospectors. On Main Street, Prairie Edge is a two-level 1886 building filled with South Dakota-made quilts and pottery and indigenous art. Buckin Pony Boutique will outfit you in proper Western attire for the trip. Just down Sixth Street, Tally’s is a local hangout, good for breakfast or a slice of pie. 

The faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln recently received a power wash, so they should be spanking clean for your visit.  Be sure to stay for the 9 pm nightly lighting ceremony, which includes a short film on the four presidents and the playing of the national anthem.

Grab some pancakes and a side of buffalo sausage at The Powder House, a log cabin in Keystone. Then head 17 miles southwest on Highway 16 to the Crazy Horse Memorial.  This vast sculpture, billed as the world’s largest, was started in 1948 and is still not complete! You can see the warrior on horseback and the outline of his outstretched hand pointing out towards this great land of the Sioux.

From Crazy Horse, take Highway 87 as it switchbacks through forest and squeezes through granite on one of the most exciting drives in the country, the so-called Needles Highway.  More buffalo await, in the form of burgers and stews, at the Lakota Dining Room in the Sylvan Lake Resort. The stone and timber hotel offers exquisite views of Harney Peak. Standing at 7,242 feet, it’s the highest peak east of the Rockies. 

Next morning, wake up and see big game on the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road through Custer State Park. Yellowstone might get all the hype, but Custer has its own herds of buffalo as well as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, colonies of prairie dogs, and wild donkeys just itching for a free handout.

The next day, rent bikes at Trailside Bikes in the nearby city of Custer. The George S. Mickelson Rail Trail follows the length of the former Burlington-Northern rail line from Deadwood all the way to Edgemont. In Custer, you can jump on the trail at Harbach City Park. 

Roughly sixty miles east of Rapid City on I-90, you reach the town of Wall. Back in the Depression, Wall Drug gave away free ice water. Now the megastore is a souvenir emporium, good for all those tacky gifts you want to bring back the neighbors. You can opt for breakfast, lunch, or dinner at the 500-seat restaurant. Roast beef with all the fixins will set you back about $8.

Head south on Wall on Route 240 to reach the Pinnacles Entrance to Badlands. Soon after entering, you’ll be mesmerized by this phantasmagoric blend of topography—multi-hued rock steeples, massive canyons, and jagged peaks. The Loop Road (Route 240) is a 41-mile jaunt that leads to many of Badlands’ awe-inspiring overlooks like Conata Basin and Prairie Wind. 

Just south of the Badlands is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the large Lakota population. You can visit the site of Wounded Knee or better yet, head 18 miles south to the Red Cloud Indian School in the town of Pine Ridge. They feature a wonderful collection of Native American arts in the Heritage Center. An adjacent gift shop, selling handmade Lakota items, plays an important part in the local economy. From here, it’s an easy 90-minute cruise back to Rapid City.
 

In 2005, I was hired to pen a story about whale watching along the Oregon coast during spring, when the gray whales migrate north. I brought along my brother Jim, who worked as photographer, starting our trip in Portland. That first night, we had an exceptional meal at Paley’s Place and had our first taste of the beverage we’d happily be drinking the rest of the weeklong trip, Oregon pinot noir.

From Portland, it’s only 75 miles on Route 26 West to the shores of Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast. First stop was towering Haystack Rock, which stands tall in the shallow waters, inspiring awe from all who stroll on the hard-packed sand. After dropping our bags off at the upscale Stephanie Inn, we drove over to nearby Ecola State Park and took a hike in this emerald forest, where massive 300 year-old Sitka spruce trees have trunks as wide as a redwood. The woods soon recede, replaced by sandstone bluffs, pink colored beaches and the great expanse of the Pacific. 

We headed south on Route 101, stopping in the fishing community of Bay City for small, tender Kumamoto oysters on the half shell at Pacific Oyster. Dessert was creamy blackberry ice cream at Tillamook Cheese Factory. As we grew closer to Depoe Bay, the traffic and commercialism increased. Yet, south of Newport, the coastline is its wild self once again.

In the small arts community of Yachats, houses cling to the high cliffs, nestled in a forest of spruce and leafless alder trees. The hills reach their highest point, 900 feet above the beach, at Cape Perpetua. We drove to the top and jumped out of the car to take in the exquisite vistas. At the start of the Giant Spruce Trail, a man yelled joyously, “A whale.  I just saw a whale.” My brother and I ran over, but didn’t see diddlysquat. 

Our final night was spent at arguably the most perfect spot on the entire Oregon coast, a former assistant lightkeeper’s quarters set on a grassy patch below the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Below, breakers explode against the burgundy red cliffs that hem in a narrow beach filled with driftwood. In the darkness, we grabbed a flashlight from the inn and hiked up to the lighthouse to watch it flash beacon after beacon across the rugged land and then out to sea.

The next morning, we tried again to find one whale, any whale, but saw no fluke or spout the entire trip. Didn’t matter. We still had an awesome time. We topped it off with a visit to Willamette Valley, the heart of Oregon wine country. From Yachats, it was about a 2 ½-hour drive to the outskirts of Salem, home to our favorite wine of the week, Cristom. Vines cling to the slopes of their 60-acre lot and are named after the owner’s four daughters.  We also stopped at the Tasting Room in Carlton to try his selection of little-known gems that never make it out of the state. Then it was an hour drive back to Portland and our flight home. An exceptional drive that I can’t wait to do again!
 

A mere ninety minute drive from the neon lights of the Las Vegas strip and you’re in the arid desert of southwestern Utah. It’s a geologist’s dream of twisting red rock walls, craggy peaks, monoliths, buttes, and further east, when you reach Bryce National Park, the colorful standing pinnacles they call hoodoos.

First stop across the state line is Snow Canyon State Park, just outside the growing spa and retirement hub of St. George. Canyon walls looked like they’re clumped together from a playdough kit, curving like a snake around each bend. It’s a perfect place for a hideout. At least, that’s what the producers of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid thought when they filmed part of the movie here. Take a nature walk, a worthy introduction to such desert flora as the white cliff rose flower, the ancient creosote bush, juniper trees, prickly pear cacti, and the silvery leaves of old-man sagebrush. 

Less than an hour away is the towering cliff walls of Zion and the canyon walls that slice through the jagged rock. Another ninety minute drive and you reach the spires of Bryce. While you spend most of your time in Zion looking up in awe at the canyon walls, at Bryce, you peer down at the hundreds of hoodoos that line the amphitheater. Inspiration Point is an apt name for the peach, apricot, tan, white, red, and orange rocks that stand at attention like congregants at church. On the Queen’s Garden Trail, stroll down a dusty stone path for a closer look. Behind every hoodoo is another fantastic wall, arch, grotto or cliff to gape at. “It would be a helluva place to lose a cow,” Ebenezer Bryce supposedly said on first sight. 

Pack plenty of sunscreen, hats, and water. While Bryce is at an elevation of 8,000 to 9,000 feet, Zion is half that elevation and thus significantly warmer. Try to do most of your walks before or after the hot part of the day, noon to 3 pm. We found the shuttle service in Zion to be excellent, but we opted for our car in Bryce because the bus followed a more circuitous route. Best Western is truly the best out west. The pool at the Best Western Zion Park Inn overlooked the majesty of Zion. Best Western Ruby’s Inn was the first hotel built in Bryce and sits right outside the park boundary.

From Bryce, you can continue on to rarely visited Capitol Reef National Park or head south to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (about a 4-hour drive). Or rent a Cadillac like we did and cruise on dirt roads through the Bureau of Land Management to the canyon walls of Lake Powell. That was one wild off-road ride through desolate country.
 

One of the best road trips I’ve ever taken in North America was with my brother Jim in Mississippi. Starting in Jackson, we headed to Tupelo to visit the small birthplace shack of Elvis Presley. Follow Route 278 west and an hour later, you arrive at the home of writer William Faulkner and the attractive University of Mississippi campus in Oxford.

Continue to follow Route 278 west for a little more than an hour to reach the birthplace of the Blues, Clarksdale. The amount of musical talent that began their careers in this small town of 21,000 is remarkable. Muddy Waters was raised on the Stovall Plantation outside of town. Soul man Sam Cooke was born here, along with electric blues master John Lee Hooker, W.C. Handy, and Ike Turner, whose green house still stands on Washington Street. At the crossroads of Highway 61 and 49, early 20th-centruy bluesman Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a guitar. Muddy Water’s cabin is one of the highlights of the Delta Blues Museum, housed in a renovated freight depot.

Jim and I spent two nights at one of the most unique accommodations in the country, the Shack Up Inn. Set on the Hopson Plantation, where the mechanical cotton picker made its debut in 1941, owner Bill Talbot has converted six former sharecropper shacks into his own version of a B&B (bed and beer). Each rambling shack pays tribute to a blues legend, like the one we stayed in dedicated to boogie-woogie pianist Pinetop Perkins, who once worked at this same plantation.

Head south on Highway 61 through the heart of the Delta and you’ll find the zig-zag shaped trenches Union and Confederate troops dug during the Civil War’s bloody Siege of Vicksburg, now a National Military Park. Another hour of driving and you’ll reach that gem on the Mississippi River, Natchez. During its heyday prior to the Civil War, when cotton was king, Natchez had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the country. They built palatial estates that were largely spared during the Civil War due to its proximity to Vicksburg. The Union soldiers that survived that battle and made it to Natchez burned the cotton fields but left the homes intact. More than 150 of these structures still stand, including many that are still in private hands.

That includes the Monmouth Plantation, where mint juleps are served in a frosty silver cup promptly at 6:30 in the Quitman Study. Then everyone retires to the dining room, an ornate parlor adorned with long chandeliers and portraits of General John Quitman, who called Monmouth home in the 1820s. The highlight of this comfortable retreat, however, is the meticulously landscaped grounds, shaded by centuries-old oaks and their thick dress of Spanish moss.

From Natchez, it’s a two-hour drive back to Jackson, where we checked out the relatively new Mississippi Museum of Art in the emerging cultural district. Then we dropped off our convertible PT Cruiser and flew home. For the perfect 4-5 night drive through the Deep South, this can’t be beat.
 

October, when the summer crowds are gone and the snow has yet to drop, is my favorite time of year to cruise around the country. This week, I’m going to delve into some of those blessed routes. First up, a fall foliage drive around New England.

Start on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in historic Portland, Maine. Grab an order of crispy French fries doused in truffle ketchup at Duckfat and then spend the night at Portland’s West End, a quiet residential neighborhood with many grand Victorian houses, including the Pomegranate Inn. The next morning, start your drive on Route 302 North through a web of waterways like large Sebago Lake. Soon you enter New Hampshire and pass the outlet stores in North Conway. In Glen, turn north on Route 16 and a mile later, you’ll go through a covered bridge into another era. The circular green of Jackson, ringed by inns, antique stores, and requisite white steeple, has been thriving as a resort town since the mid-nineteenth century. The allure is its proximity to Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New England. Just six miles up Route 16 is Pinkham Notch, home of the Appalachian Mountain Club and base of Mt. Washington. If you want your fall foliage drive to continue, take the Auto Road all the way to the summit. Or get out of the car and climb to Lowe’s Bald Spot, a 3,000-foot opening on Mt. Washington’s eastern slopes that rewards you with views of Mount Adams, Mount Madison and other presidential peaks. 

A right turn in Glen, New Hampshire, on Route 302 and a left turn in Bartlett onto Bear Notch Road begins your ascent the next day into the White Mountain National Forest. Eventually, you’ll reach the 34-mile Kancamagus Highway (Route 112), or “Kanc” as the locals call it, the state’s centerpiece for leaf peeping. Rising 3,000 feet, the Kanc snakes through the thick forest of the Whites. You’ll have plenty of places to stop and picnic, even take a hike as you travel west. 

Continue on Route 112 past I-93 and head south on a little known gem of a road, Route 10. The rising and falling route hugs the Connecticut River, hemmed in by farmland on either side. Patches of pumpkins, zucchini, and butternut squash line the route prior to entering the handsome village of Haverhill and its double Commons. Next up is Orford, New Hampshire, listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its seven Federal-style buildings, known as the Orford Ridge houses, constructed between 1773 and 1840.  Finally, you reach Hanover and its ivy-covered Georgian-style buildings, otherwise known as Dartmouth University.

Head west on Route 4 to reach Woodstock, Vermont. Home to one of the oldest operating country stores, a premier resort aptly named the Woodstock Inn, and the Marsh-Billings National Historic Park, Woodstock has long been a popular fall foliage destination. South of Woodstock on Route 106 is serious horse farm country where you can saddle up for a ride at places like Kedron Valley Stables. Veer right on Routes 131and 103 to reach Route 100 south. This is one of the finest stretches of country road in America—a bucolic mix of rolling farmland, covered bridges, and freshly painted churches—all in the shadows of the Green Mountains. Unfortunately, it was hammered by Hurricane Irene, so make sure to check with the state of Vermont to ensure there are no delays. You’ll pass some of the better known Vermont ski resorts like Okemo and Mt. Snow before reaching the Massachusetts border. Stretch your legs at Jamaica State Park, where a stroll along the West River leads to a waterfall. 

In Massachusetts, take Route 8 south into the industrial town of North Adams, home to Mass MoCA, the largest contemporary art museum in the country. If you can’t get enough color from the foliage, enter these converted warehouses for a splash of Sol Lewitt. For your final day’s drive, skip the Mass Pike and, instead opt for the smaller Route 2 east. This is the start of the scenic Mohawk Trail. Bordering an old Native American hiking trail through the mountains, the Mohawk Trail is a serpentine road that offers stunning lookouts onto the countryside. In Charlemont, the rapids of the Deerfield River come into view. As you get close to Boston, you’ll pass Concord, site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War, now the Minute Man National Historical Park. To return to Portland, simply take I-95 north for two hours to complete the route. This five to six-day drive is the ultimate fall foliage route!
 

My first trip to Fiji, I loved it so much, I stayed an extra two weeks. These are the islands I was searching for. Yes, it boasts popsicle-blue waters of the Pacific, serrated mountain ridges, and relatively cheap accommodations. But the terrain in French Polynesia is far more volcanic and lush, the countries of Tonga and Vanuatu even more budget-oriented. Travelers come to Fiji for the people.

Come to the Caribbean and you’re treated like a rich American or European, preyed on by the locals who look at you as a dollar sign. Come to Fiji and you’re treated like a local having a drink at the pub. “Bula” is more than a trite platitude uttered by Fijians as they walk past you. Stroll down a sidewalk and this pleasant sounding greeting becomes a mesmerizing chant spoken by Fijian after Fijian as they look you in the eye with a glint of pride. Surprisingly, the people are just as curious about your life as you are about them. I’ve had Fijians invite me into their house to drink some of that nasty mouth-numbing kava, Fijian chiefs cook me up a feast for nothing but conversation in return. It’s kind of funny when you think that these are the same descendents of people who chased Captain Bligh and almost had him for dinner, while Fletcher Christian jumped ship to be with the lovely ladies of Tahiti. Now the tables are turned. The Fijians are much friendlier than the often aloof Polynesians.

Like French Polynesia, you have to get off the main island of Viti Levu to see the genuine Fiji. Make this a rule of thumb for any country that has more than one island: DO NOT STAY ON THE ISLAND WHERE YOUR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ARRIVES! Each time I visit Fiji, I encounter groups of travelers who have only stayed in around Nadi on Viti Levu and are inevitably disappointed. Knowing that intimate Fijian villages and remote islands are less than an hour away, it pains me to meet these people.  Staying in Nadi is like visiting Manhattan and only circling the one block radius around the Port Authority Bus Station. A seemingly endless array of mass-produced duty-free shops and hotels line the congested streets. The jarring sound of planes coming and going from the international airport are heard even in the early hours of the morning. Nadi should strictly be looked upon as a starting point, a place to catch up on your sleep before departing the next morning.     

A short flight from Nadi is Fiji's first capital, Levuka, Ovalau, a unique microcosm of a nineteenth-century South Pacific village. Of the original fifty stores and hotels built in the 1840s, only one establishment retains its original name, but the town looks exactly as it did over a century ago. The only difference being the row of weather-beaten shops and clapboard houses are now inhabited by a small community of extremely gracious Fijians rather than the European immigrants who first built these structures. Levuka is also home to The Royal Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in the South Pacific, built in 1852.  Entering from the front porch and encountering the rattan chairs, ceiling fans, potted plants, and a large stained oak bar, it’s easy to imagine former guests Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson relaxing with a glass of bitters or playing a game of snookers. To this day, a single room is $15 US a night including complimentary tea and toast.

Another one of my favorite Fijian getaways is Taveuni, “The Garden Isle” of Fiji. Taveuni’s verdant terrain abounds with indigenous flora like the Tangimauthia, a rare type of climbing vine adorned with a colorful array of flowers. The Tangimauthia can only be found at Lake Tangimauthia, a volcanic lake hidden inside the island’s mountainous interior.  Many guides will offer their services to take you to this lake.  Resist the temptation!  It was the most arduous hike I have ever attempted. See the story I wrote about the experience in The Boston Globe. Taveuni is also renowned for its rainbow-colored reefs and exceptional scuba diving. The white and reddish-pink coral provides a dramatic backdrop for the dazzling array of sealife—turtles, barracudas, moray eels, grey sharks, colorful butterfly and clown fish.
   
Northwest of Taveuni, Matangi is one of the many small offshore islands with a limited amount of bures (thatched huts), perfect for romance, not so great for writers traveling solo. I was hired by Bride’s Magazine to write a story on the resort and ended up on Matangi with four other couples, all celebrating their honeymoon! At dinner, I remember trying to act comfortable while everyone around me was kissing, wrapped arm-in-arm, feeding each other. I begged them to please get me off the island within 24 hours or I’d be dangling from a noose from that Treehouse Suite.
 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the South Pacific this week. Perhaps it’s the frost on the windshield of the car this morning forcing me to deal with Father Winter or flee to the tropics. The South Pacific is like Africa, one of those places that gets under your skin, coaxing you to return as often as possible. Unlike the majority of the Caribbean isles, which can only boast about their stretch of sand, the South Pacific isles are jaw-dropping jagged peaks rising straight up from the ocean and bathed in emerald green overripe foliage. It’s as close as paradise gets for me.

I wrote my first travel article, “Learning to Scuba Dive in the Cook Islands,” almost 20 years ago. Soon, I would make the South Pacific my area of expertise, returning as often as possible. This is especially true of French Polynesia, a mere two hour flight past Hawaii. Perhaps, I was fed too much Fletcher Christian as a boy and wanted to follow in the footsteps of Captain Bligh. Or maybe it was the languorous women Gauguin painted after entertaining them in his House of Debauchery.

All I know is that when I first arrived on the island of Tahiti and its bustling city of Papeete, I would have been happy to be back in Boston scraping the ice off my sidewalk. There were traffic jams, pollution-spewing cars, far too many uptight Frenchmen, and tuna sandwiches at $20 a pop. If Fletcher Christian saw present-day Tahiti, he might have returned with Bligh.  Their major site, The Gauguin Museum, had no original works by the artist (another ironic twist is that Gauguin’s masterpiece, Where Do We Come From?  What Are We?  Where Are We Going? (1897-98), is right down the road from me in Boston). Across the way, the Harrison Smith Botanical Gardens, a collection of tropical plants from around the world founded by a former MIT physics professor, was not in the least bit memorable. I wanted to get lost in raw nature, not take a walk through some manicured garden.

Then my wife and I made the wise move to head to Raitea. For me, authenticity in travel often goes hand-in-hand with a solid connection to the people of that community. Within 15 minutes of paddling on a winding river that snaked through Raitea, we came upon a group of kids diving off a tree swing into the water. They were so excited to see us that they insisted on showing us the small thatched huts they lived in, sat us down on a mat, and served us fresh papaya from the fields behind them.

On another trip, a 16-day cruise aboard the freighter ship Aranui brought us the Marquesas. 750 miles north of Tahiti, the Marquesas are the most remote islands in the world, farthest from any continent. Immense green mountains pierce the clouds overhead on many of the twelve islands, retaining the savage beauty that inspired Gauguin to live his final years and be buried on Hiva Oa. A young 22-year-old sailor named Herman Melville was so enraptured with the island of Nuka Hiva that he chose to jump ship and live with cannibals rather than continue his voyage. You can read about it in his first book, Typee. One of the most stunning natural sites I’ve ever seen was the Bay of Virgins on the island of Fatu Hiva. Towering, storm-worn basalt rises from the ocean’s depth forming a v-shaped buttress that’s illuminated by the sun. In the distance, serrated ridges and impassable gorges stand as a monument to the centuries of volcanic fires that formed this fantastic landscape.

When I returned from my trip to the Marquesas, I met a couple who spent their entire honeymoon solely on the island of Tahiti. It made me want to cry. It reminds me of a backpacking trip I took to Newfoundland, where we went off the trail less than 100 yards to look straight down at a magnificent fjord. Our guide knew it was there, but unfortunately none of the other hikers did and kept on walking. My hope for writing this blog is to steer travelers in the right direction so they don’t spend their entire time in French Polynesia on the island of Tahiti.
 

A mere ninety minute drive from the neon lights of the Las Vegas strip leaves you in the arid desert of southwestern Utah. It’s a geologist’s dream of twisting red rock walls, craggy peaks, monoliths, buttes, and further east, when you reach Bryce National Park, the colorful standing pinnacles they call hoodoos.  First stop across the state line is Snow Canyon State Park, just outside the growing spa and retirement hub of St. George. Canyon walls looked like they’re clumped together from a playdough kit, curving like a snake around each bend. It’s a prefect place for a hideout. At least, that’s what the producers of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid thought when they filmed part of the movie here. Take a nature walk, a worthy introduction to such desert flora as the white cliff rose flower, the ancient creosote bush, juniper trees, prickly pear cacti, and the silvery leaves of old-man sagebrush. 

Less than an hour away is the towering cliff walls of Zion and the canyon walls that slice through the jagged rock. Another ninety minute drive and you reach the spires of Bryce. While you spend most of your time in Zion looking up in awe at the canyon walls, at Bryce, you peer down at the hundreds of hoodoos that line the amphitheater. Inspiration Point is an apt name for the peach, apricot, tan, white, red, and orange rocks that stand at attention like congregants at church. On the Queen’s Garden Trail, stroll down a dusty stone path for a closer look. Behind every hoodoo is another fantastic wall, arch, grotto or cliff to gape at. “It would be a helluva place to lose a cow,” Ebenezer Bryce supposedly said on first sight. 

Pack plenty of sunscreen, hats, and water. While Bryce is at an elevation of 8,000 to 9,000 feet, Zion is half that elevation and thus significantly warmer. Try to do most of your walks before or after the hot part of the day, noon to 3 pm. We found the shuttle service in Zion to be excellent, but we opted for our car in Bryce because the bus followed a more circuitous route. Best Western is truly the best out west. The pool at the Best Western Zion Park Inn overlooked the majesty of Zion. Best Western Ruby’s Inn was the first hotel built in Bryce and sits right outside the park boundary.
 

Highway 1 from LA to San Francisco is the sort of road you see in car ads and movies, one that begs to be driven in a red convertible. It has stomach-dropping turns, wide, clean beaches, and cliffs that plunge to the frothing ocean. No wonder this highway is one of America’s unofficial pilgrimages. First stop north of Santa Barbara is the Danish town of Solvang. Try the pastries at Danish Village Bakery, owned by the same family for four generations, and featuring a yummy almond-raspberry tart. Spend the night at the sleepy hamlet of Avila Beach, staying at a room overlooking the water at Avila Beach Lighthouse Suites.

The next morning, tour Hearst Castle and see the dreamy blue-tiled indoor pool, inlaid with 22-karat gold. No wonder Cary Grant visited the estate more than 40 times.  Four miles north of Hearst Castle, a must-stop is the beach of Piedres Blancas to watch hundreds of large elephant seals lounging, grunting, wrestling, and diving into the Pacific. 

Continuing north, the mountains of Los Padres National Forest rise above the Pacific and the road becomes a mix of ups, downs, and hairpin turns as you enter Big Sur.  A quarter-mile walk at Pfeiffer Burns State Park leads you to the precipitous rock, waterfalls, and wildflowers of this rugged paradise. For lunch, stop at Nepenthe to dine on nachos while overlooking the stunning surroundings. The next two nights are well spent in Monterey, to visit one of America’s most innovative aquariums, bike along the waterfront past seals, and dine at seafood restaurants on the street coined Cannery Row.  San Fran is another two hours north.

The California Travel & Tourism Commission puts out a Road Trips magazine that describes in detail other great road trips in the state. Here, you’ll find a 5 to 6-day itinerary that continues on Highway 1, north of San Francisco, through some of the world’s most magnificent Redwoods (Avenue of the Giants), stopping at small artsy communities and wineries. This part of the state is still very wild and undiscovered. 
 

A mere four-hour drive from New York City, Toronto, Cleveland, and a bit longer from Boston and Philly, the Finger Lakes of western New York are ideally suited for a summer or fall road trip in Eastern US. That’s exactly what my wife and I did this past week.  Start in Watkins Glen, where you hike through the famous gorge in the state park alongside a number of spectacular waterfalls. Watkins Glen is at the southern end of 38-mile Seneca Lake. Go for a sunset sail on a schooner and the next morning, head a wee bit south of the lake to kayak through a cattail-laden marsh and see countless herons, turtles, and beaver. The following day, we headed to nearby Keuka Lake to bike the 27-mile Bluff Ride on a quiet peninsula jutting out into the water from Penn Yan.

All of the lakes are surrounded by vineyards, so after a morning of adventure, you can taste wines the rest of the day. The area is known for its award-winning Rieslings and Gewürztraminers. The Reserve Riesling at Fox Run, the Semi Dry Riesling at Heron Hill and the Gewürztraminer at Dr. Frank’s stand out, but also try more unique offerings like the sweeter Red Cat at Hazlitt Vineyards, ideally chilled over ice on a boat in the lake, the Cayuga White Wine at Glenora, the exceptional ice wine at Heron Hill, and a surprisingly good pinot noir at Dr. Frank’s.

We stayed at the new Harbor Hotel in Watkins Glen, right at the water’s edge with an outdoor patio overlooking the marina for breakfast and dinner. In Keuka Lake, we were fortunate to book the Black Sheep Inn in Hammondsport. Owners Debbie Meritsky and Marc Rotman spent over 6 years refurbishing the rare octagonal-shaped house, celebrating its 150th birthday in 2009. The couple is perfectly suited as innkeepers, with Debbie, a former caterer in Cleveland serving sublime breakfasts like an egg sunny-side up, served over a bed of grilled Portobello mushrooms and freshly picked greens. She even makes her own organic soap, lavender and peppermint. Marc is an interior designer and his fine eye for detail extends to the moldings above each room, an apple-picking ladder used as a towel rack, and the cupola atop the house painted as a gold compass.