Travel

Lauzerte sits at 44.2505°N on a hilltop in Tarn-et-Garonne, population 1,400. Thursday mornings at 8am, the gourmet market fills Place des Cornières with 30 vendors selling foie gras and Chasselas grapes. By 9am, the arcades cast shadows on pale limestone that glows golden by sunset. Most visitors drive 90 minutes from Toulouse and leave by … Lire plus

Highway 98 cuts through the Forgotten Coast, past pine scrub and salt marsh, until Port St. Joe appears. Population 3,500. A white skeletal lighthouse rises against the bay. No resort towers. No boardwalk crowds. Just a Gulf town that moved its lighthouse 12 miles in 2014 to save it from the sea. The lighthouse survived … Lire plus

“`html Highway 53 cuts north from Duluth through pine forests that thicken with every mile. International Falls sits 4 hours away. Turn east at Ash River. The visitor center parking lot ends where Kabetogama Lake begins. In winter the lake becomes a white highway. The Blind Ash Bay Snowshoe Trail starts here. 2.5 miles through … Lire plus

Hanalei Beach’s parking lot fills by 9am most mornings. Cars circle. Families wait. The famous North Shore crescent draws crowds for valid reasons: lifeguards, calm summer water, postcard views. But 1.5 miles south, a different beach offers the same dramatic coastline without the stress. Donkey Beach sits behind a half-mile tree tunnel that filters casual … Lire plus

Highway 64 crosses the Little Colorado River 12 miles east of Cameron. Most drivers keep going toward Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Pull over at the overlook and you’ll see what 99% miss: aquamarine water cutting through red limestone 800 feet below. This is the Little Colorado River Gorge, a 58-mile canyon system on Navajo Nation … Lire plus

M-22 curves through cherry orchards before the road opens to Lake Michigan. Leland appears at the river mouth where weathered gray shanties line still water. Population 400. Thirty minutes from Traverse City. The fishing village that never stopped fishing. Most Great Lakes fishing towns became museums or disappeared. Leland kept working. Two commercial fisheries operate … Lire plus

Highway 85 drops through creosote flats two hours southwest of Phoenix. Then the mountains part and white stucco walls appear around a plaza rimmed with palm trees. This is Ajo, population 3,500, where a copper baron built mission-style architecture in 1917 and the town froze when mining stopped in 1985. The New Cornelia open-pit mine … Lire plus

Santa Elena Canyon pulls 300 paddlers on spring weekends. Rangers manage parking. Shuttles run on schedules. The 13-mile float through Big Bend’s most famous limestone walls feels managed because it is. Mariscal Canyon sits 70 miles south on the same river. Ten miles of water. Walls pressing 1,400 feet overhead. Winter flow at 600 CFS … Lire plus

The unpaved lava road to Mahaiʻula Beach keeps most rental cars away. That’s the point. Drive it at 15mph and you reach white sand that holds maybe a dozen footprints by 9am. Three beaches, zero entry fee, monk seals resting in morning shade. Kona resorts 15 minutes south charge $300 per night for the same … Lire plus

“`html Tulum’s beachfront hotels charge $180 per night for rooms steps from turquoise water that 50,000 monthly visitors crowd into selfie queues. Southwest Bay on Nicaragua’s Big Corn Island costs $35 per night for cabanas facing the same Caribbean turquoise where you might count 20 people all day. Same water temperature. Same white sand. Different … Lire plus