Adventure.com: The Human Carpentry of Catalonia's Castellers
Equal parts flesh and architecture, the castellers’ craft is a kind of human carpentry, using their own muscle, sinew and bone as tools.
Vermont travel writer Jen Rose Smith loves human-powered adventure, exploration, and (almost) anything edible. With a longtime base in the Green Mountains, she's currently nomadic, and her 2018-19 itinerary includes the Bolivian highlands, Peru's Cordillera Blanca, Catalonia, and Cyprus. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic Adventure, CNN Travel, AFAR, Rolling Stone,USA Today, and Outside Online.
In addition to her work as a freelancer, Jen is the author of five travel guidebooks to Vermont and New England, including Moon New England Road Trips, which was selected for the 2018 New England Society Book Awards. Jen's work was chosen for the 2012 edition of Best Women's Travel Writing, and translated into Swedish for Gränslös, an anthology of women's adventure tales.
Backpacker Magazine: Holy Hikes
Make a modern-day pilgrimage to one of these sacred sites.
AFAR: Why Your Next Trip to Europe Should Be on the Canals
Compared to urban vacations, which can rush through countries at the pace of an Instagram scroll, a European canal cruise is the definition of slow travel. The historic barges keep to a leisurely pace of four miles an hour, following man-made canals dug for transporting everything from wine casks to royal entourages.
Fodor's: The Salar de Uyuni is South America’s Most Surreal Landscape
With an ancient island of giant cacti, boiling mud pools, and hotels made entirely from salt, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni looks like something from a fever dream.
CNN Travel: 50 of the world's best desserts
Imagine the best dessert on Earth. Better yet, turn to a stranger on the street and ask them. Odds are good -- dollars to doughnuts -- their answer is different from yours.
Playboy: Welcome to the Catalan Republic
A layer of white smoke waves over the crowd, along with hand-painted banners, Catalan flags, and a shower of sparks from a sputtering flare. “Ni oblit,” the people shouted, hoisting clenched fists and small children above their heads, “Ni perdò.” Neither forgotten, nor forgiven.
CNN Travel: Is this the world's best whiskey?
In recent years, Vermont has seen a quiet craft distilling revival, and the state's bars are lined with locally made bottles. But they're not always what they seem.
Strawberry Tart with Verbena Cream, Plus Perfect Wine Pairings
As the canal barge Savannah winds through the tree-lined Canal du Midi, the boat’s French chef climbs from her compact galley kitchen to tiny garden she tends in the stern of the boat. Thyme, basil, and parsley thrive in the intense sun of southern France, but for a signature strawberry tart Lafitte plucks a handful of lemon verbena.
Air Chicago Magazine: New Zealand
For a diminutive island country at the southern edge of the world, New Zealand offers a near-mythic amount of adventure and culture.
CNN: These beloved sweets preserve sugar's history
While the story of sugar could fill a library of history and travel books, there are bits of the tale in kitchens around the world. Sugar has followed in the wake of the world's armies, from the Arab conquest to European colonialism, and it's left a trail of recipes behind it.
Perfect Pisco Sours from Lima’s Hotel B
Bartending guides insist that Pisco sours are just another take on a classic, tart cocktail—at a family reunion, they’d be rubbing elbows with daiquiris and margaritas—but don’t tell that to Peru’s colorful capital. The foamy, frothy drink was invented in Lima, and it’s become an emblem of the city, served everywhere from glittering bars to sandwich joints.
CNN Travel: Bolivian chefs are trading colonial cuisine for national pride
For a handful of Bolivia's young, ambitious chefs, Amazonian caiman, altiplano potatoes and fish from Lake Titicaca have a revolutionary appeal.
Mic: Parisians might take credit for the macaron, but it actually has Middle Eastern roots
Like strolling the Champs-Élysées and snapping a photo of the Eiffel Tower, tasting a Ladurée macaron has become an essential Parisian experience.
Dirt Rag Magazine: Huaraz Aerothlon
What's better than riding in a wet chamois? Throwing yourself off a cliff.
Boston.com: Explore Vermont cheese with an award-winning cheesemonger
When Vermont cheesemonger Rory Stamp won the Cheesemonger Invitational in January 2017, he beat a talented field of experts from around the country.
“It’s like the ‘The Hunger Games’ of cheesemongering,” Stamp said, “covering everything from technical challenges to blind identifying, cutting and wrapping, and food service.”
CNN Travel: Bolivia's Cordillera Real
For travelers, the diminishing snowpack and melting glaciers lend some urgency to travel planning -- or they may arrive to find that snow and ice have given way to an entirely new landscape.
Boston.com: How to take a beer-based trip through Vermont
With more breweries per capita than any other state, Vermont’s beer scene punches far above its weight. It’s claimed “best brewery in the world” for four years running, and some Vermont beer aficionados argue that the state’s distinctively dry-hopped, hazy pours are the origin of the beloved New England IPA.
CNN Travel: Hiking the Sinai Trail with Egypt's Bedouin
"We want to teach our sons to work with camels, and to learn about the desert," said Tarabin guide Musallem Abu Faraj, who helped found the Sinai Trail in 2015. These are our traditions, passed down through generations."
With no camels, and no work, however, some of Sinai's Bedouin are faced with difficult choices: Move to a town for wage labor, or try to survive in the desert in hope of better times to come.
USA Today: New England Fairs and Festivals
Once the new blooms of spring appear, New England
comes to life with a variety of outdoor fairs and
festivals. Whether you want to spot shooting stars
from an island peak or groove to jazz at the edge of the
sea, there’s a destination for you. Mark your calendar
for these regional gatherings that celebrate music,
culture, food, drink and more.
Rolling Stone: Legal Pot in Vermont
It's somewhat surprising that Vermont – a state whose main cultural exports include homemade Phish tapes, Bernie Sanders memes and Cherry Garcia ice cream – waited until early 2018 to pass legislation on recreational marijuana. The law might have been slow to arrive, but it's groundbreaking, nonetheless.
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