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Travel

Glamping Returns to Cedar Point Park

While it is less than a 15-minute drive from the hustle and bustle of East Hampton's Main Street in July, Cedar Point County Park in East Hampton's Northwest Woods feels a world away, which makes it both special and surprising. This year, Doug and Lee Biviano, who also operate concessions at the Fire Island National Seashore, have reopened the camp store and brought glamping back to the park.

Jul 7, 2022
Gurney's New Spa: A Mecca for the Sybarite

Health is wealth. And vice versa, too, at the newly-renovated Gurney's Saltwater Spa. I visited the 30,000-square-foot facility to have a look around, though I didn't try any of the treatments, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether wellness as an investment is a worthy concept.

As of right now, the spa is in its "soft opening" phase, so treatments are available only to those staying at the hotel, or who buy a spa membership. Rates for off season, Labor Day to Memorial Day, are $12,000 and year round is $17,500.

Okay, that's the stressful part done. Now, relax.

May 29, 2022
Even Off-Season Nice Is Nice

Romain Glouphile is a storyteller who understands the effect of a powerful narrative. Glouphile supplies Michelin star restaurants with local wine, meats, cheese, bread. In order words, exactly the things the Provençe-Alpes-Côte region of France is known for. He also runs his eponymous restaurant Glouphile on Stalingrad Avenue on the eastern side of the port of Nice. Glouphile begins by telling you that his restaurant is essentially a wine shop and so first you must see the wines. Then he turns and walks off.

May 29, 2022
Sicily in the City

I traveled to Sicily in April. I took the Jitney from Amagansett, got off on 39th Street, walked down to Greenwich Village, and there I was.

A five-hour Sicilian food tour in New York City with Allison Scola, a sort of Rain Man of cannoli and all things Sicilian, is quite honestly the next best thing to visiting the famed Italian island in person. Although, be warned: Her signature Cannoli Crawl is bound to work up your appetite for experiencing the real thing -- it's all I can think about now. 

May 29, 2022
An Ultrarunner in Dublin

When I'm asked why I run so much, I usually say, only half-jokingly, "So that I can eat whatever I want." I am a runner. I just happen to go ultra-distances. Long races, hundreds of miles, sometimes over days. The other answers to that question are more serious: I run to stay fit and, more recently, to stay sane during insane times.

May 29, 2022
Sicily in the Summer

About the same time that I sat down to write this, the hit television show "The White Lotus," about a group of guests in a high end hotel (the first season was filmed at Four Seasons Resort Maui) announced season two was being filmed in...drumroll...Sicily. This time, the setting is the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Taormino, a hilltop town on the east coast of the island, close to the infamous Mount Etna.

May 28, 2022
Burgundy on Two Wheels

The only drawback to holidaying in Burgundy, France's greatest food and wine region, is that you risk returning home fleshier and heavier than when you arrived. Unless, of course, you burn off the extra calories with a self-powered vacation on two wheels.

May 28, 2022
Q&A With Geoffrey Drummond:

An email landed in my inbox sometime in March from Geoffrey Drummond, the executive director of the FoodLab at Stony Brook Southampton and a longtime producer and director of several cooking shows with Julia Child and Eric Ripert, as well as movies like "My Dinner with Andre."

May 28, 2022
East Hampton to Charleston: More Than 860 Coastal Miles

    There are many paths you can take down the Eastern Seaboard, but I like the ones less traveled that stick in your memory and teach you a bit of American culture that isn't learned in the classroom.

    As you head out of Long Island, perhaps stop at the Lakehouse restaurant or the Whalers in Bay Shore for a lobster roll while pondering this guide to an ultimate mid-Atlantic journey that ends up at one of America's classic cities for food, history, and charm: Charleston, S.C.

The Hamptons to the Jersey Shore

Sep 20, 2021
To the Smokies, to Glamp

What you need to know as you drive toward the Great Smoky Mountains is that the land is a rain forest. The hills, valleys, gullies, cracks, and seams are filled with hickory, fir, sugar maple, wild cherry, birch, chestnut, pine, cedar, and tulip poplar -- a tree that rises straight up out of the ground and nine stories later pops open with large, white magnolia-looking flowers (okay, tulips). The vegetation is so abundant that it comes described as shingled, shagged, big-toothed, winged, slippery, sweet, bitter, chalked, and weeping.

Sep 19, 2021
A Family Destination

    Once upon a time, or specifically, mid-pandemic last year, an average Long Island family was looking for a place to plan a vacation. Montauk wasn't terribly appealing, they were tired of the Outer Banks and the Hudson Valley, and Kennebunkport, Me., was attractive but too distant. The spot needed to be secluded enough for social distancing but welcoming and entertaining enough for a family of 10 with two small children.

Sep 19, 2021