Category Archives: Outdoors

Little Blue

June 23, 2018

It was 10:30 in the morning Mountain Time when I landed in Missoula, Montana, and was standing half-awake in a rental car agency parking lot. A train snaked past, and its loud whistle perked me up some. It had been a whirlwind morning: I had left my house in suburban New Jersey at 2:45 a.m. and stood in lines at Newark Liberty International Airport at an hour when there shouldn’t be any lines anywhere, but there were lines because it’s New Jersey—there’s always traffic. Two drowsy flights later—one over Montana’s many mountains in this small Embraer jet that I’m convinced was powered by prayer and hungry gerbils—and by the time New Jersey was sitting down to lunch, I was in Big Sky country. And to be fair, that Embraer jet ride ended up being one of the smoothest flights I’ve ever enjoyed. Trust the gerbils.

Despite on-time, smooth flights across three-quarters of the United States, I was under-caffeinated, over-tired, and famished when I explained to the car rental agency representative that I had booked an economy car online. I wasn’t in the mood for paperwork or chit-chat, but between paperwork and chit-chat, he walked me further out into the parking lot towards the train tracks and said, “Well, we don’t have much in the lot at the moment, but we’ve got Little Blue here.”

I looked up. Little Blue was an eight-cylinder, relatively new Dodge Ram 2500, with the words “Heavy Duty” next to the 2500. Not sure what 2500 meant, but I certainly knew what “Heavy Duty” meant. In fact, the Dodge Ram tagline on its website is “Tow With Confidence.” I had nothing to tow but a large purple floral Vera Bradley bag that contained three outfits, red Tony Lama cowgirl boots, and a donut floatie.

My “economy” car, I soon discovered, required either a small private helicopter to hoist me up into the front seat or the strong arms of Sasquatch himself. The helicopter was too expensive and Sasquatch was likely on a commercial shoot somewhere, so thank God for those body sculpting classes I’ve been taking to mitigate middle-aged metabolism because my biceps were put to the test. Every time I got behind the wheel involved me grabbing a handle built into the door and pulling all of my body weight into the front seat in one quick, hopefully graceful move. My left bicep is now visibly bulkier than my right—at least for now.

I turned the key, and I won’t lie: when I heard that V8 growl for the first time and the truck quake with enthusiasm, I got excited. I felt at home. Everything about where I was and what I was doing felt spot-on. I grabbed my lip gloss and dabbed a touch of red shimmer on to my lips even though I was unshowered and looked like some English lit professor coming off a bender. I was driving a giant truck and wanted to look pretty. Don’t ask why.

GoogleMaps told me where to go, and within 15 minutes, I was at the DoubleTree Hilton on the beautiful and narrow Clark Fork River, and because it was brunch time by anyone’s standards, my room wasn’t ready yet. I greeted this news with unbridled excitement, and said to the woman behind the counter (who was showered and wearing her lipstick much better than I) “That’s ok. I’ll go sleep in my truck!”

I saw opportunity.

She appeared unfazed and quite accustomed to people announcing they’d be grabbing a snooze in their trucks. “No problem,” she said with that smile that people behind counters always have. “We’ll text you when your room is ready.”

The Dodge Ram 2500 comfortably seats six, so I crawled into the backseat, and made a nest of my Yankee white privilege items: my Vera Bradley bag, my Turkish bath towel, my Italian suede shawl. I grabbed my Qantas airline eye mask out of my bag because the sunshine was bright, and I got comfy, wishing that travel could always be like this—long hours of go-go-go capped with feeling cozy and safe inside a truck the size of my first studio apartment.

I was mildly irked when the hotel texted only an hour later to say my room was ready (damn efficient cleaning staff!). I gathered my belongings, trudged to room 332 thinking nothing could be as comfortable as the backseat of Little Blue, and then promptly dropped my attitude when I saw the balcony overlooking the river and a fly fisherman working the line. The sounds of the rushing river gave me a Norman Maclean moment, and I realized it was best to leave New Jersey behind for the long weekend ahead and chill the hell out. Just let Montana do what Montana knows how to do, and that’s to wow you with its purple mountains majesty. What was right outside my hotel door was exactly what Francis Scott Key had been talking about.

Over the next four days, Little Blue and I went everywhere together: Jack’s Saloon in nearby Lolo where I compared truck sizes with the dudes who parked next to me; the downtown Missoula Shakespeare & Co. bookstore where Maxim Loskutoff’s new book was temporarily out of stock; Clyde’s Coffee not too far from the bookstore, which serves a fantastic gluten-free breakfast; Polson at the base of Flathead Lake where our paddleboarding reservation was cancelled due to chop on the water; Bigfork, near the top of Flathead Lake, where a breeze blew my donut into the water, resulting in me taking off my sweater and my jewelry and easing myself into a freezing lake to swim in my workout clothes after a flotation device that has accompanied me to four continents, five countries (Cuba, twice!), and six states. Little Blue was parked outside while I ate a bowl of butter pooled around my risotto. He was parked nearby while I accidentally walked into a food truck rally and live concert that ended up being a ton of fun. He was there when my friend and I sat on a ridge at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in lovely Arlee. I loved seeing mud streaked on its sides. I loved how after the rain it became a brighter blue (and Montana needs rain). I loved how people got out of my way on the freeway.

Like some loyal steed, Little Blue stood in pouring rain or glistening sunshine waiting to see where we’d go next. In four days, I put approximately 400 miles on that truck. I imagine the only other better ways to see and experience Montana is to ride an actual loyal steed or paddleboard across Flathead Lake—when it’s not choppy.

Before that first visit to Montana, I always viewed myself as a Prius-kind-of-girl, driving something thoughtful, leaving behind minimal carbon footprint, patting myself on the back for being a good citizen—all the classic urban blue state virtues.

Yet there was something immensely visceral and satisfying about driving Little Blue through the mountains, curving along the road that hugs Flathead Lake, my hands on the wheel, the road unspooling before us. Mountains. Cherry tree orchards. Rivers. A giant lake. I realized then that perhaps no matter where I go in this world, no matter how liberal I may claim to be, how much recycling I do or tweeting trash against the NRA, I am simply an American woman who loves driving a big-ass truck while wearing lipstick.

The Doughnut’s First Year: A Retrospective

March 29, 2018

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Just over a year ago, I started traveling with a giant plastic pink doughnut floatie. I can’t tell you where I got the idea, but I can tell you the doughnut made its debut in a private pool in Coral Springs, Florida, Christmas 2016. It’s public debut happened in Sedona, Arizona—a rather magical place to step out—specifically, the Amara Resort, which had a shallow pool with a great view, an ideal setting in which to begin.

Pools have always been a thing. This goes back decades. I wrote about my obsession with pools for the Los Angeles Times, and more recently for National Geographic Traveler. I’m like The Swimmer protagonist in the John Cheever story, but without the delusions. Water calms me. And connects me.

You might see the doughnut as a silly plastic toy, but over the past year, my floatie has introduced me to people around the world. Kids are more likely to approach me and say “Hey, is that yours?” and then we start talking, though sometimes an adult lounging by the pool will strike up a conversation. I’ll always remember Abdu, the Indonesian pool guy in Macau, who used a pump to inflate my floatie and commented that the Koreans brought floaties the size of deck chairs.

Sometimes, I’m alone dragging my floatie about but sometimes, I’m not. One of my favorite moments happened at Ormistan Gorge near Alice Springs in Australia where I passed a few swimmers carrying their own large floaties. We exchanged smiles. Floatie kin. Another time, I spotted a woman crossing a busy street in Greenwich Village carrying an inflated swan floatie as large as a bike. So, we’re out there, in the desert, in the city, you name it.

In its first year, the doughnut has traveled to four continents, including four countries (Cuba, Italy, Australia and China), and five states (Florida, Virginia, Arizona, California, and as of last weekend, Texas). Family, friends, and complete strangers have floated and frolicked on this doughnut. I travel with it in my carry-on bag. It rolls up better than a pair of jeans. It dries as easily as a bathing suit. After an afternoon at Playa Del Estes on the northern coast of Cuba, I deflated the doughnut, draped it over my hotel room shower, and by morning it was dry and ready to be rolled back up into the suitcase. We have a routine. In fact, the doughnut makes its second trip to Cuba in May. We’re excited.

The doughnut doesn’t judge. It doesn’t care what you’ve got going on in your life or where you’ve been or where you’re headed. If you like being in the water, “chillaxing,” as my daughter likes to say, and looking up at the clouds, then the doughnut is your friend. A best-selling author, actresses, advocates, artists, and kids from Cuba and Venezuela have floated on my doughnut. It embraces anyone. As long as you don’t have any sharp objects on you, you’re welcome to join and take it for a spin.

Private pools, public pools, freshwater, the ocean—the doughnut and I are open to it all. I’ve always been a swimmer, a bad one who isn’t very fast, but I beeline to the water, indoors or out. I took water ballet as a kid. I swam laps (slowly) for college credit. Along the Great Ocean Road, I couldn’t wait to wade into the Southern Ocean. When I saw the movie “The Shape of Water,” I nodded with understanding.

There are places the doughnut and I would really like to go. In no particular order:

– Lake Louise, Banff, Alberta, Canada
– Various chic hotel pools around Singapore via Flung’s new Singapore guide, which I would trust more than TripAdvisor or even Lonely Planet.
– Back to Northern Territories, Australia, perhaps Litchfield National Park this time for waterfalls and swim holes.
– Hampstead Heath in London. I swam there in 2000; so I’m overdue, and the doughnut hasn’t been to England.
– Anywhere in the Caribbean or Mexico or Central America.
– Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii.

Today is my 45th birthday. I’m grateful for continued good health, family, friends, and the opportunity for adventure and to meet new people. My pool floatie connects these dots. We’re out there having fun, soaking up sunshine, seeing the world, making friends, and we’re just getting started.

Anna and the doughnut, Omni Hotel, Richmond, Virginia

My college roommate from London, Yvette, enjoying the doughnut in Sedona

Playa del Estes, Cuba

Four Seasons, Macau

Siestre Levante, Italy’s northwestern coast

Ca di’Pesa, Tuscany

Ormistan Gorge near Alice Springs, Northern Territories, Australia

Making friends in Barton Springs, Austin, Texas

Moonstruck

December 3, 2017

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The word “lunatic” doesn’t have the best reputation, and unfortunately, there’s no appropriate word to describe individuals who are mentally balanced, not overly weird, and simply enjoy the night sky when the moon is out. Selenophile doesn’t work either. Moon spotting seems ok, but has a menstrual quality to me. #Lunafan? #Lunaproud? #LunaLover? See? Nothing fits.

As I type this, Europeans are apparently enjoying a beautiful night for a “supermoon,” one of three to brighten up this winter between tonight and January 31 (the second one happens New Year’s Day). The “supermoon” nickname simply means the moon will appear about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than a typical full moon. The supermoon at the end of January is predicted to be quite spectacular, which is good news for me because I’m feeling moon-cheated tonight. Clouds cover the New York City region; this morning it didn’t even look like the sun showed up for work, so chances of witnessing a supermoon tonight are dim.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m addicted to sunlight otherwise I rapidly sink into seasonal affective disorder symptoms. But I’ve also become intrigued by the moon the more I travel. Years ago, I was at the Griffith Observatory on a night during the middle of the week; in between weekend crowds when there was no line to peer through one of the massive telescopes set up and pointed at the almost-full moon. The image was startling; a white rock with hard grooves posing like some aging nude model in an art class. Two years ago, I was sleeping in a nest in Big Sur and woke to moonlight hitting the Pacific Ocean so hard that almost everything appeared silver, as if someone had turned on a light. This past September, I laid in a hammock in Tuscany and watched the moon. In October, I walked around glitzy Macau and spotted the moon. A month ago, out near Uluru in Australia’s Northern Territories, I had an unforgettable moment with the moon. We were having dinner in the desert. Moonlight poured over everything. Shadows moved across the earth. Someone had set up two telescopes: one pointed at the moon and the other pointed at Saturn. It was a very clear night, the perfect conditions for a spectacular sky, in which there was a very full moon.

I approached one telescope. To the naked eye, Saturn was a speck of light, indistinguishable from the other white specks of light filling the heavens. Then I looked into the telescope and almost jumped. On the other end of the lens was Saturn, with perfectly clear edges and a ring. I didn’t expect to see the ring. The image looked like a kid’s sticker or a classroom science project of a planet dangling from a string. It was almost cartoonish, not at all like the large, looming images of Saturn I always saw at planetariums and museums.

Then I approached the second telescope, the one directed at the moon, and looked through. This reminded me of that evening in Los Angeles at Griffith Park. Like that night, the moon wasn’t being coy, everything was being bared—proudly. It made me think of how we wear our age, or maybe should wear our age. The moon is 4.5 billion years old. It’s easy to think of the moon as timeless, but it isn’t. It has a creation story, and for generations watched Earth’s continents drift and rethink their borders, watched empires rise and fall, watched wars and reunions, watched flags fly, watched men visit its surface and plant flags of their own, watched us watch it, watched me look up, think about how I never thought I would have traveled to Australia, how on my daughter’s desktop globe, Australia looked so far away. Yet, there I was in central Australia, in the middle of the desert, far from anything familiar, admiring the moon, anchored by its light, this beacon that’s been with me my entire life. Yes, we, especially I, need the sun, but where would we be without moonlight? Yes, the moon’s gravitational force is critical to earth’s well-being and to controlling the tides, but without moonlight, I’m guessing we’d lose about half of the world’s love songs—maybe about a third of all lovestruck poems.

I was looking at the moon when my ride back to the hotel arrived; we had a 4:30 a.m. departure for a sunrise camel ride, but I wanted to stay with the moon. That’s the problem with itineraries—they don’t take into account the moments when you want to linger.

During my press trip to Australia, we sat quietly waiting for the sun rise over Uluru. Seeing the light change at 5:30 in the morning was indeed beautiful (that’s not my usual hour for that first cup of coffee), but I kept my eyes on the moon, which didn’t budge. The light I couldn’t keep up with; I’d glance down into my coffee cup for a second, take a sip, look up, and the whole desert suddenly looked different whereas the moon held firm. The sky softened from purple to pink to a misty blue, and the moon was still there—the sun directly across from it—as if to say “This is my hour, too.” I didn’t sense competition, just an understanding that in the morning, the moon doesn’t quickly exit stage right for the day, even if you’re caffeinating up and need to be somewhere in a hurry. It’s not like that. After 14 years of living in the New York City area, I appreciated the lack of rushing. And now I look for the moon wherever I go. It fascinates me that wherever I stand, desert or beach, from a hotel balcony or my own backyard, the moon is steady, with a rhythm that I can rely on and a change in contour and colors that sometimes surprise. Clouds covered tonight’s supermoon, but I’ll be waiting for the next one.

What Time Zone Is This?

November 13, 2017

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For years, the running joke in our house was that I would never go to Australia. My daughter became quite interested in Australia after the continent/country was a project in her kindergarten class. That was in 2009. She asked if we could go to Australia, see the koalas and kangaroos, and I showed her a map, explained that Australia involved over 20 hours of flying, including about a 15-hour flight across all of the Pacific Ocean, and that it was just simply too far and too expensive.

Last night, I returned from 10 days in Australia. Twenty-four hours of nonstop travel; 19 of those hours in the sky. No one is more surprised by this than me.

I was approached to participate in a press trip, and the itinerary was too intriguing to say no. In fact, despite the long haul, I was quite excited. My trip was coordinated and all expenses, including air, hotels, activities, and meals were covered by Voyages Indigenous Tourism Travel and Visit Victoria (and if I left anyone out, I do apologize, but those were the biggies). I flew Qantas (which quickly became one of my favorite airlines ever) for most of the trip, with a side hop on Virgin Australia when I flew from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs. I even spent a night in a tiny town called Dunkeld, about a three-hour’s drive west of Melbourne, population 480, which has this kick-ass hotel simply called The Royal Mail Hotel. This posh hotel is across from a tiny bookstore that’s only open on Saturdays and Sundays called Roz Greenwood’s Used and Rare Books. I was there on a Friday, pressing my nose against the glass wishing I had another 24 hours in town. Parked in front of the Royal Mail Hotel was a turquoise-colored, 1950s-style car featuring an airbrushed image of Elvis during his younger years. The car is owned by a local, making me wish that I had been given more time in Dunkeld.

There’s no way to sum up 10 days on another continent in one blog post, and my sense of time, not to mention what season we’re currently in, is too screwed up to offer you anything compelling or coherent. Australia will emerge gradually and sporadically on this blog. It’s a big country with a big landscape, and there’s just too much to process right now. What I can tell you is that I constantly mispronounced Melbourne, as many Americans do. It’s “Mel-burn,” not “Mel-born,” so I’ll work on that. I can also tell you I drank a flat white almost every morning—“flat white” being Aussie for latte—and that the Royal Mail Hotel whipped up one of the best flat whites in the world.

I can also tell you that I’m not a carnivorous or adventurous eater but I ate the following during my 10 days in Australia: green ants sprinkled on several dishes, crocodile, emu, wallaby, kangaroo, camel, eel, barramundi and a gazillion other types of fish with names I can’t recall. I’m jetlagged and know I’m forgetting a few critters, but I know I didn’t eat chicken or beef (I think some bacon might have been involved somewhere along the line). I ate a roadhouse camel burger about six hours after a riding a camel as the sun rose, the first—and, so far only—time I’ve ridden and eaten the same animal in the same day. I wasn’t fond of the camel burger though I’m confident I didn’t have the best cut of camel, probably some mix of body parts with most (hopefully) originating from the rump. No offense to the roadhouse cafe in Glen Helen that served me the camel burger, though the countless flies and wasps hovering over our food were annoying since we were eating indoors and I’m allergic to wasp stings.

It’s nearly summer in Australia right now. The constellations there are different because the seasons are different, some planets more clearly visible than others. Someone set up a large telescope in the desert while we were there and I got to see Saturn for the first time. I looked at this faint star in the desert sky, then peered through the lens and saw a white dot with a very distinct white ring, as if someone had placed a kid’s sticker on the other end of the telescope. I glanced back and forth between the two, my naked eye on the speck of light above, and the image coming through the telescope, trying to gauge if what I was seeing was real. It was a perfect night in the desert. Saturn wanted to be seen, surrounded by many stars, moonlight touching almost everything.

Back in the city, the desert feeling far, far away, Christmas decorations were already up, a tradition that always follows the Melbourne Cup, which this year, occurred on November 6, a holiday in Melbourne that involves high fashion and more than the usual amount of drinking. We were on a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne when the pilot announced the winner: Rekindling. A good name. The name of one who perseveres. A word I need to hold on to now that it’s almost winter here.

Noshing on that kinda-tough camel burger the day before the Melbourne Cup, I had been dressed for 100-degree heat, sweating from unusual places, begging for a cool breeze to find me. I received texts from home about the drop in temperature, even my daughter complained about the cold, and I tried to remember what cold felt like. I flew home last night, crossing half the globe by air. Somewhere over Fiji, I watched The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, an Australian comedy-drama that takes places in the Northern Territories, and the movie made me love Australia even more, all that heat on screen in that cold, cramped plane. I landed, gathered my overstuffed suitcase, walked out into the dark New York night, and immediately questioned my choices. Daylight Savings occurred while I was away, which means it’s now nighttime at 4 p.m. I went from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, from late spring to late fall, from light to dark, all in a day. My patio tomato plants are very brown and very dead, some tomatoes ossified on the vine by below-freezing nights. Such a sight to come home to was jarring.

While in the Northern Territories and Australia’s southern coast, I tried to soak up the region’s abundant sunshine like a camel (yes, pun intended!), but I knew re-entry would be hard. Today is re-entry. And it’s hard. I already feel that seasonal affective disorder weight settling in, and I’ve been on the ground less than 24 hours. Outside my living room window today, it’s gray, rainy, and barely 40 degrees, as if the sun decided “I prefer Australia, too. See you in April.” I had to dig out a pair of socks for the first time in almost two weeks, and I’ll likely have to dig out the happy lamp tomorrow.

Please don’t mistake today’s mopey mood for entitlement; I’m just missing sunshine and a functional circadian rhythm. I am home, with my kid, happily doing mom stuff, finally writing again because these press trips actually involve very little writing. Instead, it’s hauling your laptop from location to location, activity to activity, with the hope that you might have a spare 15 minutes to write anything down. It’s all exhilarating and tiring, as most cool things are. Today is simply a hangover after nearly three solid weeks of travel involving two trans-Pacific flights (more on Macau soon). I began this Monday by waking up at 1 a.m. because I was so hungry, I microwaved a few chicken nuggets. I’ll likely spend the day in my baggy flamingo pants writing and drinking tea. I sipped home-brewed coffee that admittedly tasted disappointing after days of being spoiled by the Melbourne flat white scene. Hiking four or five miles along the Southern Ocean last week already feels like it happened to someone else, which is why we take selfies and drain our smartphone batteries snapping photos. We need reminders that we are many people doing many different things all at once. Mother and traveler. Wife and writer. Tourist and homebody. Australia surprised me. I want to go back, despite that ridiculously long flight. The continent I told my daughter was too far to visit got under my skin. I like that the red dirt from the Northern Territories stained my sneakers. I spin the globe that sits on my kid’s bedroom desk, the classic one found in most elementary school classrooms with countries the color of Easter eggs. Australia is flamingo-pink on this globe, impossible to miss, and I think “When?”

I Suck At Packing (and Blogging)

April 23, 2017

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I have visited about 15 countries, which is quite a bit more than most Americans and paltry compared with the travel writers I follow on Instagram, like JetSetSarah, truly one of the funniest, most upbeat women I’ve ever met on the road, and Where’s Andrew, who somehow combines intrepid with mellow (and the two know each other because when you travel that much, your paths cross—it is known).

Some countries I’ve been fortunate enough to visit several times: three times to England; three times to France; three times to Mexico with a fourth later this year; and later this week, my third time to Cuba, a country I adore even though I can barely speak any Spanish. I’m returning with the Cuba Writers Program, co-led by the indefatigable Tim Weed, who knows everyone in Cuba, from one end of the island to the other, including the guy on the highway who sells fruit and who will slice off a sample for you with his machete. That’s right—Tim has friends who have machetes. He’s that kind of guy.

How to pack for Cuba? Well, it’s really hot there, so I don’t need to wear a lot of clothes. I can likely alternate through a couple of sundresses and survive in one pair of flip-flops and be okay. Though my first two trips to Cuba have taught me a few things:

– Pack Pepto Bismol, not because the food will cause problems—I loved the food and didn’t have any issues, but someone in the tour group will likely need Pepto.

– Pack toilet paper. I forgot this last year even though I meant to pack it. Then I endured a number 2 situation in the lobby of Hotel Florida in Havana last year where I had to go back to the abuelita sitting next to her basket of single-ply, single square toilet paper that she handed out one square at a time. Every time I asked for “Una mas?” in a pleading tone, she shook her head. I went back to her three times. So I’m not getting stuck in that situation again because let’s face it: one square of single-ply toilet paper doesn’t do much.

– Pack snorkeling gear. This is a first for me, but I learned I’m snorkeling, and renting gear in Cuba isn’t a reliable option so I rush-ordered some from Amazon, a company I hate. My new fins arrive in a few hours. Because that’s America. Or, I should say, that’s Jeff Bezos.

– Pack dancing shoes. I can’t dance in flip flops, and I’ve become spoiled by my Italian-leather, suede-bottomed dance shoes. This will be their first trip anywhere—they’re excited.

And then there are the packing essentials that follow me no matter where I go:

– My pool floatie. The world is three-fourths water, and that’s not counting all the glorious, man-made swimming pools everywhere. So my odds of bumping into someplace swim-able are good. That means my pool floatie goes where I go.

– My bathing suit. I pack this whether I’m going somewhere warm or cold because someone somewhere will have a hot tub or a swimming pool, and being in water relaxes me, especially after a flight.

– Klonopin. Sad to say, but me and my benzos are inseparable at this point; I can’t fly or sleep without them, though know that if you hang out with me between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., you’re getting the pharma-free version of me. It’s only on airplanes or in bedrooms where I’ve gotta knock myself out. When traveling, I will share from my stash the following: Pepto, gum, tissues, tampons, maxi-pads, Excedrin, Band-Aids, toilet paper (within reason), vitamins, probiotics, hand sanitizer (again, within reason) and lemon ginger tea. I will not share my Klonopin—I don’t care how wound up you are or what you’re willing to pay.

– Lemon ginger tea. This is true no matter where I go, and was quite handy during last year’s trip to Cuba. I brought plenty, and handed out tea bags like candy. Lemon ginger tea soothes almost anything except a gunshot wound or a broken heart, though I would even venture to say it can indeed help alleviate a bad mood. It’s physically and emotionally potent, and I trust it.

– Books. Pretty self-explanatory.

– Scarves. Even to hot places. You never know when you’ll feel chilly, especially walking on a beach at night, plus scarves are the most versatile item of clothing anytime anywhere. You can tie up your attacker with one, flag down a taxi, stash away some snacks you took from the breakfast bar, or wrap an abandoned kitten. Lots of options with scarves.

– Hats. Just because I like hats.

You’d think given past travel experiences I’d have some hard-won expertise in packing, but the truth is I suck at packing. I often leave packing to the last minute, though I have friends who take the packing process very seriously and tackle their suitcases like a puzzle. The contents of their luggage are as diverse and as thought-through as their retirement portfolios. I am likely to show up in Cuba or any country with a bag full of Klonopin, swim gear, and books, but missing essentials such as underwear or sensible walking shoes. This has actually happened before—me showing up to a destination without underwear because I forgot to pack it. This may make me sound like a fun person to hang out with (“Hey! She’s gone commando, and she’s got Klonopin AND a pool floatie!”) but at age 44 and the mother of a teenager, I should know better. When I went to Japan in April 2013, a friend of mine came over and took a C-suite level approach to packing *my* suitcase. She coordinated and laid out outfits for the different days of the week, sorted out which shoes were necessary, and showed me how to properly roll clothes to make everything fit. She brought her A-game to the task, and truly, my suitcase never looked so well-organized. For her, packing is as much fun as the flight and the trip. I want to aspire to this, and maybe on this trip, I will try.