Category Archives: Blog

A couple contacted me at Concierge Unique in late May one year asking about a villa for the first two weeks of August. They had been looking online for several weeks. They had found properties they liked. They had a budget that would have been entirely adequate in February. In May, it was adequate for […]

It is the moment everyone waits for on safari. Sometimes, quite literally everyone. You have spent the morning searching for that elusive leopard. Perhaps a guide has just tracked a lion pride moving through the bush. Maybe, after hours of anticipation, a pack of endangered African wild dogs finally emerges from the grass. You lift […]

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art and architecture — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s an ancient favorite:  […]

For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art and architecture — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:    Nowhere else does the splendor of Moorish civilization shine so beautifully than at the Alhambra — this last and greatest Moorish […]

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:    […]

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:    […]

“COVID and the Anti-Vaxxers”   JK, it’s a 13th-century image of hell from the Florence Baptistery. Europe has suffered through many plagues and pandemics over the centuries — and in the Middle Ages (before they had the miracle of vaccines), they thought it was God’s anger or the devil that was making their lives miserable. They […]

I believe a regular does of travel memories can be good for the sou. Here’s one of my favorites — and I’d love to hear some of your most memorable travel tales, as well.  It’s the summer of 2008, and I’m hanging out in the living room of my B&B in the Amsterdam suburb of Haarlem with […]

While I know otherwise, I often find myself wondering if the name “Afghanistan” comes from some ancient word for “tragedy.” Afghanistan is in the headlines yet again — swiftly, and with almost no resistance, taken over by Taliban overlords, who envision a medieval-style caliphate. To someone of my generation, this weekend’s events feel like déjà […]

With the fall of Afghanistan, I’ve been reflecting on my travel experiences there as a 23-year-old backpacker on the “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Yesterday and today, it’s a poor yet formidable land that foreign powers misunderstand and insist on underestimating.   In this journal entry from 1978, stow away with me on the bus […]