How do you design the presidential suite of a hotel that’s shaped like a ship? Like the interiors of a luxury super yacht of course! The best part of this 1,000-square-meter suite? Stunning views of Manila Bay […]
Chasing Shakespeare—from Stratford to Verona
This was the Bard’s bedroom, this was his desk! Did he write Twelfth Night with a quill? Were his fingers darkened black by the ink? You have to understand…I’ve been a fan of Shakespeare my entire life […]
The Manila Hotel: Built for kings, queens, heads of state & history
It occupies one of the most historic addresses in the country: One Rizal Park, Manila, a stone’s throw away from beloved Luneta and Manila Bay. It’s one of very few places from where you can see the water on one side and the beautiful parts of a reckless city on the other […]
A portrait of Ethiopia
It’s true. Ethiopia is the “Land of Origin,” where humankind and civilization started — and just to perk us up a little, where coffee comes from […]
El Nido’s ‘Island of the Sun’
From the top of a hill in Pangulasian Resort, you can see the sunrise and sunset, its 750-meter stretch of white-sand beach and the clear waters of El Nido. All those “best in the world” lists got it right. El Nido is paradise […]
Raffles Istanbul: Asian hospitality & European timelessness
He brought the pink balloons out on the balcony in the cold November air. “Make a wish and then let them go,” he told me. And so I did. We watched them float, carried by the autumn wind into Istanbul’s skies, until we couldn’t see them anymore […]
Coron: The best of Palawan’s thousand treasures
The gods of our islands and legends are very cruel. But what they take away with a curse and punishment they give back with an embarrassment of riches. In the case of Palawan, they gave it 1,870 islands and a 2,000-kilometer coastline […]
Postcards from Petra
It’s a spectacular sight of rose-colored cliffs rising to meet the skies, and on the sandstone is carved The Treasury, imposing itself onto your senses. I almost cry seeing this.[…]
Big love from Bohol’s Amorita Resort
From sea to table, that’s how Amorita (“small love in Spanish) opened its new tapas bar Tomar. The tapas and pintxos were heavenly! […]
Cappadocia & other Turkish delights
Gliding over Cappadocia is everything that is and more than the pictures you’ve seen on someone else’s vacation […]
Blissful in Bodrum
This is the Bodrum we find ourselves in — at the crossroads of its hedonism and conscience, and these two roads would quickly merge because Turkish people are kind and compassionate. And the sun is always lovely on this peninsula […]
A week in Provence
There is no one else around in this lavender field. In this most gorgeous of hours, in this wildly colorful swath of land in Provence, I want to tell Gautier: This is why we came here.
Falling in love with Japan, one prefecture at a time
Perhaps this the reason why sakura season is so revered in Japan: it lasts only a week, and when the week is over, they begin to fall — never to be seen again until the following year […]
Oh Canadian Rockies, how beautiful you are!
A road trip through Alberta’s spectacular national parks — Banff, Jasper and Waterton — and only one city (Calgary). I feel like a fish out of water […]
Searching for Stalin’s Boots in Budapest
Discovering Budapest through its classical art and contemporary museums, the latter a remembrance of its Cold War past. […]
Santorini without the crowds
For a few days, Santorini was mine. It was like being in on a secret that made me smile — and no one had an idea why. […]
Even in miniature, France is larger than life
Why would I want to see a miniature Paris when I am already here…in life-size Paris, in real France? Because miniatures are so damn cute, that’s why! […]
The Paris I love
Like Hemingway said of Paris, “And then there was the bad weather,” at the beginning of A Moveable Feast, the […]
Istanbul: A story told in two continents
I didn’t fall in love with Istanbul until I was about to leave it. And by then, I was so completely enamored of the place that I would come back two months later […]
Chasing Kafka in Prague
I am standing in front of two men literally having a pissing contest and I cannot look away. By “men,” […]
Two GPS and still lost in Poland
My friend Gautier is on the phone with Andrej, whose flat in Krakow we are renting for the night. He’s […]
Stopover Asia: 5 cities, 5 hours each
What to do when you’re on a long layover in these five Asian cities? Locals guide us through Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok […]
Where I’ve been wandering
So, Ethiopia makes it 41 countries I’ve visited so far. This post should really be titled “How I learned to […]
Untangling Bohol
Of all places to plan a trip, we did it in a funeral chapel. It was toward the end of […]
A short post about Hobbits
One Sunday afternoon in September 1998, a New Line Cinema film executive knocked on the door of a farmhouse in […]
Because this is Boracay
In the morning, I open one eye and see my cousin on the bed next to mine reading a book. I don’t know where I am. That is never a good sign for the night before […}
Architecture, love, loss & liberty
Memory is a theme that finds its way into Daniel Libeskind’s architecture. People move on. They rebuild. And one day they are able to look up toward the sky again […]
A journalist’s Warsaw
I have been in a mall in Warsaw for two hours and I haven’t seen a single Asian, either as […]
The 38th Parallel
To this day, when I hear Blind Melon’s No Rain, I think of the 38th parallel — the demilitarized zone […]
How I found my muse in Florence
Of all the nine muses, all I really needed was one — to recover, to rewrite, to reclaim the contents of my missing flash drive. But really, it was to recover myself […]
In. f*cking. Bruges.
I waited for years to get to Bruges after watching the dark comedy In Bruges. The film is beautifully written, […]
