Like with most teenagers, a certain amount of museum fatigue is bound to set in, so instead of rushing around to every new exhibition in town, we pegged cultural destinations—less crowded, but no less interesting—to park outings by proximity. Even if you don’t have a tourist-averse teenager to consider, it’s a brilliant way to organize your time and bring your outside-inside ratio into balanced proportion. Or for times when the Louvre and Tuileries just feel like a bit too much.

1. JARDIN DES PLANTES » The Grande Mosquée

Known for: Originally named the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants, the garden was created in 1635 as a place to teach botany and train physicians in plant medicine. Today, it’s an open-to-all beauty pageant of floral varietals (23,000 species!), trees and plants. Laid out in long slender repeating rows, bursting with blooms of every color and variety spread across 70 acres. Even in mid-March, the tulips, poppies and iconic white cherry blossoms really bring the heart palpitations. Go early: the morning is quiet, the afternoon is bananas. And don’t make my mistake of missing the Alpine Garden—sunk 10 feet to create a microclimate for mountain plants. The entrance can be found inside the Botanical School.

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My son and I recently, and unexpectedly, ended up in Lyon, thanks to a hometown PSG match fiasco in Paris (in which the very reason for our trip was postponed). No matter, we scrambled and an on-the-…

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The Puglia trip opens to paid subscribers today! A week before it officially opens. This is one of the perks of being a subscriber. I hope you’ll join us!

I’m thrilled to announce that next spring, my…

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I could not be more thrilled to share the hugely exciting news that I’m writing a book, Italy by Hand (Artisan Books), which will explore, surprise surprise!, the deeply rooted craft traditions acros…

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THE GLOBE THEATRE, London

No trip to London is complete without a visit to one of the most storied, open-air theaters of all time. Atmospheric doesn’t do it justice. The original 1599 version to the ground after a cannon was shot during Henry VIII and caught the thatched roof. It was rebuilt a year later, then demolished in 1642 by the Puritans. But it took until 1997 to build again (*near* the original site), with every detail obsessively scrutinized for historical accuracy and with authentic Elizabethan techniques, from green oak timbers, lime plaster walls, shimmering gold leaf paintings across the heavens, and a (fire-proof) thatched roof. When you’re standing in the yard, you can imagine what it would have been like down there with the groundlings—open sky, dirt floor and bodies pressed together in a sea of rise-and-fall emotion, spit flying from the stage. When I was there, it was a busy time, and tickets for live performances were sold out, but make plans ahead of time to experience the thrill of seeing a Shakespeare play under the stars (A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in April).

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What are some of the hallmarks of Hinoki Travels that prioritize a more mindful approach to traveling?

By design, a Hinoki trip only takes place in remote and rural areas around the world. I fell in love with visiting remote places when I was working in Bhutan. The inspiration for Hinoki came from one particular road trip to Eastern Bhutan. I crossed the country with three documentary filmmakers/photographers to spend a week in a very remote village high in the Himalayas. To access it, we drove for three days from the capital and then had to swap our SUV for a 4x4 off-road vehicle and a local driver who knew the rocky mountain roads well. Once there, we settled into a family home without running water and only a wood stove in the height of winter. It was uncomfortable at first... not knowing the local dialect and staying somewhere that has no infrastructure or support for tourists. But time has a way of softening the edges of anything. As each day went by, it became easier to communicate by gesture and settle into a friendly rhythm with the community. We mutually became more comfortable with each other. After eight days of staying in such a remote place with none of modern life’s usual comforts, my creativity flourished. I was writing so much everyday, having my senses heightened both by unfamiliarity and the luxury to linger longer in a place where, on the surface, not much seems to be happening. But in slowing down and witnessing, so much depth revealed itself to me. That is mindful travel to me.

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On the left bank of the River Seine in Paris, the 14th arrondissement is home to Montparnasse—the artistic heart of the city’s storied 20th-century Bohemian life. Reading about this place in time is …

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Last spring, while scouting for our upcoming craft trip in Puglia, my friend Patrizio took me to a little-known house museum in the small town of Campi Salentina loosely dedicated to the local histor…

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GEOMETRY LESSON

My Greek sister in law, Kelly Flamos, whose family lives in Chios, introduced me to the painted village of Pyrgi, where black and white geometric shapes and intricate patterns cover every available surface area of the built landscape— facades, pillars, balconies, undersides of arches, the interior of churches, and on and on, you name it, it’s decorated.

Dating back to the mid 1800s, this distinct style of decoration is called xysta (which roughly translates to “scratched”) and is achieved by using a tool (often a fork!) to scrape away layers of white plaster, exposing a contrasting color beneath. Many of the existing craftsmen who continue to use this technique to repair or create new designs have learned the craft from relatives and won’t accept money as payment.

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Thank you so much for your support over the past year. There are big plans for the year ahead and I can’t wait to share it all with you: more stories about working craft and design into your travel i…

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BALLYVOLANE // County Cork
When I interviewed Justin for a story about personality-driven inns for Conde Nast Traveler years ago, he told me that “You become a friend when you stay here.” That sentiment alone is the truest lodestar of Irish hospitality. The third generation of the Green family to run this characterful six-bedroom, 18th-century country manor (plus a smattering of bell tents for an elevated glamping experience), Justin and his wife Jenny are consummate hosts and thoughtfully engaged innkeepers. They raised their three kids in the former servants’ wing, involving everyone in the family business of running an inn where authenticity remains the mantra. Deer heads hang next to antique portraits, and Justin starts every morning by cooking a proper Irish breakfast for guests.

While you’re there: Guests are welcome to help feed the pigs, donkeys and the assortment of ducks, hens and bantams after breakfast.

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Each…

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I just returned from a week in Portugal’s Alentejo region, and my big takeaway from this trip: If you gather a group of people who are all interested in the beauty, process and history of artisan tra…

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Last fall, a few weeks before leading our very first curated craft trip, we received word that the locally revered traditional bell-maker we were scheduled to visit, Joaquim Correia, passed away at 84 after 70 years of hand-making bells—his life’s work. The statement he submitted to UNESCO in 2014 (below) is particularly poignant, considering that he was, in fact, the end of the line in Monsaraz. Even a decade ago, he recognized how vulnerable his craft was, without someone to pick up where he would one day leave off.

Dating back 2,000 years (!!!), these hand-hammered cowbells, or chocalhos (also used for sheep and goats) are now officially recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage craft. I know cowbells are a rather esoteric craft, and you might be thinking, really? Cowbells? But stay with me here, because in this case, a bell is not just a bell. It’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of chocalhos. They are deeply intertwined with a long history of shepherding, wool, dyeing, spinning, and weaving in the Alentejo—no craft exists in a silo!—and has become a symbol of the interconnectedness of the people, traditions and sounds of the region. Like all functional craft, they were originally purpose-driven (helping farmers keep track of their animals), but after two millennia of ringing across the countryside, their distinct, melancholic sound is a point of cultural pride — a soundtrack to a disappearing way of life.

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DECORATIVE ARTS MOTHER LODE

During a brief touchdown in Boston this summer, I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Originally, it was my greatest desire to finally see the Sleeper-McCann house…

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Set back by rolling hills, discreetly veiled beyond a curtain of towering deciduous trees, the 300-acre arts campus was the result of a simple yet innovative premise:

It really cannot be overstated: Cranbrook’s contributions to modern art, craft and design in America is significant and sweeping. The educational and design community, founded in 1904 by Detroit philanthropists George Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth, produced many of this country’s greatest designers, including Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, and Florence Knoll, and this is where they all worked, lived and dreamed design.

Worth a full day or more of exploring (I have been dozens of times, and still notice something new each time), the entire campus is living, breathing testament to their collective imagination and genius, but it’s the Saarinen’s private family residence that gives you the most intimate glimpse inside the process and principles that echo across the community. Starting with a tour of brick, ivy-covered home, cloistered among other private residences and studios on the tree-lined Academy Way, grounds you in place for the rest of your meanderings.

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An antidote to the overwhelming, lengthy travel guide, packed with so much information, it’s a Sisyphean labor just to read it (forget trying to see and do everything in one visit): Sometimes all you need is a single perfect day to inspire—and even anchor—an entire trip. During our trip to northern Italy last year, we had the most magical day in a tiny, quiet storybook village just outside Merano with front-door access to one of the most charming, out-of-time day hikes in South Tyrol.

Most people who travel to Merano stay in the city — a chic, multicultural spa town that Europeans have somehow kept a secret from Americans, who often think of jetset Cortina or ski-mad Madonna di Campiglio first. Tucked into the dramatic peaks of the South Tyrol region, it has the Austrian charm of its sister city, Salzburg. We dedicated an entire newsletter to its charms two summers ago.

This time, however, we opted to stay a few kilometers outside Merano to be closer to the mountain air we traveled for. After all, Franz Kafka called South Tyrol the most beautiful land he’s ever seen. And Goethe about South Tyrol back in 1786: “Everything has more power and life here,” he wrote. We had only a couple days on our way from Switzerland to the Dolomites and hoped to tap into that exuberant mountain energy without a commute.

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