Travel Tips
Beyond Skiing and Snowboarding: Stowe, Vermont Like a Local
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Do you have someone in your travel group who doesn’t ski or snowboard (or is that someone you)? Need to give your legs a break from the slopes? Or simply want a mix of activities for your winter getaway? You don’t have to limit yourself to on-mountain activities in the charming Vermont town of Stowe. With a vibrant local food and beverage scene, endless outdoor adventures, unique shops, and nature-inspired spa treatments—all with the beautiful backdrop of the Green Mountains—you’ll want to stay for a lot longer than just a ski weekend. Here are some local tips to experience the best of Stowe off the slopes.
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Look beyond the obvious on-mountain lodging option for another great Stowe experience: Stoweflake Mountain Resort. With on-site dining, an expansive fitness center, and a heated outdoor pool that’s even open in winter, Stoweflake is just big enough to have the resort essentials without losing the personal touch. The hotel has lots of lodging options, ranging from classic hotel rooms and fireplace suites to three-bedroom condos with ski lockers. Plus, it’s in a great Mountain Road location—between town and the mountain—which means less time looking for parking and more time exploring.
EAT, DRINK, APRÈS
There’s no shortage of Stowe establishments with excellent food and beverages. The local beer of choice continues to be the widely-known but hard-to-find Heady Topper IPA, especially now that The Alchemist has opened their Stowe brewery, conveniently within walking distance of Stoweflake. For après-ski or just-because, try the Doc Ponds for seasonal-inspired dishes or the classic Charlie B’s pub, both on Mountain Rd. Downtown, check out the many local craft beverage options at Cork Wine Bar, known for natural wines and excellent small plates. Also downtown, Tap 25 has a rotating list of (you guessed it) 25 local craft beverages, mostly beers but with a few ciders on tap too.
ADVENTURES IN THE SNOW
Of course there’s excellent skiing and snowboarding at Stowe Mountain Resort on Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak (and now there are unconfirmed rumors that Vail Resorts is seeking to buy Stowe, which would undoubtedly mean exciting changes for the resort’s future). Did you know that Stowe is also home to a famous cross-country skiing resort? Trapp Family Lodge, founded by that famous singing family from The Sound of Music has almost 100 miles of trails (that’s 160 km for any of you coming from nearby Canada). There’s no shortage of other fun in the snow, from skating at Spruce Village to the increasingly popular fat tire biking. Check out Vermont Snowmobile for adventures in a very different kind of “sled” than the one you used as a kid. In the same building, Umiak Outfitters has gear and guides for unique experiences like moonlight snowshoe cabin tours.
RELAX AT THE SPA
After all that imbibing and adventuring, it’s time to slow down for some relaxation. Stoweflake Spa is one of the largest in New England and offers over 150 different treatment options. Favorites include locally-inspired signature experiences like Vermont maple sugar body polish, Ayurvedic treatments that promote wellness of mind and body, and of course the popular skier’s choice: deep tissue massage. In addition to the standard steam room, hot tub, and sanctuary lounge, there’s also a spa café and a unique co-ed Aqua Solarium with a Bingham hydrotherapy waterfall (a scale model of nearby popular summertime swimming hole) and a mineral soaking pool.
SHOP
Stowe has two main shopping areas: Downtown and along Mountain Road. The compact village packs a lot of shops in a small space, including Vermont classics like Shaw’s General Store and Stowe Mercantile. Mountain road has a wider range of specialty stops from toys and sporting goods to clothing and lingerie. Still looking for the perfect gift to remember your trip? Stop for cheddar cheese at the Cabot complex, sweet treats at Lake Champlain Chocolates, plus gifts and t-shirts—that definitely do not make you look like a tourist—at the Vermont 100 Store.
PLAN YOUR TRIP: Visit Fodor’s Vermont Travel Guide
Travel Tips
The Luxurious Way to Experience Tokyo’s Cherry Blossom Season
Palace Hotel Tokyo’s Blossoming Tokyo package immerses guests in the beautiful cherry blossoms that bloom throughout the city during the spring months. Over the course of a three-hour tour, guests will be chauffeured to Tokyo’s most scenic sakura-spotting locales in a luxury car.
Interested in taking your Instagram to the next level? The hotel’s concierge can, at an additional charge, arrange for a professional to photograph guests among the blossoms. No filters necessary!
The package (which features additional add-ons such as a workshop on mochi making, a lesson on the art of flower arranging, as well as a seasonal bento box lunch tasting) is available from March 1 through May 31.
To learn more about the Blossoming Tokyo package visit Palace Hotel Tokyo.
PLAN YOUR VISIT with the Tokyo Travel Guide.
Travel Tips
Today Is National Plan for Vacation Day!
Today marks the first-ever “National Plan for Vacation Day,” created by the organization Project: Time Off, which estimates that 55 percent of employees in America do not use all of their allotted vacation days.
In fact, Americans skipped out on 658 million days in 2015, many of which couldn’t be recouped the next year because they didn’t roll over. What’s the reasoning behind the overzealous work ethic?
For one, employees are glued to their computers and phones, available at all times, and able to work anywhere that has Wi-Fi. We also have fears associated with taking time off: work will pile up while we’re away, or employers will see us as replaceable.
And some of us are bad at planning—by the time we get around to thinking about vacation, our calendar has already filled up for the year. Making time is worth it, though; as it turns out, vacations are actually quite good for employees and have benefits similar to meditation. Many employees found their own concentration had improved and were able to get more done after returning from vacation.
It’s still early days for 2017, so Project: Time Off is urging employees to work out a schedule today, so you can make sure that PTO doesn’t go to waste, even if it means having a conversation with your boss.
Now, the fun part: where should you go with your pent-up wanderlust? Our staff recommends places like Bordeaux, Cape Town, and Kiev, (but maybe skip Dubai and Times Square).
Travel Tips
Test Drive Google’s Totally Amazing Arts and Culture App
Picture yourself standing within inches of Chagall’s magnificent ceiling at the Paris Opéra, examining every last detailed brushstroke of the surrealist masterpiece. Or strolling through the back streets of Paris in the company of urban explorer and photographer David de Rueda. This is the stuff art dreams are made of, experiences that only the luckiest of art aficionados may have the chance to enjoy—if they’re really, really lucky.
But thanks to a new Google online platform, you don’t even need to leave your home to relish in some of the world’s most amazing art. Since not everyone has the time or money to travel the world appreciating global culture or the connections to access such masterpieces, the Google Cultural Institute has partnered with more than 1,100 institutions, making available more than 400,000 artworks and 5 million photos, videos, manuscripts and other documents online, to everyone, for free. And not just make available, but curated with virtual tours, online exhibitions, a searchable database, and a bounty of other ways to experience the world’s foremost cultural treasures. It’s a platform called Google Arts & Culture, available via website and app.
Admittedly, the site is a little confusing to navigate. The best thing to do is just play and see what you discover. You will be rewarded wherever you end up. The homepage changes daily with different features, while the hamburger menu provides navigation to artists, art movements, partner institutions, and the like.
Here’s a primer on the absolutely-do-not-miss highlights.
Explore a Database of Artworks
You can sort through thousands of masterpieces from thousands of museums in more than 70 different countries. Use the search tool to search for anything: shoes, all things silver, Egyptian cats, Bordeaux, whatever you choose. You also can search by artist, medium, art movement, museum (search by partner), even object. Or scroll through an artist’s repertoire by time period (for example, see Rembrandt’s evolution as an artist, one painting at a time, here) or color (see here).
Zoom in to See Masterpiece Secrets
Google has devised advanced technology to hone into the extraordinary detail of images, paintings, artifacts and more, far beyond what you can see with the naked eye. One of the most amazing stories concerns Paris Opéra’s ceiling by Marc Chagall. Chagall’s son, David McNeil, had always heard that his father had painted a picture of him as a baby but he never knew where it was – until they found it embedded in the Paris Opéra ceiling, near the Stravinsky panel, during this Google project. Take a peek here.
Take a Virtual Tour
Get up close and personal to hundreds of art institutions and cultural icons—the Statue of Liberty, Sagrada Familia, Fenway Park—where you can drag your finger around the image and tap to move through an exhibit or location in a museum-themed version of Google Street View. It’s like you’re personally visiting the site, studying what’s on the walls, on the floor, in the next room, whatever interests you, without actually being there. And it’s not just big museums here–check out, for example, the Wyeth-Tootle Mansion in St. Joseph, Missouri. Some also require the use of a virtual reality viewer to enhance the experience (such as Google Cardboard; the website shows you how to make your own; see here).
See Secret Spaces in 360
Join urban explorer and photographer David de Rueda in an exploration of Paris’ secret side in a feature called Curio-Cité, best seen on your mobile phone with a virtual reality viewer and headphones. This is just the first of many such explorations to be created.
Get Good Old-Fashioned Museum Info
Should you be planning to physically visit a museum, you can check opening hours, its location on a map, and daily events.
Enjoy an Interactive Online Exhibit
Google offers a series of different online exhibits in which you can delve into archival materials, objects, and stories typically not available to the typical museum visitor. There are straightforward museum visits as well as curated exhibits centering on various themes. The American Democracy collection, for example, brings together more than 70 exhibits and 2,500 artifacts from 44 institutions dedicated to the preservation of U.S. political history and American democracy. Take a peek here. That said, the behind-the-scenes tour of London’s Natural History tank room, curated by Oliver Crimmen, the museum’s Senior Curator of Fish, has to be one of the more unusual tours you’ll find. Among the things he’ll show you are specimens collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle.
Read Fascinating New Stories About Art Every Day
Google experts post featured new stories every day, offering insight (and photos) into different angles of art and culture. Recent ones include: “Weird Histories: The Peacock Room,” exploring the history of Whistler’s beautiful London dining room, currently at home in Washington’s Freer Gallery; ”Virtual Herbal Garden,” taking you to the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences; and “Black and British: A Forgotten History,” a four-part series delving into Britain’s slave narrative. As you will see, these are not light and fluffy fillers!
Enhance a Personal Visit
If you find yourself taking a physical tour of a museum, check out a new feature that several museums are offering through Google Arts & Culture. With Art Recognizer, you point your phone at a painting to access a bounty of info about it. For now, this is available only at Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, and London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery. But Google is planning to roll this out in museums around the world, so stay tuned.
There’s Much, Much More
Just play around with the website and you’ll come across all kinds of fascinating offerings. The folks at Google are constantly innovating–there’s even a page that shows their experiments at the crossroads of art and technology. You can bet this site will continue to be massaged and improved upon and enlarged. Stay tuned!
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