As the author of Frommer’s guides to Japan for many years, I’ve inspected more hotel rooms than anyone in their right mind should ever have to see. But even I’ve been flummoxed about what to […]
I first visited Smitty’s Market, in Lockhart, Texas, about 15 years ago. Weaned on barbecue served up in the Kansas City area, I looked around for bottles of sauce, and, finding none, went up to […]
There’s hardly an event or celebration in Okinawa, or even a gathering of friends, that doesn’t include awamori, Japan’s oldest distilled liquor. Everything from births and birthday parties to weddings and funerals are often commemorated with gifts […]
I was living in Tokyo in the 1980s when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery came up with a new concept: shinrin-yoku, translated as “forest bathing.” The idea was to get people outdoors, an […]
There’s nothing like the beckoning open road, especially when there’s nostalgia involved. And there’s no more iconic US highway than Route 66. After all, it officially opened in 1926 as a 2,400-mile road linking Chicago […]
You can whip between Kyoto and Hiroshima in less than two hours on the Shinkansen bullet train. But you’ll be passing on some pretty exciting places to visit between Kyoto and Hiroshima if you don’t […]