HILLS NEWSPAPERS: April 28, 2011

It’s time for some travel trivia as we head toward summer. What Texas icon is having a big birthday this year? No, it’s not T. Boone Pickens or George W. Bush.

Remember the Alamo? This year marks the 175th anniversary of the most famous fight in Texas history — the 13-day Battle of the Alamo. One hundred eighty-nine people lost their lives in this epic encounter, including heroes such as Davey Crockett and James Bowie. When the smoke cleared, Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s Mexican army had won. Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: April 15, 2011

Everything I’ve ever known about Montana can be summed up in three words — college, cowboys and the Crystal Bar.

The Crystal, mind you, is not just any old watering hole. In my days at Montana State University, it was a beer-chugging, chaw-spittin,’ country dive bar where the jukebox blasted from sunup till last call.

I was the “Queen of the Crystalizers,” a title immortalized on a brass plaque bolted to the brick wall near the pool cues. That plaque was my birthday present back in 1976, when my friends thought I needed something to show my children some day. Continue reading →

CONTRACOSTATIMES.COM: April 1, 2011

Showing affection on the dance floor isn’t really my style. I’ve seen couples sway in an ardent embrace as their feet move in sync to the beat. That’s not me. It hasn’t been me for a long time.

But on a dark coastal night when the surf seemed to surge through my veins, I have to admit I got amorous. Bodies bumping, arms akimbo, my husband and I danced like the ship was going down — in a bar on the coast of Pacifica. Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: March 4, 2011

Three little letters are changing the way we travel. Around the world, “apps” are helping tourists navigate the most interesting and exotic locales.

Take Berkeley, for instance. Exotic doesn’t begin to describe this unique destination, which now has its own iPhone, iPad and iTouch application, thanks to 30-year resident Lee Foster. Foster is a decorated travel journalist with 10 books, four apps and 200 worldwide articles and photo subjects on his website at www.fostertravel.com. For just $2.99, you can download his Berkeley Essential Guide on the Apple iTunes App Store and be ready to see our famous East Bay neighbor in a different light. Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: February 18, 2011

SMC Travel Writing students at Point Montara Lighthouse and Hostel

When I was a young mother, I often wondered what it would be like to raise a large family. I mean a big “Jon and Kate plus eight” kind of family, or a brood akin to the kids living with the old woman in the shoe.

After teaching a semester of travel writing to 24 Saint Mary’s College students, I have a pretty clear picture of what this would be like.

“You’re taking them all on a road trip EACH WEEK?” asked a colleague in disbelief. She makes her living leading press trips for journalists and never takes more than a handful of writers — and they’re all adults.

I, on the other hand, would be leading four half-day trips with no one to help but the bus driver, who, of course, had no obligation beyond drop-offs and pickups. Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: February 4, 2011

First impressions can be deceiving. Take Long Beach, for instance. Twenty-some years ago I came here with my parents and husband. We toured the Queen Mary and went back to our hotel. We left the next day thinking, “Is that all there is?” Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: January 7, 2011

It’s one of the most popular national parks in the country, ranked only behind the Grand Canyon and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Yet Yosemite in winter offers such solitude, you feel virtually alone. This is the season of opportunity to bond silently with nature, to take in the awesome splendor that John Muir and Ansel Adams breathed into their very souls.

It’s also a time for great adventure, as I found when I signed up for a 10.5 mile cross country ski trip from Badger Pass to Glacier Point. It was a test of endurance — in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Continue reading →

Travel editor Don George

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: November 26, 2010

Rooster head soup, slow cooked bat, baked turtle lung, sheep’s eyeballs. If the days after Thanksgiving have you tired of turkey – think outside the roasting pan. There are people around the world, at this very moment, dining on delicacies you never dreamed were – ah – edible.

Piedmont-based travel writer Don George knows better than most. He just finished editing his fourth in a series of books for Lonely Planet called A Moveable Feast. Life-changing Food Adventures Around the World. Continue reading →

HILLS NEWSPAPERS: November 12, 2010

Nothing goes together like late fall and football. Throw in a ticket to a Southeast Conference game and you’ve got a trip that’s the envy of every red-blooded football fan in America.

In the two-plus years that my daughter has attended the University of Georgia, I’ve never been to a Bulldog game. So on a brilliant fall day when the Bay Area was flirting with record highs, I flew to Athens and was greeted with freezing rain. Call me crazy, but that’s the way weather is supposed to be in early November – cold enough to see your breath.

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