Perceptive Travel Blog

Need a Toilet? There’s an App for that

Liz Lewis — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:46:12 +0000

When you gotta go, you gotta go, right? But as all travelers know, just because you need to go doesn’t mean you know where to go. In the days of old, trying to find a toilet in a strange city was hit and miss, asking strangers for directions, praying that they lead you to a

Icon of the U.S. South: the bottle tree

Sheila Scarborough — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:19:12 +0000

I never met a bottle tree I didn’t like, and I keep sticking the bottles back onto my own backyard tree even though high winds regularly topple it over and send empty green wine, ginger ale and sweet vermouth bottles flying into a long-suffering nearby rose bush. Yesterday I stumbled on the Garden Cafe and

Traveling fiddles: Hanneke Cassel

Kerry Dexter — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:02:41 +0000

Boston to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Shanghai, in China, to New Zealand. India to Austria, Oregon to Germany to California to Kenya to Texas to Cape Breton: those a but a few of the places Hanneke Cassel has taken the music of her fiddle. Cassel grounds herself in the music of Scotland. Fiery

I Fondled a Bee Hive at the Waldorf

Alison J. Stein — Tue, 21 May 2013 11:17:11 +0000

If a bug lands on me, I’m just this side of hysterical at absolute best. I wrote that sentence last week in this space, and I thought of it a couple of days ago, when I was on the terrace of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan. This outdoor space had previously been unused, and now

New Zealand’s weird and wacky festivals

Liz Lewis — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:04:34 +0000

From gumboot throwing in Taihape and the ‘running of the sheep’ in Te Kuiti to Wellington’s Wearable Arts, Queenstown’s Birdman competition, and Oamaru’s Steampunk festival, there’s no shortage weird and wacky festivals around New Zealand showcasing the country’s unique sense of humor, understated eccentricities, and the infamous Kiwi ingenuity. Here’s my top four favorite weird