Where I Have Been and Stayed So Far

HAWAII

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii:

The Ramada Plaza Waikiki Honolulu, 1830 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu. Very nice! No complaints.

Hawaii The Big Island:

9th-floor condo with 2 balconies; Hilo Lagoon Center Apartments, 101 Aupuni Street, Hilo.

Home For The Hilo Days

My Hilo condo was swanky! I have this set of travel housing priorities which I try to fulfill if I can when traveling solo: not on the ground floor; definitely with a balcony. This hit that target, and then turned out to be rather incredibly nice, too. I was on the 9th floor, under the penthouse, and had 2 balconies. In my kitchen, I had all these really nice Kitchen Aid utensils and tools, and shiny steel pots and pans with clear lids. I had never thought to add “rubber-handled Kitchen Aid vegetable peeler that peels like a dream!” to my housing priorities. I did some fine cooking and vegetable-peeling in my swanky Hilo condo kitchen at the Hilo Lagoon Center Apartments: fresh-from-the-ocean mahi mahi with local greens; grass-fed beef from a local ranch; strawberry papayas and apple bananas for breakfast. I know, the fruit is kinda trippy here. There is even an ice-cream banana. If I wasn’t before, I am now way into bananas.

Volcano, Hawaii

After 12 wonderful days in Hilo, I got a rental car and drove to this rainforest village next to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I stayed here: Volcano Hale, 19-3950 Keonelehua Avenue, Volcano, HI 96785.

Volcano Hale (Volcano House) is a self-catering inn, a weird mash-up of an inn with shared spaces (kitchen, living room, dining room, 3 bathrooms) and 6 or 7 pretty spiffy bedrooms. There are no staff onsite, you check yourself in, and then you just keep meeting new people at the breakfast table. Here are pictures.

A rainforest, incidentally, is a weird mash-up of now it’s raining, and now it’s not. You can drive through a brief shower, turn the corner, and it’s sunny. One single drippy cloud might settle over just your street. On a stroll around the neighborhood, I walked through little patches of rain and out the other side into sunlight. Definitely bring the umbrella.

Naalehu, HI

Green Sands Oasis, 93-2073 Southpoint Rd, Naalehu, HI.

This was a wonderful find! It’s also self-catering, located on a rural orchard near some popular beaches on the Big Island: the Black Sand Beach, and the Green Sand Beach. I stayed one night. I had a small cabin-ish room, and my own bathroom next door, and there are 3 other guest rooms which all share another bathroom. But the super, wonderful, fabulous thing about the Green Sands Oasis is that it is all built around a giant, decorated lanai! Your room opens to a sheltered shared lounge with comfy furniture, an open-air kitchen with cooker and fridge, and some help-your-self, and-here-is-a-machete, bananas.

I managed to achieve some top-level lounging in this locale.

Kailua-Kona, HI

Now I am a beach bum in the beach bum town of Kona. Kona is along the west coast of Hawaii The Big Island, and here it is dry and sunny pretty much all of the time. I have a 2nd-floor studio in a condo place called Kona Islander: one main room with a mini-kitchen, bathroom, and a big balcony. My place overlooks the pool, grills, and hot tub, and at night, they light the Tiki torches. Cue: “Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open” https://youtu.be/rv__tQt-QFQ?si=gDpGpM1VXr6ERgKS (by John Hiatt; also covered by Jimmy Buffett). All I have to say is, Shaka Shaka Tie-dye.

Last night I floated in the pool and hot tub with guests from Sweden, Mexico, and Canada.

Coming next: Briefly back to Oahu in mid-January, and then to Seoul, South Korea.

Back to Oahu

I stayed for one night at the Pacific Marina Inn Airport Hotel, 2628 Waiwai Loop, Honolulu, Hawaii, Pacific Marina Inn | Hotel & Suites Near Honolulu Airport. It’s a basic motel near the Honolulu airport, but it is quite clean and safe, and has the Canoe Hut bar and excellent Lagoon Chinese Restaurant attached. The neighborhood is industrial, with some business across the street where semi-trucks go to load or unload, and the concrete arches of the unfinished Honolulu rail span most of the road overhead. But the staff are incredibly friendly, charming, and helpful. The place feels like a welcoming oasis in a somewhat forbidding part of town, with a pool, lovely plants everywhere, a firepit and outdoor tables. And they run a free airport shuttle 24/7, so you get whisked from and back to the airport, which is a money-saving bonus. They will get you to the airport in time for your flight to Seoul, South Korea.

SOUTH KOREA

Seoul, South Korea

I am back at the Zip Hotel in Seoul! I stayed here for three happy weeks this past summer. It is the grooviest. ZIP Hotel, Seoul – WebSite (southkrhotel.com) 32, Nambusunhwan-ro 224-gil, Gwanak-gu, Gwanak-Gu, 08788 Seoul.

The Zip Hotel is groovy because it has a Service Room which is open 24/7, with free water, coffee, ice cream, and popcorn, which I have come to think of as The Four Food Groups of Korea. And each room comes with a huge tray of free toiletries, about which my very first thought was: A drag queen would be happy here. Full-sized hair spray. Full-sized lotions, potions, creams, conditioner and ‘poo. A plaid Zip Hotel robe, and lots of slippers. It’s a high standard, and the Zip Hotel meets it. And some of the rooms are themed with decor reflecting the highest levels of cultural expression: Van Gogh, Vermeer, Captain America, Star Wars. I am sure there are more luxe places, but I do know the Zip has groovy down.

Every time my room here gets cleaned, I get more toiletries, whether they are needed or not. I am now up to 6 toothbrushes.

CHINA

Beijing, China

My younger brother Dan went to study and live in China many years ago, thoughtfully gaining fluency in Mandarin, and a rather spiffing 2-level apartment in the central part of Beijing, so that he could accommodate me as generous host and knowledgeable travel guide when I finally got around to coming for a visit.

So my hotel in Beijing was The House of Dan, with his two pianos and two cats. It is hard to say who was more ambivalent about me staying there: the pianos or the cats.

The cats, Big Kitty and Little Kitty, clearly Did Not Want To Know.

Dan contends that it is very easy to tell them apart. He points out their vastly different features, and their distinctly different voices. Dan, I may have neglected to mention, is a classical and jazz pianist, and has a sharply tuned ear for sound. My hearing possesses the delicacy of a jackhammer; all I ever heard were identical piercing wails when I got within 4 feet of a fluffy white cat.

But the apartment is quite wonderful. From his windows on the top floor of the building you can see the nearby skyscrapers of the downtown finance district, and an ancient tower set atop a surviving old wall of the early city.

Dan knows about the history of the country, the city, the neighborhoods, and many of the buildings. He provided a lively narration as I followed him around. I am so impressed with my younger brother! We had a fine time. Dan also stops frequently for coffee and snacks. This is one of my favorite things about my younger brother.

Suzhou, China

Suzhou is a city some 700 miles south of Beijing; it is now sort of attached to the vast conurbation of Shanghai, connected by the ever-stretching swathes of buildings in growing China. Dan and I took a high speed train there, which took about 5 hours each way.

The edges of Suzhou (it sounds like “Sujoh,” to my jackhammer ear at least) resemble modern China. But the center is an old white and black town built delicately on canals, with arching stone bridges to walk across, and many old walled gardens, some on the scale of large public parks, and some wrapped around an ancient residence of pagodas and rooms.

Nine of these gardens are now World Heritage sites, enclaves which preserve classical ideas of Chinese horticulture and landscaping. Each unique garden reflects and meditates on, in curated miniature, the textures, shapes, and beauty of nature.

The gardens have names; we went to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, a very large garden, and here is the Master of Net’s Garden, a tiny jewel of pond, stone, and trees.

We also walked miles through the pure charm of the small alleys and canals of the town center.

Nan Lin Hotel, 20 Gun Xiu Fang Shi Quan Street, Suzhou China.

We stayed at the Nan Lin Hotel in the center of Suzhou. It is a hotel Dan knows well, as he has visited Suzhou many times and stayed there. There are two buildings, and a pond and garden. In our rooms on the top floor we found different poems about nature written in gold letters over each bed.

I found the Nan Lin of Suzhou to be most satisfactory.

ITALY

Rome, Italy

I have come to Rome to get some work done! I have an appartamento for 2 months in Garbatella, which is a zona urbanistica towards the south of the city. Just three subway stops away is the Colosseum, should one quickly need to go rub shoulders with hordes of international tourists. Otherwise, one can wander to local cafes and ride one’s bicycle through this area’s parks and outdoor markets, and then discuss the neighborhood with the florists across the street.

My appartamento overlooks a main street, but it is surprisingly calm and peaceful here. And I have landed very near to my absolute favorite street name in the entire metropolis: Via Luigi Lasagna. Signor Lasagna was a bishop who mainly worked in Uruguay and Brazil in the late 1800s. And Signor Lasagna chose as his bishop motto, according to Wikipedia, “Sal agnis,” which means pieces of salt.

This appartamento oddly came with rather a lot of salt. When one lands in these high-turnover rental places, there is often a perplexing accumulation of things left by previous inhabitants, or perhaps overstocked by a distracted landlord. At any rate, my appartamento came with 3 large jars of salt, as well as 7 bottles of shampoo, 11 dining table chairs, a bottle of dog shampoo, and 4 different kinds of sugar. Clearly I need to make a lot of friends, cook savory as well as sweet things, and host a very large dinner party.

My office in Rome.

Places we stayed on the bike ride across Italy to San Severino

These were all 1-night apartment rentals, from online rental sites. Each slept 3, and had safe bike parking, a kitchen, and often a washing machine. One place came with optional cats; if invited, they would saunter in and sit on your bed and purr.

And I did not remember to take a single picture of any of these places. Not even the one where I took a very nice nap on a comfy bed with an optional cat.

So instead, here are pictures of the night sky over San Severino, from the very old tower on the hillside village of Pitino. They include the Aurora Borealis!

A few of us drove up the hill in a car one night from Artisa to see the stars, and noticed that the sky to the east was oddly tinted red. A long-exposure photograph on my phone more fully revealed the Northern Lights! (I learned how to take these sky pictures on that volcano in Hawaii.)

We had not expected to see the Northern Lights. Only later did we find out about the massive solar storms going on, and that for unusually vast sections of the earth the Aurora Borealis had become visible.

The night sky was just amazing to see, especially when one has been living in a brightly lit city which knocks out the star views.

The tower over Pitino, and the night sky over Le Marche.

You will just have to take my word for it that all the places we stayed while biking were very nice. Hot showers, clean clothes, comfy beds, and espresso in the morning, before we set off again on our bikes.

Bike-Touring Along the Adriatic Coast

I chose some hotels to stay at after I left the Artisa Writers’ Retreat in May. My hotel criteria were: View of The Ocean and Free Wifi. Apparently that is really all that I care about in an hotel.

I biked from Artisa to the Adriatic coast, a wonderful straight line through some lovely villages, with views on either side of hillside towns, finally arriving at the sea.

My destination was 30-something miles to the Hotel Brigantino in Porto Recanati. Hotel Brigantino | Hotel a Porto Recanati (brigantinohotel.it)

I simply had to find a walkway under the coastal railroad tracks, and there was the sea!

There was even a red carpet laid out.

Then I pointed the bike left and rode slowly along through the Italian seaside, past campgrounds, beachside dance clubs, bars, fish restaurants, cottages and condos, and playgrounds.

I finally reached my hotel, the Hotel Brigantino, which turned out to be a casual and lighthearted place. There were posters with beach-related quotations lining the walls.

The most intoxicating sea (mare)? The Mar-tini.

The Hotel Brigantino bills itself as being zero-distance from the sea. And they are really not kidding about that.

You fall asleep at the Hotel Brigantino to the windy crash of waves directly outside your window.

And from that seaside deck I had a nice but somewhat daunting view of the mountain looming between me and my next destination:

I was planning to bike up and over that, Monte Conero, to get to my next ocean-view hotel on the far side, in Portonovo: The Hotel Internazionale. Hotel 3 Stelle Portonovo Riviera del Conero Ancona | Hotel Internazionale (hotel-internazionale.com)

It was rather a lot of up to get there, but I biked almost all of it, and felt super proud.

Here is just some of the up, leaving the beach to head through the very vertical town of Numana.

I felt especially proud after a few hours when I’d reached the point where it was abundantly clear that I’d completed all of the up. All that remained was speeding down to the bay, below:

The Hotel Internazionale in Portonovo turned out to be swankier than I’d expected, and I spent a very nice couple of days breakfasting and dining at the Hotel, going for walks, and looking at the sea. Every room at the Hotel Internazionale has a view of the sea.

From the Hotel, I wandered down to the beach and ate an ice cream while sitting at the end of that pier in the picture.

Here is the view back to the Hotel Internazionale from the end of the pier:

Portonovo is a lovely and peaceful little place with not a lot going on. It is quite an ideal destination if what you seek is quietude and not a lot going on.

My final destination was the ancient seaside city of Ancona. This journey involved more uphill, even though I opted to try out a fairly new bike path which runs a lot of the way towards Ancona. I was headed to a self-catering Ancona B&B called Poeta al Mare — The Poet at the Sea. B&B Il Poeta sul Mare – … la casa è dove si trova il cuore …

I always think of bike paths as being relatively flat. But not this one — it turned out to have a lot of up to it, with slippy loose gravel surfaces. But the views were breathtaking and gorgeous.

The path skirts various farms, up and down along the edges of fields, occasionally heading up to cross a street before careening back down again. After an hour or so of slippy loose gravel, I decided to shift to a road route.

Here is Monte Conero from the road, way back in the distance, where I’d started from:

And here is Ancona in front of me, on a road going down to my destination:

Ancona! I’d found it!

The moment you find your destination is always a really good moment.

Ancona turned out to be very charming and interesting, with a port, where ferries sail tourists over to Croatia and Greece, a very old quarter, new sections, and a lot of history.

But finally, after a genuine bicycle adventure, it was time to hang up my bike and return to Rome on the train.

GREAT BRITAIN

That is a drawing of Great Ayton, Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, where I will be spending the summer. The village still looks a lot like this picture.

Great Ayton

I rented Bumble Cottage for the entire summer of 2024. It was a lot of firsts: first time staying in a village, first time in my own cottage, first time living in a dwelling named after a bug.

There are a few blog posts about Great Ayton and Bumble Cottage over in the blog department. If you can spare a summer to live in a cottage in a wee village in the North of England, you should give it some serious consideration.