Beer, Llamas, and Hot Springs: Wyoming’s Weirdest Perfect Weekend
Travel, Food Drink Wellness Heide Brandes Travel, Food Drink Wellness Heide Brandes

Beer, Llamas, and Hot Springs: Wyoming’s Weirdest Perfect Weekend

BEER CONNOISSEUR - Three hours north of Cheyenne, Carbon County feels like the Wyoming that Jackson Hole left behind somewhere around 1985. No private jets. No $40 wagyu burgers. Just hot springs that actually heal you, llamas that carry your gear into the wilderness, and a brewery housed in a resort that might be the most accidentally perfect weekend destination I’ve stumbled across in a while.

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Portugal’s Madeira Island Is Europe’s Most Unexpected Tourism Success
Travel, Food Drink Wellness Heide Brandes Travel, Food Drink Wellness Heide Brandes

Portugal’s Madeira Island Is Europe’s Most Unexpected Tourism Success

EAST WEST NEWS - That clerk had just provided the first lesson about Madeira. The island everyone thinks they understand turns out to be something entirely different. While cruise passengers cluster around Monte Palace cable cars, this Portuguese island 600 miles off the coast of Morocco has been quietly rewriting European tourism without anyone noticing until the numbers became impossible to ignore.

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Smoke and Spirit: The Ariston’s Paul Pearse Shares Pairings That Ignite the Senses
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Smoke and Spirit: The Ariston’s Paul Pearse Shares Pairings That Ignite the Senses

BOURBON + - The afternoon light filtered through the windows of The Ariston in downtown Nashville as Paul Pearse settled into one of the leather chairs in the smoking lounge. Around him, the low hum of conversation mixed with the rich aroma of premium tobacco. A businessman in a tailored suit sat next to a contractor in work boots, both leaning back with cigars in hand, laughing about the game on Sunday. This was exactly the kind of scene Pearse had envisioned when he opened the high-end cigar bar two years ago.

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Inside the caves and domes of Texas' most stunning destination resort
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Inside the caves and domes of Texas' most stunning destination resort

THE CHRON - Strategically positioned between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, The Summit sits just 18 minutes from the quirky artsy ghost town of Terlingua, where old mining ruins mix with contemporary galleries, and the legendary Starlight Theatre serves live music under desert stars. Big Bend National Park, encompassing more than 800,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert wilderness, offers some of the most remote and rugged landscapes in the continental United States.

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South of Houston, find a wildflower wonderland rivaling Hill Country
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South of Houston, find a wildflower wonderland rivaling Hill Country

THE CHRON - Just 30 minutes south of Houston, the charming city of Alvin is quickly becoming Southeast Texas’ secret for experiencing Texas wildflowers without the Hill Country crowds. Part of the reason is HarBet Lodge, a 200-acre family ranch that opened to guests just two years ago. HarBet offers front-row seats to sprawling fields of golden blooms and scattered bluebonnets that transform the landscape into a photographer's dream.

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A Trail Runs Through It
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A Trail Runs Through It

OUTDOOR X 4 - On a similar fall morning in September, my adventure buddy Lyle and I stood at that same spot where hundreds of thousands of emigrants traveling the California Trail through Idaho saw their first glimpse of City of Rocks National Preserve. After miles of flat plains with mountains smoky in the distance, to go over a hill to see a landscape of weird, towering rocks and formations had to have been mind blowing. It certainly was for us.

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Head north from Texas to this new $400 million resort destination
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Head north from Texas to this new $400 million resort destination

THE CHRON - When travelers think of a beach vacationwith swim-up bars and real sand between the toes, Oklahoma City probably isn't the first destination that comes to mind. That's about to change with the Feb. 21 opening of OKANA Resort & Indoor Waterpark, a $400 million development from the Chickasaw Nation that's bringing a slice of coastal luxury to the Southern Plains.

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