Figuring out where to stay and what sights to see can be the easiest part of planning a trip.  Finding a great restaurant or cool, casual bar can be a bit trickier.  It strikes you when you least expect it, but when you’re hungry— you’re usually starving and can’t wait until you hop a subway, hail a cab or walk ten blocks to get to that “great Italian place that is on such and such street”.  My advice— coordinate these types of places on your phone with the neighborhood they are in, that way where ever you are— pull out the list and you’ll have a great place to go. Here’s our friend’s picks of the best of the best to fill you up.

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I don’t know when or why I decided not to be the type of person who uses credit cards, but I know I was young and I think it had something to do with my Grandmother.  See, I was the type of kid that grew into the type of adult who doesn’t listen to everything I’m supposed to, but certain things can stick in my head for so long that they become ingrained in me.  I can’t think of my Grandmother without thinking of her distrust for credit cards, and I can only imagine this rubbed off on me.  Whatever the exact reason the reason for making my choice was, I have now become this person who only recently used a credit card for the first time and has anxiety attacks each month in the days leading up to receiving the bill.  However, credit cards are only a symptom of a problem, which is ultimately my biggest fear, debt.

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Tomorrow I will be driving.  I will be in traffic, spending a large amount of my day eaking down the freeway, but, before I begin to flip endlessly through my radio presets, I will collect my thoughts.  Before it’s frustrating, it’s calming.  This time is my time, time to prepare for where I am going, focus, and think only of me.  I am on the road with thousands of others, but it’s private (that’s why people don’t think twice about picking their nose).

I may be in Los Angeles, but I could take this time to myself anywhere.  Driving is nearly universal; it’s the same here as it is in Nashville, as in Tallahassee, and Seattle, and around the world.  In almost any city, I can get behind the wheel of a car and zone out as I let my body almost routinely press the pedals and turn the wheel, driving . To me there is a serenity in knowing that I can travel, and, yet behind the wheel, a piece of home is with me; except in NYC.

I have traveled a lot in my life, and I’m very comfortable in strange and foreign cities.  Yet, whenever I visit New York City, I feel devoured by it; my thoughts get jumbled, I get anxious, and I race from place to place.   New York City is one of the few cities that demands you play by its rules and keeps the home field advantage.

If roads are the veins of America, then the NYC Metro would be the great throat I’m forced down along with everyone else above and below my income tax bracket. There is no rest in New York, every bit of the day is shared and foreign.
I love New York, and am considering moving there, but it’s an exhausting city. Even passing through it leaves it’s mark, and it leaves me wanting my me time.  Perhaps this is the same but in reverse for people who grew up in NYC.  Do they feel odd behind the wheel of a car?

Someone recently asked me how long I had been interested in travel. I quickly answered, “forever” not really thinking much else about it. A few days later I thought back on the question and really tried to think about what fueled my love for traveling.

I started thinking about some of my favorite movies as a kid. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Swiss Family Robinson and Pippi Longstocking are a few that immediately came to mind and all have many similarities. Through exploration, discovery, and imagination the movies take the viewer to worlds they’ve never seen before and you get to travel with the characters. I watched these movies over and over again as a kid and still remember my favorite scenes from all of them. Who wouldn’t want to make a helicopter using two brooms tied together and bicycles? Or build a huge tree house on a deserted island? Or, best yet, explore the underwater world using your bed as your submarine?

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