Articles
Houmas House sits gracefully along a bend of the Mississippi River, on land once inhabited by the Houmas Indians. Over thousands of years, the river shaped this area with fertile soil, transforming it into one of the South’s most productive agricultural regions. By the late 1700s, European settlers recognized the land’s potential. They began transforming it into a thriving plantation, launching an era of sugarcane farming that would become central to the property’s history.
Baguio is a mountain town located on the pine-dotted plateau of the Cordillera Administrative Region in northern Luzon, Philippines. I took a weekend jaunt to Baguio from Manila. After nearly six hours northbound, the bus started ascending through the mountain loops. Outside my bus window, the sun-drenched plains reeled away into ranks of tapering pines, and the sweltering heat dissipated into cooler mountain air.
Small-town charm with an internationally-acclaimed theatre scene — you've got it all in Stratford, Ontario. This historic town is the birthplace of many Canadian greats (from pop icon Justin Bieber to actress Sheila McCarthy and musician Ron Sexsmith, to name a few) and the host of the beloved Shakespeare Festival, which has been attracting audiences to the town for over 70 years.
As a chaser of the “I’ve been to all 50 states” status, South Dakota has long been on my bucket list. When the chance to visit Rapid City popped up, I was thrilled to check off another state—number 43—and finally see Mount Rushmore, that classic slice of Americana. I typically road-trip with my teenagers during their summer break, so I dove into planning mode: spreadsheets, snacks, playlists. Then came the bombshell: one kid’s tennis camp overlapped, and the other declared my idea “lame.” (Teenagers, right?)
In the past few years, the term "immersive art experience" has been applied a bit too liberally, to abandoned convention centers and malls with famous artists' work projected onto blank walls. Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet all got this special treatment, where visitors could walk amongst the moving images, popularized after appearing in a 2020 Netflix series. You couldn’t open Instagram without seeing people you knew posing in front of one of the works around the United States. But art isn’t just meant to be seen. It is also meant to be experienced, felt, and participated in. One gallery in particular has inspired a wave of others.
Acclaimed Argentine author and poet Jorge Luis Borges once wrote, “Hard to believe Buenos Aires had any beginning. I feel it to be as eternal as air and water.” Buenos Aires has a rich history and architectural heritage for a relatively young capital with an ancient soul. And the best way to discover the soul of the city is to take long, leisurely walks.
Every inch of Australia is written in song. Songs track lines along the continent, with every jutting rock or bowing tree being represented by a line or a verse. The cadence, the rhythm, and the musical patterns that define the song are a mimicry of the feet of Australia’s ancestors, of the first feet to walk along the land.
Welcome to South Africa, the country with too many names! The list is long, but some of the most notable options include the Republic of South Africa, my absolute favourite country, Mzansi, and the rainbow nation.
Six and a half million acres. That’s the size of Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, one of the most ancient and biodiverse places ever documented and the last place on Earth where Sumatran rhinos, tigers, elephants, orangutans, and sun bears roam freely together.
A new kind of volunteer tourism has entered the travel industry with an innovative approach; Volungearing, conceived by TribesForGOOD, taps an individual’s skills to pair him or her successfully in the social impact sector.
