TerriM
Step into Fat Harold’s Beach Club in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and you’ll know you’re in a special place For decades, Fat Harold’s has served as a gathering place for DJs, beach music lovers, and dancers, specifically, Shag dancers. With its smooth glide and intricate six-count footwork, the Carolina Shag became a defining symbol of Southern beach culture. But there’s more to the Shag story than the footwork. It’s a story that, despite segregation, centered around the Black community whose music and cultural innovation gave the dance its beloved rhythm and soul.
Built in 1782, Destrehan Plantation is the oldest documented plantation still surviving in the Mississippi River Valley. I visited this living history museum and loved that they recognized, not only the story of the owners, but also stories of the over 200 enslaved men, women, and children of West African descent who worked on the plantation.
While millions of passengers race through Sea-Tac each year, eyes fixed on departure screens and connection times, an entire destination hides in plain sight just beyond the terminal walls. Seattle Southside encompasses the communities of SeaTac, Des Moines, Tukwila, and Burien. Together, they offer a place where immigrant communities have built one of the most authentic international food scenes on the West Coast. Here, protected wetlands and botanical gardens thrive in the shadow of runways. And luxury lodges feel like wilderness retreats despite their proximity to baggage claim. It's a destination that rewards the curious traveler willing to resist the pull of downtown Seattle, at least for a day or two.
Visiting West Maui isn’t about racing from beach to beach — though Kapalua Bay, one of America’s best beaches, is a must-see. Here, time slows. Mornings drift over ocean views. Afternoons are spent connecting with locals, and evenings invite reflection under sunset skies. Staying longer uncovers the island's heartbeat — its families, crafts, and traditions — while thoughtful travel leaves a lasting mark on both visitors and the community.
For anyone planning travel with teenagers this year, before you brace yourself for the inevitable eye rolls or mutter phrases like “difficult stage” under your breath, here’s some good news. Traveling with teens can actually be great. It’s not without challenges. No matter how chill or laid-back your parenting (or grandparenting) style is, having carefully planned activities dismissed as “boring” or “mid” can sting. Still, when you treat teens like the almost-adults they are, they can be surprisingly good travel companions. They carry their own bags, keep track of their stuff (usually), help with grown-up logistics like navigation or public transit, and, on a good day, offer a fresh perspective that keeps us from getting too comfortable in our own way of seeing the world.
The Esplanade in Penang, Malaysia, is a historic seafront promenade that defines the character of the city's colonial past. A long granite seawall spans from the whitewashed Neo-Classical City Hall from one end to the cannon-bastioned Fort Cornwallis at the other.
The mural stopped me cold. Painted on the side of a shipping container in Des Moines, Washington, six doughnut-shaped discs hurled what looked like molten fire down upon a small boat in Puget Sound. A dog cowered. A man shielded his son. The sky burned with something that didn't belong there.
Fredericksburg, Virginia’s new Civil Rights Trail titled “Freedom, A Work in Progress,” offers unique insights into the area’s Black History. This free self-guided journey includes 21 stops around Fredericksburg and the University of Mary Washington. It traces African Americans’ fight for equality from the Civil War to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Columbia, Missouri, is a dynamic three-college town in the Midwest's rolling prairies. It baffles me that more holidaymakers don't take advantage of American college-town fun during their yearly four months of offseason calm.
Named for the 150 to 200-year-old Virginia live oak trees lining the path from the Mississippi River to the entrance of the plantation home, Oak Alley is a national landmark. Here you’ll hear the stories of some of the enslaved people who lived here, as well as the many owners over the years.
You get an invitation to stay free in a secluded forest cabin. Ecstatic, you pack, follow the instructions, and arrive at the cabin. From the outside, it looks like any other cabin that promises a homey stay. But as you enter, you become conscious of your every move. You tiptoe carefully, doing your best to keep the floor from creaking. Every word comes out of your mouth hushed down to a whisper. In the kitchen, your coffee mug slips from your cold hand, heading straight for the floor. But you are quick enough to snatch it just in time — tragedy averted. The setting is almost like the Hollywood hit A Quiet Place, except you are not dodging a human-snatching monster. What you are dealing with is a decibel meter tucked into a secret corner of the cabin, listening to every sound you make. Just when you think you have [...]
The legendary Rougarou roams the wetlands of Louisiana. A normal-looking person by day but by moonlight he becomes a terrifying werewolf. The ancient legend was brought to Louisiana by the French settlers and added to by the Acadian Canadians, today known as Cajuns, who were exiled from Canada in the 1750s.
