June 29, 2016 by Laura Bly

Bombing leaves Turkey tourism on the brink

Two days before our Princess cruise ship was scheduled to call at Istanbul last month, a terrorist car bomb killed 11 people near a popular subway stop in the city center. Amid both reassurances about stepped-up security and fears of new attacks, the ship docked as planned – but with hundreds of skittish passengers opting to stay on board.

I wasn’t among them. Lured onto the cruise by a last-minute, rock-bottom fare at a time when Eastern Mediterranean sales were slumping, I was thrilled to be back in Turkey’s largest and most cosmopolitan city for my first visit in three decades. My husband and I strolled almost alone through the ethereal Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia, devoured lamb kebabs and honey-drenched baklava from a balcony overlooking the Bosphorus, and made immediate plans to return.

Two weeks later, after a fabulous time in Istanbul and the otherworldly landscape of central Turkey’s Cappadocia, we flew to Italy and were greeted by the horrific news that at least 41 people had died in a shooting and suicide bombing at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, one of the world’s busiest. It was the fifth attack in Istanbul this year, and will undoubtedly be the death knell for a national tourism industry already battered by massive defections from international visitors. Turkey welcomed a record 37 million people in 2014, but by some accounts arrivals had already been down by close to 90% this year, particularly from Russia, Western Europe and the United States.

Yet even as we fielded anxious queries about our proximity to the carnage, I couldn’t stop thinking about the warm hospitality we’d encountered throughout our stay. Despite a visible security presence in Istanbul (where we saw police gathering to prevent a planned gay pride parade) and in the relative backwater of Cappadocia (where the underside of our rental car was checked with mirrors as we entered the airport parking lot), we never feared for our safety.

I remember a restaurant owner in the shadow of Istanbul’s medieval Galata Tower, the most famous landmark in a once-buzzing tourist neighborhood known for its tolerance and confluence of cultures, practically begging us to stay for dinner and telling us he would probably have to close because business had shriveled ever since a March suicide bombing on nearby Istiklal Street. The next evening we took an almost-empty elevator to the top of the tower, snapping photos at sunset and listening to the amplified calls to prayer as lights twinkled between the minarets of mosques and families gathered at the shores of the Bosphorus to break their daily fasts with picnics during Ramadan (called Ramazan in Turkey).

I recall, too, the kind family we met in a small Cappadocian village we’d stumbled into on our way to an ancient Silk Road caravanserai, a traditional refuge for travelers. We spoke no Turkish; they almost no English. But we were welcomed into their home and offered refreshing glasses of ayran, the national drink made with yogurt, water and salt. And when we said we were from America, their already broad smiles got even bigger…a potent reminder that in an age where “Muslim” is too often synonymous with “terrorist,” humanity trumps hate.

On one of our last days in Cappadocia, after taking a discounted hot-air balloon ride over a forest of fairytale chimneys and spires carved from volcanic rock, we drove to a valley famous for its Byzantine churches. We stopped for lunch at an open-air restaurant, with rows of empty picnic tables lined up under a canopy of shade trees.

When he opened two years ago, the owner told us, he’d typically serve more than 200 tourists a day. Now, we were his only customers – a scenario repeated often during our two-week stay.

“Inshallah,” he told us then, “times will be getting better soon.”

It’s a prayer for Turkey – and for the rest of the world, as well.

October 24, 2014 by Laura Bly

Travel in the age of “Fearbola”

While U.S. headlines were trumpeting the growing hysteria over the country’s first Ebola diagnosis in Dallas, I was kicking back at a resort in southern Ethiopia – where my only medical concern was a nasty crop of chigger bites, courtesy of a bush walk to view zebras in spectacular Nechasar National Park.

From that Ebola-free vantage point thousands of miles from the current outbreak in West Africa, the fear and furor back home seemed both surreal and irrational.

It still does, despite today’s news that a New York City doctor has tested positive for the disease following his return from treating patients in Guinea.

Given that many geographically challenged travelers think of Africa as a single country rather than a continent bigger than North America and Europe combined, I’m not surprised that safari operators as far away as Kenya and South Africa are logging massive cancellations. And the timing for Ethiopia, a remarkably diverse destination I visited as part of a new government campaign to boost tourism, couldn’t be worse.

But a poor grasp of distance in Africa doesn’t explain why nearly half of Americans in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were so concerned about contracting Ebola – a virus spread only through close contact with a victim’s bodily fluids – that they were avoiding all international air travel.

It doesn’t account for Mexico’s refusal last week to let a Carnival cruise ship dock because a Dallas lab supervisor was on board – even though she’d had no direct contact with the victim who died at her hospital, had voluntarily confined herself to her cabin, and had been declared by ship physicians to be symptom-free and in good health.

And it certainly doesn’t justify the sign in a Boston hair salon telling would-be customers that if they’ve traveled “anywhere near West Africa in the past month please advise us before services are rendered.”

Today, New York officials are scrambling to reassure residents and visitors that they needn’t worry in the wake of Thursday’s diagnosis. Gov. Andrew Cuomo reportedly plans to ride the three city subway lines that Dr. Craig Spencer, who works with the aid group Doctors Without Borders, took after his return from Guinea.

“I understand the fear that comes now from that word, Ebola, and it is scary – there’s no doubt about that,” Cuomo told CNN. “But a little dose of reality also: This is not transmitted like the flu is transmitted or a common cold or a common virus.”

I’m now happily ensconced in San Miguel de Allende, a vibrant colonial town that, like the rest of Mexico, saw tourism plummet when the far more contagious H1N1 influenza became a pandemic in 2009. I’ll be among the first in line at my local pharmacy to get an annual flu shot when supplies arrive here later this month, and I’m taking the same health precautions I do anywhere else in the world: Wash my hands more frequently during flu season, drink filtered water and avoid questionable street food.

But when I join the throngs for next week’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a raucous and joyous celebration of life and death, Ebola will be the furthest thing from my mind.

July 11, 2014 by Laura Bly

Lessons, highlights from a month on the road

It’s been one month since we sold our home and most of our belongings and hit the road. Fifteen states, 10 hotels, five friends’ houses, two Airbnb rentals and nearly 4,000 miles later, we’re still happily married (thanks, Siri!) and looking forward to more adventures. A few highlights:

–Priceline and Hotwire rock. I’ve always been a fan of “opaque” sites that promise hefty discounts in exchange for keeping the hotel name secret until after you book, and they’ve been a godsend for our frequently last-minute stays. Two examples: Priceline’s $118 Express Deal for Fourth of July at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan (definitely not four-star as advertised, but we sweet-talked the front desk clerk into a room upgrade) and $71 on Hotwire for the three-star but should have been four-star Stonewall Jackson Hotel in lovely little Staunton, Virginia, just south of Shenandoah National Park.

–Florida is more than beaches, mouse ears and alligators. One of our favorite afternoons was spent kayaking the spring-fed, crystal-clear Weeki Wachee River south of Gainesville – where the evening’s entertainment consisted of watching thousands of bats swoop out of their campus digs over a nearby lake.
Going batty at the University of Florida, Gainesville

–Airbnb has morphed far beyond its hipster urban roots. Though the fast-growing, peer-to-peer lodging service is drawing the ire of hoteliers and tax collectors in major cities like New York and San Francisco, we’ve had great experiences (and cheaper-than-Priceline rates) in rural East Haddam, Connecticut and Tenants Harbor, Maine.

–Thanks to Yelp, we’ve never had to settle for a meal at a chain restaurant. We’ve used several food apps and review sites, from Urbanspoon to IExit, but keep coming back to Yelp for its breadth of reviews and ability to narrow choices based on map view. Two of our favorite finds: the Blue Oar, a BYO, bring-your-own-picnic-basket place overlooking the Connecticut River in Haddam, Connecticut, and Bruce’s Fabulous Foods. Located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Marion, North Carolina, the diner offered a perfect combination of healthier fare (roasted beet and jalapeño hummus) and gut-busting cheesecakes…130 varieties.

–No matter how little you pack, it’s always too much. We were feeling pretty smug by paring down our clothing and electronics to that which could fit into two 32-inch suitcase/duffels, two lightweight carryons and two backpacks. But when we needed to consolidate warm and cold weather gear for an upcoming sail on the schooner Mary Day out of Camden, Maine, I realized how few items we’d actually worn over the past four weeks. As long as we have easy access to a washer and dryer (another reason for booking Airbnb or vacation rentals), we could jettison a third of what we’d assumed was essential.

September 11, 2013 by Laura Bly

A sentimental journey to Wisconsin’s Door County

According to Celtic legend, the ravens that nest among the limestone cliffs in northeastern Wisconsin’s Door County are messengers of death, able to bridge the unseen world that separates the living and the departed.

But last week, as my husband and his family carried his sister Liz’ ashes beneath a canopy of beech, maple and aspen trees only hinting of the autumn kaleidoscope to come, I realized that Door County itself had become a connection – and a balm for those Liz left behind.

Growing up in Wisconsin’s lake-studded capital of Madison, I’d dismissed the pinky-shaped peninsula that juts between Green Bay and Lake Michigan as an overcrowded, overhyped refuge for scenery-challenged Chicagoans. And while I returned to the Badger state often over the years, the “Cape Cod of the Midwest” never lost its tourist trap stigma.

Liz, however, viewed Door County as a haven in which she could celebrate her lifelong affinity for nature. She and her husband, and later their two sons, would make the three-hour drive from suburban Milwaukee during late fall or winter. They’d book a Mom and Pop lodging (deeply discounted from their midsummer peak) in a congenial small town like Sister Bay or Ephraim, and hike or cross-country ski the nearly empty trails of Peninsula State Park, one of the state’s most popular.

It was there, beneath the gnarled arms of a particularly glorious maple, that Liz once spoke of returning for a final visit. And so, on a sun-dappled weekend in early September, we headed north to honor her and the destination she’d come to love.

We rented a house near the tip of the 70-mile-long peninsula, where we swam in the clear, bracing-but-bearable waters of Green Bay and bundled up to watch the Milky Way wheel above a stand of pines. We clambered to the top of a 75-foot tower overlooking islands where sailboats huddled in snug coves, and passed fields of cherry trees whose fruits wind up in everything from summer sausage to microbrews.

We stopped at the Door County Bakery for a slab of Corsica Loaf, a bread baked in olive oil that was one of Liz’s favorites, and scarfed fried cheese curds and scrumptious perch at another pick, a supper club and six-lane bowling alley dubbed the Sister Bay Bowl. We even embraced our inner tourists with a traditional Scandinavian fish boil, where a cauldron of potatoes and Lake Michigan whitefish is theatrically cooked over an open wood fire.

Liz, I’d like to think, was there for all of it – including our pilgrimage along the Sentinel Trail. Despite the Indian summer weather, we were alone as we headed for the clearing she’d discovered and made her own years before. Through tears and smiles, I shared her joy for a place I’d wrongfully ignored – and to which I’m already dreaming of returning.

August 30, 2013 by Laura Bly

On the road

Like millions of other travelers, I’m celebrating the end of summer by hitting the road, bound for a windjammer festival in Camden, Maine before an extended jaunt through the Canadian Maritimes.

And with the first night and nearly 500 miles under my seatbelt, I’m also celebrating the ways technology has transformed the road trip.

The paper TripTiks I remembered from my childhood station wagon days were useful, but audible, turn-by-turn directions that incorporate detours based on realtime traffic jams are much better (and yes, Apple’s map guru even knows that “Worcester” is pronounced “Wooster”).

We could track the cheapest places to fill up via Gas Buddy, check the interstate driving forecast on Weather.com and trade paper guidebooks for TripAdvisor and Kindle.

Thanks to bidding on the fly via Priceline, we scored a last-minute, 60% discount on a Courtyard by Marriott in Lowell, Mass. and toasted our success with Mai Tais and saki at Feng Shui, a nearby Asian fusion place we’d never have known about without Yelp’s help.

Of course, high-tech does have its limits. It was getting dark by the time we pulled off I-495 for our Courtyard by Marriott, and the iPad’s erstwhile reliable map deposited us at the local Lowe’s instead. A quick call to the hotel front desk steered us in the right direction – and reminded us that humans can still trump on-the-road wizardry.

June 10, 2013 by Laura Bly

Life on the edge: Strolling 116 stories above Toronto

I’m an adrenaline junkie. Always have been.

A front row seat on the word’s fastest and steepest wooden roller coaster? You bet. Hang-glding over the beaches of Rio? Check. Skydiving and communing with great white sharks in South Africa? No big deal. With all this under my belt, walking on a five-foot-wide railing around the outside of a tower 116 stories above Toronto shouldn’t rattle me a bit.

Or so I thought.

Now in its third season,the EdgeWalk at CN Tower offers thrill-seekers the ultimate sightseeing tour of Canada’s largest city from one of the world’s tallest free-standing structures. My first reaction: “Let’s do it!”

Once I’ve signed a voluminous waiver confirming, among other things, that I don’t have any broken bones and haven’t had surgery in the past six months, I climb into a prison-like, bright red jumpsuit and harness and lace up a pair of no-slip tennis shoes. So far, so good. But after removing all jewelry, being swabbed for explosives, and administered a breathalyzer test (good thing I’d nixed that mimosa), my bravado is as shallow as my rapidly increasing breaths.

Shuffling out to the platform on a dazzling spring day, I cling to my industrial-strength safety cable clipped to an overhead steel beam. And when, in typical Canadian fashion, our tour guide reminds us to be considerate and avoid spitting over the edge, I glance at one of my comrades and read his mind before he can say it: “My mouth is too dry for spit!”

We’ll be strolling at 1,168 feet atop the main pod’s 360 Restaurant – still about a football field below the tower’s SkyPod observation deck, but high enough to give this veteran skydiver the heebie jeebies. And I’m not alone: Many EdgeWalkers who’ve already stepped out of a perfectly good airplane at 10,000 feet say this experience is scarier, presumably because we have more time to contemplate our bravery…or folly.

With a bit of “you can do this” coaching, however, our band of six adventurers dutifully line up for a round of “toes over Toronto” and “butts over Toronto.” The safety briefings and seemingly endless equipment checks pay off; within a few minutes, our death grips ease and we’re so confident in our umbilical cords that we not only admire the bird’s eye view of a futuristic city hall but crack jokes about the mayor’s suspected dope smoking.

Then, as mist from Niagara Falls glints nearly 80 miles across Lake Ontario and planes swoop in for landings at the city airport below me, I lean over the edge and reach for the clouds. And, for a few glorious minutes, I really am “the king of the world.”

Details:

The EdgeWalk experience, which lasts 90 minutes including walking time of about 20 to 30 minutes, runs May through October and costs $175 plus tax per person (I was a guest of the CN Tower). Participants must be 13 or older and weigh at least 75 pounds; the walks operate rain or shine, except during high winds or lightning storms.

Tempted, but worried you’ll lose your nerve once you step outside? Of more than 32,000 people who’ve signed up for the tour, I was told that only about a dozen have chickened out – perhaps because tickets (which include a video, two printed photos and re-entry to the tower) are nonrefundable.