I've been coming to Palm Springs since I was a little kid. My grandparents bought a small condo here, in Palm Desert, when the area was mostly just country clubs, resorts, and sprawling date farms. Driving with them as we went out to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, even major roads would pass…
Editor's note: I always look forward to Sam's articles. Normally about places I haven't seen yet - I've barely scratched the surface of Thailand on a cruise - he expertly describes the experiences he has had and the emotions evoked by them. For more of his writing, click here. Also, to help support what we…
The smell wafts through the air, permeating even the car I'm driving. Garlic. Fresh garlic growing all over. This is Gilroy, California, and the smell greets visitors like an old friend. Warm, familiar, emotional. That is garlic for me, and a sure sign I've arrived in the city known as the Garlic Capitol of the…
Time is a funny thing. It seems both like only yesterday and like forever ago that I was living in Lisbon. Way back in January, before Covid was a thing, I spent a month in this amazing country, and a gift of a lovely bottle of port from my father gave us the excuse to…
It's hard to believe this used to be a dump. I am in Alviso, California, the northernmost spit of land attached to San Jose before the southernmost tip of the San Francisco Bay. The morning has started off cool, the marine layer (Bay speak for fog) in over my head, but signs of it clearing…
Editor's note: What a magical story by Sam Spector, the wandering rabbi. For more of his writing, click here to visit his index. And if you enjoy it, please help support The Royal Tour via our Patreon page. In case you are not aware, September and October are the months when rabbis reconsider all their…
The role of apples in societal lore is well documented. From the snake in the Garden of Eden encouraging Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge what has come to be thought of as an apple to Johnny Appleseed and his pot hat spreading seeds all over America to my own Jewish tradition of…
It is hot here on an early October day, made more so by the need to wear my mask when other people are around, which many are since it's a Saturday morning and Covid has closed all but one parking area here on the east side of Pinnacles National Park. We are about ninety minutes…
This fall, I was vaguely planning a trip back to Thailand. I was there several years ago, part of a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong, spending two days in Bangkok and a day on Koh Samui. That introduction was enough to tell me I wanted to go back. And then Covid happened and all…
Editor's note: another fun story from Christian Grand, our national park-obsessed writer! To read more of his work, click here. Over the course of my lifetime, I intend to visit every national park. I hope you’ll forgive me, however, when I tell you that this article isn’t about a national park. My intentions to drive…