Chicago. The Windy City. One of my personal favorite cities in the country, if not the world. For a little over a year, my former life in the nonprofit world had me in Chicago for a week every month, and I never dreaded those trips. It is a beautiful city of largely wonderful people, and…
Visitors to Oakhurst, California, just outside the south entrance of Yosemite, find a town of 15,000 or so ready to cater to tourists and the lovers of the outdoors. Hotels, restaurants, shops, and supply stores line the streets, all frequented by people eager to see the area. In 1849, at the start of California’s gold…
Editor’s note: another soul searching piece for me from Sam, our traveling rabbi. Powerful, emotional, Sam captures the essence of a place I haven’t had the guts to visit. For more of his work here at The Royal Tour, click here to visit his index. On January 27, I wrote an article on visiting Auschwitz…
Nestled in the mountains between the trendy neighborhood of Los Feliz and the San Fernando Valley communities of Glendale and Burbank lies Griffith Park, a Los Angeles wonder. At more than 4,000 acres, it is one of the largest city parks in the country (more than five times the size of Central Park in New…
As the old song says, Istanbul was Constantinople. (It was also Byzantium, but our story begins a couple centuries after this first - and less famous - name change.) Few remnants remain in Turkey's largest city from this earlier period. There are ancient cisterns that helped sustain the city through numerous sieges, and some wall…
The day was rainy, not really a surprise for October in England, and puddles seemed to dominate the small Suffolk roads. Fields lined the sides of the roads, doing their best to funnel the water back into the path of the sparse traffic, or at least so it seemed to my eyes, and I was…
Editor's note: I met Mandy on my first full day in Marseille, and believe you me, she is an awesome tour guide. That's why I'm so excited she wrote up this walking tour of Marseille for all of us, complete with a Google maps link to keep track! For all of her articles on The…
It's a beautiful morning at Pasadena's historic Rose Bowl stadium. It's hard to measure the excitement in the air, but here in my car, it is indeed palpable. I'm here to live out one of my childhood fantasies. For many who come to this storied place, such a fantasy would be scoring the winning touchdown…
Editor's note: getting off the beaten path can lead to some amazing experiences, like this trip to Serbia by writer Sam Spector. When I was in Belgrade ten years ago, I remember thinking that it was going to be a hot destination, but wasn't quite there yet. I'm glad to see it made it! For…
If there are two things I am a sucker for when I travel, they are history and free activities. When you add Covid into the mix, outdoor, easily social distanced becomes a perk as well. So when I visited San Jose, I searched for a place that would accomplish all three. Lo and behold, such…