Travel

Tourism on the Cheap: Bad-Times Bargains

By:

Lauren Kramer, JE Feature

As the economic recession lingers -- and forecasts look bleak well into the months ahead -- many of us need a vacation from our real lives more than ever before. Of course, this is also a time when you want your dollar to work extra hard for you. So how do you travel in a recession, and where can you...

Travel

Taking in Tu B'Shevat in a ... Tree House?

For that 'Top of the World' feeling in Vancouver

By:

Lauren Kramer, JE Feature

I'm celebrating Tu B'Shevat -- long known as the festival of the trees, beginning this year on Feb. 9 -- in a tree house for grownups, spending the night in what looks like a large eyeball, suspended, spider-like, from old trees on Vancouver Island. In fact, they're called spheres -- the brainchild of Tom Chudleigh, an islander bent on creating...

Travel

Whoosh! The Sound of Popularity on Fine Powder

Last year marked a record-setting ski season for American resorts with 60.5 million skier visits, according to the National Ski Areas Association. This year, many ski enthusiasts are faced with tighter budgets and new economic challenges that have them searching for ways to save without giving up their annual trip. When looking to cut vacation costs, it all starts during...

Travel

Bahama Manna

Eleuthera proves a eureka of a find for nature lovers

By:

Lauren Kramer, JE Feature

There are two faces to the Bahamas: The one most visitors see is the resort-laden facades of Paradise Island and Grand Bahama Island, with their bright-blue swimming pools, soft white sand and immaculate green lawns. Though I'm an off-the-beaten-track kind of traveler, the truth is that I was grateful to be on Grand Bahama Island over Shabbat a little while...

Travel

Lox in Your Vacation Now

Or wait until summer to see the salmon spawn

By:

Lauren Kramer, JE Feature

For most of us, lox and bagels are the closest we ever come to the humble salmon. We've consumed their smoked, pink flesh for years at Bar Mitzvahs and Sunday brunches, but to really know these tenacious fish, you have to get down onto their level and see just where they come from, and the odds of their survival. Clad...