Cherokee, NC: Rat cheese, pork skins & peanuts, boiled or fried
First, you see the BOILED PEANUTS sign. Then you see the cauldron: Fat, black, dangling from chains, steam curling up from the lip. Peanuts are simmering away in their brown liquid, looking like giant Boston beans.
There's a second sign…
Huilo-Huilo, Chile: Like a rainforest theme park
It looks less like a hotel tucked inside a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve than a CGI set piece from Avatar.
It's a hotel built in a man-made volcano that spews water instead of lava, that's covered in rainforest moss and vines and…
Marlboro, VT: An annual Brigadoon of classical music
Sure, Tanglewood sucks all the oxygen out of the room (the wind out of the woodwinds?) with its A-list musicians and choice grounds. Classical music fans know, however, that Marlboro Music, the celebration of classical music and sanctuary for musicians,…
Bevagna, Cantalupo, Italy: A farmhouse and refuge
Nothing wrong with standard-issue Italy: the ruins in Rome, the art in Florence, the canals in Venice. Most countries would give anything to have a fraction of Italy's lures.
Still, you might want to do something off Italy's beaten path;…
