Posts Tagged ‘travel’

Sign the guest book

Posted April 12, 2012 by
in Where to Go? | Add your comment »

I am an inveterate guest book lurker… I don’t often sign them myself, but I love looking through them at hotels and seeing, for example, where other visitors come from and what they thought about their stays.

In this era of large chains, however, they’re getting harder and harder to find, which is why I was so pleased to find one not just in the lobby of the bed and breakfast we stayed at on our trip to Tennessee, but in our room itself. I didn’t take a picture of it — somehow, that seemed antithetical to the spirit of the thing, depriving it of its geographical and experiential specificity — though I enjoyed reading other people’s comments.

Do you like to sign or read guest books?

| More

Smoke in the mountains

Posted April 10, 2012 by
in Editorial, Where to Go? | Add your comment »

It’s amazing how restorative even short trips can be… we left for the Smoky Mountains on Friday and spent the next two nights in Townsend, TN; during the day, we went for long hikes and scenic drives.

In many ways, though, the most memorable part of our stay was waking up to the mist-covered mountains that our bed-and-breakfast’s windows faced. It’s from these mists, apparently, that the Smokies got their name, and they are no less amazing to behold when you know you can expect them.

| More

Easter and the art of short trips

Posted April 6, 2012 by
in Editorial, Where to Go? | Add your comment »

When I lived in Europe, it was a truth universally acknowledged — at least among people my age — that Easter was the perfect opportunity to hop on a train and take some sort of mini-vacation. Of course, it helped that Good Friday’s a holiday, and Monday, too, which left one with a nice amount of time; I went to Prague one year, Italy the next.

I haven’t traveled on Easter since I came back to the States, but earlier in the week, when we looked at our calendars and weighed our options, my husband and I realized we had room in our schedules, so we’re heading for the hills: the Smoky Mountains.

Are you going anywhere this weekend?

| More

Win a foreign language planner!

Posted September 12, 2011 by
in Announcements, Pens, Paper & People | 46 comments »

We’re proud to have international fans, but we’re also glad to have globally minded followers here at home. That’s why we figured we’d do a foreign-language planner giveaway, so you don’t have to travel abroad to practice your dates and declensions. Here are the editions we’ve got:

  • German: Business with a black club cover
  • French: Business with a cherry club cover
  • Italian: Business Prestige with a brown club cover
  • Dutch: Business Prestige with a black club cover
  • Spanish: Business with a black impala (vinyl) cover

Note that I haven’t seen these editions in the flesh; the photo above was taken by our product manager, Cecilia. So while I assume that the European Business planner is a lot like our own, I’m really not sure. Prestige seems to have ivory paper, judging from the French website, while the other editions have white.

Ordinarily, we lump all our contestants together and try our best to accommodate winners’ preferences. This time, since people may only be interested in a specific language, I’ll ask everyone to specify what planner you want when you comment, and run each drawing separately.

So: to enter, leave a comment on this post before Thursday, September 15 at midnight EST, and be sure you let us know what language you’d like.

One last note… I know we have international readers on this blog, but since the point of the drawing is to hook people up with a product they can’t find in their home countries, please don’t ask for a language that’s native to where you live! If you’re in the UK and you want a Spanish planner, or you’re in Latin America and you want the Dutch edition, you are more than welcome to enter.

Good luck!

| More

Travel writing

Posted January 12, 2011 by
in Pens, Paper & People, Where to Go? | 7 comments »

Do you keep a travel journal? I ask because we’ve noticed some travel stores carrying Clairefontaine for the purpose, and we’re curious about people’s habits.

Do you keep a separate notebook just for travel? If so, what do you look for in the notebooks that you use?

| More

Planners, pandas, and China

Posted March 29, 2010 by
in Pens, Paper & People, Where to Go? | Add your comment »

Chet Chin, whose awesome DIY Habana planner we blogged about back in January, recently traveled to the Bifengxia Panda Base in China’s Sichuan province for an annual volunteer trip. While there, she snapped this picture of her planner from her hotel room in Ya’an City.

“The impressive lighted roof in the background houses a historical looking building that’s actually a shopping mall with quaint little shops selling local stuff, including Chinese tea,” she writes. You can see a photo of the same view in daylight on her blog, and a bunch of great panda pics on Flickr.

| More

Where to go: Sakatchewan, Myrtle Beach, Virginia

Posted July 16, 2009 by
in Where to Go? | Add your comment »

Thanks to John for our latest “Where to Go” entry… a rich and varied half-year of travel to Canada and within the U.S.

Based out of North Carolina, we have had a fun travel year this year so far. I started with a trip to Lafleche, Saskatchewan at the end of January, where the high temperature was -19 °C, and the low was around -35 °C. Big town, population currently listed as 380. My family homesteaded into Canada in the early 1900’s to a small hamlet located southwest of Lafleche, a much bigger town with current population of around 40.

lafleche

During the Easter school break, we spent some family time at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

myrtle-beach

Continue reading »

| More

Where to go: Win a Clairefontaine “Basics” notebook!

Posted April 9, 2009 by
in Where to Go? | 1 comment »

Basics_Atmosphere

As many of you know, our name, Quo Vadis, means “Where are you going?” in Latin. Well, we want to find out where you’re going these days—tell us, and you could win a free notebook.

I went to Wolfe Island in March. Karen went to Orient Beach. Biffybeans went drumming, and Kate Marshall went to Cook Forest.

So whether it’s a city or a statue, a mountain or a winery, send us a paragraph or three about your favorite spot (with pictures, if possible!) and let us know what’s so cool about it. Then, we’ll put it up on the blog, and at the end of each month, you’ll be entered in a random drawing to win a free Clairefontaine “Basics” notebook in your choice of color (red, green, tan or black) and binding (clothbound, staplebound or spiral). Eventually, we’ll put together a special section in the blog with everybody’s input—a sort of eclectic travel guide.

More details after the jump…

Continue reading »

| More

Backpacker travel trends and culture

Posted March 19, 2009 by
in Cabinet of Curiosities | Add your comment »

coast_project

One of the coolest things about being a part of this blog is the opportunity it gives Karen and me to learn about random, fun, and interesting corners of the internet—and get to know the people involved.

We were thrilled to discover that Izuno Travel’s Jordan Needham likes the look of our journals. We were also thrilled to discover Izuno Travel itself. It sounds like an interesting project, and it’s been great to read old posts and learn about the site’s mission. I particularly like Jordan’s “Long Live Shantytown” photographs, which, if I understand correctly, were inspired by her realization that “Colby Jack cheese, sliced thin, resembles [the] coastline of the earth at around 10,000 ft.”

| More

Eat my winter words

Posted March 3, 2009 by
in Cabinet of Curiosities, Where to Go? | 1 comment »

By now it’s more than obvious to most of the American East Coast, but in spite of last week’s balmy temperatures, winter is far from over here! After about 12 hours of travel and rerouting and delays, we got back from Canada yesterday to find NYC buried in snow.

There wasn’t much snow up north, but boy, was it cold. That meant plenty of skating if you could stand to be outside, and also plenty of pond hockey that I enjoyed watching from the safety of a nearby bonfire. It was a very impressive operation… there was even a makeshift Zamboni on a tractor to smooth the ice between games.

wolfe-island-zamboni

Other impressive cold weather feats: the SUV parked on ice — I wasn’t there to see it get on or off, alas — and the massive ferry (we were in Wolfe Island, off the coast of Kingston, Ontario) that lumbered through the frozen St. Lawrence river every hour. All in all, a lovely winter weekend!

wolfe-island-suv

| More
« Older Posts