Susan Kime's Luxury Travel Blog

New York and South Pacific

2009-03-25T23:47:00.003-04:00

The image here is of New York, out my window on Broadway. I was here for about 4 days, and had never stayed in the middle of everything, on Broadway before. But, then again, it was February, and it was in the middle of a terrible economic recession, so the usually busy New York streets were oddly peaceful, and at times almost empty. It was one of those business trips that was accented by one extraordinary event: finally seeing the revival of one of my favorite musicals, South Pacific.

South Pacific was one of my mother's favorites also, and it was the first music I ever remember hearing. She had seen it in New York with the original Broadway cast -- Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza back in the day. She played many of the songs on the piano, and one of her favorites was Some Enchanted Evening. That romantic story meant something far beyond the story itself, something personal, hopeful, that love could still conquer all. To us, the story seems at times somewhat silly, I mean, what Broadway musical isn't.. somewhat silly? But it is the music that moves the story line on, and moved me to tears, through the memory my mother's impassioned singing and piano playing.

What would she have thought of this revival? I wonder if she would have cared that Kelli O'Hara and Paulo Szot were not the living embodiments of her remembered Nellie Forbush and Emile DeBecque? I think she would not have cared at all -- the music still soars, the last hand clasp of Nellie and Emile, foretelling that eventually all will be right with the world, would have been enough for her as it was enough for me. Upon leaving Lincoln Center, I wondered when my mother actually did see South Pacific and what kind of world she walked back into? I melded with my mother's memory that evening, understanding that no matter what year it was,the wind was still brisk and at my back,, the lights were still bright, and hope for more enchanted evenings were still very much alive and kicking.

The Orchard at Carneros - A Personal Journal

2009-01-15T21:55:00.002-05:00

My personal blog entry this month comes from Frax Finder. Check it out below.

Christmas in Florida!

2008-12-23T18:09:00.012-05:00

This trip to Miami and Sunny Isles is my last trip of the year -- and it is one for the books. I was given the assignment of interviewing a 33 year old, multi-millionaire developer, who is an associate of Donald Trump. I had a great time and the young man seemed unaffected by all the trappings of his success. I had my picture taken in front of one of his private jets. He was a gentle, kindly person, whom I hope to meet again.

I was enchanted by many little things on this trip - the weather being one. I am from California, so a warm winter was not unusual for me, but the weather in Miami was so perfect, warm and cloudless, that it seemed, when looking at other parts of the TV weather map, that I was in paradise.

Rain in the west, snow in the midwest and east, and then, in Florida, it's cloudless and perfect. Like in Arizona, this is the reward Floridians get for putting up with hot, miserable Summers. But I had never been in Florida in December, and especially THIS December when so much weather misery afflicted the rest of the country.

One of the images above is a simple one -- on the 28th floor of my hotel suite, looking down at the ocean below. AHHH! Comfort and Joy! A Florida Christmas!

From Haddon: Nice Mention of Susan in Executive Living

2008-12-15T11:18:00.003-05:00

Hi there everyone -

Haddon the webmaster here. I just read a really nice mention of Susan and her work in the Publisher's Note of the new Executive Living supplement written by President & Publisher Phillip G. Wren.

The entire supplement can be found HERE.

Because Susan is on the road today to do some interviews in Miami I thought I'd go ahead and post this myself. Thanks Phillip!

Late Fall Adventures, Aspen Colorado

2008-12-05T18:58:00.007-05:00

The reason why I call this LATE FALL, is that Winter's true appearance had not come yet the first week in December, yet the skiers and snowboarders were out en masse, doing their thing on the snow. From the images, however, it looked like plenty enough for most people, but for the Aspen/Snowmass crowd, it was not enough.

" We hope every day that more will come!" said one skier to me, as he geared up to spend the day on Aspen mountain. This gentleman had gray hair, and a profoundly wizened face, as if he had spent all of his life outdoors. " Last year was great, but this year? Look!" He pointed up to the dazzling white mountain." Hardly anything! But there's enough for me, even though it is December 2ond."

This is the third time I have been to Aspen, and I am still trying to figure out the exceptional nature of this town, deeply embedded in the Rocky mountains, 5 hours by car or bus from Denver on a good day, and on the plane, about an hour, often bumpy. This time, on the plane from Denver to Aspen, were some rowdy Russian men, who I THINK, even at 10:15AM, had started carousing early -- well before the plane took off. None spoke English except a few basic words, but the one phrase one of them could say, and DID, after each deep prop plane bump, was " It's A BEAUTIFUL DAY!" I began thinking this is probably the feeling that most people have when they come to this place in the mountains.

During my stay, I saw much newness in the old Snowmass and Aspen -- new plans for wholly owned residences, many of which had already been sold, as well as new fractional residences in downtown Aspen. Both places, one close to the other, have such exceptional access to the slopes, that even with the small amount of snow, every day must be enticingly beautiful -- especially one to those who have sojourned from other non-snowy climes, to find solace or company on the snow, no matter how thin it is.

On the day I left, a heavy storm blew in. Flights were cancelled, and I had the disquieting experience of taking a bus, during a severe snowstorm, from Aspen to Denver. The heavy blowing snow did not deter the inveterate driver at all, and we came through it quite well. Before I flew back to Tucson last night, I received a Twitter from The Town Of Aspen: " Our Prayers Were Answered,. If We Could Just have a Few More Days Like This!"

I could hear those boisterous Russians laughing in the background.

New York City in November

2008-11-26T16:44:00.007-05:00

My favorite late Autumn month is November, especially in the East: the weather is blustery and changeable, and the wind can whip through clothes, reminding those of us who live on the mild, balmy other side of the country, what it means to be COLD. But even though the wind chill was about 20, I braved the elements and took a 25 block walk up 5th avenue at dusk. As usual, by 1/2 way into the walk, I had fallen in love with this city once again. I realized long ago, that moving to New York from California in my teens, was my true undoing for many years to come. Nothing compares with this city, and in all other places I have lived, New York is still the beacon of of music, drama, dance, poetry, culture, food... what else is there?

Well, coming to New York at this time, when the economy has taken a terrible downturn, the mood of the city was somber. Wall Street was right down the road, and the sense of sobriety was palpable. i had heard in a bar from a trader that media and the politicians had hidden the terrible truth from those who read and watch TV: that the economy was in much worse shape that had been initially reported, and the bottom was not in sight. Cab drivers told me the same thing. And yet, walking up 5th, as I had done for many years, in a light Spring coat, no hat, no earmuffs, I was still enchanted by the ambiance of the pre-Holiday season. Twinkling lights in the windows, a taste of snow in the air, both bringing me to realize my enchantment was caused by my sense of urban familiarity. Traveling alone as I always do, I came to understand the city was my family, the landmarks -- The Empire State Building, the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, Tiffany's, all held personal memories that were my own personal landmarks, still existing, with deep personal gratitude.

Vail in Late October

2008-10-31T19:35:00.006-04:00

It is always interesting to stay at a high end resort area in the off season. I have been to Aspen many times off season, and I am happy to do this, as I get a clearer picture of the resort culture that exists -- and how each town -- basically all perceived as ski towns, bonded by snow, differ in theme and texture from the others. Vail of all places is a town in process -- much building going on -- Solaris, the Ritz Carlton and The Four Seasons, are all projects that will be finished next year.

The thing that separates Vail from other places I have visited in Colorado, is its intimate village like atmosphere. I grew up in a village, and as I have grown older, miss the intimacy, and accessibility of neighbors, wagging dogs, and needed services. Park City used to be like this, evidently -- one of my colleagues said that when he came to live there in 1972, there were more dogs than people. Vail has a feel like this -- there are dogs, mostly on leash, or sitting in windows or on storefront steps. One of my associates bent down to pet a dog sitting in front of a store, and when she stopped petting the dog, the dog walked right along with us for a few minutes. There was, also, a pleasant briskness in the air, as it is 8200 feet high -- so for those of us Valley-Floor-Of-The-Rockies people, we have to walk more slowly -- and walking and talking BOTH can be a drain and a strain.

The challenge of the Vail city fathers must be to keep this sense of closeness without claustrophobia, of village without vitriol, while building the new resorts. It can be done, as it has been done successfully in other areas of the country and the world. People come here to ski, snowboard, hike and, in general, live a life uncomplicated with urban issues. Vail has a quiet magic, and especially during the season before the first snow. As i walk up Bridge street, I see the white Aspen trees, with a few yellow leaves, the deep black green of stands of aromatic Evergreen, fading flowers, the anticipatory quiet of a late October evening --all seem carry the sense of expectation of the first frost, the Thanksgiving moon, the first flakes of new snow, harbingers of the high season, the last best gift of the dying year.

Lessons Learned at 15 Months of Travel

2008-09-12T16:15:00.005-04:00

Charleston, Seabrook Island, Poplar Bluff, St Thomas (again), a helicopter excursion around the near and far islands of the Carribbean, Miami, Big Sky, Montana, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, back to San Francisco, Eureka, California, the Lost Coast of Northern California, Mendocino, back to San Francisco and within a foreseeable time, back to Tucson finally after being 15 months away from home base… this has been quite an expedition.

I last blogged in January of this year in Logan, Utah and somewhere between then and now, I have really been untethered more than I have ever been before. I have not traveled abroad this year, thus far. I have written, spoken at the IMN Conference in Miami Beach, written more marketing copy, ad copy, articles for internet, and traveled within the United States. This year, thus far, has been life-changing, as I learned what is felt like to live, basically, out of my suitcase for a very long time! What did being away so long teach me? First of all, it is expensive, second, the mail gets all screwed up, so you have to pay a lot of bills forward, third, it is disorganizing you have to become truly organized, learning the absolute need for one of the great inventions of all time, the Zip-Loc bag, fourth, as I have grown older and somewhat wiser this year, a need for a home base, where all your junk is in the same place. Even if you don't know where it all is exactly, you still know it is around here somewhere; an oddly reassuring feeling. I know I have other lessons I have learned, but those are the main four.

I am putting some images on the site of a few places that I really enjoyed. The Stanford Inn, Mendocino, the helicopter trip over St. Thomas, and the dazzling moonrise in San Francisco.

Tired, but happy, I am ready to return to the high Sonoran plateau of Tucson, where the air is easy to breathe, and lemons can still be picked from the trees through the winter. No Utah winters, anymore...

Cancelled trips, Winter robins

2008-01-28T23:18:00.000-05:00

Such things, I am told, happen to travel writers once in awhile, but this had never happened to me: bad weather, exceptionally bad weather and a canceled trip as a consequence.

I was looking forward to going to Palm Springs, to a fascinating Moroccan style boutique resort called Korakia. I was looking forward to milder weather, seeing flowers in bloom, smelling the sweet, dry desert air. BUT NOOO! All weekend we had been watching a violent winter storm scrape and douse its way across California. Whenever I looked on www.weather.com, the same flashing red SEVERE SNOW WARNING sign came on the screen. Last night a wind warning was added also. I looked at the weather for Palm Springs, and surprisingly, there was a FLASH FLOOD warning for the Coachella Valley. With such a triple whammy -- snow, wind, flood, I decided, sorrowfully, to reschedule the trip. This was last night. I walked out in the 25 degree, clear black night last night, and saw the star spangled scarf of the Milky Way above me. Clear as a bell. How could all this WEATHER be coming our way?

I went in, went to bed and awoke at about 5:00AM with hail, snow, and moaning wind beating at my bedroom window. I went to the window, opened the blinds and could see only white -- a classic white-out. Oh, to be among the Hibiscus and Jasmine at Korakia!! Not much later, I saw on the news that the Salt Lake City Airport was closed,as were many of the mountain passes and roads leading into and out of Salt Lake. What a MESS!

I grouchily went out to the kitchen, when I looked outside at our snow covered decorative Crab Apple trees. The fruits were small, well-frozen, but still held their bright red color. On the branches were six winter Robins. One was looking right at me -- a fat bird with a bright orange-yellow breast, contrasted on the branch with the bright red berries. My camera was close by, so I took some pictures of the single bird, then others.

Had I gone to Palm Springs, I would have missed this -- I like to think, when I am disappointed, that the small things in life -- like the Robins on the branch -- come into such great clarity. i walk out in the foot-plus deep snow -- and am glad, in an odd kind of way, that I stayed, again knowing the bright peace and solace a fresh Winter snow can provide.

Comings and Goings: Life in Winter

2008-01-06T16:44:00.000-05:00

For the first and maybe last time, I am living in a place where there is a lot of SNOW. For the past 21 years, I have lived in Tucson, Arizona, where snow falls about once in twenty years. Here in Utah, snow falls almost every other day. Differences in attitudes, due probably to the fact there ARE seasons, come into greater focus daily. A neighbor said, " Well, now we asked for the snow, we have it and now we are forced to enjoy it!" Being forced to enjoy something is a novel concept!!

All the Christmas and New Year's festivities have come and gone: and nowhere does the temporal reveal itself more than in a cold clime. Right across the street were our neighbors, people we barely knew -- but they had a grand light show each night -- I was never able to quite appreciate or accept all the brightly colored lights on the trees, the huge Christmas Star on the lawn, kleig-light strength, blinking on and off all night, with the words Merry Christmas also in bright red and green, also blinking on and off. It was a spectacular display of electric religion! As we are renters on a block full of homeowners, ours was the only home that did not have bright lights. My witty husband suggested we put a mirror on our front door.

But then, on December 26th, we noticed the across the street bright light neighbors packing away their lights, and putting everything in a U-Haul. When I asked them if they were moving, they said yes, one had gotten a job in Greeley, Colorado. the house would be put in the market, and by the day's end, the house was dark, no lights anywhere, and off they went, the U-Haul disappearing in the softly falling snow.

On the bright side, i learned to toboggan. I have not broken anything yet, but then again, it is only January.

My new website, courtesy of KIMEDIA ...and beyond!

2007-12-25T19:31:00.000-05:00

This is not one of those late Chritsmas letters, defining many personal successes achieved in the past year! But there has been news since I last blogged: Travel Connoisseur ceased publication on October 31st -- such a fitting date!! It took me some time to gather my wits about me and move on, but I have done that. Many new PR/New media projects are on the horizon, and many new journeys await. Part of my re-adjustment comes from something I have always believed -- that when one door closes, another opens.

The door opening in this case, has to do with my further adjustment of moving from print to emerging media, though I still have articles to write in high end resort print publications. However, I have become more and more convinced that more visitors read blogs, online articles, and watch vidcasts than do longer print articles in magazines. To that end, I am putting an article of mine online as a White Paper. It deals with my forecasting of Fractional Trends for 2008. The article will be live very soon.

In the coming year, I will be more involved in vidcasting, internet articles, site visit reports, and other areas involved in new media. I will keep you apprised!

In the meantime, just to show you I am alive and well and living in snowy Utah, here is a picture taken today, Christmas. I think I look OK, given the fact that it was 3 above zero and I did not have a hat! We Californians are such a hardy lot!

Positive Positives

2007-10-27T18:41:00.000-04:00

In my last blog entry I mentioned the false positives, but did not mention the many POSITIVE positives from this event experience! Not only were the people interesting, I also had the chance to speak to the crowd about the lifestyle dimensions of the fractional purchase.

I write about the shared residence industry in Travel Connoisseur, Shared Ownership News and The Helium Report, but I rarely meet potential buyers WITH those who have conceived the fractional dimension of the yachts, helicopters, cars, jets, and jewelry collections. This time, I met BOTH: the buyers and the sellers. It was a great co-mingling of front and back office, vision and operation, theory and practice.

A Dog of California

2007-10-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

Even though it has been a month since I last blogged, I have not been sitting around! I went to and spoke at the First Fractional Fusion event in Newport Beach, California, where fractional yacht, jet and destination club sponsors came and networked. I have left SoCal long ago, so, returning to a neighboring city is always an interesting exercise in understanding my ambivalence about the region. Yes, there's a lot of plastic surgery results walking around, and yes, many of the women are so perfect looking they do NOT look real at all, but then again, so what? I have grown old enough to accept perfection as well as idiosyncracy. I still could look out to sea, drink (only in California) Pomegranate Mojitos, and talk to people who were very interested in spending a few hundred thousand on fractional interests -- all without feeling superior or angst-ridden about anything. This is how they live their lives; I have grown older and do not want to change them.

There was a a woman at the event -- she had just had work done, and was talking about it. I looked at her, she was impossibly slim, had a youthful figure, shiny blonde hair but had a kind of lattice work of facial wrinkles; thus, a kind of anachronism: a youthful figure, an elderly face. I overheard her telling her friend, " As far as the surgery goes, my doctor is working his way UP!" She also had a growly little white poodle in her arms. I was listening to her, and began to pet the dog. She turned to me, and in a very kind voice said, " You know how old he is? He's 18: deaf, blind but he still keeps going!" I found this to be symbolic, funny, ironic, witty, everything rolled into one. The dog should have been called California, but he was called Puffy.

Fall in Northern Utah

2007-10-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

For the past 21 years, 21 Falls, I knew it was Fall in Tucson only for a day or two. The Cactus did not change color, nor did the Mesquite, Greasewood or Palo Verde. We natives knew only because the calendar told us; yet fall has always been my favorites season. Unlike a character on Prairie Home Companion, who always considered Fall depressing -- it reminded him of rotting pumpkins and nursing homes -- I had always welcomed Fall as a cool, colorful time.

When we came to Logan, Utah this year, neither of us expected the daily show that Autumn had in store. We are grateful to live among the leaves. each time we look down --on the sidewalk, or on the grass, or look up, to the trees and the mountains another vibrancy emerges.

Hassel Island

2007-08-30T23:08:00.000-04:00

Here is something new! A collaborative video made my son Haddon about the private residence renovation and restoration project we saw on Hassel Island, an island very close to Charlotte Amalie Harbor in St. Thomas. It was a substantial experience for us, as we saw the land being preserved and the land being enhanced at the same time.

For more information on the project described in this video please CONTACT SUSAN.

New Helium Report Article: The Hideout Club

2007-08-24T22:30:00.000-04:00

Susan is pleased to present a new entry in her ongoing column series for the luxury travel authority THE HELIUM REPORT.

Please CLICK HERE for Susan's article entry on The Hideout Club!

The Smiling Stegosaurus: Shell, Wyoming

2007-08-14T11:26:00.000-04:00

I had never been to middle eastern Wyoming. I had no reason to go, as the real action is in the western part - Yellowstone Park, Jackson Hole, all those places where you could see and sense the Tetons -- a vast range of jagged tipped mountains resembling the Olympic range, the Cascades and even, yes, the Himalayas. But mid-east Wyoming? Not really.

My friends all laughed about my traveling to Shell, Wyoming - about an hour outside of Cody. I am more of the London/Paris/Urban jungle type. But this story and this place - the Hideout Club, outside of Shell, Wyoming, intrigued me. It was a place, I had heard, where many Europeans travel, where they can experience the dream of the American West in a pure form. A combination cattle and dude ranch, it was a place where you could ride horses all day, pack into the Big Horn mountains to further Hideout lodges and camps, and spend the night after having a great meal, prepped by their Cordon-Bleu trained chef. You could work the cattle ranch, shoot skeet, take a canoe down the Shell Creek or the Big Horn River, and live the dream of the American West.

The dream was real, and the reality had, when I was there, a very European flavor. There were indeed more Europeans than Americans, and even one famous Austrian Princess who came there with her children. The experience was fascinating, the guests even more so. And the landscape even more so.

The landscape has a desert barrenness, and this range of the Big Horns has a non-Teton soft-roundedness. The altitude is also soft: about 5000 feet above sea level; so there are cottonwood, some aspen, some pine, but no great stands of anything. The dazzling, almost artificial greenness of the vast farmlands is due to irrigation, not natural rainfall. Alfalfa is the major crop. Driving along the ancient road - a true Blue Highway - there are old apple trees and huge Elderberry bushes, augustly laden with umbels of black, round berries, along the side of the road. It is a truly gentle landscape - no tourists, no crushed Coke cans or rotting Pampers along the side of the road, just old apples, wire fences, stands of evangelical corn raising their gifts to the sky, and bright green alfalfa.

Of all the guests there, there are only two who are not horse people. Me, and a gentleman named Fred. He is there with his wife, Geanette, a horsewoman. They have taken their son and grandchildren to The Hideout Club as the granddaughters love to ride. In fact, all of Fred's family love to ride, except Fred. He and I have an aversion to horses, as we both feel they are odd, whiskered, oat-eating, ill-smelling beasts needing serious dental work. We have both been thrown, also, and never really got over it. So Fred stays on the porch and I get the sense of the guests' experience, which will be the substance of the article for my magazine.

And yet, with all the goings-on, I feel, on a more profound level, that I do not know what I am doing there. The feeling of separateness, of a stranger in a strange land, permeates my being, and makes me somewhat grouchy. Well, really grouchy. But when I see Fred, he looks even grouchier. The first thing he says to me, after I meet him and his family the evening before was, "My ##@cell phone doesn't work here. What am I going to do?" And he smiled a kind of wistful, yet accepting smile, a counterpoint to his gruff words.

After two days of viewing the facilities, and getting the sense of everyone having a great tine except me - and Fred - I ask if we could go to the Fossil ruins that were in and around the Hideout Club.

A few hours later we --- Fred and his more of his family - are in a van, with our guides: Cliff and Rowena, a husband and wife team impassioned about fossils, the Jurassic period, Dinosaur tracks and bones. They are also a married couple who are always interrupting each other. I tuned them out very early. The first few hours are spent walking along tidal areas where we are actually seeing dinosaur footprints. The Smithsonian and Harvard have multiple digs around there. Cliff explains that it had only been about a million years that Wyoming - indeed all of the West, had been above water. Where we stand was at one time Dinosaur knee-deep tidal pools. They also say there are 2million year oyster beds nearby, with many fossilized, open oyster shells, leading me to believe that Dinosaurs had the intelligence to be able to crack them open without an Oyster knife! … and eat them. I underestimated the wit of these ugly beasts for a long time!

On those ancient tidal beds, the weather is hot and dry, and the sand blows in our hair and gets in our teeth. I begin to think about so much else in that area that is yet to be discovered. I look to the hills, multicolored, rounded strata, knowing the past is all around us, blowing. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.." Bob Dylan once wrote, to which I add, "so is the past."

When we finish with the tidal basin, Cliff and Rowena drive us, across the highway, down an old road, to a working farm. On that private land, he says, is an exceptional archaeological dig where they found two intact Stegosaurus skeletons, between 200 and 250 million years old. We drive through the fields, on a dirt road for many miles, up into the mountains, into the ancient, millennial past. The van stops and we climb a steep hill - then, down into a nameless, dessicated valley. At the bottom, is the dig. I had seen an archaeological dig in Mexico before, but the findings, all Mayan structures, were so contemporary in contrast. This one is a dig where only a few dedicated, dusty people work with brushes and small, delicate chisels. What they have found thus far is a skull of another Stegosaurus, then down about 20 feet away are the remains of his or her vertebra-laden tail. The lead archaeologist, Bob Simon tells us about the ancient creature. I walk down into the crevasse and touch the skull. Nobody minds.

I see and feel the vague outlines of this archaeological reality, but standing away from it, it looks very much, also, like a rock we clear away on some construction site. But it is what it was: once a living thing - and now, an ambivalence of my contemporary imagination, -- I see the mouth curled slightly in a smile. I also see the ancient reality, the old stone, 250 million years in the making. The ideal and the real, past and present, equally parsed.

When I ask Bob if he thinks there are any more ancient creatures embedded in the hills, he said, "Are you kidding? Every night I hear the hills laughing at me!"

"I lift mine eyes unto the hills, from when cometh my help" says a line in the Bible. There is some truth to that, as my eyes fix on these soft hills, and I am aware of the help they provide. How small we all seem, and what is it now that were are worried about today? Maybe that's was what that creature was smiling about. He ( or she) could hear the laughing hills, and we cannot as yet.

Fred and I walk down the hill together. He has a ruddy complexion, and his glistening silver hair is damp with understandable sweat. I tell him my knees hurt from all this walking up and down. And then he says, out of the blue, "I have cancerous melanoma and have been given four or five months to live." I look at him, and he smiles that accepting smile again, then, tilts his head. I tell him how sorry I am, he then says he recently refused more radiation, as he wants to live out his days without being in radiation caused excruciation. We both look at the hills, and they look back, in blessed silence. The others come down quickly thereafter. I begin thinking that the confluence of past and present, the vague shape of the 200 million year old Stegosaurus smile, must have affected him too, lightening, paradoxically, the profound burden of a darkening life.

I understand, now, what the heft of ancient bone and skeletal outline do to those who are in the field. They probably cannot look at a rock without asking, "What's hidden inside?" They look at multi-colored mountains and hear the laughter. As we drive back, I view the hills with a new archaeological reverence, understanding that Fred's confession came a perfect time.

St. Clare and the Nasher Sculpture Center Event

2007-07-11T23:49:00.000-04:00

The corporate people at Travel Connoisseur were really worried about the Dallas weather last night, as well they should have been -- the thunderstorms were closing in just as our first Travel Connoisseur event was about to unfold.

400+ people were invited and had RSVPed -- and the Nasher Sculpture Center was being readied with all kind of drinks, hors'd'oeuvres, and great raffle prizes. I asked the people I worked with who the patron saint of weather was... I thought, in my semi- lapsed Episcopalian, semi-Catholic way, it couldn't hurt!!

So, five minutes before I walked downstairs to the event, I said a prayer to St. Clare, the patron saint of good weather. Miracle of miracles, the storm went East, and although it was muggy and damp, it did not rain, which the corporate people thought was amazing -- but I knew it was because of the intervention of the little known and really little appreciated St. Clare of Assisi :) No relation to St, Francis. Except she heard him preach and she was converted.

The event was exceptional, due in part to the venue -- the Nasher Sculpture Center where some of the great works by Joan Miro, Alberto Giacometti and other contemporary sculptors are housed.

Many people who were interested in learning more about the Private Residence Club and Destination Club industry were there, and I spent a LOT of time discussing the advantages with interested Texans. It was a great party in a greater place. There will be more -- let us hope that St. Clare will always be with us!

Travel Connoisseur Debut!!!!

2007-07-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

The magazine of which I'm Editor-in-Chief, Travel Connoisseur has debuted to great critical accolades, and soon the whole PDF will be published on this website! We are so excited to already be working on the September issue, which will be larger even than the inaugural one that's out now. For a free copy, please CLICK HERE.

Tomorrow I will be heading to Dallas to join in the first Travel Connoisseur launch event at the Nasher Sculpture Museum. But, on the horizon, there is more excitement.

1. I will be writing a series of Destination Club article for SPIRE, a new internet luxury news and travel magazine.

2. I will be doing some PR/Media work for a developer in St. Thomas who is in the process of creating a new destination club unlike all others. This is going to be a really great project that I'll be writing a lot more about as time goes on.

3. I will be also doing the PR/Media for a huge new Destination Club project in Africa.

4. In August, I plan to travel to London for the First Fractional Life Expo, as well.

On the personal front, in two weeks, my husband, dogs and I will be going to Logan, Utah to escape the intense heat of the high Arizona desert. The Summer monsoons here in Tucson have yet to arrive, but a few night ago a scary, but beautiful thunderstorm came at us. As it flew by uprooting trees and tearing off roof tiles in its wake I snapped the image below. I did not adjust the color.

Unlike this horizon, my horizon looks bright!

New Hybrid Hospitality Article

2007-06-20T13:12:00.000-04:00

The inaugural edition Shared Ownership News, a co-publication of The Helium Report and The Travel Connoisseur is featuring an article by Susan called "Hybrid Hospitality: Cross-pollination in the fractional and destination club industry."

CLICK HERE to read it.

Puerto Penasco, Mexico

2007-06-12T02:23:00.000-04:00

I had forgotten what Southern California would be like were there not for Colorado water irrigation. I was told in my high school days that San Diego, Los Angeles and most other Southern California cities would not exist in the same form they are now, mainly because it is a semi-arid terrain. I was so ecologically and topographically naive! I never actually believed there could be desert-desert-desert- then OCEAN until I went to Dubai last year and saw vast stretches of beach, dune, tumbleweed, cactus, all alongside the Arabian gulf, with more building of hotels and office buildings there than once could imagine. I thought I would never see anything like that duplicated here, so close to home, but I did -- this weekend, in Puerto Penasco, Mexico -- only about 3 hours from where I LIVE, in Tucson.

Puerto Penasco, or Rocky Point as it is called by us Gringos, was once a sleepy little coast town where Spring Break partiers would go, drink, fall asleep on the beach, then get up and live another day on the dunes of Margaritaville. Now, everything has changed.

There are huge hotel after huge hotel going up on beaches almost as far as the eye can see, Dune Buggies race up and don the sand dunes, parasailing, heliskiing, jetskis, sailboats and yachts all can be seen, eah day, racing up and down the Gulf of California, while those who have bought their portion of paradise in their condo-hotel,or fractional, look on. Here's a taste:

I asked our driver who had lived in Puerto Penasco for five years, if he ever had met a person who had been born and raised there, and he said no, everyone who lives here comes from somewhere else. A a major condo-hotel and fractional developer told me there was literally NO unemployment in Puerto Penasco -- there were too many jobs and not enough people.

Puerto Penasco had a Dubai feel to it, really -- as once cab driver told me when I was there last year, "Camels yesterday, Ferraris today." There are no Ferraris as yet in Rocky Point, but the change from arid desert to hotel/condo-hotel/villa residence/fractional haven is palpable. The COMING SOON development signs are everywhere, stuck on the beach sand. I sensed, were I return within a few months, not a few years, I would not know the place. It is an overwhelming feeling watching such a growth process, it is like experiencing the process and the product of a fast-forward button all at once. Look quick! Civilization on the move!!

New 'Elite Traveler' Article Posted

2007-05-28T13:02:00.000-04:00

Residence Club Update

Spotlight: new column on The Helium Report

2007-05-24T22:41:00.000-04:00

Susan is pleased to present her new column for the luxury travel authority THE HELIUM REPORT.

Please CLICK HERE for Susan's first entry on The Aventuras Club!

The Shangri-La of the Eastern Caribbean

2007-05-20T16:55:00.000-04:00

" East is east, and west is west..." the old Kipling line went; and in general, at least in the Western hemisphere, this may be true. San Diego is different from Boston, Seattle is different from Bangor, and certainly, in Mexico, Cabo San Lucas -- the western Mexico, well-developed, commercial area along the Gulf of Mexico, is very different from eastern Mexico and the Mexican Caribbean.

Before my sons were born -- now about 30 years ago, my first press trip was to Merida and the Yucatan Peninsula. Even then, I loved the area -- it had a kind of old Spanish Colonial sense of place, and the ruins at Chichen Itza, Uxmal and the walled city of Tulum were very intriguing.

So, now, many years later, I just completed another great trip, again back to the same area, where much has changed, but much remains the same.

It's called the Riviera Maya, and it starts when you drive south of Cancun.Much is still jungle here, except the highway. There are many all-inclusive hotels along the road, then comes the major town of Playa del Mar -- replete with all the trappings of our American culture: a Wal-Mart, a McDonald's, and there, out in the jungle, a Gentlemen's Club. Ah, civilization.

I was in this area to do a site visit for a new fractional that was being built in a place called Puerto Aventuras. I came to see that this fractional, within this small wonderful community, was everything baby-boomers were looking for but had yet to find: a guard gated community, with everything that an aspirational community would want: a boutique hotel, Dolphin pools where you could swim with them, and the Manatees and seals if you wanted, a small fleet of fishing boats where you can go out each day and catch your dinner, then take your catch back to Gringo Dave's ( a gentleman named Dave Grove, from Pittsburgh) a restaurant who services include the cooking or grilling of the fish you bring in. There are small boutique shops where you can buy flimsy cotton clothes, you can swim in the lagoons or in the peaceful ocean. I was told by a local that even though the Miami Herald is brought down here daily, very few people read the paper. I understand this!

The fractional being built here is called the Aventuras Club -- and when all three projects are built, they will have unimpeded beachfront, or lagoon or marina ( with those small fishing boats coming in and out) views. The fractional model I saw was well-appointed, with unusual artistic touches -- soft colors, granite countertops,arched doorways, mahogany cabinets and brick ceilings in the living and bedroom areas, which kept the residence well-insulated, as well as providing a touch of old Spanish Colonial architecture. The price range for this begins at $50,000 for 1/13, which is 4 weeks. A good deal for such community!

Well, yes I did swim with the Dolphins, and I did, also go to Coba, another great, mysterious ruin, still partially covered by jungle. I was reminded of the mysterious Mayan culture -- they were exceptionally mathematical, and exceptionally blood-letting, two things that usually don't go together. Their soccer game, as an example, defines a Pyrrhic victory: the captain of the winning time was beheaded and he blood was spilled to make the land more fertile, and the captain of the losing team was sold into slavery. Ah, civilization!

The Sherpa Report

2007-05-09T23:18:00.000-04:00

Susan has written an article for the luxury travel website: The Sherpa Report.

The article is on The Capella at Pedregal, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and can be found HERE.