womantraveler

Travel Smart Updates

• Hip hotels are catching on around the US, not just in the big cities on the East and West coasts. Places like Columbus, Ohio along with Houston and Bartlesville, Oklahoma now offer more stylish digs, USA To day reports. Even some moderate-price mainstream chains are joining the trend toward a more customized travel experience. My faves in the Washington, DC area -- The Georgetown Inn in Georgetown and the Relais & Chateau Morrison House in Alexandria, VA. Conveniently located, great service, fine food and particularly comfortable for a solo womantraveler.
• Good news that Marriott International is replacing 628,000 beds across eight brands this year with more luxurious mattresses, more pillows and softer sheets. We've come to expect no less since the Westin Hotels trademark "Heavenly Bed" made plush comfort a core expectation.

Sideways in Santa Barbara

Who says road trips are a guy thing? My friend Peggy and I took a "Sideways" tour in Santa Barbara, California, wine country a couple of years before the Oscar-contending movie, most likely about the time Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church were first reading their scripts.

The 2005 food and wine festival season is starting, and it's a great time to be planning ahead. In our case, in nearly every respect we were a completely different duo from the Sideways boys -- two women of a certain age, with grown kids and solid relationships with the men in our lives. We simply wanted our own weekend adventure, and we knew that buddy trips aren't just for guys. Of course, we shared something else with the "Sideways" boys -- our enthusiasm for wine.

I had a great car -- a new Toyota Solara convertible -- and with a wine festival beckoning us to the central California coastal heartland of Pinot Noir and Syrah, we dubbed our weekend "The Anything But Chardonnay Tour." (Serious note, though -- there are some great Chardonnays in the region, so we couldn't resist.)

Party of One

When I first started traveling for business, I was petrified of dining alone. I thought I would be marked as a loser and I had no idea how I'd fill my time. So I bought take-out or ordered in room service, which sometimes worked OK because of the quiet or the chance to get out of my work clothes. But night after night -- what a drag.

When I started venturing out, I took a book or a couple hours' worth of magazines or newspapers and headed for the hotel's everyday restaurant or a nearby non-descript eatery. I was completely self-conscious and chose an obscure booth or table, trying to look occupied, self-possessed, or in a hurry, as if eating was part of the day's frenetic continuum of a busy person, something to be endured. Soon I realized how dumb I was because, as a foodie, I'd rather not eat at all than chow down average food and blah wines.

In phase three, I got up the courage to go to fine restaurants -- but schlepped along all that reading material. That was sheer comedy. How tacky to place a newspaper or magazine on a white table cloth beside a lovely place setting. How impractical to try to read a book with salt and pepper shakers or a sugar bowl holding the pages open while I cut and eat my food. How insulting, finally, to the chef, the servers, the other patrons, and, in fact, me to gallop through the meal without the slightest enjoyment and most likely drawing the attention that I was hoping to avoid.

I pushed myself and started going to fine restaurants -- and in the process began to discover the real pleasure of dining alone. I'll never forget the first time I spent $100 on myself for a meal at Vong in Manhattan's East Side. It was like having treated myself at a spa. I was liberated after that.

Hearts in San Francisco

"Welcome to Wonderland." I had traveled to San Francisco often and stayed in some of the finest hotels, but the intrigue of the pretentiously cool W Hotel "south of Market" landed two of us girlfriends there one recent weekend via a great Internet deal. The three-story lobby was dramatically moderne, votive candles glimmered in the low-lighting, the staff were animated by headsets and initially there was the slightest question whether this was too hipster or romantic for a couple of 50-something professional women and moms intend on power-shopping and gourmet food adventures.

The good news was that the over-the-top surface quickly gave way to a warm, friendly and accommodating hotel offering both the excellent service expected by seasoned business travelers and the whimsy of a stylish urban weekend. There were all the signature Starwood Hotels features, including the pillow-top mattress and high-thread-count sheets, in our "spectacular double" room, spacious for a downtown hotel, in cool and calm black and mahogany. When I pressed the "Service Express" button on the telephone, the branded 24-hour Starwood concierge service, I was confident of the immediately responsive outcome despite the rather airy "Whatever, whenever..." response. (That's part of the "wonderland" mystique.)

Great Food Near LAX

Flying in and out of LAX on business can be fun if you know there's great food within 20 minutes -- and you don't have to cope with freeways. LA is full of confident small restaurants but you have to know how to find them. (Stay tuned for much more on LA restos.)

Here's a guide to special finds in the beach communities of Playa del Rey, Marina del Rey, and Venice just north of the airport that I put together while living in the area and flying consultants in for meetings. Enjoy innovative cuisine with top-flight cooking, attentive service, unhurried style -- and often a beach stroll or cool shopping district nearby for break from the workday. Reservations always recommended, many are closed Mondays, and some serve dinner only, so check first.

Girlfriends Weekend Checklist

Here are the ingredients for a terrific Girlfriends Weekend:

• the right girls
• compatible budgets
• accommodations that match your mutual standards
• adventuresome food
• getting clear in advance what to wear
• options for opting in and out of activities

I find this particularly useful for women like me who have grown children and grown (or outgrown) spouses and partners and expect certain standards when we're traveling. Read on for how to put the right group together, and plan budgets, accommodations, cuisine, clothing, and excursions.

Beyond a Map's Surface

I learned my love of maps from my father -- a World War II pilot and also a painter. I tagged along as a kid as he painted watercolor landscapes in the central Ohio countryside and learned that maps are more than lines on flat pieces of paper that get you there and back.

I was watching the printed road map, but as an artist, Dad “mapped” what he saw and transferred those visuals to watercolor paper. He held up a pencil to the horizon line, measured the distance to the focal point, plotted the perspectives, and took a mental snapshot. He could manipulate the results -- if the blue was wrong, he’d wash it away and make it truer. The green-golds would blend and merge. If the colors or shadows changed and the result was visually inauthentic, he’d make them disappear – and start over.

Dad was a literal painter. He saw the surface of things and painted with taut, hushed, discreet emotion. Yet his ability to see things just as they are, unvarnished, real, and with a deeper truth behind them, taught me how to really see.

In this way, the maps and the watercolors started working together for me, and I became a visual thinker. The surface of things always suggests a deeper story. What’s below the surface in his paintings may have been left to the viewer’s imagination, but there is no refuge from it. You can try to change what others see all you want – wash it away like a watercolor technique – but you cannot change what lies beneath. I became a journalist. I penetrated the story behind the surface. I expressed it differently from my dad, but with the same goal – clarity of vision and exploration of truth.