Year in Review: Highlights of 2025
This past year our travel plans were mainly influenced by our daughter’s college search. We drove up and down the Northeast looking at schools from Boston through North Carolina. Wherever we stopped, we found new historic spots, family friendly attractions, and great new lodging options. In 2025, we found time to update some of our…
Touring the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
I just returned from a wonderful weekend in Hyde Park, New York, home of former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I have been to the area before with my family (we published a whole City Guide to Dutchess County with tons of family friendly activities), but this trip was focused on catching up with old…
Playing “I Spy” While Touring Eagle’s Nest at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Mansion and Planetarium on Long Island
Eagle’s Nest is the Long Island summer home of William K. Vanderbilt II, the great grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and his wife Rosamond. What began as a small, seven room “English Cottage” on 43 acres in the early 1900s grew into a 24 room Spanish Revival mansion with several additional museum galleries filled with the…
Playing “I Spy” at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site on Long Island, New York
The Walt Whitman Birthplace and State National Historic Site in Huntington on Long Island, New York is the former home of the Whitman family, including one of America’s greatest poets, Walt Whitman, who was born in the first floor bedroom in 1819.
11 Ways to Explore the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum on Long Island
One of the only remaining “Gilded Age Gold Coast” mansions on Long Island in New York, the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum is the former estate of William K. Vanderbilt and his third wife, Rosamond. The great-great grandson of shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, William purchased the 43 acre property in Centerport on Long Island…
Nine Places to Explore at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park on Long Island, New York
The fall and spring weekend home of William and Mai Coe and their four children during the “Gilded Age” of the 20th century, Planting Fields is a 400 acre estate, home to dozens of designed gardens, five miles of woodland trails, two green houses, and a 65 room Tudor Revival style home. William Coe, a…