Anastasia (Stasha) Healy

It may be the biggest tourist attraction you’ve never heard of—but it's about to sweep the nation.

How did a 5,000-person rural Vermont town become a famous center for artisanal food and drink? Waterbury seemed to appear on the map in 1986 when two guys named Ben and Jerry expanded their ice cream factory from Burlington to Route 100 in Waterbury. The sweet-toothed pilgrims it attracts now fuel a local industry of gourmet goods. Over the years, a cider mill, barbecue restaurant, and tasting centers for locally made cheese, coffee, chocolate, and spirits have popped up in this Green Mountai...

In the Nutmeg State you can kick back in a lighthouse or treehouse, a water-facing suite steps from the East Coast’s answer to Rodeo Drive or a Relais and Châteaux inn with a world-class spa in the middle of nowhere (sorry, Washington, Connecticut – you’re pretty but not exactly hopping).

It might surprise you to know that Connecticut is home to world-class collections of American and British art and a showstopper museum of Native American culture. The state is king of house museums: You can see where Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is literally right next to Harriet Beecher Stowe 's home. Don't forget the Philip Johnsom Glass House and the Mecca for all things maritime, Mystic Seaport Museum.

Portugal’s visitor numbers have spiked to record highs as people discover its trendy city neighborhoods and remote windswept islands, museums and music, wine and beaches. The entry point to one of the hottest countries in the world now to visit is usually Lisbon, so here are some suggestions for how to spend three days in this beautiful capital city.

Fancy dangling upside down on a seven-story rollercoaster or hearing a Buddy Guy set? How about baking a tart with one of the world’s most famous pastry chefs or watching models own the catwalk? The list is endless, but here are twenty suggestions for fun things to do in Montreal this summer.

As a traveler (not a tourist), you want to delve beyond a city’s most popular sights and attractions to get a deeper understanding of place. These surprising attractions take you out of the well-trod tourist areas to neighborhoods you wouldn’t see otherwise. Seek out these interesting spots for a dose of travel discovery.— Anastasia Mills Healy
Where: Nashville, Tennessee
How many people planning a Nashville trip say I think I’ll visit the Parthenon? There is, in fact, a to-scale replica of t...

Who Wouldn’t Want to Stay in Sting’s 16th-Century Tuscan Villa or a Scottish Castle on a Loch?
By Anastasia Mills Healy
How would you like to relax with friends around Sting’s pool in Tuscany or screen a film in George Lucas’ state-of-the-art movie theater in his Umbria home? Laura Blair of In Villas Veritas can arrange that and much more.
“A lot of people have snazzy websites but nothing to back them up. I’ve personally visited every property I recommend,” says Blair. She’s been matching dis...

By Anastasia Mills Healy
Dubai
To get a sense of Dubai, all you need to know is that it has the tallest building in the world and is constructing an even taller one; and it has the world’s biggest mall yet is building an even bigger one. A city with a superlatives complex, Dubai is always striving for the biggest, tallest, best, and most expensive of everything. No one’s done it before? Great! Dubai will hire the world’s best engineers and spare no expense in getting it done. This approach ca...

The Grand Canyon celebrated its 100th anniversary as a national park in February. Of course it’s much older than that: Human history there can be dated back more than 10,000 years. Knowing that and seeing how vast it is in person and how breathtakingly beautiful its lines, colors, and patterns are, one can only feel awed and humbled. If you haven’t been or haven’t been in awhile and want to take your kids, here’s some helpful information.

By Anastasia Mills Healy
The iconic image representing the Poconos has morphed from a couple sitting in a giant Champagne glass-shaped hot tub full of pink bubbles into kids careening down a water slide or snow tubing. The Pocono Mountains, about two hours from Fairfield County, are much more known now for family fun than kitschy honeymoons.
Resorts like Great Wolf Lodge, Camelback, and Kalahari are geniuses at creating excitement for kids. Enormous indoor and outdoor water parks can happily ...

Taxis are plentiful in Dubai and reasonably priced in relation to other goods and services. Distances can be great and temperatures often sweltering; plus, it seemed the walk to and from the rail stations to my destinations would be lengthy. That is how I came to take approximately 20 taxi rides during a week of sightseeing in Dubai in April to celebrate a milestone birthday.
By the time I had taken three cabs, I recognized a pattern: All my taxi drivers were Pakistani men, and all seemed to ...

The Gateway to New England, Greenwich is the first town in Connecticut when crossing the New York border. Founded in 1640, it has a long history of prosperity, attracting scions of industry who leveraged a busy port and business-friendly proximity to New York City. While Greenwich is known for mansions built on rolling lawns, high-end stores, and restaurants, the town has much history and culture, including a destination-worthy museum and rousing polo matches. The town’s website is www.greenw...

A sky high Four Seasons, Hamilton exhibition, free Pitbull concert, fabulous food hall, and stunning Museum of the American Revolution are new reasons to head south to Philadelphia

Two hours north of Fairfield County lie a Scottish castle and an Italianate palazzo, both pedigreed former Gilded Age “cottages” where royalty from any country would feel right at home.
Complete with turrets, gargoyles, suits of armor, and crackling fireplaces at every turn, the 1902 Blantyre entices winter guests with cross-country skiing and snowshoeing on its 100 acres, a library of 4,000 books and many overstuffed chairs in which to read them, gourmet dining, and a spa.
Blantyre doesn’t l...