Anastasia (Stasha) Healy

A little planning (and bribery) goes a long way.
If your kids have ever lost it in on a crowded city street or lain down on a hotel room floor in protest against visiting a museum, join the club. Follow these tips from a traveling mom to keep the peace on your next trip.

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.

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...

The United Arab Emirates is no stranger to excess, with the world’s tallest building and a hotel that uses 24 carat gold as wallpaper. Glittering Dubai, the City of Superlatives, is in the spotlight more than Abu Dhabi, but anyone going to the UAE should make a point to spend at least one day in the country’s capital.
The 2019 Experts’ Choice winner for top attraction in Abu Dhabi is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center 92, which Frommer’s describes as having “enough marble, gold, and silver ...

By Anastasia Mills Healy
Walk where thousands of ancient people lived more than a millennium ago; entire villages sheltered in the cliffside alcoves of a steep canyon. Perhaps spot wild horses roaming in the woods, on an 8,500-foot mountaintop. Where would you think this might be? Turkey? Australia? Africa? No: Colorado. The United States doesn’t immediately come to mind when people think about ancient world sites. After all, our country is only 243 years old. But that measurement reflects Eu...

Dominica has been called “the only island that Columbus would still recognize.” There is something primordial about the Nature Island’s densely forested mountains, volcanoes, boiling lake, thermal pools, black sand beaches, and crashing waterfalls. Some of the world’s oldest sea creatures—whales and sea turtles—pay visits and a community of native people, the Kalinago (formerly Carib), still live as they have for thousands of years.

One of only seven Relais & Chateaux properties in the Caribbean, the serene Calabash Luxury Boutique Hotel encircles a perfect little cove in Grenada with 30 suites. Two-story buildings arranged in a semi-circle face an emerald green lawn that leads to a white-sand beach. Compact, easy going, and graceful, Calabash is a true Caribbean gem.

As Connecticut starts to come out of lockdown, here are ideas for safe opportunities for residents to explore and support local businesses.

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...

To tell the truth, I was apprehensive about boarding a ship with 1,200 other families. My worries disappeared when we explored the decks to find lots of adults-only spaces, cool kids’ clubs for different age groups, and the pièce de résistance for our family: a help-yourself, no-fee soft serve ice cream machine.

By Anastasia Mills Healy

As Disney World prepares to open a new ride, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, on December 5 (January 20, 2020 at California’s Disneyland), here’s some background on what to expect. The Star Wars world, called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, opened August 29 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (May 31 at Disneyland in California). The 14-acre land meant to be Batuu has one ride open already, areas to build a lightsaber and a droid, and lots and lots of retail opportunities.