Over the past few years a symbol has made the leap from movie into life. It is a salute with three fingers held high: pointer-middle-ring.  It came from The Hunger Games, the series written by Suzanne Collins.  Both a book and movie franchise, it is a tale following the life of Katniss Everdeen. Her name […]

George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. grew up in Illinois, obsessed with the moon, its shape, its craters and scarred face.  He drew pictures of the moon in grade school and studied it in high school, and when he graduated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a civil engineer, the lunar mark stuck and came back to […]

My first tag was in Bangkok (I write that as if I did more, but there was only one lame attempt). It was premeditated, illegal, and fun as hell.  It was lame because I couldn’t even come up with my own tag idea, I bought a book of pre fab stencil tags in the Hong Kong airport and […]

Love is in the air. Mostly because we’re trying desperately to ward off the snowy chill of February, but also because of that heart-shaped holiday awaiting us at the end of the week. Whether you think it’s a perfect time for romance or a total Hallmark sham, you can’t lose if you simply look at […]

Never judge a property by its website alone—if you don’t learn this lesson early on it will be taught to you the hard way. Or the blissful way, as was the case with Huvafen Fushi. Huvafen’s marketing materials put forth an image of South Beach hedonism meets Dubai bling, which fooled me into expecting a […]

There are few things better in this world than a name you can trust, and one such name is Christina Ong. On a recent visit to Cocoa Island, the Maldivian outpost of her COMO hotel group, I found that this style maven is still at the top of her game. I think Mrs. Ong and […]

When an email comes in offering you three free nights on a private island in the Maldives, you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s cruel spam. This is the real deal, though: volunteer on one of of three very cool projects and you’ll be repaid in luxury. Ever since our safari planner Greg returned from Soneva […]

No place has ever made me so happy as Soneva Fushi. This truly is a fantasy island, where everything you are and know is left behind once you get off that seaplane. It is not a hotel, or even a retreat. It’s a world unto itself, where the Great Gatsbys of our age wander about […]