City Guide

It’s truly Chrismakuh this year… As Hanukkah starts on December 22nd, I am over the moon excited to have a legitimate joining of my two favorite holidays, which Seth Cohen and I like to refer to as Chrismukkah. For me, this is a way to honor both sides of my family’s heritage, but also a reminder that the holidays are actually very individualized for each person. I know for many of us the holidays center around our own religious beliefs, but for me, it’s a time to honor the t

If you know one thing about me… it’s likely to be my obsession with pasta. Pasta, is truly the absolute most delicious thing I can eat. It’s why Italian is my favorite cuisine and perhaps why I chose to study Italian in high school/college and study abroad in Verona, Italy for a semester. It’s also my favorite item to order at a restaurant, which is funny because I actually enjoy it when I make it myself, despite the fact that I hate cooking and am pretty terrible at it. Perh

I have been waiting so very long to come here… Does anyone remember the original Ralph’s Coffee shop from years back? I do. I remember seeing it on Instagram and being overjoyed about the idea of going, however, when I arrived for girls trip in Fall of 2017 I was extremely disappointed to find out it already closed. Thank goodness I had secured a coveted reservation at The Polo Bar to get my fix, otherwise who knows what fate my girlfriends would have found me in. And unsurpr

What a charming little place… St. Helena is, one of the many idyllic towns in the Napa Valley region. This was my second trip to Napa and second wedding to attend. The first time I hadn’t really planned to explore beyond our hotel and wedding activities, so this time I was set on seeing more of the well known, well covered wine country and St. Helena was high on my list. We drove into the charming town from Calistoga, where my friend was getting married that weekend, for lunc

We arrived in wine country… mid Thursday for my friend’s wedding. We figured we would make a long weekend out of it given the drive and therefore ambitiously left Los Angeles at the crack of dawn (3am to be precise) in order to make our 12:30pm reservation at  Bouchon before an afternoon of wine tasting. It was crazy but it worked and despite the lack of sleep we actually had enough energy to last late into the evening. On the drive in we met up with our driver for the day. F

I was so excited… to check out the original Bouchon, as well as the perfectly positioned, and esteemed, Bouchon Bakery next door. I had been to locations in Las Vegas and Beverly Hills, but as for most popular restaurants that expand, trying the original place is always preferable. To clear any suspense, neither disappointed. We arrived just before or reservation at 12:30pm, by sheer luck given we had driven all the way up from Los Angeles that morning. But we were determined

I have very little words… and many great facial expressions, remembering this special very place. In the simplest of terms, this place is what I imagine Mars to look like, as it was truly out of this world. Perhaps that’s why the sun bleached, volcanic features are often referred to as moonscapes; a term that literally just means its characteristic of the moon. Outside of a Dr. Seuss story, I have not been privy to too many places as unique as this one yet, therefore I was be

We stumbled into this darling little place for lunch, before our afternoon exploration of Hora on Kythnos island. Kythnos was not originally on our itinerary but fortunately we had wifi strong enough to find this super shabby chic place for a midday snack. I had found the restaurant’s name in English, Psipsína, but when we were walking down a side street from the center to find it, we had some difficulty as none of the sinage was in legible for us. Eventually, the few people

We loved Syros so much… so of course I needed yet another post about this magical island. We didn’t have much time here to explore but our last morning  here captured my favorite part of all, the beautiful sunrise at the very tip top city in Syros, before we took off for the next island. As I have mentioned before, most islands in Greece have small, historical city centers at the very highest point, likely created to protect them from invaders. This one on Syros is called Ano

Syros, the Nice of Greece… Perhaps even better since I didn’t think Nice, France was that great to be honest. But with a glistening coastline, pastel shaded architecture and a vibrant and fresh energy, Syros stood out from the majority of the sleepy islands we visited on our sail through the Greek Isles. The capitol city in Syros, Ermoupoli, also serves as the capitol of the Cyclades region, where most of the islands we visited lie. We hadn’t originally planned on coming here

We had about five real hours in Santorini, the volcanic island remnant from what was originally a big island of Thira, now the absolute center of tourism in Greece. Since the ocean floor is so deep our captain was unable to anchor at sea, and the port was too full for us to dock, so we took a ferry for a super quick day trip from Milos, a nearby, amazing island. As originally planned our first stop on my mini agenda was this charming and beautiful restaurant called Botargo,

An afternoon in Hora… Greece is a magical place, known mainly for tourism on the very popular islands of Mykonos and Santorini, which are beautiful but extremely over crowded with Americans. Even though I made a full effort to visit both, I am so glad we had the opportunity to spend the majority of our honeymoon on smaller, less populated islands. And although the cyclidic island of Kythnos was not in our original spreadsheet itinerary, thus was not privy to my extensive pre-

Beautiful cocktails, bougainvillea and picture perfect sunsets— what more could anyone ask for? The second I knew we were going to Greece for our honeymoon, I had pictured a romantic place to sit and watch the sunset on the water (I know so basic right) Even though I live in Los Angeles, where there’s ample access to oceanside drinks and dinner (and amazing people watching), this charming little cocktail bar in the Little Venice area of Mykonos delivered something even more s

Charleston was one of the most beautiful places… I have ever visited and it’s certainly somewhere I would return in a heartbeat. It also made me eager to visit more of the American South, an opportunity to connect with the other half of the country I am much less familiar with. Of course I only spent a weekend here with my sister, so I am by no means creating this guide with much expertise, but I am sharing what we did and loved most during our very short stay. Aside from so

Exploring the restaurant and food scene… has become one of my favorite parts of traveling to new places and perhaps the best part for me is doing all the research beforehand, which of course I did for this trip. Thanks to Instagram, it’s fairly easy to find pictures of delicious food and beautiful restaurants to venture to. I love using the save tool in order to keep track of all the great spots that come up on my feed and my Charleston section was completely full well before

Let me start off… by making it really clear that I only spent a few days in Havana, therefore I am by no means an expert about where to go or what to do! But I will share with you a few of my favorite highlights from the trip that I’d recommend so consider this basically a mini guide to Havana, or simply a recap of what I loved! But before I get into that I will share a few things to keep in mind before you apply for a visa; which leads me to my first thing, you need a visa!

An impromptu trip to Havana, Cuba… was a quite an experience, and a well appreciated surprise. We went a few weeks ago on a whim and it happened to serve as perfect inspiration for this year’s resort wear guide, coming this week! Exploring somewhere new is always a good time, but particularly when it’s somewhere warm during this time of year. Even living in Los Angeles in the winter will make you crave some humidity and Havana did not disappoint. But beyond the bright colors,

I think New York City is now my favorite place in America to visit, Miami comes in as a close second. I would love to have an extended stay at some point, perhaps a month to fully feel like I have lived a little life as a pseudo New Yorker. Hopefully at some point I will get the chance to do this and perhaps replicate it in a few other destinations too; most importantly in London/Surrey so I can basically repeat the plot of the beloved seasonal classic, The Holiday. But for m

Summer in Positano  is quite a lovely experience. My love of Italian culture goes way back, even before studying abroad in the very quaint and beautiful Verona, but rather when I made the bold choice to shy away from the typical French and Spanish classes in high school and opt for Italian. I had obviously already loved the food so why not learn the language? Especially growing up in Chicago, which had a rich Italian community, mostly visible to us by their amazing cuisine th

Roku Sunset , West Hollywood I have to admit, I was pretty sour about trying this spot after it replaced one of my favorite spaces and restaurants, Rivabella, which is sadly no longer. But I came randomly with my girlfriends and I was very pleasantly surprised. Starting from the golden pineapple lamp stands to the dry ice cocktail with a pink hibiscus flower, I was in love before we even sat down to eat. They also gave out free sake shots and had an amazing DJ who set the sce