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Following my successful pilgrimage to vintage pinball heaven a few weeks ago, the past week's fare holiday on all New Jersey Transit trains, light rail, and buses provided a good reason to go on another geek excursion that I'd put off for way too long: the defunct but preserved train terminal in...

With heavy rain the previous three days and more in the short-term forecast, I chose a pretty lousy week to take my first vacation from work in six months. Instead of the multiple golf and mountain bike outings that I had planned, I spent a lot of it at home catching up on household chores...

Over our last two days at Val d'Isere, we didn't hire a guide, so @TonyC took over those chores to show me as much terrain as possible, including the huge Tignes sector. Most of the following on-mountain pix are from him. Here, Liz and I are standing at the Checkpoint Charlie dividing line...

With continued high-and-dry weather conditions following the surprisingly strong offpiste runs that we did in the Desert Country sector on Saturday, I asked our guide Sylvio from the French Ski School (ESF) if he thought that we could pull another rabbit out of our hat for Sunday. He said that...

People have been asking me for years why I hadn't been to Val d'Isère given its sterling reputation so I decided that it was time to put up or shut up and committed to spending four days there. I knew going in that it's big but seeing was believing. The Piste Map site posted these bullets about...

While boarding my plane at Newark Thursday evening, I was reminded that I haven't been back to Berlin, my favorite European city, in decades and need to rectify that in the near future. After landing in Geneva early the next morning, I headed off to the 3 Vallées, where I spent two days last...

By Sunday, my sixth and final ski day of this inaugural 2023-24 trip, various early-season aches and pains in my legs and hips had become more pronounced, so I took my time getting out of the hotel and didn't arrive at my destination, Toggenburg, until 10:30 am. Of course, CNYers know Toggenburg...

The stars finally aligned on Friday with clear blue skies at south-facing Corviglia and lots of leftovers from Wednesday's storm. Finally, on my fourth ski day there across two visits, this was the first time that I was able to actually see where I was going! Google Maps measures it at 5 miles...

Most winters, I start off my season by heading out to what most would consider a sure thing snow-wise, Solitude; however, as the comparative low-tide conditions in the Wasatch didn't seem to be rectifying sufficiently, I rebooked my flights in the opposite direction to a place that was having a...

With the end of our gorgeous late-October weather cycle in sight, I wanted to get in one more golf day with peak foliage in the Poconos and headed west on I-80 to a club less than two miles from the Delaware Water Gap that I've had my eye on for a while. Completed in 1911, Shawnee Golf Resort...

Similar to spring skiing -- when crowds diminish, the weather is a lot more pleasant, and lift tickets become less expensive -- golf has a similar setup once we hit mid-September. I always take the opportunity to go a bit further afield than my usual golf haunts (municipal courses in Essex...

The pic below was posted on Facebook. Visitors from Quebec can't say that they haven't been warned; however, it's not a welcoming sight. I can't remember if there's a similar display crossing into Canada. Reminds me of January 2012 when my wife and I were returning from a ski trip in the...

After four days on my mid-March trip to the French Alps, I had a less than stellar record with only one of the bluebird powder outings that you hope for/expect in the Alps. With a second whiteout storm day in a row forecast for Day 5, I decided to wait it out and figure out my next move to...

After the previous day at Megève, which felt at times like a visit to the Scottish Highlands, I drove 90 minutes south to the village of Avrieux at the entrance of the Haute Maurienne region. It rained most of the night and cleared up by morning so I decided that the above-treeline locals ski...

As mentioned in my report for Les Contamines, a storm front was moving in Tuesday night that would finally put an end to more than a month of high-pressure hell in most of the Alps. Fraser, my London-based version of @jasonwx, warned me that there would be a mixture of snow, rain at lower...

You may have heard the conventional wisdom that the Alps tend to get fewer snow events over the ski season compared to the U.S. (especially the U.S. west); however, these storms tend to be large. While that hasn't squared at all with my personal experience over the past 20 years, this winter has...

For my seventh and final day of this visit, I drove less than 20 minutes from my B&B in the village of Guillestre -- a really convenient headquarters for this region -- to the large interconnected circuit called the "Forêt Blanche" (White Forest) consisting of Vars and Risoul (pronounced Ree...

For my second and last day in Queyras, I went to the largest ski area in the region, which compared to some of the mega resorts in France isn't very big, but still plenty for a day or two. Situated between two small villages, Molines and St. Véran, the latter is an attraction in itself because...

After skiing a couple days at the sprawling megaresort Serre Chevalier, I headed 40 minutes south to the gorgeous under-the-radar region of Queyras. First up was Ceillac (pronounced SAYE yahk), only 25 minutes from my B&B up a twisting mountain road before coming to a large valley: The four...

When Americans are asked about the French mega resorts that are on their bucket list, the top entries are usually 3 Vallées (Courchevel), Les Arcs (Paradiski), and Val D’Isère/Tignes (Espace Killy), which happen to be the biggest ones. While I absolutely intend to visit them all at some point in...