Category: Visit It, Write It.

The Bradley is a collaboration between Vera Bradley co-founder, Barbara Bradley Baekgaard, and Provenance Hotels—a lineup of luxury boutique hotels emphasizing the ingenuity of its partners. The Vera Bradley company produces a line of American handbags, and the company is based in the founder’s hometown of Fort Wayne. In fact, Baekgaard is often seen in the hotel adding fresh flowers to common spaces decorated in the patterns she helped create. The signature Vera Bradley style runs throughout the hotel in a stylish and grand example of refined taste. Deluxe and Premier rooms with king or double queen beds offer Midwestern charm and sophisticated accents with modern simplicity (there are no phones, coffee machines, or plastic cups).

Brewerytown is a work in progress, but it may become Philadelphia’s next hip neighborhood. The area mainly consists of young renters, upper-level college students, and residents new to the area or Philly in general. A smattering of lifelong residents proudly call Brewerytown the perfect home because of its proximity to Center City and a western border with Fairmount Park. Aptly named because it once housed most of Philadelphia’s breweries in the 19th century, the area suffered from neglect through the 1970s and ’80s. The Brewerytown Historic District formed in 1991 and helped certify 380 neighborhood buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

My trip to Vegas last year was a blur. As expected! So, when I started thinking of fall wedding-related getaways to Vegas for this column, I knew I had to reach out to some experts to hone an elevated Vegas experience. Turns out, I am not the only one who thinks a Sin City pre-wedding getaway (as immortalized by The Hangover) or post-wedding honeymoon is a great idea. And now is the perfect time to head to Vegas.

In 1856, Alvah Jackson came across the spring water which pours forth from the steep hillsides around Eureka Springs in the Ozarks, and began to market it for its healing properties. Usurping the land from Native peoples, Jackson kept the source of his “Dr Jackson’s Eye Water” a secret until 1879, but once divulged people flocked to the area to experience the therapeutic springs. Tents gave way to wooden structures. Soon a small city formed. Makeshift homes were replaced with a boon of Victorian architecture, most of which still stands today.

riends and relatives who live outside of Pennsylvania often come to visit Lancaster County. I regularly take on the mantle of unofficial county ambassador and tour guide, trying to show off the highlights of what we have to offer. I have accumulated a list of stops that are quintessentially Lancaster County, which, at the same time, may be a bit off the radar to the average tourist. I thought I would share a couple, just in case you are pressed into service as a tour guide this summer.

Named New Sarum when it received its city charter in 1227, it was later renamed Salisbury. Located nine miles south of Stonehenge, Salisbury’s monuments also bear testament to the region’s past. The cathedral, and the stone buildings of the surrounding close, remain intact and unharmed by progress and the tides of war. The city never became connected to a large canal system and even today the closest motorway ends at the Cadnam Interchange, 16 miles away, allowing the unique preservation of a medieval town.

Towns and small cities offer a specific charm sometimes lost in the major metropolis. The “Heartland of America” was born from agriculture and industry and recently embraced tourists from all over the world looking to explore its natural beauty and charm. The Midwest, an area of almost a million square miles, is larger than the country of Mexico and includes a range of geography from miles of flat corn fields to pristine, lakeside forests. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics defines the Midwest as including 12 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Anna Maria Island is a low-key resort town with pretty architecture, and an array of shops and dining options. The calm beauty of the Gulf shore, with crystal blue water and pure, pale sand attracts beachgoers of all ages and demographics from all over the world. Many return visitors come from western Pennsylvania as nearby Bradenton is home to the MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates spring training facility and home of the single-A Bradenton Marauders.

Altoona is a city the railroad built. In the mid-1800s, passenger and rail freight had a tough time traversing Pennsylvania’s mountainous middle. A connection from Philadelphia and Harrisburg to Pittsburgh was vital, but the Allegheny Mountains stood in the way. The Pennsylvania Railroad moved into the area in 1849 to begin working on the Horseshoe Curve (2400 Veterans Memorial Hwy); a semi-circular stretch of track riding on a manmade traverse of land between two mountains, which allowed safe and affordable travel across the state.

We’ve all heard it before, the verbal butchering of our city and county name, Lancaster. Emphases on the wrong syllables. Strangely hard consonants and irregular drawn-out vowels. Defense of our pronunciation is so ingrained in our communal psyche that we even have T-shirts and bumper stickers explaining how to say … Lank KISS stir. After some traveling, I realized a few neighboring states have their own Lancasters, all of which have their own pronunciations.