Susan Serven

Before I graduated from college I hadn’t traveled much beyond my own home in New York state.

But after I moved to Cork, Ireland I discovered the wonders the world had to offer, and I was hooked.

Even after moving back to the U.S., living and working in NYC and Connecticut, getting married and starting a family, I decided to never stop traveling, learning about new cultures and places, and connecting with new friends across the globe.

During my time in Ireland and afterwards, I was fortunate to be able to take several return trips to Ireland and London, to see all the wonderful sites there are to see (Blarney Castle! Dublin! Galway! Buckingham Palace! Covent Garden!) while staying at the spectacular Hyde Park Hotel in London and Dublin’s Clarence Hotel (formerly owned by band U2’s The Edge and Bono) and then many more (try visiting Newgrange, a 5,000+ year old prehistoric monument in Brú na Bóinne, County Meath, on a cold mid- December day approaching the Winter Solstice, with your teen and tween daughters!)

We encouraged our girls to visit college locations in places outside their normal comfort zone, and ended up meeting actors Alan Cumming and George Oliphant on Thanksgiving Day in Edinburgh, Scotland while touring universities there and staying at the historic Balmoral Hotel.

A cruise to Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco allowed us to ride camels on our older daughter’s birthday and celebrate New Year’s Eve watching fireworks off the Rock of Gibraltar (an incredible experience for all of us that we’ll never forget).

Taking a last-minute work trip to Sardinia, staying at the luxurious Forte Village Resort, included a stop in Cagliari which resulted in a crazy adventure involving torrential rains and a highway and bridge collapse with us on it when it happened!

Later staying at Milan’s gorgeous Palazzo Parigi on this same trip and meeting the members of the band U2, who were staying there at the same time was a huge surprise!

Attending a conference in Venice, Italy, then tacking on London was a delightful excursion where we were fortunate to be asked to take part in a wedding proposal at STK Restaurant (she said yes) after visiting Hampton Court Palace outside London, in East Molesey, one of the homes of King Henry VIII.

An anniversary river cruise from Amsterdam to Basel, Switzerland, with stops in Germany and France along the way, was both luxurious and educational, with delicious food (beer, mulled wine, and pastries of course!).

A late summer, last minute cruise from NYC to Provincetown, MA then on toe Bar Harbor, Kennebunk, and Portsmouth ME then on to St. John’s and Halifax Nova Scotia was an easy, fun way to get to see places that would otherwise be a Very Long Drive away – the ocean views of icebergs on the North Atlantic was stunningly majestic and a little bit terrifying at the same time (this is near where the Titanic went down, and many lost souls who were on that trip are buried at a famous cemetery in Halifax).

Another trip to Canada, this one to Banff, National Park, was both a Luxury trip and most definitely an Adventure and dark sky / eco-tourism / regenerative tourism trip as well! The incomparable Fairmont Hotel was beautiful, Lake Louise seemed unreal, ethereal, and the bear hikes (!) and glacier walks – we can save that for another time – incredible!

Lastly, traveling both with our daughters and solo to fabulous beach resorts such as Maui's Wailea Beach Resort, Le Barthélemy Hotel & Spa on St. Barth’s in the French West Indies, the St. Regis Bermuda Resort in St. George, the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island, FL, and especially the crazy-wonderful Oberoi Beach Resort in Sahl Hasheesh, Hurghada, on the Red Sea in Egypt were all experiences I’ll never forget.