Opinion Archives - Page 4 of 21

23Jun

Favorite Summer Book Club Picks

(Please note this is a sponsored post in support of Little Mercies but all opinions are my own.) Summer has arrived, and for me summer means a lot of reading. Beach reading. Poolside reading. Lying in the hammock reading. Time to read new books like Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf. After I had my first child, I joined a book club through a local group for town newcomers. That was nearly eleven years ago and my group is still together. While we’ve evolved over the years – some people have left, new people have come in – many of us have been in Read More

07Jun

A (Rare) Solo Traveler

Posted by The Culture Mom 5 Comments

No, this isn't a book review. I just felt like the image above sums up how I feel about where I am right now. I'm actually on a press trip in the Bahamas at the Grand Lucayan. I decided not to bring any members of my family on this trip largely for financial reasons. I yearned for a trip where I could not only focus on my writing but also seeing things through a different lens. I first became aware of the beauty of solo travel many moons ago while backpacking through Europe after college, when, as Journalism major, I carried a notebook and pen and Read More

27May

Mother Daughter Night at Residence Inn Central Park

Posted by The Culture Mom 1 Comment

This past weekend my 11-year old daughter and I spent a night at the Residence Inn in Central Park. We had no idea before our arrival that we were headed to North America's tallest hotel! The 68-story building houses some of the best views in the city, without a doubt. The views from our room were simply stunning and it was such fun to point out the surrounding buildings and gaze down at the people and taxis from so far above. You can't feel more New York City than this with such incredible views through windows that surrounded our room facing the Read More

30Apr

Ch…Ch….Changes are Coming!

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Sorry for the change of name and silence this week. Let me explain what happened. I've been talking about rebranding for quite a while. I started another new blog in the process (TheHollyChronicles) but have since realized that this site is more important. Eager to change the name, I finally came up with a good fit: THE CULTURE TRIPPER. After months of hemming and hawing, I told my designer to make the change while I was recently out of town...on a cruise ship! When I saw the changeover while sailing the seas, I freaked out. It's no one's Read More

13Apr

Blog Hopping: Why I Write

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I have always loved to write. I thrived in Honors English Classes in high school, writing short stories and poetry and was on the editorial team of the school newspaper. I went on to major in Journalism in college and spent some time in the CNN newsroom before moving to NYC to work in television programming and production. Eventually, I ended up working in publishing where my writing skills really came into play. But it wasn't until I started blogging that I truly captured my journalistic spirit, returning to my roots in writing. From travel to culture Read More

09Mar

Thoughts on Women, Travel and More

Posted by The Culture Mom 5 Comments

Yesterday I went to celebrate International Women's Day at a new conference that was held in downtown Manhattan called Women's Travel Fest. It was a day of discussion meant to inspire and prompt women to travel. I went because as an avid traveler and writer, I was excited to hear women talk about my favorite subject and watch others get as empowered about the topic as I already am. I recently hosted a twitter party on this very subject and know that statistics prove that women are anything but afraid to travel in 2014. These are a few of the stats Read More

17Jan

Why Does the Academy Snub My Oscar Picks?

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While I don't feel completely adequate to write a full response to the Oscar Academy nominations, for reasons none other than the fact that I didn't go to the movies enough this past year, I do feel like speaking very briefly about the snubs. You know why? They were some of the only films I saw last year and I thought they were excellent! I'm talking about Enough Said (come on, not even a posthumous award for James Gandolfini? Julia Louis-Dreyfus was SO good and writer/director Niclole Holofcener ROCKS.) The Butler (Oprah wasn't great, but the Read More

13Jan

On Woody Allen’s Involuntary Twitter Confinement

Posted by The Culture Mom 4 Comments

If you read my site semi-regularly, you know that I'm a big Woody Allen fan. I've been a die-hard fan of for most of my life. My infatuation started in high school and then, as a film minor in college, I watched all his movies and analyzed them (I have the papers to prove it). I was a walking Woody Allen encyclopedia and have been going to his movies the night they premiere (ask my husband as he's typically my companion). for years. I even slipped my resumé under the door of his production office after arriving in NYC a few years later. I've been to Read More