Thanks for joining me on the journey.
I’m an American travel writer dividing my time between Seville, Spain and California. I travel the world seeking intriguing curiosities and outrageously delicious comfort food so I can have the fun of writing about them here. — Karen McCann
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Let’s Not Give Up on 2021 Just Yet
OK, 2021, the hour of reckoning has come. Yes, already! You can’t deny we performed all the proper rituals — red underwear, grapes, buckets of water out the door , 360 million glasses of champaign in the US alone. Frankly, we gave you the most enthusiastic welcome of any year in the history of time.…
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What I Promise Not to Watch, Buy, or Eat in 2021
I no longer make New Year’s resolutions — which only 8% of people keep anyway — but this time around I’m making an exception. And I’m serious. No matter how desperate I am for something new to watch, I will not stream the movie Songbird . Haven’t heard of it? Here’s the premise: It’s the…
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How to Get Lucky (or at Least, Luckier) in 2021
In a non-pandemic year (remember those?), I often skip New Year’s Eve. By the time I’ve partied my way through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and our wedding anniversary (December 27th, 34 years ago), I’m usually longing for a night in with my feet up. But not this year. I am staying…
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Relax: Nobody’s Cancelling Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Any Other Holiday
When Ernest Hemmingway was writing A Farewell to Arms , he asked F. Scott Fitzgerald to critique the manuscript. Fitzgerald’s thoughtful, nuanced analysis ran for ten pages and suggested changing the ending. Hemingway’s reply? A succinct, “Kiss my ass.” This story appeared in my horoscope this week, followed by, “I suggest a different approach for…
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What The Queen’s Gambit & The Crown Taught Me About Surviving the Pandemic Holidays
Navigating the holidays requires every bit of wit, grit, and gumption we’ve got. Take shopping, for instance. Fun at first, it quickly degenerates into a morass of doubts: “Is this enough? Too much? Did I give this to them last year? Did they give one just like it to me?” When David Niven was an…
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Tis the Season to Get Weird
“Who is that glamorous couple?” I asked Bill the Printer one long ago snowy day in Ohio. He’d just run off a stack of holiday cards featuring a gorgeously lit photo of a handsome couple in evening dress. “Are they actors? Millionaire philanthropists?” Bill laughed. “That’s what they want you to think. They’re Joan and…
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Quarantine Thanksgiving? Let the Games Begin!
Many of my Spanish friends are firmly convinced of two things: 1) Thanksgiving is the most significant holiday in the US calendar, and 2) all American women spend their leisure hours sewing quilts. In vain have I protested that I’ve never quilted in my life. Equally impossible is convincing them that the prevalence of Thanksgiving…
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A Good Night’s Sleep Ain’t What It Used to Be (& That’s OK)
I come from a family of light sleepers, and my ability to snooze for eight solid hours — a slippery goal at best — has not improved during the jittery pandemic months. Has anyone’s? Sleep experts talk of “a second pandemic of insomnia” and “coronasomnia.” But I’m resting a bit easier now that I’ve learned…
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How to Navigate Holidays in the Pandemic Hellscape
Merriment Turns to Mayhem When Halloween Prank Goes Wrong! Every year we see headlines about practical jokes taken too far. Like the October 31st my friend returned from college to find the family home empty, furniture overturned, the kitchen splashed with what looked like blood. She freaked, fled, and called the cops, who tracked down…
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Creating a Cozy Sanctuary for Pandemic Winter
One long ago night, Rich burst through our front door shouting, “We have to get rid of the living room!” “Okay,” I said. “Should I get the sledgehammer?” “No, I mean reconfigure the space. I just heard a talk by Mike Vance, one of the creative geniuses who designed Disneyland. He says living rooms are…
TRAVEL with CURIOSITY
These days I’m cultivating curiosity, which science says will keeps my brain agile. I figure spending more time on the road and indulging my natural nosiness about the world will be good therapy and a cheerful counterpoint to today’s headlines. And I will never run out of quirky stuff to write about.
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