Tag Archives: literary travel

Go Off The Beaten Page in Memphis

June 24, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith 1 Comment

Off The Beaten Page on Beale Street, Memphis

In my opinion, if you’re looking for one place where you can go to get an understanding of the United States–its culture, its history and its struggles–it’s Memphis. Robert Gordon says in It Came from Memphis, “No city has had more of an impact on modern culture.”

Those are pretty big statements, but after visiting Memphis, I think it’s true. I had never been there until I went on a “reconnaissance mission” while writing Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs and Girls on Getaways and by the time I left I felt a tie with Memphis that makes me want to go back to this gritty city on the Mississippi over and over.

It’s not a fancy place, like, for example another Southern city I love, Charleston. But, Memphis moves you. The Memphis mojo makes even the most reserved person want to snap her fingers and start dancing with abandon. In fact, go to the Stax Museum, “Soulsville, USA,” and hit the dance floor there which is surrounded by a video wall. Or, visit Sun Studio where a few guys named Elvis, Johnny, and Jerry Lee recorded their hits. Try to stand still; I dare you. I predict you’ll be rockin’ before you even notice it.

But it’s not all so happy-go-lucky. Memphis was a hub for the civil rights movement and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated there at the Lorraine Motel, which is now

The Lorraine Motel, and the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis.

the National Civil Rights Museum, another “moving” place. This is mecca for anyone interested in the civil rights movement. It’s undergoing an extensive renovation and is currently featuring the exhibit, “Freedom’s Sisters.” Before you go, read Hampton Sides’ Hellhound on His Trail for background and to feel a very close connection to those events.

Then get rollin’ on the river with Mark Twain. His classic Life on the Mississippi outlines not only his experience as a young riverboat pilot but also his observations from a later trip on the river where he observes the cotton culture, the people and many other aspects of life on the Big Muddy. Take a short riverboat cruise and you’ll feel the river’s power and learn a little more about its history and integral role in the development of the country.

Need more excuses to visit Memphis? Check out a few of the city’s upcoming events including Elvis Week, the King’s birthday celebration (this year from August 10-17), and of course Graceland. The Memphis Music and Heritage Festival takes place every year on

You'll also want to visit the gift shop at the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis — You’ll also want to visit the gift shop at the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis

Labor Day weekend. It’s organized by the Center for Southern Folklore. And, now through October you can visit Mud Island Park to see “Discovery: A Journey of Exploration and Imagination of America’s Waterways,” a traveling exhibit of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium and the National Rivers Hall of Fame.

Ideas for Book Clubs

Books, Travel, Friendship: Inspiration for Girls’ Getaways

June 13, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith 1 Comment

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Reading and travel make a dynamite combination. Camaraderie is also a key attraction of literary getaways. Traveling to a literary destination with friends allows you to get away, at least for a while, from the pressures and distractions of work, motherhood, soccer practice, and so many other responsbilities. You gain just a little time to explore new places and ideas, try new things and expand your personal horizons. If nothing else, lit trips offer the chance to have a lot of fun in each other’s company.

If you’ve considered taking a trip with your book club or any other group of friends, you’ll want to take a look at Have Tote Will Travel, the work of Oregon-based Nicole Meier. She says, “I’ve got two incredible, older sisters with whom I love to travel. I hope my blog inspires other women, whether they are friends or sisters, to take the time to travel together and create amazing girls’ trip experiences of their own.” Meier recently posted her interview with me about literary travel and my book Off The Beaten Page in her “Travel Reads” section. She has tons of gals’ travel ideas, so if you’ve been thinking about a trip with your book club or a getaway with mothers, daughters, sisters or a group of friends, check out Have Tote Will Travel.

And, a reminder, if you have had a great lit trip experience, please tell me about it at tsmith952@comcast.net. I love sharing those stories. You’ll find them on the “Book Club Travel Tales” section of this blog.

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Celebrate Dad with a Literary Adventure Together

June 7, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith 4 Comments

Looking for a creative Father’s Day gift? Think books-and-adventure.

SONY DSC — Scott and Mike Smith prepare for a Father’s Day father/son skydiving adventure at West Side Skydivers. westsideskydivers.com

Say “literary travel” and people usually conjure up images of following in the footsteps of the Bronte sisters in England, visiting Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, or perhaps tracing the route of the fictional Robert Langdon through Florence in Dan Brown’s latest, Inferno. Those are great ideas, but for most of us, such excursions mean a major investment of time and money. Instead, I maintain that you can concoct a lit trip just about anywhere if you find the right book and activity combo. A short lit trip doesn’t have to take a huge chunk of your budget or your schedule. And it doesn’t require plowing through high-brow literature. The idea here is to have fun.

Like moms, fathers love spending time with their kids. Unlike moms, “together time” for dads may involve watching golf or ESPN. A lit trip with dad provides just the right catalyst to propel everyone away from watching sports on TV to watching events in person or better yet, participating. Reading the same book (fiction or non-fiction) just naturally brings people together over shared stories and ideas. A literary adventure, near or far, extends the pleasure of sharing a book by adding an experience to the mix, creating an opportunity to live the book. So, it a lit trip doesn’t have to be a scholars exercise, just a way to try out new ideas, activities, and even meet new people.

At almost all of the events and appearances I do for my book Off the Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs and Girls on Getaways, men come up to me and say I should do a book for guys. Often, the books and itineraries in my book can be enjoyed by both men and women, so I imagine an Off The Beaten Page, Men’s Edition would offer much of the same sort of content but with a bit of fine-tuning… more NASCAR, less shopping. Here are a few ideas for literary adventures for guys, dads and otherwise.

A Flying Leap

Is there something on dad’s bucket list that he just needs a little encouragement to try? Sky diving was on my husband’s list for ages and he finally talked one of our sons into going with him as a Father’s Day treat for himself.

Read: Above All Else: A World Champion Skydiver’s Story of Survival and What It Taught Him About Fear, Adversity, and Success by Dan Brodsky-Chenfield. (Okay, I’m thinking you may want to go skydiving first, then read the book.)

Go: skydiving

How to Be Manly

Not so hot on extreme adventures like skydiving?

Read: Man Made: In Which a Dad Learns to Be a Man for His Son by Joel Stein. In hardback, this book had a title I liked better, A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. Stein confesses that he’s not a “manly man” and so undertakes an investigation of how to become one in this very funny book. Chapter One: “Surviving Outdoors”

Go: camping or simply take a hike.

America’s Game

“Baseball travel” is a favorite form of travel for many guys, with groups traveling across the country to tick off visits to both major league and minor league stadiums. (Read my post on Major League Vacations.)

Read: Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age by Allen Barra. This new book had been well received by critics.

Go: Take in a baseball game together.

The Scene of the Crime

It’s no wonder that crime is one of the most popular literary genres.

Read: Revisit the classics, books like Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon or Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely. You just can’t beat those hard-boiled gumshoes. Or, pick up more recent classics like Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer or Walter Mosely’s newest Easy Rawlins mystery, Little Green.

Go: visit the people in blue at your local police department. Even small-town police departments offer some amazing behind-the-scenes tours and some even give you a look at offer their crime labs, ala CSI.

Grill n’ Chill

Cooking is a great creative outlet for just about anybody and there’s plenty of great food writing to go with it.

Read: Calvin Trillin’s The Tummy Trilogy or MFK Fisher’s classic The Art of Eating.

Go: take a cooking or grilling class together.

The sky’s the limit. Just think book and “field trip.” For any dad, the memories of a literary adventure with his kids will stay with him far longer than a Hallmark card. If the kids are too young to share adventures with dad, you’ll want to check out the funny “Literature For Dads” video from The Dad Lab. They suggest avoiding Cormac McCarthy’s The Road–not an uplifting father-son travel idea.

AND–if you have any other book-and-travel pairings that a dad would like, please send them to me. You can comment below, send links to favorite travel blogs, or email me at tsmith952@comcast.net with your ideas. I’ll add them to this blog. But be quick. Father’s Day is June 16.

Charleston

Spoleto Fests Large and Small in Charleston

May 31, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith Leave a comment

DSCN0906 — A carriage ride is a great way to get your bearings in Charleston.

“We just love the way y’all talk,” a Charleston carriage driver comments on my Midwestern accent. He says it, no doubt, with a bit of irony because so many Midwesterners say the same thing to him. Our banter is all in good fun. As we roll through some of Charleston’s most historic and elegant neighborhoods, I feel the warm, humid breeze from the bay blow over me and start to settle into the friendly, genteel hospitality of Charleston. It’s clear that the city still holds the same appeal that it did for Rhett Butler in the closing lines of Gone With the Wind. He tells Scarlett O’Hara that he’s going back home to Charleston, where he can find “the calm dignity life can have when it’s lived by gentle folks, the genial grace of days that are gone. When I lived those days, I didn’t realize the slow charm of them.”

Charleston is one of America’s oldest cities and many of its old guard trace their roots to English colonists, who laid out its series of broad, elegant boulevards. But while the city works hard to preserve its colonial and antebellum historic sites, it is by no means stuck in the days of tight corsets and hoop skirts. The city is home to charming shops (see upper and lower King Street and Broad Street) and restaurants such as Husk that I dream about long after I leave. Most notably, Charleston displays its vibrant cultural life with the Spoleto Festival USA which runs until June 9 and fills the city’s historic theaters, churches and outdoor spaces with performances by world renowned artists as well as emerging performers in opera; theater; dance; and chamber, symphonic, choral and jazz music.

Spoleto brings in artists from around the world. It’s the big boy in town. But if you’re

looking for a taste of regional arts and culture head for Piccolo Spoleto, which focuses primarily on artists of the Southeast region with an emphasis on events for children and families. There’s also a piccolo literary festival. Piccolo Spoleto offers performances and event either free of charge or at prices that are more affordable than its big brother.

No matter which Spoleto you choose, or if you prefer to simply stroll Charleston’s streets or visit nearby plantations, you’ll feel as at home here as Rhett Butler did. Heading for Charleston? Here are a few don’t-miss books to read before you go:

Pat Conroy- South of Broad, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music

Dorothea Benton Frank – Bulls Island, Folly Beach, Lowcountry Summer

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day

Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family

Alphonso Brown- A Gullah Guide to Charleston: Walking Through Black History.

Looking for an itinerary for your visit to Charleston? The city is a featured destination in Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs and Girls on Getaways.

Newport, Rhode Island

Things To Do in Newport, Rhode Island

May 27, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith Leave a comment

There’s plenty to do in Newport, Rhode Island, year-round, but “America’s first resort” really swings into action starting Memorial Day weekend, through Labor Day. For example, you can spend a weekend sampling great chowder in Newport any time of year, but the Great Chowder Cook Off takes place June 1. You can plan a picnic and head for Brenton Point State Park to fly kites and enjoy the fabulous scenery and the Newport Kite Festival July 13 and 14. And, there’s the world famous Newport Jazz Festival August 2, 3, and 4. You can watch polo events and tennis tournaments, attend sailing regattas and find opportunities to go sailing yourself.

Admittedly, when you arrive in Newport, you may feel like you somehow stepped out of your car and into a Ralph Lauren ad. The town is a haven for hot-pink and lime-green plaid shorts, deck shoes, and monogrammed sweaters. But, as you may have seen from a few of my previous posts (see “The American Stories Behind Downton Abbey,” “Gifts for Mom“) I really love Newport, because it offers activities for just about every taste, even if you’re not part of the preppie set. And, while modern-day events like those above abound, the town also offers a special chance to glimpse its Gilded Age history when you go “calling” at the fabulous mansions along Bellevue Avenue. To get in the mood for your Newport trip, be sure to read Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, Thornton Wilder’s Theophilus North, or non-fiction works such as Lucius Beebe’s The Big Spenders or Amanda Mackenzie Stuart’s Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age. You’ll also want to check out a blog I’ve found, The American Countess, which is written by someone even more intrigued with Gilded Age Newport than I.

Newport is one of the destinations I investigate in Off The Beaten Page:
The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs and Girls on Getaways. Find out more at http://www.terripetersonsmith.com

Boston

Off the Beaten Page in Boston

April 9, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith Leave a comment

Literary travel doesn't have to be too serious. I love this sign in Rockport, Massachusetts. — Literary travel doesn’t have to be too serious.

My book, Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs, and Girls on Getaways comes out May 1. So, between now and then, I’m offering a glimpse of the 15 U.S. cities featured in the book. First up, Boston, Massachusetts where, with the help of great books, you can experience the city’s colonial heritage as well as its maritime tradition. Each chapter offers an essay relating a couple of books to the city to create a theme for your trip, an extensive reading list, and a detailed itinerary…. read the book, go see where the story takes place.

Boston itineraries include colonial sites from the perspective of the founding mothers, whose story has only recently begun to be told.

You can also experience “fish tales” such as Moby Dick

or The Perfect Storm through activities such as sailing or whale watching in the Stellwagen Banks Marine Sanctuary with the New England Aquarium.

Shades of Moby Dick.... a breaching whale in the Stellwagen Banks off the coast of Massachusetts. — Shades of Moby Dick…. a breaching whale in the Stellwagen Banks off the coast of Massachusetts.

Children and reading, Ideas for Book Clubs

Book Club Travel Tales

March 4, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith Leave a comment

HudsonGirlsWebShot-300x199 — Cindy Hudson with her daughters.

I’m hearing more and more stories from book club members about the terrific lit trips, large and small, that their groups have taken. I love it! So, I’m starting a new category for this blog: “Book Club Travel Tales,” where you can find ideas in one spot, over there in the right hand column.

In previous posts, for example, I’ve mentioned the travels and events of Go On Girl! Book Club. Here’s a new addition to the list, a Q and A interview with Cindy Hudson of Portland Oregon. She is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs and has a great blog on the same topic, MotherDaughterBookClub.com. Not surprisingly, she’s active in more than one book group and here she shares a few of their travel experiences.

What kind of trips or outings has your book club enjoyed?

Over the years, I’ve gone on several outings with my book groups. After one group read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which focuses on eating locally, we organized a wine tasting day with a potluck lunch focused on ingredients from a local farmers market. We talked to the winegrowers, sipped a bit of their wine and ate incredible food. We discussed what we had learned about eating locally as well as ideas we had for changing their food habits going forward. The pictures from that day show all of us with big smiles. The event was such a hit we knew that we’d be looking at other opportunities to take our group on the road at least once a year.”

We’ve had several movie events, too. We went to see the movie Millions when we read the book by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and we went to see The Secret Life of Bees when we read that book. Also, there were several weekends away that were not book themed, rather they were a chance for us all to get away together and have fun, and we also talked about the book we had read.

Why not just stay home and do your regular meeting? Why go on an outing or trip?

Going out as a group is not only fun, it helps you see a side of other members in your group that you don’t get to see in your regular meeting setting. I’ve gone on outings with my mother-daughter book clubs and in the reading group I’m in with my husband, and in each case, we aim for one or two what we call “field trips” a year.

Do these trips bring the members of your group closer together?

I have found that there’s never enough time to socialize with everyone at book club. In only a few hours we have dinner, try to catch up with other members about what has happened in their lives in the last month or so, and discuss the book. When I go on outings or weekends away I treasure the relaxed atmosphere and the ability to really spend time one-on-one with others in the group. And there’s always a lot of laughing during group time.

Once, when I was on a weekend away with my mother-daughter book club, we started playing music after dinner and the moms began to dance. We all had a good laugh when the girls expressed surprise that their moms would want to dance. They found out we’re people too, and sometimes we just want to have fun.

Any tips or suggestions for people organizing book-related travel?

Make sure you have a good idea of budget before hand. You don’t want to plan something at a luxury hotel if some of the members of your group won’t be able to afford it. Also, if you do go away for a night or more, make sure there are plenty of opportunities for people to branch off and go on their own adventures as well as stay with the group.

Follow Cindy on Twitter at twitter.com/momdtrbookclub

Ideas for Book Clubs

Go on Girl! This is one inspiring book club. Part One.

January 16, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith 3 Comments

While some book groups struggle to meet regularly or to get everyone to read the book before they meet, others take the reading group concept to a whole new level.

In the course of doing research for my upcoming book, Off the Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Groups, and Girls on Getaways, I was looking for book clubs that travel and do other interesting things together– beyond the typical meeting that includes book discussion, wine, and dessert, not necessarily in that order. One of the most impressive groups I came across was the Go On Girl! Book Club. They’re headquartered in New York but GOG has become a national organization with 30 chapters in the following 13 states.

Their mission: to encourage the literary pursuits of people of African descent. The group started with Lynda Johnson, Monique Greenwood, and Tracy Mitchell who all worked at Fairchild Publications as editors. Says Johnson, “Tracy and I were avid readers. She loved coming of age stories and I loved any and everything surrounding the Harlem Renaissance writers. Tracy and I were both reading the novel No Easy Place to Be by Steven Corbin and would discuss it over lunch. Monique heard our intense conversations and originally thought we were discussing real people. We told her she had to read the book; she did and joined our conversations. Based on our discussions Tracy suggested we get a small group of friends together and form a book club. It was during that first meeting that the foundation for GOG was set. Ironically, we had 12 women attend, all with different tastes in books.”

This formed Go On Girl! Book Club’s commitment to read 12 different genres a year, one for each month. They also decided to limit their group to 12 women to make for manageable book discussions. Eventually, various members of the group moved to other parts of the country and they established GOG chapters wherever they went, starting with Washington, D.C. and Chicago. They didn’t set out to form a national organization. “Our growth happened very organically,” says Johnson.

But they eventually became women on a mission. “We chose to read writers from the African diaspora to support those authors and experience stories about ourselves. The publishing industry didn’t realize that a large black readership existed until the publication of Terry McMillan’s books. We quickly discovered so many wonderful black writers who weren’t getting recognition or support. We wanted to let them know that we realize they exist and are reading and discussing their books. We hosted book signings and readings for some of those authors and then decided to recognize them with our annual author awards weekend. We just wanted a platform for African American writers. There were so many great writers out there who we felt were following the tradition of Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and a host of literary writers from the Harlem Renaissance but not getting the recognition they needed. We felt we could do that for them as a book club and discuss and enjoy some great stories at the same time.”

Ultimately, GOG became a national, non-profit reading organization. They give out scholarships to encourage writing of stories about the black experience. “We decided to give a scholarship to an aspiring writer studying literature/communications and an unpublished writer struggling to be read. And, if that’s not enough, for the last 20 years, the GOG chapters have come together in a different location each year, to connect with each other and to host author awards that have been attended by some of the luminaries of the literary world including Walter Mosely, Bebe Moore Campbell, Terry McMillan, and many others.

Impressed? Read more about the Go On Girl! book club in my next post.

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Book Club Traveler is now Off the Beaten Page Travel

January 2, 2013 Terri Peterson Smith Leave a comment

It’s been quite a while since my last post because I’ve been hard at work on a forthcoming book entitled Off the Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Groups and Girls on Getaways, which will be out in May. The book explores the idea of literary travel– what it is, how to plan lit trips large and small, and 15 of the best places in the U.S. for where you can both explore the settings of great books and have a great time with friends. I’m starting the new year with a new blog, Off The Beaten Page Travel, which will work in conjunction with the book, serve as a place to update lit lovers on my literary travel adventures as well as a forum where readers can share their ideas, too.

I have moved the content from Book Club Traveler to this new blog, so if you’re a subscriber to BCT, please subscribe to Off the Beaten Page Travel (www.offthebeatenpagetravel.wordpress.com). You’ll find both the information from the last couple of years along with new and frequently updated thoughts on reading and travel. The goal will remain the same as my tagline says, “Travel to the places you’ve read about. Read about the places you travel.”

Travel to the places you read about. Read about the places you travel.