Celebrity Travel: Go Away With Allison Amend
Author Allison Amend took her first trip as a baby, studied for a year at a Barcelona high school and came home speaking Catalan and then -- after graduating from Stanford University -- moved to Lyon (France) on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship. Now based out of New York City, Amend, 41, counts the Big Apple, Chicago and Barcelona as three of her favorite cities. Her latest book is "Enchanted Islands" (Nan A. Talese, $26.95). To connect with the author, check out her Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/allisonamendauthor).
Q. What is your favorite vacation destination?
A. I visit my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece in Honolulu as often as time and pocketbook allow. We've explored Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. The islands' raw, rough beauty never ceases to amaze. Hawaii is a nation unto itself. It is tremendous fun to be a foreigner in your own country and, since my family is kama»aina, we get treated like ohana.
Q. What untapped destination should people know about?
A. All the tiny museums in your town. Every city has them -- the niche museums that sound bizarre and uninteresting. Often they prove fascinating. I spent an hour at a barbed wire exhibit once. It was an oddly compelling, beautiful and spiny history of the American West.
Two friends and I decided to see every museum in New York City. We blogged about it (https://thisisareallyseriouspiece.wordpress.com/about/). There were some duds, obviously, but some delightful finds, like the Hispanic Society, Torah Animal World and the Jazz Museum of Harlem. So, I would encourage people to explore their own backyards!
Q. What was the first trip you took as a child? And did you love it ... or not so much?
A. I am told I went to Tulsa with my parents at six weeks. Unsurprisingly, I don't remember it. But, my first novel was about Oklahoma, so maybe it registered more than I thought.
Q. What's the most important thing you've learned from your travels?
A. This from my father: "You will get there eventually. There's no one still wandering around in Portugal who got lost there in 1987."
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