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2 weeks ago | 
fodors.com | Teresa Bergen
Wind phones provide a tangible way to grieve. Like many mothers and daughters, Amy and Emily Dawson’s phone conversations include everything from big events to the minutiae of everyday life, but the old rotary phone that Amy calls her daughter on isn’t connected. After Emily died of a terminal illness in 2020, Amy created a wind phone to carry her messages. It’s an old idea. Gods have been using the wind to relay messages for thousands of years.
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2 weeks ago | 
thesobercurator.com | Teresa Bergen
Our little group of three visitors stood with Olger Leiva on a bridge over a rocky stream while he explained how glass frogs lay gelatinous sacks of tadpole eggs on the undersides of big leaves. When they hatch, the tiny tadpoles fall 20 feet into the water below. We amble up a trail where we watch industrious leafcutter ants carrying shiny green pieces of leaves on their back, ferrying them to their underground lair to feed a fungus. The ants eat the fungus, not the leaves.
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1 month ago | 
bluedotliving.com | Teresa Bergen
Since the recent catastrophic Los Angeles fires, Californians are dreaming more than ever of affordable, fire-resistant housing that can be constructed quickly with sustainable materials. La Jolla architect Daniel Lopez-Perez may have the solution. Daniel came to San Diego in 2009 to start an architecture program at University of San Diego. In addition to teaching, he’s an avid researcher in how technology used to design tall buildings can be scaled down to residential units.
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2 months ago | 
theclub.ba.com | Laura Bartlett |Teresa Bergen
More flyers are ditching the drink than ever, but can holidaying sober actually improve your travels? And if you’ve often equated trips abroad with the chance to kick back with a cocktail – how on earth do you start? We get the inside track and top tips from those who’ve braved travel without the booze
We’ve officially entered the era of the sober curious – an ever-growing movement of people exploring what life could look like alcohol-free.
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2 months ago | 
thesobercurator.com | Teresa Bergen
If you were to stop into the Comfort Café in San Antonio looking for biscuits, your server might surprise you by bringing up addiction. Justin Motl could greet you with, “I’m Justin; I don’t know if I’ve served you before, but I’m celebrating seven years.
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2 months ago | 
thesobercurator.com | Teresa Bergen
Jennifer Siegel grew up being a ballerina. By the time she was 15, her chiropractor warned her that she was going to have a lifetime of pain if she didn’t find a better way to navigate her physical health. This led to yoga, which evolved into a whole series of healing work: massage, yoga therapy school in 2011, yoga teaching, and becoming a certified alcohol and drug counselor. I first met Jennifer more than ten years ago in Portland, Oregon, where she lives and works.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
goworldtravel.com | Teresa Bergen
When my husband and I arrived in Olympia, Washington I was disappointed that my hotel was farther from downtown than I expected. He was closer to the freeway and in what appeared to be a boring spot in the boonies. But still, I went for a morning walk. On my walk I discovered a large nature park just a few blocks away with enough moss and trees to feel like I was in genuine woods—not within the city limits of Washington state’s capital. But that’s how Olympia is.
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Jan 19, 2025 | 
thesobercurator.com | Teresa Bergen
In the late 1800s, you could land in a mental institution due to your religious excitement, syphilis, moral insanity, addiction, or for many other reasons. So when I heard that I could stay in a former asylum as a hotel guest—the same asylum I might have been thrown in 130 years ago as a drunk—I was eager to visit. That’s how I ended up at Buffalo’s Richardson Hotel for three nights in September. From there, I discovered many fun things for sober folks to do in New York’s second-largest city.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
fodors.com | Teresa Bergen
Black cats helped bring the community back together after Hurricane Helene, and can inspire you to prepare your own kitties for emergencies. When I visited Asheville in June 2024, I spent an afternoon hanging out at the House of Black Cat Magic, a community hub for western North Carolina’s cat rescuers and magic practitioners, which had just celebrated its first anniversary.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
porthole.com | Teresa Machan |Teresa Bergen
When Darci Murray entered her cabin on an Explora Journeys cruise in the Caribbean, nonalcoholic champagne awaited her. “We felt like everybody else,” said Murray, a travel advisor and owner of Hooked, an alcohol-free group travel company. Many folks have an iconic cruising image of sitting by the pool, umbrella drink in hand. But what if you, like Murray, don’t drink alcohol at all? Or if you’re participating in Dry January, or detoxing in any other month?
