The sun is shining here today in Antalya, Turkey. The sky is cobalt-blue, there's a clarity to the light, a crispness in the air, and bird-song everywhere. It feels like Spring again!
I've been so preoccupied with the Lonely Planet scandal, I've forgotten to share some things with you: our 'Dhows, Dolphins & Cigarette Smugglers' story on the magical Musandam Peninsula, Oman (pictured), a favorite weekend getaway of ours, is in the latest issue of one of our favorite Aussie travel magazines Get Lost. While currently in store down under, I'll also pop a PDF in my media bistro portfolio (see link to right), along with recently published stories, such as my shopping-focused Dubai guide for Ritz-Carlton magazine, a feature on Dubai's audacious architecture for Canvas, and a Macau piece for MGM's M Lifestyle. The April issue of Gulf Life, Gulf Air's in-flight mag, has a special on Entrepreneurs for which we interviewed four young go-getters in Dubai, Sheikha Maisa Al Qassimi (a real life princess and fashion entrepreneur), Shehab Hamad (a club, culture, life-style-setter) and Sunny Rahbar and Claudia Cellini (contemporary art gallery owner-curator-groundbreakers). The next issue features the Gulf's seven wonders of the contemporary world and a story on Abu Dhabi's Masdar initiative and Norman Foster-designed Masdar eco-city written by my co-writer Terry. We also have a 'Beyond the Beach' guide to Cyprus coming out in Jazeera's Airway's groovy J Magazine. Terry has written a three-day itinerary covering the Top Things to do in Dubai for Viator which just went live today, and there are more to come. We've also been doing destination guides to cities around the globe for Triporati. If you're planning a trip to Dubai, print off our exhaustive Best of Dubai guide which we wrote for National Geographic Traveller's Places of a Lifetime series, for which we spent several weeks collecting opinions, advice, tips, and even recipes, from chefs, sommeliers, food critics, cultural experts, DJs, music critics, shopping gurus, fashion experts, magazine editors, and other travel writers, on their favorite spots in Dubai; it's now up on the NGT website.