Three-Night Trips

Approaching the Alps on the Orient Express.Photo: Courtesy of Orient Express

The Orient Express
Watch the Alps go by during breakfast.

Hours From New York: 7
TYPE OF VACATION: Romance
MODE:

It’s not cheap ($2,605 per person; 401-351-7518), but it’s incredibly romantic to spend two nights aboard the Orient Express. Take an overnight flight to London, arriving Saturday morning. Head straight to Victoria Station, where you will board the Orient Express’s luxurious antique British Pullman, which leaves promptly at 11:15 a.m. You’re served a three-course lunch as you pass through Kent, rural England at its loveliest. The required switch to a bus at Folkestone (it’s loaded onto a flatbed railcar for a 100-mph whiz through the Chunnel) brings you back to modernity briefly, but in twenty minutes you’re in France, boarding the blue-and-gild antique cars of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. Your steward settles you into your compartment, complete with an overstuffed sofa that transforms into comfy bunk beds. Pack robes and slippers; the bathrooms are down the hall. Dinner is black tie. Somewhere around dessert, you will pass through Paris. The party in the bar car lasts into the wee hours. After your morning croissant and coffee, read the International Herald Tribune or play cards in the lounge as you watch the Alps pass by. By teatime, you’ll be heading through the dramatic Brenner Pass; you pull into Venice’s Santa Lucia Station a little after 6 p.m., and check into the Hotel Danieli (from $396; 39-04-1-522-6480) for the last night. Fly home Monday morning if you must (it’s an eight-hour flight), but stay another day to explore Venice if you can.

Sonoma, California
Rough it (sort of) in wine country.

Hours From New York: 8
TYPE OF VACATION: Adventure
MODE:

You love Napa’s golden light and rolling hills. You hate the prescribed trudges from winery to winery. Mix in a little adventure, like Sonoma County Grape Camp (707-522-5860), a three-day workout of hand-harvesting grapes and blending your own wine, or Kunde Estate Winery & Vineyards’ (707-833-5501) pulse-raising four-hour eco-hike that climbs 1,400 feet up the Mayacamas Mountains on the winery’s 1,850-acre property. The $75 fee also gets you a wine tasting (its unoaked 2005 Chardonnay Nu has pretty citrus and apple notes) and lunch outside. Stay at the casually sleek Hotel Healdsburg (from $260; 707-431-2800), or the low-key Dawn Ranch (707-869-0656), a century-old fifteen-acre resort of little yellow cabins, creeks, and an apple orchard, near the Russian River; you can rent canoes and kayaks at nearby Johnson’s Beach or bike and hike along trails beneath the great redwoods of the 805-acre Armstrong Redwood State Reserve park. Reward yourself at Zazu Restaurant & Farm (707-523-4814) with chef John Stewart’s truffle salumi and wife and co-chef Duskie Estes’s lemon-cucumber gazpacho.

Kassel, Germany
Debate art and modernity at Documenta 12.

Hours From New York: 9
TYPE OF VACATION: Art
MODE:

It’s going to be a big art summer in Europe: the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, then Documenta, the once–every-five-years ultraserious art show. Most of the 100-plus artist list is under wraps until the official opening; Spanish chef Ferran Adrià will be making his art-festival debut. Kassel doesn’t have a major airport, so you have to take a train from the Frankfurt airport (about an hour and a half); if you’re coming from Basel, trains run hourly (travel time is about four and a half hours). The colorfully decorated Art Hotel Schweizer Hof (from $85; 490-5619-3690) is within walking distance of the train, letting you conserve energy for Documenta’s spread-out series of projects (which typically spill from the galleries into the city’s passageways and shop windows, in a kind of scavenger hunt). Rooms for the opening weekend will be hard to come by; consider catching the show toward the end of its run, in late August or early September—after all, you’ll have the next five years to discuss its leitmotifs, including “Is modernity our antiquity?” (Documenta 12 runs from June 16 through September 23; go to documenta12.de.)

Bermuda
Go beyond the pink beaches.

Hours From New York: 2
TYPE OF VACATION: Adventure
MODE:

The famous pink-sand beaches, pastel cottages, and oceanfront golf courses might seem like a travel-brochure cliché, but a more interesting Bermuda exists for the slightly adventurous. Stay in one of the clean, no-frills studios at Munro Beach Cottages (from $250; 441-234-1175). Spend your first afternoon rambling around Nonsuch Island, a fourteen-acre conservation project 45 minutes away by boat (book before you leave through the Bermuda Biological Station at 441-297-1880). The next day, take a brisk off-road hike with the Walking Club of Bermuda, through Blue Hole Park and its nearby caves. Stop into the Black Horse Tavern for a fish sandwich and a Dark and Stormy (rum, ginger beer, and lime) before a mellow walk through St. George’s Parish, the exquisite World Heritage Site that’s been a functioning town since 1612. Ditch the cruise-ship crowd and head out on a bike (not a scooter) along the railway trail to Somerset and rent snorkeling gear at Church Bay’s concession stand. Hubie’s Friday-night jazz gets rolling at 7 p.m.; get there early to snag a booth.

Where to soak: Riverbend Hot Springs in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.Photo: Courtesy of Riverbend Hot Springs

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Get the East Village vibe in the Southwest.

Hours From New York: 6.5
TYPE OF VACATION: Relax
MODE:

Until 1950, when as a PR stunt the sleepy town renamed itself after a popular TV quiz show to get its host, Ralph Edwards, to come film there, Truth or Consequences was known by the banal but more accurate name Hot Springs, owing to the geothermal waters. Today, it’s a collection of fifties-style courtyard motels, storefront art galleries, vintage stores, an organic grocery store, and several churches with a low-key, ambient weirdness (and a growing population of New York expats) that makes for a restful yet still intriguing long weekend. The Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa (505-894-6974) is the most upscale of the hotel-spas; rooms start at $89. More typical is the Fire Water Lodge (505-740-0315), which features spring-fed tubs in the $75 rooms. You can also “soak,” as the locals call it, in cisterns on the Rio Grande at Riverbend Hot Springs (505-894-7625) for $15 an hour, looking out over the desert toward Turtle Mountain. Ted Turner, who owns buffalo ranches nearby, is sometimes spotted at the Big-A-Burger takeout, and Shayna Samuels, a former teacher at OM yoga in Manhattan, has moved here to start the Mothership Yoga Lounge in a disused church. Unlike other artsy southwestern towns, this one is still affordable—though that may change when Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceport opens nearby in a couple of years.

Savannah, Georgia
See new art in an old southern city.

Hours From New York: 2.5
TYPE OF VACATION: Art
MODE:

Sleepy, beautiful, Spanish-moss-draped Savannah has been quietly developing a reputation as an art center worth noticing. The Savannah College of Art and Design (scad) has helped transform the historic downtown into a gallery-strewn haven. The Red Gallery, a former department store (912-525-4735), and the Pei Ling Chan Gallery (912-525-6990) show the work of alumni and nationally recognized contemporary artists (scad.edu/exhibitions). Installations and performance art are common in the Starland design district, anchored by the Desot O Row Gallery (912-220-0939) and the Red Kite Studio (912-238-1508). Check out the Kemper Collection exhibit (through June 10) and Alen MacWeeney’s Ireland portraits (through May 20) at the Moshe Safdie–designed Jepson Center for the Arts (912-790-8800), a year-old expansion of the Telfair Museum of Art dedicated to contemporary work. Lunch in an airy gallery at the Soho South Cafe (912-233-1633). Indulge in inventive nouveau-southern fare in a Greek Revival mansion at Elizabeth on 37th (912-236-5547), or visit the Lady & Sons (912-233-2600) for the buffet; don’t overlook the crab cakes. Refuel with Back in the Day Bakery’s (912-495-9292) oven-roasted chicken sandwich and red-velvet cupcakes. Rest at the Mansion on Forsyth Park (from $199; 912-238-5158), Savannah’s de rigueur boutique hotel.

Manchester, Tennessee
Get muddy with the Kings of Leon.

Hours From New York: 2
TYPE OF VACATION: Adventure
MODE:

If you’re going to subject yourself to the sweaty, dusty misery of a music festival this summer, make it Bonnaroo June 14–17, the long-running jam-band bonanza held annually on a verdant farm in sleepy Manchester. Direct flights to Nashville out of JFK are cheap—and short, at barely two hours. This year’s incarnation boasts an unmissable lineup, including the White Stripes, in their first American appearance of the summer; the newly reunited Police; and the sure-to-be-right-at-home southern rockers Kings of Leon—not to mention a great roster of indie acts that could easily pack venues on their own. Arrive as early as possible on Thursday to avoid the traffic crunch. All the RVs in Nashville were rented ages ago, so bring the best tent you can find. Bring a tarp or umbrella for added shade, trash bags for sitting on, a large tub of hand wipes, and as much water as you can haul, plus sunscreen, bug spray, and tons of snacks. One old-timer’s excellent suggestion: Hoist a flag at your campsite so you’ll be able to find your way home during the long, drunken trudge back after the shows ($214 weekend-pass tickets available at bonnarootickets.com; price includes parking and camping).

Monhegan Island
Bathe in the light that inspired Hopper.

Hours From New York: 4.5
TYPE OF VACATION: Adventure
MODE:

There are other islands on the coastline here with negligible populations, quaint restaurants, and proximity to a major city. But none has Monhegan’s 480 acres of untouched woods, coastline, and stunning cliffs that drop dramatically to the ocean in the east, which accounts for why Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth painted here. Monhegan can be reached only by an hour-long ferry ride (three departure points; check schedules at monhegan.com), preceded by a plane ride to Portland and a two-hour drive to the ferry landing. The village is a working fishing community with a year-round population of less than 80, clustered at a harbor on the island’s far western side. There on a bluff overlooking the ocean, you’ll find the Island Inn (207-596-0371), a renovated 1816 structure that offers some of the only rooms on the island with private baths (starting at $115 until mid-June, then $145) and a restaurant with a menu that changes with the day’s catch. There are no passenger cars—or paved roads, for that matter. Just seventeen miles of hiking trails, an ever-changing rotation of crossbills and purple finches, and countless views that could make painters of us all.

Three-Night Trips