NEW YORK | The bill for a night’s stay at the newly refurbished Plaza Hotel is not just for gold-trimmed sheets and white-glove service. It’s for legend, history, a cocoon from the noisy, frenetic city, and for memories.
Planning a wedding requires patience and imagination, and then there’s the time and skill needed to plan just the right honeymoon. Wouldn’t it be easier to just do the fun part, such as simply figuring out the getaway element?
AUSTIN, Texas | It occurs to me, as I lapse into a semi-trance while watching the sun fall beyond a tree-cloaked bluff over the serene lake, that it’s time to stop thinking of self-indulgence as a bad thing.
COTE D’OR , France | Clearly, this will be my kind of trip: The instant we board the Esprit, the barge that will carry us through Burgundy, our captain and crew put flutes of Champagne in our hands and urge us to help ourselves to the bubbly as often as we like. Otherwise, how can we possibly embrace the joie de vivre that defines this brand of voyage?
You’ve probably noticed: It’s a do-it-yourself world and getting more so every day.
You pump your own gas and buy stamps from a machine. The automatic teller spits up cash, and a Web site takes orders for shirts and shoes. You can purchase an airplane ticket online, get a boarding pass from a computer and not speak to a single soul until you actually board the plane — and sometimes not even then.
