All posts tagged: California

Lido Marina Village: Newport Beach’s Pinterest-Perfect Shopping Plaza

Before I visited Orange County last month, all I knew about the area came courtesy of pop culture: Disneyland, The Real Housewives of… franchise, Lauren Conrad and of course, the fictional teen drama The O.C. I spent the duration of my Orange County visit based in Newport Beach, famous for Balboa Island millionaires and nautical vibes. I was a bit worried whether Newport Beach would resonate with me. It seemed decidedly jetset – much too spendy to be gypset. What’s more, I’m not much of a beach-going sunseeker. What would this coastal community hold for me? And then I stumbled upon the epicentre of Newport style… Lido Marina Village Take a walk with me. Strolling its white-washed streets, this shopping plaza evokes a starched nautical crispness. I’m swooning. Local boutiques curate niche goods, from baubles to hand-mixed perfumes to bespoke monogram stationary. I want to buy into each shop’s lifestyle – except my wallet is stuffed with paltry Canadian dollars. For now, I window shop. How to pass an afternoon in Lido Marina Village It’s in Lido Marina that I pick up on a new …

Roadtrippin’ America: Day I Desert Drive

Into the Desert Monday, October 10 Following the wrap of Desert Trip festival (October 7-9), Jason and I packed up the truck and left Indio. But not before we fetched the items he had buried in the desert. I know what you’re thinking, but it was just the camping equipment festival organizers didn’t permit on the grounds. Our heading? Simply due north. We first wound around the sun-baked park limits of Joshua Tree National Park, whose trees stood stunted and gnarled. We sailed along lonely byways as 35 degree temperatures radiated from the ashphalt. Winding, weaving, the truck crested a pass to reveal an arrow-straight stretch of highway that pierced the horizon as far as we could see. As we skirted Sheephole Valley Wilderness I was consumed by the emptiness of the terrain, trained on a singular thought: how this might be a miserable place to be stranded. A Desert’s a Desert’s a Desert…Isn’t It? From here we pushed on through Mojave National Preserve, and Jason and I couldn’t help remarking on the diversity of desert landscapes. Pop culture had …