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***Updated for 2019 – Stony Pond Farm currently as two listings on Airbnb, but this woodland cabin is no longer available. The first piece of advice — never trust the weather in Vermont, especially in the spring and fall. A spring camping trip can be sweet and sunny, or it can be a lesson in perseverance, as you suffer through rain, fog, and often snow. The whimsical  weather is an awesome reason to choose a Vermont cabin rental during the spring, fall, and winter, and that’s exactly what my husband, Eric, and I did in May, when we were feeling the camping vibes, but not jiving with the big, fat raindrops that were threatening to consume us. We headed north to Enosburg Falls on a Friday afternoon for a weekend adventure. The fierce rain made it hard to drive, and also made us wonder why the heck we were going camping. We eased onto the dirt driveway at Stony Pond Farm just as the clouds were breaking up and the sun was going down. Tyler, the Stony Pond farmer, ...

When someone tells you that something is “hidden,” usually all it does is make you want to find it. That was exactly the case when I read about Urban Adventures' “Hidden Istanbul” walking tour for the first time. What were the “hidden” parts, I wondered? And how could I discover them? And so, on my first morning in Istanbul — roughly an hour after getting off an overnight bus from Bulgaria, in fact — I set off to uncover those “hidden” things about this diverse and history-filled city. The “Istanbul Uncovered” tour The tour (now known as the “Istanbul Uncovered” tour) kicked off at 8:30 a.m. in the Sultanahmet neighborhood of Istanbul, not far from the famous Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. This tour, my guide Suleyman told me, would introduce me to some of Istanbul's most-loved sites and best-kept secrets — but we would start with the best-loved sites. Our first stop was the site of the Hippod...