I can already feel the relief of stepping off a plane in Mexico in early December, knowing I’ve left the snow and cold of the West Kootenay behind for palm trees, warm tiles, ocean air, and the kind of lazy vacation that proves you're alive. This trip to Cabo San Lucas feels different. My mom has had a timeshare at Hacienda del Mar since 2009, so this isn’t a first-time, figure-it-all-out kind of trip. I’ve been 5 times before. I know the rhythm of the place. I know it’s not a party resort. I...

Nice, Antibes, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and many Côte d’Azur beaches are rocky or made of smooth pebbles. Because of this, there's some things you should definitely bring if you're planning for time at the beach. This list is ranked by how much each item would have improved our beach days or how much money we would have saved just by bringing it from home. It focuses on practical beach gear above all else. These are our forgotten essentials for South of France beach trips that we would pack...

We were scheduled to spend the day in a van. Our Wingbuddy tour had an outsourced day trip from Nice to St. Tropez and Port Grimaud, and on paper it sounded lovely. In real life, it meant an 7:00 am start to leave by 8:00, more than two hours on the road each way, and a long day of seeing another pretty Riviera town from a packed schedule. I wanted to see Villefranche-sur-Mer instead. It was only a short 2 train stops away. I’d read about the curved bay before we left for France, the pastel...