Getting the flavor of...

New Orleans by kayak

Only in New Orleans could an urban kayak trip run across both ghosts and voodoo, said Spud Hilton in the San Francisco Chronicle. Bayou St. John may be little known outside Louisiana, but the slow-moving stream played a big part in the city’s settlement. Today, the bayou is a shallow, 4-mile-long canal that provides “natural air conditioning” for joggers and cuts through areas that few tourists see. After renting a boat from Bayou Kayaks, I chose against paddling south into the French Quarter, where the canal’s tea-colored water is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a woman dragged under a paddle wheel a century ago. I instead headed north, toward Lake Pontchartrain, passing handsome homes and ducking under highway bridges as I went. Eventually, I came to City Park and a green stretch of canal bank where Marie Laveau once bought herbs from native tribes and conducted voodoo rituals. The quiet impressed me.

Happyville, S.C.

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Beaufort, S.C., wears well its recent designation as America’s “Happiest Seaside Town,” said Jayne Clark in USA Today. Earlier this year, Coastal Living magazine awarded Beaufort that honor, citing the burg’s “Lowcountry friendliness and urban refinement,” its antebellum architecture, and a cuisine built around fresh seafood and spicy gumbos. Tucked among South Carolina’s Sea Islands, Beaufort actually sits 16 miles from open water, but its position was attractive enough that the Spanish tried settling it in the 1500s and the Union army occupied its stately homes throughout the Civil War. The films Forrest Gump and The Big Chill used Beaufort for its scenery, and history here is “as palpable as a Lowcountry breeze blowing through the salt marshes.” The city’s very walkable downtown features an array of art galleries and antiques shops, and three miles of pristine beachfront stretch along the nearby Atlantic Coast.