George Clooney Slept Here

One of my life’s missions is to celebrate the extraordinary. As a travel writer, I sniff out the rare and unique, the truly special things that give a town, a country or a region its one-of-a-kind fingerprint.

Bill Gates, who started that little company of his in a garage in Albuquerque, abandoned this city with 310 yearly days of sunshine for Seattle that’s lucky to get 60 days of blue skies, but as Apple has proven, he doesn’t know everything.

Here are the top five things you can only find in Albuquerque:

1. Businesses who ask, “What would Walter White do?” New Mexico was the first state in the country to offer a film tax rebate. Consequently, its biggest city has played a starring role in many of the last decade’s films, including 2012’s $1.5 billion-grossing Avengers and the about to-be-released Lone Ranger. But the production that has brought the most fame to Albuquerque is the AMC hit, Breaking Bad, which has spawned dozens of profitable Albuquerque businesses. I was lucky enough to visit Great Face & Body that makes “Bathing Bad” bath salts, lotions and scrubs. Urban eco-shamans Keith and Andre West-Harrison, who count the show’s Giancarlo Esposito as a friend, cook up red cabbage for the organic blue meth bath salts that are selling faster than you can say Heisenberg.

Debbie Ball, owner of The Candy Lady, didn’t consider selling blue ice candy at her store until she saw Bryan Cranston offer up a bag to David Letterman. Since she’s the one who sold him that bag (the show hired her to make 100 pounds per season), she decided to capitalize, adding a whole line of Breaking Bad products, including Heisenberg’s famous porkpie hat. There’s even an Albuquerque artist who turned his struggling career around by making Pez dispensers of the show’s characters.

2. A trolley tour on an adobe trolley: Hard to find a city these days without a trolley tour, but ABQ Trolley is the only open-air trolley made from adobe. And, yes, the two Burquenos (an affectionate term for local) who own it give all the tours themselves, including a three-and-a-half hour tour of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman’s haunts. Guests on this popular, always sold-out tour see the Crossroad Motel, Saul Goodman’s law office, Tuco’s hideout and are even offered a drink at Los Pollos Hermanos which, in its civilian life, doubles as Twister’s Grill.

3. A movie theater with hundreds of lit-up buffalo skulls and swastikas. Albuquerque’s Kimo Theatre is the only theater in the world designed in the Pueblo Deco style. Built in 1927, its adobe architecture, log ceiling beams, chandeliers shaped like war drums and indigenous motifs like funeral canoes and wrought iron birds separate it from other palatial theaters of its time that tended to be decorated in Egyptian and Chinese motif. Needless to say, it’s on the National Historic Register so when it was renovated in 2001 just in time for Route 66’s 75th anniversary, the fact that the swastikas meant peace and prosperity to Hopi and Navaho cultures long before Nazi Germany adopted them gave city planners reason enough to leave them be. The interior of the Kimo (it’s an Indian word that means, “King of its Kind”) looks like the inside of a kiva, has murals depicting the Seven Cities of Cibola and is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a six-year-old boy who was killed when a lobby water heater exploded in 1951. Either way, it’s a great place to catch a Hitchcock flick, a series the Kimo happens to be running this summer.

4. A restaurant that makes salsa with the faces of Hillary Clinton, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne and Joe Biden on their labels. El Pinto, the famous 1200-seat restaurant that first coined the term “New Mexican cuisine” is run by a couple identical twin brothers who wouldn’t put anything artificial in their mouth if Breaking Bad‘s Gus Fring tried to slit their throats. They grow all their chiles to specification, fussing over them like a vintner fusses over his grapes. Jim and John Thomas have cooked on Air Force One and in the White House when George W. Bush decided to celebrate Cinco De Mayo with recipes the Thomas twins learned from their grandmother, Josephina Chavez-Griggs. Just about every actor with an agent has made it to this 12-acre property that serves 140 types of tequila and nothing that’s not organic and locally-grown.

5. Horses parked next to cars and bikes. Josh and Heather Arnold, a cute young couple who own Routes Bicycle Rentals & Tours, give brewery tours, movie tours and general Albuquerque tours on cruiser bikes. They also rent bikes to the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger who took them up on their offer five or six times during the filming of The Last Stand, his “I’ll be back” film after politics. And while bike-riding is cruiser friendly through the flat streets of Old Town and along the Paseo del Bosque trail, Josh says they occasionally encounter traffic jams with horses who are still ridden to local coffee shops from time to time. Thanks to the city’s acequias — communal irrigation systems — it’s still possible to own and ride a horse in the center of a sprawling city.

Horse photo by Bob Tilley.

I learned three very important things on my recent trip to Honduras.

First, termites taste just like black pepper, an amazing discovery I made after sticking my finger in one of those gigantic termite nests you often see in the jungle. The second useful piece of information is that if you want to catch a jaguar on camera, soak a rag with Calvin Klein “Obsession.” Seems, they can’t get enough of the scent.

And lastly, you can’t always believe every travel warning you hear. The U.S. Department of State recently issued a security warning about Honduras, insisting that crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country. Furthermore, the city I was flying into, they said, ranks as the most violent city in the world.

All I can say to that is “hogwash.” I have never felt more safe, met kinder, gentler people or had a more peaceful trip. In fact, I’d pit Lodge at Pico Bonito where I stayed against any five-star property in northern climes. It’s set smack dab in the middle of the jungle, nearly two miles from a main road and the only “threats” are getting so wrapped up in watching keel-billed toucan nests or so enthralled by the pendulum swing of a motmot tail that you accidentally run into a tree.

Pico Bonito, bordering the national park of the same name, was started by a couple U.S. entrepreneurs. It was chosen by National Geographic as one of the world’s top ecolodges, belongs to Small Luxury Hotels of the World and, well, let’s just say that Sports Illustrated didn’t film one of their swimsuit issues there for nothing.

Gabriel Cambon, the general manager, is French and a former chef for Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysees. Before he was at Pico Bonito, he directed Food and Beverage at Palmilla One and Only. In other words, the food here is spectacular. Many times I had to pinch myself. Is this a dream or am I really in the middle of this rainforest, being serenaded by birds and red-eyed tree frogs, while eating coffee and chili tenderloin medallions? Can it be true that pan-roasted rack of lamb with ratatoullie and sautéed haricot vert is on a menu served only steps from ocelots and agoutis and troops of howler monkeys?
Although the food alone is worth the trip to this secluded lodge within swimming and snorkeling distance of Honduras’ Caribbean coast, the biggest draw, the reason its 22 cabins are consistently booked, is Mother Nature herself. Head Naturalist James Adams, a refugee from New Jersey, is just as excited about the birds he photographs, the snakes he catches and the butterflies he observes as he was when he first visited Honduras 13 years ago.

His enthusiasm is contagious. “Honduras has everything Costa Rica has. Actually more. But tourism’s marketing budget is practically non-existent,” he says.

Of course, he’s doing his part to promote his adopted country. He speaks regularly to Audubon and other bird-watching groups in North America. He instigated the building of Pico Bonito’s butterfly farm (it breeds more than 40 species of tropical butterflies including the blue morpho), its Serpentarium and Iguana House. When I was there, he was excited about the red-eyed tree frogs that have come to mate in the frog pond he and his crew of bilingual guides recently dug.

The Lodge also offers miles of private trails winding through 100-foot canyons to waterfalls and natural swimming holes, a trio of four-story observation decks overlooking the jungle canopy and such adventures as white water rafting and safaris through the protected mangroves.

Located just 15 minutes from La Ceiba, the Lodge at Pico Bonito has 22 cabins, all around 400-square feet with private decks, hammocks, ceiling fans, free Wi-Fi and native wood and vaulted ceilings.
For more info, contact The Lodge at Pico Bonito, AP710, La Ceiba, CP31101, Honduras, Central America, 888.28.0221, www.picobonito.com.

Prada, Armani, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Rockmount.

Um, Rockmount?

Whether you’re aware of this iconic fashion brand or not, you’ve seen it many times. Paul McCartney, when he hosted Saturday Night Live, wore not one, but two different Rockmount shirts. Heather Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (and indeed most of the entire cast) donned Rockmount’s snap-button shirts in Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain. In fact, the shirts worn by Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist were bought in a charity auction for $101,000 and now reside, entwined together for eternity, in L.A.’s National Autry Center, a museum devoted to Gene Autrey and all things western.

Ronald Reagan, Elvis, Miley Cyrus, Robert Redford, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Hanks and just about every honoree in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wear or have worn (sorry Elvis) the shirts that Papa Jack Weil started making back in 1946. He served as CEO of the company and showed up every day, sitting at a wooden desk near the entrance of the five-story red brick warehouse in Denver’s Lower Downtown (LoDo), until he died in 2008 at 107. He said he owed his longevity to the wisdom of quitting smoking at 60, giving up drinking at 90 (except, of course, for twice-weekly medicinal shot of Jack Daniels) and losing the red meat at 100.

He told his grandson, Steven Weil, who now runs the store and the Rockmount brand (It’s short for Rocky Mountains, in case you’re wondering) that he got up every morning, read the obits and if his name wasn’t in there, he’d get dressed and go to work.

Papa Jack more or less invented the Western shirt. Or at least the first with snaps. Still in production today, these slim-fitting shirts (Papa Jack claimed they were less likely to get snagged on cactus or sagebrush) with the signature sawtooth pockets, yoke and shotgun cuffs are so much a part of the aura of the West that samples reside in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian.

At the historic store in LoDo (1626 Wazee) where the company has been making shirts for 65 years, there’s a small upstairs museum with saddles, quilts, cowboy lunchboxes, photographs, three generations of shirts and a couple “Jack A. Weil Boulevard” street signs from the city’s annual acknowledgement of the founder’s birthday.

Still scratching your head about Rockmount? Here are a couple other places you may have seen the iconic shirt:

** William Shatner wore one on an episode of “Boston Legal.”

** Costume designers for the 1993 Nicolas Cage flick “Red Rock West” purchased 20 of the same white shirt to ensure Cage’s character was always emanating pristine Rockmount.

** Robert Redford outfits the entire staff at his Sundance Resorts in custom-made Rockmounts.

** Clark Gable wore one in “The Misfits” with Marilyn Monroe

** Rockmount once sent a shipment to Antarctica

** When Cream performed their reunion concert in 2005, Eric Clapton sent an email the day before requesting a couple dozen shirts. Steve, who had to tell him there was no way even Federal Express could get them there on time, ended up flying over and hand-delivering them to London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Why does rock-‘n’-roll love Rockmount so much?

“Beats me,” Weil said. “Luck, I guess. And people seem to like the story. We don’t change with the wind. Rockmount is about classic American design.”

Hundred percent, hand’s down agreement. If you’re a musician, top of your bucket list is playing at Red Rocks Ampitheatre.

Ever since 1983 when a flag-waving, strikingly mulletted Bono belted out “Sunday Bloody Sunday” against its red-tinged sandstone, it has been THE holy grail of performance arenas. In fact, trade magazine Pollstar, after 11 years of crowning this outdoor ampitheater near Morrison, Colorado the best, finally conceded it was only fair to give other contenders a chance so they renamed their annual prize the “Red Rock award.”

Last weekend, I got the rare opportunity to not only visit this magical arena that’s owned by the city of Denver, but I got to go back stage, visit the 300 million-year-old sandstone cave-like rooms where musicians hang before their sets, sit on the very couch Macklemore had set just one month earlier when playing for Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks and linger in the hidden tunnel beneath the stage where hundreds of famous musicians have signed their names. It felt like getting to mecca.

The thing that’s so amazing about Red Rocks, besides the scores of well-known names featured in the Performer’s Hall of Fame, is the knee-buckling display of natural beauty, the perfect acoustics that makes you sure that God herself left those majestic rocks in that exact position because she loves us and wants us to experience awe. Stories are legend about sitting in one of those 9450 seats and watching a full moon rise over the back of the stage or the clouds parting to reveal a fully-formed rainbow right at the exact moment Widespread Panic, the band that holds the record for most Red Rocks performances, was belting out an acoustic rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Wish you Were Here.”

While it was U2’s 1983 release of “Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky,” a performance listed by Rolling Stone as one of 50 Moments that Changed Rock and Roll, that sealed its fame, Red Rocks has served as a natural ampitheater since 1906 when John Brisben Walker, former publisher of Cosmo, produced a summer concert series there on a makeshift stage. The magazine magnate brought in opera singers (Renowned Scottish soprano Mary Garden pronounced it as the finest venue at which she’d ever performed), 25-piece brass bands and a Feast of Lanterns complete with four military bands and fireworks off surrounding peaks before selling it to the city of Denver in 1927 for $54,133.

The Beatles, in their only U.S. performance that wasn’t sold out, were the first to take the stage after it was rewired and rebuilt for rock concerts . Since then, everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Steve Martin (his “A Wild and Crazy Guy” was produced there) and Jethro Tull (whose rock-lobbing fans at a June 10, 1971 concert inspired then Denver Mayor William McNichols, Jr. to ban rock concerts completely until a concert promoter sued the city for discrimination) to the Zac Brown Band (who will be playing three already-sold-out concerts this summer) has performed here.

When the buses of music’s biggest names aren’t precariously winding their way up the steep entry to the 6450-foot stage, people from around the world show up to hike and bike Red Rock’s trails, practice yoga in its stands and to run up and down its 69 rows of benches.

Red Rock’s 640 acres are one of Denver’s 46 Colorado Mountain Parks. The Sunday I was there, the arena resembled a Gold’s Gym for the young and beautiful, most of whom were running avidly back and forth along the rows, doing crunches with legs tucked beneath the seats and jumping with feet together from Row F to G and so on all the way to Row TT, without breaking so much as a sweat.

But back to that secret tunnel. Every inch of the walls, steps and electrical wiring leading to the sound engineering room is covered with autographs: everyone from John Mayer, Sting and Santana to perennial favorite The Grateful Dead.

I simply couldn’t resist. I took a deep breath, grabbed for my pen and signed my name.

In an age where people tweet their every move, where even the talentless become celebrities, it’s refreshing to be introduced to Clyfford Still.

He’s one of the most significant and influential artists of the 20th century, yet rather than seek the celebrity of such contemporaries as Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, he dropped out, went into hiding and wouldn’t have posted a Facebook update if a gun was put to his head.

Lucky for us, he never quit painting…even though he fled the art world in the 1950’s at the height of his fame. Instead, he relentlessly pursued his ground-breaking Abstract Expressionism far from the glare of the spotlight.

He cut off all ties with the above mentioned artists, told Peggy Guggenheim and other important gallery owners to go to hell and communicated mainly through vitriolic letters, spouting his desire “to get out of the orbit of their devices and leeching ambitions.” When he died in 1980, he left a one-page will bequeathing his giant body of work, most of which had never been seen, to the American city that would build a museum to showcase his work. Needless to say, there were stipulations. The museum had to be solely devoted to his work, none of his pieces could be lent or sold and it couldn’t bother with any of that foo-foo stuff, things like an auditorium or a restaurant.

Several dozen cities vied for the honor, but it wasn’t until 2004 when then mayor John Hickenlooper (now Colorado’s governor) flew to Maryland and convinced his widow Patricia that Denver, a city with no ties whatsoever to the finicky artist, was up for the task of properly displaying his creative output. As Hickenlooper pointed out in what must have been an extremely charming dog and pony show, Denver was throwing massive amounts of moolah into its Golden Triangle Arts District. And besides, they would bend over backwards to follow every one of Still’s demands.

In return, they would be executors of some 2400 pieces, more than 94 percent of his body of work, created between 1920 and 1980.

An early piece before he pioneered Abstract Expressionism. As Jackson Pollock said, “Still makes the rest of us look academic.”

As British art historian David Anfam said when given the task of joining newly-appointed museum director Dean Sobel at perusing the as-yet-unseen collection, “I feel like the archaeologist Howard Carter about to enter Tutankhamen’s tomb.”

Many of the pieces, rolled up immediately after being painted and stuffed into tubes and assorted plumbing pipes in the Maryland barn where Still painted, still smelled of oil, still had the masking tape that Still himself had affixed.

As Sobel said as he showed us around the two-story, 8500-square foot concrete museum that opened 31 years after his death, “We’re still going through his estate. It will take ten years, maybe more. It’s like opening a long-lost treasure chest.”

In addition to the nine galleries on the top floor of the Zen-like building, beautifully designed by architect Brad Cloepfil, the museum displays archival materials such as sketchbooks, photographs, tools and letters including the one Still wrote to Betty Parsons officially seceding from the art world. A glass door on the first floor reveals the conservation studio where, every week, never paintings, some spanning 12 to 14 feet, are unfurled and painstaking prepared to be exhibited for the first time.

To give you an idea of how important this reclusive artist was and still is, four of his pieces (from his wife’s collection, not in the collection protected in that one-page will) sold for $114 million in November 2011.

So, yeah, Kim Kardashian may have a lot of twitter fans now, but I’d be willing to place a hefty bet that in 50 more years, Clyfford Still will have a lot more followers. In the end, talent always trumps PR.

Spotting a McDonald’s a few blocks from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg was the last straw. The whole world, it seems, is turning into one homogenous, capitalist playground. Oh, for the days when people traveled in search of experiences not available at home, when they secured passports to see unfamiliar territory, new cultures, things that inspired them to send postcards back home to report, “You will never believe what I just saw!!!”

To that end, I’m launching this special George Clooney Slept Here feature with five exceptional, unexpected and singular things a traveler can find in the many destinations I visit in my work as a travel writer.

I’ll start with the Cook Islands, a little-known (at least to most Americans) island chain with 15 don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss them blips of land spread out over 756,000-square-miles of the South Pacific, most of which is protected as a marine park.

What follows are the top five things you will only find in the Cook Islands:

1. A deserted island with its own post office: Tapuaetai, a small motu in Aitutaki’s stupendous 8 by 10-mile lagoon, is also known as One Foot Island. It’s deserted except at lunchtime when small boats drop off snorkelers and other assorted picnickers for ika mata and other Cook Islands delicacies. Although it’ll never compete with Federal Express (delivery from One Foot takes a good six weeks), there’s a tiny post office and an official passport stamp that is sure to stump Customs Officials back home.

2. A 70-something medicine man with waist-length dreads and tea leaves tied around his knees. Whatever you do, don’t ask Pa, who leads cross country treks across Rarotonga, the largest of the Cooks, how old he is. He’ll quickly set you straight: “The only question worth asking is how young are you?” Pa, who swam from Raro to Tahiti, can trace his heritage back 64 generations and has never met a herb he can’t identify, is as young as they get. He scrambles up boulders, incites such breathless pleas from his customers as, “Excuse me, do you mind slowing down a bit?” and, the day I met him, had fireman carried a man 10 years younger than him.

He calls Raro’s jungle “his hospital” and he happily points out remedies for everything from diabetes to itchy mosquito bites. It’s rumored he has cured dozens of cases of cancer and at least some Western docs believe it. An M.D. from the U.S. was slated to arrive the week after me to learn from his encyclopedic knowledge of Cook Island botany.

3. A justice of the peace who has never had to convene court. On Mitiaro, an island with a grand total of 170 residents, Tungane “Aunty Nane” Pokoati Hodson serves as the official, court-appointed justice of the peace. But she’s never had to give out a parking ticket (at last count, there were a grand total of nine cars on the island) or resolve a dispute. The three chiefs on Mitiaro listen to grievances after each of the three Sunday church services and upon hearing recaps and explanations, secure apologies and resolution. Aunty Nane is like the Maytag repairman.

4. A popular restaurant that’s open but one night a week. Called the Plantation House, this 1853 colonial home, one of the oldest on the island, opens its doors one night (occasionally two) a week. Count your blessings if you get in. At 5 p.m. on that night (usually Tuesday), you show up for a tour of Louis Enoka and Minar Henderson-Enoka’s plantation followed by a three-course organic dinner, served on an apuka-shaded veranda. Every dish comes from the jungle garden (even the chicken and the pigs). After desert, often coconut meringue cake with kaffir lime curd or lime cheesecake, guests can enjoy the gift shop the industrious couple built with timber recycled from the old St. Joseph’s School. It sells hand-made Cook Island products, things like pearl jewelry, rito hats, hand-sewn pareus and Noni juice and soap.

5. Beer made from oranges. Also known as bush beer, this homemade brew is popular on the island of Atiu in secret and not-so-secret jungle clubs known as tumunus. They’re mostly men’s undertakings (although visitors of all genders are often welcomed provided they contribute either a bag of oranges for the next batch or $5) where songs are song, tribal business is conducted and the beer concocted from oranges, malt, yeast and sugar is passed around in a coconut shell. Like many Polynesians, Cook Islanders once enjoyed a milky drink made from kava root, but when missionaries showed up, the “evil,” mind-altering plants were destroyed. Tumunus were technically illegal until 1985 when a German ambassador and the Minister of Police attended one. Today, Atiu’s remaining five tumunus are inspected every December by the local health department and nine visitors. It’s a worthy gig, if you can get it.

To visit Cape Town, South Africa, and not visit the Cape Winelands that stretch some 100 miles to the east and north is like visiting California and not going to the beach. If you’re foodie, it’s simply inexcusable.

The Cape Winelands is an extraordinary region with jagged peaks, verdant farmlands, flowering lavender fields and wine farms (local speak for boutique wineries).

Originally settled by the French Huguenots 300 years ago, the Cape Winelands served as the halfway point between Europe and Asia for ships on the Spice Route. It was there, they replenished with water, vegetables and fruit. Many of those original farms with their stunning whitewashed architecture still stand, only today they host oenophiles, honeymooners and other contented guests who come by car, bus and train to their charming B&Bs, restaurants (more than half of South Africa’s top ten restaurants are located in the Cape Winelands) and tasting rooms.

I was fortunate to start my tour at Babylonstoren, a 17th century estate in the Drakenstein Valley with orchards, olive groves, bee hives and an eight-acre garden designed by a 20-year veteran of the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. At 7 a.m. each morning, Liesl van der Walt meets her gardening team, the chefs and oftentimes, owner Karen Roos, a former fashion editor, at the magnificent edible garden to pluck what’s ripe and begin designing the day’s menu that is magic-markered onto the pure white walls of the former kraal (cow stable) that has been turned into one of two restaurants on the property.

Except for a daily morning tour of the garden, time at Babylonstoren is intentionally unscripted, giving guests of the 14 exquisite cottages and the restored 1777 Manor House the luxury of strolling the 450 acres of orchards, swimming in the farm dam, relaxing at the spa or, if they want, joining in the harvesting, pruning, planting or picking of the 300 varieties of fruit, herbs, nuts, spices and vegetables.

If Eve had been here instead of the Garden of Eden, she’d have never given that snake a second thought. She’d have been too blown away by this garden where every plant is either edible or medicinal. There’s also a wormery (to help with composting), a prickly pear maze, ducks and chickens and attention paid to even the smallest of details. The path through the fragrance garden, for example, is lined with crushed sea shells and the floor inlays are made from blue and white pottery shards found on the property.

I also had the pleasure of visiting Vrede en Lust, a historic winery nestled in the foothills of the Simonsberg. Originally planted in 1688 with 10,000 vines by French Huguenot Jacques de Savoye, this wine farm is now owned by Dana and Etienne Buys. It makes quite a splash with female servers all dressed in elegant red dresses. Susan Erasmus, their acclaimed winemaker, has been known to play classical music to the grapes in the three vineyards.

This magnificent estate has a restaurant and accommodations in two restored 300-year-old homes.

So, yeah, South Africa’s National Roads Agency (SANRAL) is thinking about charging a toll on the N1 and N2 highways that lead to the Cape Winelands, but nothing is going to stop me from heading back there as soon as I possibly can.

Photos courtesy of Babylonstoren

Really, CBS? I used to feel sympathy for the cast of Survivor, having to battle the elements, construct shelter and scrounge for food. But after visiting the motu ( a South Pacific word for little island) where the 13th season, Survivor: Cook Islands, was filmed, I’m thinking about applying.

Surviving? Seriously? This idyllic motu, one of 15 in Aitutaki, is truly one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been around the globe a few times. Even Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet, calls it “the world’s most beautiful island.”

Aitutaki’s 8 by 10-mile coral lagoon is stunning with literally hundreds of shades of blue. Sure, it hasn’t succumbed yet to mass tourism and it takes a while to get there. From L.A., ten hours on Air New Zealand and then an hour hop from Rarotonga. But neither is much of a chore. Applicants for Air New Zealand flight attendants must come from Super Nice People Academy and the 48-minute, nearly-always-on-time flight from Rarotonga to Aitutaki is reminiscent of air travel before 9/11. No one asks you to take off your shoes or get there hours early or submit yourself to embarrassing pat-downs. In fact, the flight into the miniscule Aitutaki airport is nearly as gorgeous as a Monet water lily and certainly a lot less expensive.

I supposed the fact that Aitutaki’s golf course is only nine holes, doesn’t have a phone and that stray balls sometimes land in either the lagoon or the airport runway could be considered a hardship, but any one of Aitutaki’s hotels or guesthouses can arrange rentals and tee times.

I’m not sure where the Cook Island “Survivors” bunked before starting their outdoor challenges, but Aitutaki has a fine selection of five-star resorts including Pacific Resort and Aitutaki Escape where I had one of the best massages of my life, outdoors, next to crashing waves while a chef prepared an amazing three-course meal.

While in Aitutaki, I visited several motus: Honeymoon Motu, Heaven (it’s aptly named), One-Foot Island and, yes, Survivor Island, although it’s officially called Motu Rakau. . Bishop’s Cruises (nearly half the people in Aitutaki have the surname Bishop) even took us to Motu Akaiami with a small museum (very, very small) with exhibits from the old Coral Route.

Operated by TEAL (the forerunner of Air New Zealand), these Coral Route flying boats famously hopped from one South Pacific paradise to another in the 1950’s, back when flying was an elite, wealthy-man’s only sport. John Wayne, Cary Grant and Queen Elizabeth II, to name just a few of the Coral Route “Survivors,” enjoyed chefs, white linens, full silver service and, in Aitutaki, Polynesian dancers and cocktails served on the white sand, palm-fringed beach where the museum now sits.

My favorite Aitutaki motu was probably Tapuaetai (AKA One-Foot Island), the world’s only “deserted island” with its own post office. Lagoon cruises often stop there for lunch so passengers can mail letters and get their passports stamped with a giant foot that now dwarfs all the other “countries” in my passport. Depending on the tide, you can walk so far out on a sandbar (in pictures from One Foot, I resemble Jesus when he got out of the boat) that your party could easily mistake you for an errant sea bird or an insignificant dot.

Two years after “Survivor: Cook Islands,” One Foot Island’s beach was even chosen as “Australasia’s Leading Beach,” not exactly a resume builder for “roughing it.”

So, call it what you will, but “surviving” in Aitutaki with its crystal clear lagoon, archetypical tropical islands and New Zealand savoir faire is something I’d volunteer for any day.

Last August, when Hillary Clinton visited the Cook Islands on official state business, its population of 11,000 islanders got a good chuckle at the bullet-proof car flown in to drive her around Rarotonga, the biggest of the Cooks’ 15 tropical isles.

Truth be told, Madame Secretary, there are but two potential hazards on a drive around Rarotonga, a 45-minute undertaking that would take only 30 minutes if it weren’t for the motor scooters driving 20 miles per hour: chickens that run loose and smoke that belches from one of two buses that circumvent the island. There’s the clockwise bus and the anti-clockwise bus, the latter named because the 16 letters in counterclockwise didn’t quite fit on the front.

Our former Secretary of State may have been more prudent to seek protection from curse-spouting tribesmen who have managed (knock on wood) to keep out corporate hotel chains. It’s a long and involved story, but when the Sheraton tried to build a hotel a dozen or so ago, a curse was allegedly placed on the land. The skeleton for that project, abandoned before it was ever opened, still sits off to the side of the beach road near Vaiimaanga like a seventh grade boy at his first dance. Hilton bought it a few years ago, made another valiant attempt, and well, just saying, nothing has became of that either.

Which is one of the Cooks great appeals. All the hotels, shops and restaurants are locally-owned. That’s not to say they’re not upscale or savvy to the needs of Westerners. Quite contrary. The Little Polynesian, where Hillary was GOING to stay (except her people didn’t give the boutique hotel enough notice and all 14 bungalows were booked for a wedding) is exquisite with local woods and accents of wild hibiscus. Pacific Resort in Aitutaki, the other island I visited, is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, not to mention that manager Jason Strickland offers to eat a table if visitors in July through October don’t see humpback whales migrating through the lagoon outside their luxury suites.

It’s just that Cook Island’s five-star hotels don’t have “Ritz” or “Marriott” on their welcome signs. I loved the unpretentious luxury and found it refreshing to visit a place that still refers to low season as “cyclone season.” Most savvy tourist destinations have banned such inconvenient realities from their marketing vocabulary.

The cuisine that replaced headhunting of yore (I’m relieved to report that once-practiced ritual was abandoned decades ago) is beyond spectacular. In fact, last week I wrote an article for www.thedailymeal.com nominating the Cook Islands as a top foodie destination. Seriously, the ika mata, fresh seafood, bush beer clubs and iced coffee (it comes with a dollop of ice cream) have made me contemplate relocation.

The giant smiles of the locals and their unending hospitality makes this South Pacific getaway worth putting on the “before you die” list. The Cook Islanders love to tell you “We don’t live to be served. We live to serve.” They even have a saying, “Kiriti maro tai.” It means there’s no such thing as a stranger. And once you step on Aitutaki’s ceremonial black rock, everything on the island becomes yours. You’re part of the family. Except in my case, the dancing gene that enables Cook Islanders to gracefully wow and win most South Pacific dance competitions is still taking root.

It goes without saying that Cook Island beaches are magnificent. They’re smack dab in the South Pacific, after all, and have miles and miles of white sand, snorkeling, diving, fishing and boating. The many lagoons surrounding the islands contain every single shade of blue in a hardware store paint palette.

But I was rather partial to Rarotonga’s jungle. On the second day, my compadres and I took individual ATV’s into the mountainous center. We crossed more than 21 streams, plucked ginger (who knew it sudsed up) for washing our hair and got up close and personal with free range pigs, goats and farmers, who amicably waved even though we were driving right through their homesteads.

Later in the trip, after returning from a spectacular stay in Aitutaki, we took a jungle trek with Pa, a 70-something medicine man with waist-length dreads and tea leaves tied around his knees. He plucked bananas, guava and graviola from trees and regaled us with amazing stories about 64 generations of ancestors, his 12 kids, his swim from the Cooks to Tahiti and the healing powers of various herbs and stones.

So no, I didn’t merit an armored vehicle while visiting the Cook Islands, but I did feel completely loved by the locals and protected by the magical stone that Pa gathered from a jungle stream, instructing me to take it home and place it in the left-hand corner of my living room, where it remains to this day along with all my memories of this unique Pacific paradise.

With the four Fashion Weeks and the obligatory celebrity entrances behind them, the stars can get back to what they do best-—finding OTT vacay opportunities.

To help in their search are five ideas from the March issue of Conde Nast Traveler:

1. Escape to a private island:

The Beckhams (yes, those Beckhams) rang in their 10th anniversary at Fregate Island, a private island in the Seychelles. Price tag? $200,000. But that’s only because they wanted the restaurant, the library, the museum and the seven dream beaches to themselves.

2. Get down on your own private yacht:

Rihanna was a tad more inviting when she chartered the 170-foot, five-deck yacht, Latitude, for a Mediterranean get-away off St. Tropez and Cannes. She invited Magic Johnson (among others) to enjoy the glass elevator, sundeck gym and DJ booth. Price tag? $300,000 per week.

3. Repair to a beach house:

The normal accoutrements at a South American beach bungalow (make that mansion) didn’t cut the muster for Mark Zuckerberg at last year’s “Get-ready-to-take-Facebook-public” party for his wife and 13 of their closest friends. Not only did he bring his own chef, cook, maids and bodyguards to the exclusive house he rented in Punta del Este, Uruguay, but he insisted on brand new furniture.

4. Get your adrenaline on:

In 2011, Russian billionaire and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov took six helicopters full of friends to Courchevel to ski otherwise inaccessible slopes in the French Alps. Afterwards, of course, they warmed up at his $30 million chalet.

5. Celebrate with friends:

For Oprah’s 55th birthday, she took 1700 friends and family to northeast Spain and a ten-day cruise on the Norwegian Gem to Italy, Turkey, Greece and Malta.

Just don’t try to write it off as a business expense as Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski did with a $2 million, 75-guest party in Sardinia. Let’s just say, the IRS didn’t look too kindly on the eight-foot ice sculpture of David that urinated vodka.