It was an unmitigated disaster, and it was entirely my fault. The Missus and I were finally making our maiden trip to Europe – first England, then France. The division of labor: She would organize our time in London, and I’d do the same for Paris. Mais non. Mind you, this was during the pre-InternetContinue reading “Prologue”

In 1980 the Missus and I met while we were both working at Filene’s flagship department store in downtown Boston (she was the store’s Executive Shopper, I was a copywriter in its advertising department). My route to the copywriting job was somewhat unorthodox, as I’ve described elsewhere. But once there, I took maximum advantage ofContinue reading “That Honeymoon Trip”

Several years after our misbegotten maiden voyage to Europe, the Missus and I embarked on a Grand Tour of Italy: Milano to Venezia to Firenze to Roma. First stop: Milan, about which I remember exactly nothing. The Missus: For me, Milan was indeed memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. Why go at all oneContinue reading “‘Hey! Fungoli!’: How the Missus and I Railed Our Way Through Italy”

For reasons that remain lost in the mists of time, during the summer of 1987 the Missus and I decided to celebrate the Fourth of July in Toronto, a city I described this way in an Adweek column I wrote upon our return to the Hub of the Universe. [Our trip] tied in nicely withContinue reading “Egg Month in Canada: ‘You Could Feel the Excitement in the Air’”

In 1987 I was a very unhappy creative director at a mid-sized ad agency in Boston (representative samples of my work here), when my boss decided it would be a good idea to get me out of town – specifically for a pricey road trip (on his dime) down the California coast. As I recountedContinue reading “North by Northwest to Mt. Rushmore”

For several years after our disastrous initial trip to London and Paris (see here for the gory details), I resisted any suggestion by the Missus that we revisit the City of Light, where I had so badly botched our first visit. “That’s a bad idea,” I would say about a return trip. “Paris is notContinue reading “London and Paris: Take Two”

Here’s how I started my Adweek column about the Australia trip the Missus and I took in the fall of 1988. “Australians are so hard up for heroes that a horse is in the top five.” – Paul Hogan The horse he’s referring to is Phar Lap, the legendary Australian thoroughbred, winner of 37 racesContinue reading “How We Got Dunked Down Under”

The lede of my October 1989 Adweek column told the tale of our first trip to Ireland. The Missus, who is a veritable Balanchine of birthday presents, happened to notice that as of this year, I had put 40 big ones on the oldometer. “Johnny,” she said – she calls me Johnny – “it’s timeContinue reading “Upon First Viewing the Cliffs of Moher (Or Less)”

The Missus, as you splendid readers have no doubt realized by now, has a variety of superpowers, not least among them an uncanny ability to win any number of sports-related Invitational Championships across multiple continents. Beyond that, I’ve long been amazed by the endlessly creative birthday parties the Missus has thrown for me during theContinue reading “Go to London for the Fashion, Stay for the Riots”

Way back in 1777, the redoubtable Samuel Johnson intoned, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” No disrespect to the good doctor, but maybe not so much. By the early 1990s, the Missus and I had made semiannual pilgrimages toContinue reading “Go to Paris for the Fashion, Stay for the Artworks”

In 1989 I happily ditched the five-and-dime ad agency I had helped keep afloat for ten years and opened my own company. Thankfully, most of what I produced back then has been lost to history, but you can find one example here, if you’re so inclined. As luck would have it, in the early ’90s I hadContinue reading “The Saga of Our Bartered European Holiday”

After the Missus and I reached our rapprochement with Paris, we thought the time might be right for a ramble in the French countryside. And so we embarked upon a Folie des Grandeurs Tour of the great châteaux of the Loire Valley.  Once we had painstakingly secured a rental car at the eternally chaotic Charles deContinue reading “A Jolie Château Crawl Through the Loire Valley”

At some point the Missus and I thought we might make a couple of return visits to European cities in which we had spent only a couple of days during previous trips. First up was Florence, where we’d had un caffè as part of our four-city Italian blitz in 1986. This time the Missus scoredContinue reading “Our Rain-Drenched Return to Munich”

Not long after our Loire Valley Château Crawl, the Missus and I thought we should once again venture beyond Paris into the French countryside. One early trip took us to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. After we had settled into the beautiful Hotel Negrocoste, another excellent find by the Hotel Booking Goddess, we wanderedContinue reading “Four Starry Tours of the Côte d’Azur”

By now those of you following our peripatetic adventures might think the Missus and I have traveled exclusively to foreign climes. Not so! Interspersed with our European jaunts, we’ve embarked upon periodic journeys all across this great land of ours. There was, for example, that sub-zero weekend in Chicago when the Hotel Knickerbocker was soContinue reading “Barnes-Storming Philadelphia’s Art Museums”

The first time we saw Paris was in April . . . and it snowed. The Missus and I were expecting chestnuts in blossom; instead, we got snowflakes and then some. Since the Missus had packed nothing heavier than a jeans jacket, that was also the first of many visits to international shopkeepers in searchContinue reading “We Loved Paris in the Springtime . . .”

Over the past four decades there have been – scattered across our many journeys like sprinkles atop an ice cream cone – the numerous trips the Missus and I have made to The Big Town. From the mid-’80s through the mid-’90s, we traveled there several times a year for the Missus to deliver her trendContinue reading “The Arts Seen in New York City (Act One)”

The Missus and I were back in the Big Town in July of 2015, and there was lots of art on display for us to take in. We started at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Global Fashion Capitals exhibit, which “explores the history of the established fashion capitals—Paris, New York, Milan, and London—and the emergenceContinue reading “The Arts Seen in New York City (Act Two)”

(Previously on Travels With The Missus: As noted earlier, the visits the Missus and I made to the Big Town were largely sporadic for most of the 2010s. They picked up considerably, though, during 2018 and 2019. A good thing too, given what awaited us at the turn of the decade.) When the Missus andContinue reading “The Arts Seen in New York City (Act Three)”

In the process of chronicling our four-plus decades of carefree rambles, the Missus and I have inevitably let some journeys slip through the cracks. So we’ll gather up a few of the leftovers before we say goodbye. White Knuckles at the Grand Canyon The Missus, in her entrepreneurial heyday, travelled all across this great landContinue reading “Epilogue: Some Final Snapshots From Our Many Excellent Adventures”