June 25 is fast approaching. Though National Catfish Day deserves plans of its own, you may want to put those plans on hold until next year, and spend the 25th in Ljubljana, Europe’s best kept secret instead. Ljubljana has the architecture of Spain, wine of Italy, politeness of Germany, and food of Greece while being affordable and still relatively uncrowded from tourists. This little gem of Slovenia deserves your time.

They call it Hospital Hill for a reason. At mile 10 of the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon it rears up against the sky. With proper training, you won’t need the hospital that sits at the top, but it’s always good to have a plan b. Marine Corps drill sergeants yelling at you to run up it and conquer the pain help too. This is the Marine Corps historic half and only the tough survive.

What is Third Wave? Coffee culture has reached what is being referred to as “Third Wave” coffee. The basis is that three major waves of coffee consumption have occurred since the 90s, culminating in the small batch artisanal coffee shops that are no longer only found in hipster enclaves like Williamsburg. In fact these have become so popular that major chains are now gobbling them up. In the first wave, home consumption was king.

On day two of our Quebecois beercation, we drive from Montreal to Quebec City in search of the perfect brew. We also stop at Quebec’s highest waterfall and learn why the dream of the 90s is still alive outside Quebec, but only on Valentine’s day. Part one of the beercation in Montreal can be found here. St-Viateur Bagels Before leaving Montreal, we stop at St-Viateur bagels, a bagel shop which has been wood oven cooking bagels in the Montreal style since 1957.

Superbowl Sunday. While most people are just waking up and beginning to think about making wings or what commercials they want to watch out for, the crazy runners in New York are up running a four mile course of Central Park. During the meeting of Peyton (Bud Light lover) Manning and Cam (I’m going to hide under a towel until everyone goes away) Newton at Super Bowl 50, I joined these crazies around the park.

There are meals in life that are great for many reasons. Sometimes a waiter can stand out as very knowledgeable, or perfectly figure out your likes and preferences and tailor suggestions to you. Other times a setting may make the meal, such as our incredible seafood on the Croatian Island of Hvar under the night sky with the sea breeze drifting in. Sometimes instead the food can speak for itself and be perfection of a specific technique or wildly imaginative.

The East Village of New York is rapidly becoming nirvana for great food, especially international. The Filipino, Mexican, Indian, Japanese, and even Ethiopian options here are top notch. In fact there are so many great options these days, that you can spend a full day sampling just on St. Marks between 1st and 3rd Avenues and only hit a small portion of them. Here are the highlights that should be on your bucket list.

2015 was a deliciously decadent year for me. We explored a huge number of new and new to us restaurants in NYC, had a gastronomic adventure in Portland, Maine, and had a truly epic meal at the Michelin star tasting menu restaurant EIPIC in Belfast. Here are some of the best things I had all year. New York Babu Ji Babu Ji is hands down my favorite restaurant of 2015. Something about the playful menu, delicious dishes, and self serve beer fridge resonated with me and I cannot wait to go back.

Belfast’s newest Michelin star restaurant, and only the second after Ox sets the bar high with food, drink, and ambiance. Getting a table is a tricky affair, but if you are willing to wait a while, you can get one far out. But the real question is, is it worth the wait and the hype? Through the Looking Glass: Ambiance and Atmosphere Entering through the attached Dean’s Fish restaurant, there’s a definite feeling of having arrived when getting to the upscale EIPIC portion through another door.

On this most cherished 4th day of October, National Taco day, it seems fitting to reflect back on probably the best taco town I’ve visited, Houston, TX. San Antonio may have better Mexican food, and Austin better BBQ, but Houston nails the perfect intersection of Tex and Mex and has some killer tacos. Tacos a Go-Go Tacos a Go-Go is a Houston local taco joint with two locations in the city.

With Game of Thrones filming many of its most popular scenes in the city and the influx of cruise tourism to southern Croatia, Dubrovnik is seeing increasingly huge crowds. However, there is still a ton to see and experience in the city and with some guidance, you can escape the crowds. Here are the top, can’t miss sights and experiences in and around Dubrovnik. What to See Historical Old Town Dubrovnik has an incredibly interesting history that is perhaps too complex to easily explain to tourists, much like Croatia in general.

So you have only 24 or 36 hours in Hvar, Croatia? No problem, I have the perfect itinerary for making the most of your day. We visited Hvar for my 30th Birthday as part of a Croatia visit and I have to admit, was curious, but not super excited about what I thought would be a very “Girls Gone Wild” or Ibiza crowd. Hvar ended up exceeding my expectations in pretty much every regard.

After spending the last two years at Delaware’s Firefly Festival, we decided to play closer to home this year and try out the quickly growing Governor’s Ball on Randall’s Island in NYC. Once our friends at the Infatuation announced that they were curating this year’s food “playlist”, it was a no brainer. So which food and bands were the best? Streets of Laredo The funky folk fanfare of Streets of Laredo opened up the day.

Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer and the official start of outdoor brewery season. When the garage doors of Brooklyn open up and the farmhouse ales deprecate the boys from the men. It’s a magical time, and to celebrate, I toured the new craft beer scene in Brooklyn and Queens (LIC) to see how these boroughs stack up. Surprisingly, I think Queens was the winner for taste and authenticity.

Belfast is a city with a troubled past, a glamorous scene, beautiful people and supercars like the DeLorean. It’s basically Bruce Wayne. Since the violence of the “Troubles” has eased, Belfast has come into it’s own quietly with an amazing restaurant and bar scene. Even the New York Times has discovered the resurgence of this city with a new 36 Hours in Belfast feature in January featuring some of the local hotspots and landmarks.

My second marathon, one where you can wake up at 8:45 and make the start, and the best places to eat for preparation and recovery in the beautiful and not-too-distantly troubled city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. When I finished the NYC marathon last November, I knew I could do better. Four hours of standing around before the start in freezing wind, too much tapering, and first marathon nerves meant I finished, but wasn’t very happy with the result.