Slow Travel, Alsace Wine & Artful Escapes {Discovery Dispatch}

Originally published in early 2025. Italicized notes have been added where factual or logistical information has changed; the original newsletter otherwise appears as written.

An Insider’s Guide to Where to Eat, Stay & Stray

The journey is even better when you are using calories!

Greetings, Fellow Wanderlusters!

While my passport has remained tucked away these past few months, my curiosity has been anything but idle. I have been indulging in a slower kind of exploration: sussing out boutique hotels in Northern California’s wine country and deepening my understanding of the region’s winemakers, vintages, and hidden cellars. (Winery tips coming your way.)

I have also been procrastinating on my taxes by time-traveling through memories via a late-night rabbit hole of photos from a cycling trip through Alsace. Cobbled lanes, crisp Riesling, vineyards and Medieval villages reminded me how much I love traveling by bike. You move more slowly, you notice more, and you earn every slice of tarte flambée.

Many of you are asking for more immersive journeys—experiences with space to breathe between stops: small boats, winding train rides, long dinners, quiet art. You are speaking my language.

What truly delights me is seeing so many of you invite friends to join the Viewfinder Travel circle. Your referrals are the most generous form of encouragement—and they have made this little travel community feel like something much larger.

Jody

As always, I’m here to help you find what’s next.

Warmly,

Jody

Your travel confidant and pathfinder

Welcome to Discovery Dispatch- curated escapes for the culturally curious, tastefully adventurous, and gloriously well-traveled. Each edition brings a fresh batch of insider finds and stories, all curated to delight history buffs, food and wine aficionados, art lovers, and family adventurers alike.

Travel Tip: Unconventional Transport Inspiration

Here are six slow-travel experiences where the getting there is as remarkable as the destination:

• Float silently over Cappadocia at sunrise in a hot-air balloon—where fairy chimneys and ancient cave dwellings blush with rose gold.

• Bike through Portugal’s Alentejo—cork forests, hilltop villages, and olive oil tastings with views.

• Kayak across Stockholm’s archipelago, pausing for cardamom buns and painted cottages.

• Zip through Rome on a vintage Vespa and become the protagonist in your own Italian film.

• Board a snowcoach in Yellowstone, where wildlife and geysers appear like apparitions in the steam.

• Bike the Mekong Delta, and let rice paddies and floating markets guide your pace.

Hot-air balloon adventure

Culinary Corner: Think Alsace means sweet wines? Think again.

Alsatian Whites are fabulous

Neither fully French nor German, Alsace is a region—and a flavor—unto itself. Alsace produces a gorgeous array of dry Rieslings that are crisp, floral, and elegant. The region also boasts rich

Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc.

Tarte flambée in Alsace

Wineries range from world-class names like Trimbach to tiny, family-run cellars offering tastings from grandma’s kitchen. The wines are bottled in elegant flûtes and pair beautifully with tarte flambée, pork, duck, soft cheeses, preferably served in a centuries-old winstub with foggy windows.

Historical Whispers: For those who want to dig deeper, did you know...

Note: Opportunities to participate in excavations and conservation projects vary by year, and many require an application, program fee, minimum stay, age qualification or previous experience. Any artifacts uncovered remain with the project or appropriate cultural authorities.

• You can participate in a working excavation in the Peloponnese, Greece and unearth your own pottery shard?

• Join a field school in the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, documenting Native rock art?

• Learn pre-Incan textile techniques in Peru, or help archaeologists conserve a mosaic in the south of France?

Cold Weather Family Adventures

Yelllowstone Traffic Stop

• In Quebec City, kids can race down giant snow slides, admire ice sculptures, and sip rich hot chocolate.

• Yellowstone in winter offers snowcoach tours, steaming geysers, and the chance for children to spot bison and wolves while learning tracking skills.

• In Nagano, Japan, families can watch snow monkeys bathe in hot springs, then stay in traditional ryokans that welcome kids with warmth and simplicity.

• Finnish Lapland lets families sleep in glass igloos under the Northern Lights, with days filled with dogsledding, snowshoeing, and Arctic adventures.

Art & Inspiration: Some places live and breathe art.

For travelers and photographers seeking authentic artistic immersion, these art-centered communities offer rare opportunities to capture the dialogue between creativity and place.

• The tiny village of Brè, Switzerland, is a car-free enclave showcasing dozens of outdoor works by Swiss artists—including frescoes, reliefs, and modern sculptures—displayed along winding cobblestone lanes and tucked into garden walls. Brè → Official Brè Art Route

• Remote Fogo Island, Newfoundland, hosts international artists-in-residence who collaborate with local boat builders, quilters, and foragers to create work that bridges the global contemporary with hyper-local craft tradition. Fogo Island → Fogo Island Arts

• Explore Naoshima, Japan, an international art pilgrimage site on a remote island which has been transformed into an open-air museum. The island is a canvas on which centuries-old homes have been transformed into installation spaces. Naoshima → Benesse Art Site Naoshima

• In Yucatán, Mexico, some artists-in-residence offer watercolor or batik workshops in jungle studios.

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    View near Bré

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    Art of Bré

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    Old home and art in Bré

The village of Brè, Switzerland

Hotel Highlight: Le Chambard, Alsace

Set discreetly along the Weiss River in Kaysersberg, one of Alsace’s most impeccably preserved wine villages, Le Chambard offers a cultivated take on French country hospitality. The great strength of this half-timbered Relais & Châteaux property lies in its rootedness; there is nothing showy here. Service is assured but unfussy. The rooms are intelligently composed: plump bedding, sculptural lighting, judicious use of color. A modest spa and indoor pool provide a soft landing after days spent wandering. The result is a stay that feels both rarefied and intimate—ideal for travelers who’ve grown weary of the performative and seek, instead, something enduring. Le Chambard → Official Le Chambard website

Update: The hotel’s two-Michelin-starred gastronomic restaurant is now presented as La Table d’Olivier Nasti rather than Restaurant 64°.

Olivier Nasti, the hotel’s chef-proprietor, has become one of the region’s most compelling culinary figures. His two-Michelin-starred Restaurant 64° draws gastronomes to this corner of the Haut-Rhin for terroir-driven tasting menus—game sourced from the Vosges, and wild herbs foraged locally. For those seeking comfort over choreography, the adjacent winstub delivers Alsatian classics: pressed pork cheeks, tarte flambée, veal with creamy spaetzle.

Alsace

🌟 Destination Spotlight: Alsace by Bicycle

Few regions reward the traveler on two wheels quite like Alsace—a journey best taken slowly. Between Strasbourg and Colmar, a well-marked network of vineyard lanes creates a postcard-perfect route—cascading geraniums, quiet courtyards, and signs pointing to local vintners offering tastings.

From the Renaissance facades of Obernai to the climbing lanes around Ribeauvillé and the storybook charm of Eguisheim, cyclists encounter not only the physical landscape of Alsace, but also the human artistry that has shaped it for centuries. Pauses are inevitable: for a glass of Sylvaner in a walled village, a slice of kugelhopf from a morning market, or a beautiful glimpse of the changing light over the Vosges foothills.

E-bikes are readily available for those who wish to explore without breaking stride, and luggage transfers make it easy to stay in a different village inn each night—many housed in former wine estates or medieval coaching houses.

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  Bike route in Alsace

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  Beautiful buildings and history in Alsace

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  Croissants to die for in Alsace France

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  Beautiful Alsatian vignette

For travelers who believe the best way to understand a place is by moving through it at handlebar height, read on: Cycling the Alsace Wine Roads.

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About the Author

Jody Holman is a travel advisor, photographer and founder of Viewfinder Travel. She designs thoughtful, highly personalized journeys informed by firsthand travel, trusted global partners and a photographer’s eye for place.

All photos copyright Holman Photography 2025 unless otherwise noted.