A Brand-New Bucket List: Larchmont Author’s Strange Attractions

Written by Lou Young:

MAMARONECK, NY — I have to admit it was the Zeppelin that caught my mind’s eye. We’re not talking about a blimp (I’d ridden in one of those), we’re talking about a huge RIGID airship of the type that represented our imagined future when the previous century was young; Massive, majestic, and missing (I thought) since The Hindenburg’s fatal descent on Lakehurst, NJ 86 years ago. Zeppelins are as extinct as the dinosaurs, I presumed. But there it is, right there on page 80! "Zeppelin Flight Over Lake Constance," an entire chapter informing me that not only do they still exist, but for someone with sufficient disposable income, it is entirely possible to take a ride on a 21st Century Zeppelin in the skies over southern Germany.

The book "Strolling with Your Elephant" is a collection of such potential additions to your bucket list. Larchmont travel advisor Diana Hechler wrote it during the COVID lockdown when travel professionals were in, let’s say, light demand. "It’s what a travel advisor does when nobody’s traveling," she told me recently. So the book now exists, along with Zeppelins, Ice Hotels, Assassin’s Trails, Famous Movie Sets, Haunted Homes, and (of course) Animal Encounters. And, yes, of course there’s an elephant "stroll" in the book!

Researching the book, Hechler says, took years. As she visited the places on other people’s "bucket lists" to familiarize herself with the locales, she says she always asked the people living there, "Tell me something I don’t already know." Each one of the listed items, she says, comes with an experience that can make a vacation a lot more than some time away in a hotel and a visit to a museum. "An authentic experience is priceless," she says, "you can visualize it. It never leaves you." And it’s frequently not on the standard itinerary. Next trip abroad should I try for Luke Skywalker’s last "home," or the re-enactment of Caesar’s assassination? Hmmmmm.

Lou Young is an eight-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, former CBS 2 New York anchor and current Deputy Mayor of the Village of Mamaroneck.