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The summer I was 20, I planned to spend two months backpacking in Europe with a friend. She was the perfect travel companion—adventurous, and yet attuned to small pleasures. As college students, we'd shared countless weekend jaunts together, planning our future grand adventures as we drove from place to place. Then, at the last minute, she apologetically demurred. I swear I only hated her for a tiny little second. Then I broke the news to my parents: I was still going. I threw myself into preparations. Eurail pass, check. Traveler's Checks (all right, it was a long time ago!), check. Hostel research, check. Hiding desperate fear from everyone, CHECK CHECK CHECK.

So it was that I joined the grand tradition of accidental solo traveling. And I found what so many solo travelers have discovered: that traveling alone isn't lonely at all, that you find yourself open to different things and much more likely to make new friends as you go. I found myself staying at the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris, and while working my shift to earn my night's stay (yes, I was such a wild and crazy kid that I managed to find myself with a job) I met a fellow Midwestern 20-something who had expatriated to France and showed me the town. I found myself at an all-night dance party (breakfast and all) in small town Spain; I channeled my inner Madeline at a girls-only-former-convent in Venice; a Hawaiian goth became my best friend for few days in Granada; I spent a very strange overnight train ride listening to an Indian med student's techno in an Italian dining car. And when I wanted to be alone, I was, so that I could write and draw for hours in my journal and (sorry, but I was 20), discover myself. In other words, it was an entire summer of experiences I would not have had otherwise, and, I'm sure, never will have again.

But even I have to admit, the idea of doing something like this now sounds impossible, if not terrifying. Where did that youthful bravado go? Nowadays, I just wouldn't feel comfortable bunking in a co-ed youth hostel with rowdy Norwegian skateboarders. I have a mature person's fear of death, muggings, and not getting to shower regularly. And besides, a bit of adventuring is practically de rigueur when you're 20. What about when you're 40? or 60? or...80? Enter the great Solo Traveler blog.  The site was born in 2009, when Janice Waugh found herself an empty-nester and a widow all at once. She decided to take what fate had handed her and run with it...all the way across the world. Now, as she puts it on the site,  "I travel solo and I carefully observe how I do it." 

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I don't know about you, but around my house I'm getting a bit of a reputation as a Mailbox Depressive.  I have to confess; it's true.  Most days I walk by my mailbox and think, "Eh. Why." Because chances are, I know what's in there: maybe a flier of coupons I'll never use, possibly something from a car insurance company entreating me to switch. I don't even get paper bills anymore. Why expend energy opening it just to view a cobwebby void?

So it was with only hypothetical interest that I viewed a "Viva Snail Mail!" event held recently at our local playground encouraging kids to write and send - gasp - actual snail mail. (Warning: this had nothing to do with actual snails. I know, we were momentarily disappointed too.) The event, and the Viva Snail Mail blog, which compiles notable postcards, postal history, and a fun idea for a postcard-sending challenge (scroll down), reminded me of the tiny and imminently attainable joy that is the postcard.

The postcard! Prettier than an email, easier than an entire letter, and somehow just so summery.  What a delight, to receive a postcard from a sunny vacation, preferably with exotic stamps! What a noble-and-yet-doable goal, to send your own postcard to far-flung friends around the world or across town! Peruse Viva Snail Mail for some inspiration, and then get thee to a post office (or print some postcard stamps online—you can even design them yourself). You'll help someone you know combat their own mail box depression, and perhaps, just perhaps, they will return the favor.

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By now it's a well-known phenomenon: the Facebook Perfect Life. Everyone's life looks flawless online -- unless of course  they are one of those mysterious under-30 creatures who seem to bulk upload every drunken moment possible, but then again, I might not be the target envy-audience for that particular kind of life-perfection.

Last year, the blogatorium (okay, I just didn't feel like typing "blogosphere" one more time) hummed with talk of "FOMO." That is, Fear of Missing Out, that social-media-fueled sense that you are missing everything good, that the world is teeming with super-cool events and parties and talks and lives you'll never be a part of. Now blogger Anil Dash has weighed in with his counter-phenomenon: JOMO. That is: Joy of Missing Out.

Dash writes, "There can be, and should be, a blissful, serene enjoyment in knowing, and celebrating, that there are folks out there having the time of their life at something that you might have loved to, but are simply skipping." It's okay to learn, through whatever human-tracking-app your mobile phone is stocked with, that everyone is having the Best! Time! Ever! at the TED Talk/art opening/cocktail party/perfect summer getaway while you, after putting down your phone with a sniff, roll over to read one more page of your book before falling asleep on the couch. Particularly if you love the book. Particularly if you're tired because you were up early to run, or take the kids to the beach, or meditate. It's okay to miss out on the big things in favor of The Big Things, like time with your family, your friends, even yourself. In fact, carving out quiet time in our so-many-invitations-so-many-options world might just transform your life.  Which is more than you can say for most cocktail hours.

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It's summertime, which means in my household a rematch of our annual debate. No, it's not the proper dressing of hot dogs. (Or anyway, I don't want to embarrass anyone by revealing adult ketchup-use.) It's that most important matter of The Summer Beach Situation. Namely, which watery experience is it most worthwhile to pursue in one's limited leisure time: the lake or the ocean?

Now, I'm no hydrologist (it's a thing; I looked it up), so to me rivers basically count as lakes. They are connected, right? The key component of this species of beach-going experience is the inclusion of some degree of shade. True, the lake shore and the river swimming hole may count a mass of dead fish and the occasional plague of mosquitoes among of their charms, but they also offer a bounty of sea glass, grassy sands, fairy-rafts of driftwood, the respite of shade. This is summer swimming on the human scale: best of all is a lake you can see the other side of (no offense, Great Lakes), ringed by a lush fringe of pine trees. It's a diorama of an experience, a swimmy microcosm. Even better if the waters are tepid and still. Summery, Americana-infused, relaxing perfection. I suppose it's clear by now which side of the beach debate I spread my towel on.

My husband, on the other hand, stakes his beach umbrella firmly on the side of the ocean. He loves the epic horizon, the eyeball-busting sunlight, the drama of the ocean in all its crashy, splashy glory: knee-scrape-searing salt water, seashells, the glistening carcasses of jellyfish. The thing about the ocean is that you can't gaze out into those vast waters without contemplating eternity. The ocean is spectacular. A lake is pleasant. The ocean will carry off your children and burp up a whale. A lake maybe swallows your toe into some sludge. The more I think about it, the more our watery preferences seem to say about us.

So which beach are you? Here's a quick diagnostic question: when you think "summertime" do you picture a picnic basket or a clam shack? A canoe or a surfboard? Here's another way to truly know your summer vacation inner self: take a dip in this refreshing Flickr pool, Water...Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, Creeks, and see which images make your heart flutter. Bonus: you don't have to take any of your vacation days to do it.

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Photo: Courtesy of Best Life

We’ve been asking the Best Life experts for advice on diet and exercise, ways to get better rest and strategies to live a little younger.

If you have a question, send it to us!

It goes without saying that polishing off a pint of Ben & Jerry’s--even if it’s low- fat--is not a good idea, but we’ve also learned (from repeated experience) that swearing off ice cream forever doesn’t work, either. But the tricky thing about “eating in moderation” is that what we think that means--and what the scale thinks that means--are two different things. So how do you draw the line between what you deserve and what you could do without? Best Life nutritionists, Stephanie Clarke, M.S., R.D. and Willow Jarosh, M.S., R.D., gave us three questions to ask ourselves before giving in to the foods we love.

1. Does it fit into your daily calorie budget? 
Clarke and Jarosh tell clients on a typical 1600-calorie-a-day eating plan that they have about 100 or 150 calories a day that they can swap out with whatever their heart desires. The catch is that most of us have no idea how many calories we eat in a day, and it’s very common to experience temporary snack black-outs in the face of temptation ("I’ve hardly eaten anything today, so I surely have enough leftover calories for a few potato chips," we’ll think, forgetting about the handfuls of nuts we ate at our desk or the whole milk we put in our coffee). They’re big fans of food journals to keep us on track. And they get it: tracking what you eat, either with an old-fashioned pen and paper or a new multi-function app, can feel obsessive. But as they tell clients (and as studies keep proving), this technique really helps keep the weight off.

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There's something so appealing about the simple act of keeping track. The world is a big place, and life is long, and it's easy for a human to get lost in the fray. There are those who swear by journaling, but for some it's just too much. Elise Nussbaum writes for The Billfold about why she loves, in lieu of journaling, tracking her spending through an old, clunky version of Quicken. "I don’t necessarily need to filter and examine every aspect of my life, but I do want to look back and have some idea of what I’ve been up to," she writes, and "Quicken asks you to confront, or at least remember, where the money went."

Nussbaum explains how the resulting charts Quicken creates help her to see a snapshot of her life, what she values, what she needs vs. what she wants, what matters to her and how she lives. There are financial planning benefits, sure -- she shares how Quicken changed the way she saves, for example -- but it also creates a snapshot of a life. Remember that deserty treat shared with a friend? Quicken does. How much of your resources do you devote to groceries? Lunches? Shopping? Mysterious CVS purchases? (As Nussbaum puts it, " I like to be detailed, except when the charge is from CVS, because I can never remember what the hell I went in there for.")

In other words, your banking is telling a story. The question is, what kind?

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Happily, it so happens every now and then that a personal obsession dovetails with a media moment. See also: Martha Gellhorn. This brilliant novelist, fearless war correspondent, and all-around generous human has been one of my Favorite Kick-A** Women Heroes of All Time since I first found out about her -- through her letters to my grandmother, no less. Gellhorn also happened to be, for a time, the wife of some guy named Ernest Hemingway. A movie featuring Nicole Kidman as Gellhorn just debuted on HBO, reminding us all about this amazing, gutsy woman.

As I watched the movie, I wondered if there were any possible way I could be an eensy bit more like Martha Gellhorn. Leggy, blonde, and effortlessly glamorous? I effortlessly choose to put on pajama pants around 5:00 pm every day, if that counts. Courageous and restless? Eh, not really, though I do restlessly peruse the internet, sometimes for many hours at a time. Prone to torrid affairs with wild men? Gosh, no! A world-traveler? Well, maybe not so far, but hey, life is long, and Colleen Kinder has conveniently provided a cheatsheet over at National Geographic: Martha Gellhorn's Top 5 Getaways.

Here are the 5 places, from Cuba to Wales, where this intrepid traveler went when she wanted to get away from it all. We may not all be recovering from, say, reporting on D-Day, or recuperating after divorcing a Nobel laureate, but everyone needs to recharge sometimes. And these off-the-beaten-path travel destinations -- snorkeling in Kenya, anyone? -- seem like they would be just the place to get reacquainted with that eminent personage, yourself.

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Photo: Courtesy of Grubwithus

All alone in a new city, two friends brought something unique to the table.
            
In 2010, when Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano moved from Los Angeles to Chicago to open a cream puff shop ("They're the next cupcakes!" they say), the pair realized they'd overlooked one aspect of relocation: making new friends. They tried chatting with people in bars, but "guys thought we were hitting on them," Lu says. "It was awkward." Then they realized their best connections had formed over food. "Eating together is the classic way to socialize," says Lu.
            
A few months later, the pair launched grubwithus.com, where users browse dozens of upcoming gatherings at local restaurants and then book their seats at a table of strangers also looking to connect. The food is usually served family-style over multiple courses, which helps people settle in and get talking. "Grubbers" must adhere to a few rules, however: Be on time, don't check cell phones, and avoid politics-and-religion talk.
            
Now in dozens of cities—and available for anyone, in any city, who wants to use the site to set up a dinner—Grubwithus meals have produced friendships, job offers, and a few romances. But Sugano says he and Lu are their own best success story: "We arrived with no social network, and now we have 25 real friends in Chicago." And all because they remembered that before Facebook, there was food. "People say this is a forward-thinking service," Sugano says. "But making time to eat together is old-school. We're just going back to basics.

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At clubs and lounges, along the red carpet at Cannes, on Hawaiian beaches, and at a gala in Istanbul, Cynthia Carvajal has carried the torch—and twirled it, too. The 30-year-old professional fire dancer whips flaming ropes around her body, dancing in four-inch heels and a blazing headdress. Carvajal got her start in 2000, when she saw circus performers brandish flames in their act. "I loved the artistry," she says. "It's entrancing to watch." When one of the performers agreed to mentor her, Carvajal started twirling poi (chains with lighted balls of Kevlar at one end). "It's easier than people think," she says. (Give or take the occasional burn, which she says is "all part of the job.") Eventually, Carvajal joined a touring performance troupe, and her hobby became a full-time job. It's also a way for her to fund her passion: saving our seas. In 2010 Carvajal founded marine conservation nonprofit Ocean Lifeline—and has raised thousands by performing at events. "I never thought fire dancing would take me places," Carvajal says. "But it's been such a blessing—and it's helping me do my part."

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A few things to help you get organized!

Bowled Over These multitasking ceramic serving bowls will cheerfully hold everything from pasta to ripening fruit to the keys you're always misplacing. (Multicolored nesting bowls, $58 for three; cwonder.com)