【推荐1】Planning a trip can be easier through an online travel agency than if you handle each part of the planning on your own. These are our top choices.

●Booking. Com

Booking. com was founded in 1996 and has grown into an industry leader that stands out for being an all-in-one trip planning platform. From the website, you can compare and book your hotels, flights, and even airport taxis. It lists more than 28 million choices — you can find more choices per destination on Booking.com than any other online travel agency.

● Skyscanner

Find deals on airfare, hotels, and car rentals with Skyscanner, which was established in 2001 and uses a special engine to compare prices from all online travel agencies. The Search Everywhere button on the homepage offers a list of the cheapest flight deals for destinations both locally and across the world.

● Hopper

Hopper is a travel app available on iOS and Android that aims to help travelers save on airfare by using historical data and their own algorithm (计算程序) to predict when flights will be cheapest. Some newer features since the app’s introduction in 2009 include freezing a price for a limited time — for an extra fee — as well as app-only discounts. The company claims a 95 percent accuracy rate at predicting (预测) flight rates a year ahead.

● I Like Local

Visit the website to look through a host of travel experiences in countries including Indonesia, Kenya, and Cambodia. The platform got its start in 2014 and has grown to 4, 000 local hosts. 100 percent of each booking fee goes to local hosts. Until now, 16,000 travelers have booked with I Like Local.

【推荐2】Family: Poems—by Mr. Keith Keenan

·Kindle $0.00, Hardcover $12.50, Paperback $7.00

The poet describes personal thoughts and feelings in a lyrical journey to understand and celebrate his family. “Family” looks at living honestly in places, not illusions. Figurative language, a love of metaphor and sharp images all make the poems work.

Time to Heal—by Alexandra Vasiliu

·Kindle $9.99, Hardcover $21.94, Paperback $12.64

From the bestselling author comes an inspirational poetry book about love, healing, and growth. It is a reminder to strive to change for the better. Featuring more than 130 uplifting poems and black-and-white illustrations, it’s a great companion when you need to embrace self-love and personal transformation.

Seeds from a Birch Tree —by Clark Strand

·Kindle $9.99, Hardcover $26.80, Paperback $16.95

Seeds From a Birch Tree makes nature into a spiritual path. Its message was simple: Haiku teaches us to return to nature by following the seasons—seventeen syllables at a time. With its mix of poetry and memoir(回忆录), the book guides us to the joy hidden in plain sight, leading us to get into a good state of body and mind.

A Poem for Every Day—by Allie Esiri

·Kindle $9.99, Hardcover $28.05, Audio CD $18.05

This audio book is a collection of 366 poems which link to events on key dates—funny for April Fool’s Day, festive for Christmas. This is the perfect gift for poetry lovers of all ages. These poems are informative, peaceful, and energetic!

There are a large number of poetry collections on Amazon. More information, please click here.

【推荐1】PYOP: Pick Your Own Produce at These Local Farms

Hollin Farms’ strawberry picking season will begin in late May, and last several weeks. Hours are 9:00 am-4:00 pm from Wednesday to Sunday. If you come in summer, peaches, blackberries, red raspberries and sour cherries are available. Apples are ready in late summer, and fall brings green vegetables, potatoes, and dig-your-own peanuts. And a special P.S. (备注) to meat lovers: they pride themselves on their grass-fed beef.

Great Country Farms is well-known for its seasonal festivals and fun farm-themed attractions. Their U-pick strawberry fields will open in May. The weekends of May 20-21 and May 27-28 are the yearly Strawberry Jubilee with live music, pie-eating competitions, tasty food, and more. Admission is $10/child and $12/adult, and it’s open daily during 9:00 am-6:00 pm.

This is a great place for apple picking. Just come in late summer and fall. After parking, it’s a 5-10 minutes’ walk to the orchard. Hours are12:00-5:00 pm on Fridays, and 9:00 am-5:00 pm on weekends. Pick-your-own (PYO) pricing is by the peck (配克) — $15/half peck, $22/peck, and an entry fee for two is included. It’s $5/guest after that.

Homestead Farm’s PYO season begins a little later than other area farms. The first crop will be tart cherries in June, and other berries will be ripe soon after. Peaches and apples come later. There are also animals to visit (goats, pigs, and chickens), and watching goats climb along the goat walk is always a trip for kids. The farm operates seven days a week, and PYO hours are 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

【推荐1】A writer’s home is a kind of autobiography, and visiting the place where a great work of literature was written gives you a deeper understanding of both the book and the person who wrote it. Here are some famous writers’ houses to check out.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s House

Emerson lived in this house for 46 years until his death in 1882 and wrote his essays Nature and Self-Reliance in a study on the first floor, although his son later said that Emerson’s “real study” was nearby Walden Woods.

Margaret Mitchell’s Apartment

For Gone with the Wind fans, Margaret Mitchell’s house is their dream place. Mitchell moved into Apartment No. 1 of this building when she just got married in 1926 and lived there for six years. She worked on her novel on a table in the living room. When the novel was accepted for publication in 1935, it immediately became a big hit.

William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak

Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s home for almost 30 years, is where he wrote many of his major works, including Light in August. In his study, he sometimes wrote his plot structures on the wall, and then painted over them when he finished the book. In fact, you can still see the plot for his novel A Fable penciled on the wall right where he left it.

Ernest Hemingway’s House

Ernest Hemingway lived in this house for the most productive eight years of his life. He wrote most of his major works in his office, which you could only get to by walking across a bridge that extended from the upstairs bedroom. Almost everything in the house had a story.