September is one of my favorite months. While I graduated from Columbia Business School exactly a year ago, and September really meant back to school for a while, it seems people are universally programmed to get back to business after Labor Day. You can feel the change in the mentality in the New York air. The Upper East Side has officially shaken the sand out of their shoes and is back with a vengeance, Gossip Girl style.

In honor of the home of Galavante, New York is our first feature this month. Dorothy had it right: There’s no place like home.  My favorite part of traveling is returning to New York.

I spent the last part of August in Europe and South America. Years ago, I remember watching the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, set in the quintessential Italian town. I had the chance to travel to Ischia and Procida where the movie was filmed, to research our Spring feature.

Then, I have to admit the rest of my European adventures were for the luxury of personal travel. This doesn’t happen very often, though I am on the road over 150 days for work during the year. I stopped in Lake Como to visit my friend Nina and her husband Robin for a barbecue, en route to my close friend Hooman’s birthday party in St. Moritz. It sounds glamorous, which it was, but that wasn’t the point. The reality is that it was just friends sitting around an old farmhouse table enjoying good wine, good conversation and good company. In St. Moritz, we enjoyed the simplicity of a hike in the Alps during the summer. I reconnected with old friends, and met new ones. I ended my summer grateful for the people in my life.

Besides what I humbly will call the greatest city on earth, this month we are taking you to Monterey, where we’re getting Dirtier than Harry. Monterey is Eastwood territory, where Clint, pre-invisible Obama, was really the sheriff (aka Mayor) in town. Colleen Chen, a new writer with us, who was a TV reporter for NBC, shares her inside track on this slice of California perfection.

For the rest of the month, we’re going to take you hang gliding over hippos at the new Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti in Tanzania, and get your saddles blazing in Carmelo, Uruguay, the original gaucho town. I fell hard for Uruguay, enough to try to convince my husband to buy a ranch and vineyard. His response to me? One: We’re not horse people. Two: He’s got an old man back and Three:  I don’t like to shovel the less savory droppings of farm animals. After 15 years married, which we celebrate this September, he always keeps me honest.

All the best,