{"id":2413,"date":"2019-08-25T13:17:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2019-08-25T13:17:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T20:17:12","slug":"where-would-you-choose-to-spend-life-in-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/lifestyle\/2413\/where-would-you-choose-to-spend-life-in-exile","title":{"rendered":"Where Would You Choose to Spend Life in Exile?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vahine<\/a>

Vahine Island Resort is stimulating and simply heavenly. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

I sat sipping a \u201cSun Setter\u201d boat drink on the rooftop patio of the\u00a0Mayfair Bar\u00a0overlooking Lake Lansing on a\u00a0Saturday afternoon\u00a0with a couple of other thirsty pals. Swilling in that kind of setting can produce speculation, so I posited, \u201cIf you had to live in one town for the rest of your life where would it be?\u201d<\/p>\n

When I said \u201clive\u201d I really meant \u201cexist.\u201d Like Napoleon in exile, you would be forever confined to the town you choose. (We decided, for fun, that price would not be an object.)<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami or Naples, Florida,\u201d said Tim McGuire. I suggested to him the Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale might be a suitable compromise in that it has the more vibrant liveliness and diversity of Florida\u2019s southeast coast\u2026without the traffic of South Beach.<\/p>\n

Pierre Lavoie, who like McGuire and myself, lives on\u00a0Lake Lansing, piped in that he would live out his days on Beaver Island, a rugged preserve near the top of Lake Michigan\u2026a daft idea which left me speechless with no reasonable compromise to suggest!<\/p>\n

I then considered my own \u201cwitness protection-style\u201d locations.<\/p>\n

I once met a stylish, elderly Englishman in Monaco who revealed to me in the elevator that he\u2019d been living in the luxurious Hotel de Paris next to the glamorous Casino de Monte-Carlo for 35 years. While this was a decidedly cool, mysterious moment, I decided decades of belle \u00e9poque and tuxedos would probably wear on me.<\/p>\n

I then recalled reading that socialite Pamela Churchill Harriman died in the swimming pool at the Paris-Ritz while serving as U.S. Ambassador to France. While envious, I knew a passing like that was altogether too high an aspiration to hope for.<\/p>\n

Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland was a very scenic, suitable and soulful choice – but I\u2019d already died there a number of mornings trying to wake up after extra-long nights in the village\u2019s many pubs. (Which you haven\u2019t lived until you\u2019ve done.)<\/p>\n

Vatican City\u00a0and Venice crossed my mind as stimulating and intriguing. San Diego was nice and soft.<\/p>\n

But I once visited Vahine Island, a tiny spit of vehicle-less coral and beach in Polynesia. The only thing on the private island were palm trees and a grassy, eight-bungalow, thatched-roof resort reachable only by a small, once-daily ferryboat. Vahine was operated only by a young French woman and her husband who was a classically-trained Parisian chef. I spent three windward days and nights without television, air conditioning, a menu, or shoes \u2013 because none of them were needed in the desert island experience. The waves lapped up against my deck and coconuts fell from the palm trees as the wind whistled through the fronds. The impossibly bright blue sea seemed electrified and hypnotic – defying me to look away from the unspoiled, unpopulated views which can only adequately be described as heavenly. Upon departing I informed the house manager, \u201cI would like to die here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled while replying, \u201cIt can be arranged\u2026but not today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ponder the question yourself. Many people live on an island of sorts right now. How often, for instance, do you travel outside the Lansing area or even your neighborhood? What\u2019s important with the time you have left?<\/p>\n

Lake\u00a0Lansing\u00a0\u2018aint bad, either.<\/p>\n

Contact<\/em>\u00a0Travel Writer Michael Patrick Shiels at\u00a0MShiels@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0His radio program may be heard weekdays at\u00a0MiBigShow.com<\/a>\u00a0or in Lansing on WJIM am 1240\u00a0from 9-noon.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sat sipping a \u201cSun Setter\u201d boat drink on the rooftop patio of the\u00a0Mayfair Bar\u00a0overlooking Lake Lansing on a\u00a0Saturday afternoon\u00a0with… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[998799,998815,1023659,1023660,2834,895799,4998,998795],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-islands","tag-lake-lansing","tag-best-place-to-live","tag-remote-islands","tag-michigan","tag-lansing","tag-michael-patrick-shiels","tag-vahine-island"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2019\/08\/thumbnail_image1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2416,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}