About Marybeth, National Geographic Author, Writer

Curious Explorer. Award-winning author.

Gutsy Traveler: A woman, like travel expert Marybeth Bond, stands among purple flowers, raising her arms and smiling in front of a wooden building in bright sunlight.
Polar bear tracking and snorkeling with beluga whales in the northern Canadian Arctic.

Marybeth knows travel. She has hiked, biked, dived, danced and trekked across all seven continents – from the depths of the Flores Sea near Komodo Island to the summit of Kilimanjaro.

More recently, she tracked polar bears and snorkeled with beluga whales in the Canadian Arctic, then kayaked among icebergs in Antarctica.

Somewhere in between, four years of studying in Paris earned her two degrees – and a taste for good wine and strong cheeses.

Twelve books (three with National Geographic), countless travel articles, and numerous TV and radio appearances have built her devoted fanbase. She won the esteemed Lowell Thomas, Gold Award for the Best Travel Book of the Year from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

Woman on cliff in front of a monastery in Bhutan
Yesterday’s Video below. A decade or more later. Is Marybeth still GUTSY? Here in Bhutan.
Marybeth in Antarctica with penguins, snowy mountains, and water—just the kind of moment travel expert Marybeth Bond would capture in a travel video.
Kayaking and camping near penguins in Antarctica.

Yesterday….

Huntington Japanese Garden
Japanese garden area at the Huntington Botanical Gardens.

1. Winterthur Garden, Wilmington, Delaware
https://gardenblog.winterthur.org/
Before you go, check their garden blog, a resource for garden lovers who want the nitty-gritty details of what’s currently blooming.

2. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, on Biscayne Bay near Miami, Florida
https://www.vizcayamuseum.org/
Considered to be the best example of a Renaissance garden in the United States.

3. Dumbarton Oaks, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
https://www.doaks.org
For a quiet escape from the bustling streets of Georgetown, meander through the 17th- and 18th-century English gardens at Dumbarton Oaks.

4. The Old Westbury Gardens, on Long Island’s North Shore, New York
https://www.oldwestburygardens.org
The 88 acres of formal gardens feature shaded walks, ponds, and statues beneath willows, sycamores, maples, and cypresses. Consider a tour of the mansion to view paintings by John Singer Sargent, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and John Constable.

5. Brooklyn Botanical Garden, 25 minutes by subway from Manhattan.
https://www.bbg.org
Stroll through the Cranford Rose Garden (5,000 plants, 1,200 varieties); the Fragrance Garden, designed for the blind; and the Shakespeare Garden, exhibiting more than 80 plants immortalized by the Bard.

6. Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, Georgia
https://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org
Take Mom on the new canopy walk, which lets you tour an urban forest from 40 feet up in the air.

7. Missouri Botanical Garden,  St. Louis, Missouri
https://www.mobot.org/
Founded in 1859, it is the oldest botanical garden in the United States and a world leader in botanical research.

8. Dallas Arboretum, Dallas, Texas
https://www.dallasarboretum.org/
Meander through the Women’s Garden, designed to celebrate their strength, softness, balance, and wisdom; it features a Poetry and Genesis Garden.

9. Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, Arizona
https://www.dbg.org
The 140-acre garden showcases over 20,000 plants from deserts worldwide.

10. Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, near Pasadena, California.
https://www.huntington.org
Choose one or visit all 12 themed areas, including the Japanese, Chinese, Rose, Shakespeare, Camellia, Jungle, and Palm gardens. Then tour the Huntington Art Collection, with paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Mary Cassatt, and Edward Hopper.

If you can’t take Mom yourself, consider buying her tickets to a concert in a garden this summer. Find the perfect private garden to visit on the Garden Conservancy website. More than 400 gardens in 26 states are listed.

Want more? Try this Top 10 list of gardens around the world from National Geographic Online.

(this post first appeared in the Intelligent Travel blog on the National Geographic site)

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Marybeth Bond