The screen may be silver, but the itinerary we’ve lined up for this fall’s tour of Classic Hollywood and the City of Angels is pure gold. As the name suggests it’s really two trips in one. For movie lovers there’s the stunning new Academy of Motion Pictures Museum, 300,000 square feet of cinematic history; the new TCM–Warner Brothers studio tour; a visit to the famed Paramount lot; dinner at Charlie Chaplin’s favorite watering hole (Bogie and Bacall, too); lunch at the Roosevelt Hotel, scene of the first Academy Awards; a tour of the Dolby Theater, site of today’s Oscars; and the final resting places of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Rooney, Fanny Brice, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, George C. Scott and many more.

But there’s much more to see in southern California than the Hollywood Sign. The Watts Towers and the mission church of San Juan Capistrano. The recently renovated Nixon Library and Birthplace. Will Rogers’ Ranch and Paul Getty’s astonishing Roman villa. The Griffith Observatory – remember it from LaLa Land? – and the La Brea Tar Pits, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House and the thought provoking, state of the art Museum of Tolerance.

And maybe the best attraction of all. Our home for seven nights – the newly restored Queen Mary, now permanently docked in Long Beach, a short drive from L.A. Perhaps the most famous of all the great Cunard liners, a thousand feet of Art Deco and prewar nostalgia.

Your staterooms are waiting. Just follow the Yellow Brick Road…

After more than twenty years on the American road uncovering a history not always found in the history books, it gives us special pleasure to plan a trip to a place new to us. Such a destination is South Dakota and its Badlands region. The first human entry into the adjacent Black Hills is frankly uncertain. The oldest Indian site found to date is a little over 7,000 years old. It is thought these early people were big game hunters who stalked the mammoth and bison that thrived in the lush post-glacial grass lands.

For eight days in June 2024, we will follow in their footsteps, encountering fossilized remains of prehistoric creatures, ancient mountains carved by daredevil sculptors, and the raucous frontier of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. Basing ourselves in Rapids City, South Dakota – and staying in the same downtown hotel for eight nights – we’ll explore stunning landscapes in and around the Black Hills. From a moving nighttime lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore and a mountaintop excursion to the nearby Crazy Horse Memorial – a monument in the making – to Wyoming’s Devils Tower, and the colorful history of Deadwood.

On the itinerary: An old gold mine, restored 19th century brothel, Victorian mansion, and a scenic train ride through the Black Hills. We’ve included a safari Jeep ride through herds of Buffalo and other animals in Custer State Park, lunch at Calvin Coolidge’s summer White House, an actual Minuteman missile in its Cold War silo, plus chuckwagon dinners and frontier breakfasts. And did we mention: THE SAME HOTEL – THE RUSHMORE – FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP.

With a first-class hotel, meals to match, and the incomparable landscape of the Badlands – we think you’ll agree that this tour does indeed deliver Black Hills Magic.