My Conde Nast Traveler colleague Beata Loyfman (recently in Bermuda to write Concierge.com's Bermuda Destination Guide) joins The Perrin Post today.

by Wendy Perrin

Too many travelers think that if a celebrity chooses a particular beach resort or mountain hideaway or honeymoon island, then it must be the best thing going.  But celebs don't always make the smartest vacation choices.  Anyone blindly following in their footsteps can make big -- and expensive -- mistakes. Navigating by the stars can get you lost.

Now, if you're like me, you have little interest in celebrities. Like them or not, however, we can learn a lot from their travel moves, both smart and stupid.  That's why we're launching a new weekly feature: "CELEBRITY TRAVEL INTELLIGENCE (OR LACK THEREOF)."   We'll tell you which of the stars' high-profile vacation choices to avoid, which are worth replicating, and how to replicate them affordably.

Lucky for you, I am NOT the person who will be doing this. (It should be painfully obvious by now that I can barely keep up with travel blogs, much less celeb blogs.)  No, for this task I have hand-picked a fellow Conde Nast Traveler editor and globetrotter who also happens to be a pop-culture junkie: the witty, wise, and with-it Beata Loyfman.

Beata was born in Odessa, Ukraine, and came to the U.S. in 1989. She's also lived in Austria, Italy, and Spain (which is why she speaks both Russian and Spanish) and has traveled through Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Caribbean, Canada, and Central America.  She helps select the world's best new hotels for our annual Hot List; tracks how Conde Nast Traveler readers rank the world's cities, islands, resorts, cruise lines, etc., for our yearly Readers' Choice Awards; works on the magazine's Room With A View, Great-Value Vacations, and Places & Prices sections; and has written two of our destination guides on Expedia.

But here's my favorite thing about Beata: She's a Russian-trained ballerina!  In her "spare time" (ha!)  she teaches ballet at Steps on Broadway, a popular Manhattan dance studio.  Which might explain why Concierge.com asked her to write that feature on World's Sexiest Dances that you probably rolled your eyes at . . . and then ate right up.

Please help me welcome Beata to our blog community, and stay tuned for her column every Friday at noon.