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This year I have fallen, head over heels, for nuanced seducers and seductresses, earthily robust, sometimes slightly bubbly, always true to their origins, offering sensations of mountain and sea. Bracingly refreshing, sometimes rounded, feminine whites, powerful masculine reds:  I am speaking, of course, about today’s Greek wine, much of which is made by the men and women in the photo above.  Since the late 1970s Greek winemakers have reborn Greek wine.  I can still find retsina a truly acquired

By Bret Love for GreenGlobalTravel.com

Author Joseph Campbell once said, “Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.” There are few places in the modern world in which this connection between mankind, mythology and nature is more obvious than Hawaii.

More than 150 years before Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of the Species, Hawaiian kahunas (or priests) recited an ancient creation chant– the epic Kumulipo– which trac

Exploring New Zealand's elegant, architecturally significant city with its staunch Scottish heritage


Dunedin, New Zealand’s fourth largest city (and the country’s oldest) in the South Island is a little overshadowed by the big guns up north. Almost in a time warp, all the development and economy went to the North Island after WWI and it’s turned out to be not such a bad thing. One of the most arresting aspects of Dunedin is its window to the past. Edwardian baroque monuments blend with the

The Festival of Whales & Dolphins is once again making a splash at Uvita Beach in Southern Costa Rica at the beginning of September.

You definitely don’t want to miss the 6^th annual festival marking the peak of the annual migration of Pacific Humpback Whales to the Ballena National Marine Park in Costa Rica. This year’s 2014 Festival of Whales & Dolphins will be held over the two weekends of Sept. 5-7 and Sept. 12-14.

Festival activities will include whale-watching tours, a beach run, mountain

The Failure of Travel

For those of us who are professionally in the travel space, why isn't the fact that American, British and European young men are brutally fighting for ISIS/ISIL part of our work?

Belgium has sent more fighters to ISIS than any other European country. ISIS' military expenditures exceed those of Ireland.

And yet as travel content providers we never write about the culture and conditions that make this possible.
We talk of the "charms" of a country," the wonderful food an

By Roy Heale

Like a Wild West wagon train forming a circle at night time, the snow-capped Andes Mountains form a natural circle around the city of Santiago, Chile. Nestled in these peaks the city has a metro population of just over 7 million people and is situated just a short one hour drive to the Pacific Ocean coastal towns of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. The Republic of Chile is a long, narrow strip of coastal land wedged between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean---rather like a large

Barcelona siempre levanta un cosquilleo en el estómago y con buen tiempo, más. Aprovechemos el sol para conocer el barrio de La Barceloneta más allá del mar. Porque esta zona, que hasta el siglo XVIII fue un lugar insalubre donde la ciudad moría, hoy puede presumir de ser uno de los pocos barrios de la capital catalana donde las esencias marineras se han conservado. Lo mejor es caminar hasta allí por Las Ramblas o bajarse en el metro Barceloneta. El Passeig Joan de Borbó nos da la bienvenida con

Goa is a great destination nestled between Maharashtra and Karnataka.The kind of beaches you have over there is simply awesome. The specialty of beaches in Goa is that they are very clean and the temperature is not as hot as other tropical destinations in India. You could sit by the beach side and enjoy a cool glass of watermelon juice or lime squash with pepper sprayed peanuts. You could invariably forget all your worries and tensions as you watch the gentle waves hitting the shore and then ret

Cannery Row on Monterey Bay is an easy 2-hour drive south of San Francisco. Two good reasons to add Monterey to your northern California holiday are that it is a breathtakingly beautiful part of the Golden State, and it is far less commercial than San Francisco. It’s a great place to enjoy some quality down-time during your vacation.

A brief history of Cannery Row

Oil made whales the Monterey prey of choice for fisherman until Kerosene was introduced in the late 1800s. At that time, the local fish

There is a hot chocolate sipper that is pure decadence, an ahhhhhhh moment, a pound the table scene from When Harry Met Sally moment, savor pure chocolate at its best from a bean-to-bar chocolate shop. This is what I’m looking for, what I can’t forget. How did I get here? When I lived here 20 years ago I could navigate—but never happily. Who, I ask you, likes to drive in Los Angeles? Certainly not me.

I took the "Chocolate Indulgence" tour with Tourific Escapes. After meeting up in an Industrial

The centuries-old traditional music and dance form of flamenco is deeply rooted throughout the culture of southern Spain, and still popular in both public and private celebrations. An inheritance passed down rally through the ages and only more recently via recordings and videos, today it has also become a cultural industry, an economic driver, a subject for study, and a tourist attraction. It is the present, the past, and the future, tradition and avant-garde, and one of world's richest cultura

Every holiday is a great opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture but what happens when good vacations go bad? Common travel illnesses like too much sun and sexually transmitted infections can be easily avoided if you apply common sense. But what about the nasty diseases that you might come across?Here are a few to watch out for:

1. Montezuma’s Revenge aka Traveler’s Diarrhea is probably the most common travel illness, because it can be found anywhere. Unfortunately it is also one o

TRAIN A WHALE IN CONNECTICUT'S GREAT AQUARIUM

Swim with dolphins? Okay, but Mystic Aquarium, a division of Sea Research Foundation and one of the nation's leading aquariums, can top it: Mystic offers encounter programs that enable people to interact with whales. These programs aren't cheap – they cost more or less $100 per person, plus admission to the aquarium – but they are so unique and popular that travelers come from all over to participate in them.

We asked Kelly O'Neil, marine biologist

I never get tired of watching the monkeys in Costa Rica. It is so much fun to watch the cute, miniature-sized Squirrel Monkeys jump and play, and marvel at the ingenuity of clever White-faced Capuchin Monkeys. Spider Monkeys are wonderful to see swinging gracefully through the trees with their long arms, legs and tails. And the haunting call of Howler Monkeys at dawn, dusk, or before the rain, gives you that spine-tingling “I’m in the jungle” feeling.

There are only a few places in Costa Rica

I've always had a thing about the quirky little corners of this continent that’s famously a patchwork of ethnicities and accidents of history, and there are a few bits and pieces scattered across Europe that are quirkier than others. They range from some some you’ll recognize and know something about to some you’ve probably never heard of. I’ve visited many, while several are still on my bucket list. What intrigues me so much about them? Maybe it’s simply the allure of the under-the-radar and o

This small, sleepy town is one of Uruguay's lesser known vacation spots. From green parks, dramatic cliffs along the river, historic architecture to splendid beaches, there exists a wide variety of outdoor activities for summer fun in and around Fray Bentos, Uruguay.

Recognised for "the romance of the sun, the cliffs and the river", the town was conceived as a river port that still preserves its natural features with waters deep enough to allow large ocean going ships. This pleasant Uruguayan cit

La jungla y sus ruidos. Los templos y sus cielos. Los turistas y sus ojos bien abiertos. Tikal, que significa lugar de las voces, es la mayor de las antiguas ciudades de los mayas del período clásico. Aún se puede admirar su monumentalidad, que nos lleva a retroceder en el tiempo e imaginar aquella época del 250 al 909 después de Cristo en que se convirtió en uno de los principales centros culturales de la civilización maya, que hoy atraviesa cinco países (México, Guatemala, Belice, Honduras y E

I remember from an early age I enjoyed traveling. Anytime my parents would say, “we’re going on vacation” that’s all I could think about. I enjoyed seeing new things and being away from the routine.

Fast forward to today and I still like to travel but my feelings toward it are different. When I moved away from home and got into the workforce travel became my therapy and savior. I worked in high stress environments with a lot of pressure, and I think I wasn’t ready for it. Travel was able to ca

It took me almost one year to get myself to Bern from Zurich, and when I finally did, I found that my expectations couldn't have been kicked harder in the butt. For ages, I had heard about the legendary Bernese – my partner had told me that a study had shown that they, among all Swiss, walk the slowest (how this study was conducted and who had gone around calculating a Bernese’s average distance covered per hour I cannot imagine). I had also personally met quite a few specimens back in the class