Blogs

Have you considered what the old guy or lady down the street may have done in life beyond work at the supermarket? The people largely responsible for our freedoms are passing away. This June is the 70th anniversary of the World War II invasion of occupied France, known as D-Day.

On the day we left Venice there were seven cruise ships (7!) docked at the Porto di Venezia, a short walk from the apartment Jerry and I were renting.

The ships had names:

The Happy Dolphin,

Europa Palace,

Crystal Serenity,

Ocean Princess,

names that conspire to transport you away from the reality of being on a boat with thousands, all clamoring to get out and onto the slender, temporal islands of Venice.

The ships are massive: towering white behemoths out of all proportion to the delicate scale of th

Talking about deserts in Brazil, a country which contains 30 percent of the world’s fresh water and has the biggest tropical jungle on the planet, sounds wrong, but it isn’t. The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Maranhão State is the reason why. An expanse of some 300 kilometers of white dunes and lagoons that could well be considered one of the most fascinating places in the world.

Surrounded by large mangroves, home to clams, crabs and birds (in fact, the region is one of the best for b

Australia Zoo was established in 1970 by Robert Irwin, as the ‘Beerwah Reptile and Fauna Park’, on the grounds of a former macadamia nut farm. From an early age, his son, Steve, helped his father with the animals, both looking after them, and rescuing and relocating them.

As most people know, Steve became a familiar face all around the world with his excellent TV series ‘Crocodile Hunter’. Through this programme, viewers became very familiar with Australia Zoo, as it had been renamed. And, of cou

For a long time now we’ve been preaching how fun and engaging Twitter is…and yet questioned how effective it is when applied to the travel market.

Then along comes a report in HotelMarketing by way of an interesting  account in SproutSocial  highlighting three innovative travel industry success stories on Twitter.

Increasingly, Twitter, it seems, is playing a key role in the critical stages of travel: research, mid-travel engagement and post-trip reviews/feedback.

Of the 25,000 tweets analyz

The queue for Safi Air flight #248 from Delhi to Kabul looks like something of a loya jirga in itself, businessmen and diplomats, village traders of lapis lazuli, scammers and schemers, all going back to the homeland for one reason or another, all with excess baggage—fridges toasters and microwaves, dreams hopes and expectations—all wearing long tunics baggy trousers and funny hats, all speaking strange tongues and whispering strange sighs, body odors wafting from overcoats whose histories likel

In the center of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, lies the city’s main square, Durbar Square. The King’s Palace is here, now a museum since Nepal became a democracy in 2006. image Dozens of pagodas and shikaras are scattered around the palace area, each one with its own centuries-old story to tell. Our guide pointed to one specific elevated pagoda and said: “That’s the Hippie Temple”. He explained that, during the 60s and 70s, hippies used to hang out on the steps of that pagoda, strutting thei

We almost didn’t go. The thought of getting up at dawn didn’t sound very appealing at the moment and my daughter and I debated whether it would really be worth it. We had scheduled an early morning balloon ride but we’d had a couple of very full days on our safari and now we were tired. We had seen so much – lions hunting, hippos bathing in the river right outside our tents, stately giraffes sauntering across the landscape, the wildebeest crossing – how much better coul

Well-known for the wild beauty of nature and outdoor activities, Amarante is one of the most beautiful rural towns in Portugal, beautifully located between the river Tâmega and the steep slopes of Serra do Marão mountains.

Tâmega is actually an international river that flows from Spain to Portugal. The historical importance of this river is immense. According to historical documents this river had been the main invasion route for French and Spanish armies on reaching the rich cultivation lands of

Los guiris la han conocido siempre por su sol, pero Málaga, una ciudad grande y dinámica, es mucho más que playa. No sigan leyendo si no quieren desligarse del tópico. En medio de una franja litoral que es sinónimo de medicina para alemanes e ingleses surge esta urbe andaluza y mediterránea que desde hace unos años se está transformando. Lo mejor para comenzar a conocer Málaga es subirse al Monte Gibralfaro, donde se encuentra la alcazaba árabe, el castillo y el parador de turismo. Allí en lo al

Nosara, Costa Rica is renowned for some of the best surfing in Costa Rica, and for being a yoga paradise. But there are plenty of other exciting adventure and nature tours to do as well on this string of beautiful beaches along the Nicoya Peninsula.

Here are five fun tours to try during your visit to Nosara and Playa Guiones:

1. Miss Sky Canopy Tour / 8:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. daily.

You have to try a canopy zip-line tour when you vacation in Costa Rica. The Miss Sky Canopy Tour by Nosara is one of t

 
Go ahead, type in “Perfect Family” in Google images. What do you see? Probably no one you recognize as a “typical” family. Pretty shocking.


New Media Travel once asked “Why Is Hotel Content So Boring?”

The point was that hotels, airlines, and often the entire family travel industry, are inclined to present images of the perfect family: a leggy blonde mother, two gorgeous light-haired kids and a handsome, fit dad playing in the blue water.

Or, worse, lest they offend anyone, their family tra

          The inaugural meeting of the Occasional Sprit Council (OSC) took place on March 31^st at the strikingly beautiful art-filled home of Todd and Susan Montgomery.  It was the perfect setting to launch the council.  Linda Kissam, writer, wine publicist, and Vice President of The International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association, devised the council based on her Occasional Wine Council (OWC).  Like OWC, participants were to bring a dish that they had prepared to pair with their assigned

Portugal exudes a sense of adventure thanks to its deep seated wanderlust heritage. Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and Henry the Navigator charted the course for modern day exploration. Now it's your turn to hit the road on your own journey of this long and narrow country where the inspiration began. Dialect, weather, and attitudes differ markedly between regions like the Douro River Valley, Lisbon (Lisboa), and the sunny Algarve to the South. Walking Lisbon's ancient streets, hitting the Fa

Port St Johns is not some fancy destination but a developing-world town which houses a fascinating medley of characters and blends extreme poverty with unsurpassed natural beauty and great outdoor options. Its rural setting has also made it a popular location for various film shoots, including Shout at the Devil and  Blood Diamond starring Leonardo Di Caprio.

The town is located in the Eastern Cape roughly 900 kilometres from Johannesburg and can be reached by Route N3 via Underberg and Kokstad

I have to admit, I’m not real big on bling – aka precious metals and stones. I recognize their beauty and value, but it’s just not me.  For my taste, I prefer materials such as, say, turquoise, jade, and amber, which share a singular earthy beauty no matter how they’re cut.

Amber, in particular, is a fascinating substance. The ancient Greeks called it elektron (this word wasn’t applied to electricity till the late 19th century), and this fossilized tree sap has been used for adornment for at l

Whether you love grand architecture, great art, animals, scandals, generosity, or damn-the-torpedos eccentricity, you've got to love Doris Duke and Rough Point, Duke's seaside mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. Known as “the world's richest girl,” Doris Duke inherited her wealthy father's estate when she was 12 and ended up suing her own mother for control of the properties. (And you thought your family had spats?) Judging by what happened later, it's a good thing she did.

Duke grew up to be a

By Allan D. Kissam and Richard W. Kissam

This is a true story of a death at sea. It is a story of weekend sailors and the US Coast Guard.

My father, Richard, was an experienced sailor. He studied sailing and boats, practiced maneuvers, and for years he sailed his sailboat around southern California. His long distance trips had included being crew on a Tahiti bound sailboat. He was better than most for seamanship skills.

He got the first boat in 1958, a 28-foot ketch that quickly became an obsession