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Quebrada de San Lorenzo Nature Reserve

By Roy Heale

The charming Villa San Lorenzo is located in the Lerma Valley at the foot of the Eastern Cordillera Andes foothills just on the edge of the city of Salta, Argentina. This leisurely village is a popular vacation destination where visitors can combine outdoor nature activities with city attractions nearby. Villa San Lorenzo offers a natural environment ideal for adventure tourism activities and eco-tourism in the mountain forest. Its landscape, m

Five decades ago, my Louisiana grandmother traveled to Wynola, minutes from Julian, to find one of her favorite, and rare, treats: pickled pig’s feet.  Now, we can go to Jeremy’s on the Hill for gourmet, farm to table, house made pork sausage, pancetta, and other delectable meals.

Le Cordon Bleu

Cordon Bleu dining is heralded by the crest on the sign at Jeremy's on the Hill (www.jeremysonthehill.com), on Hwy 78 in Wynola, 4 miles north of Julian, California.  Chef Jeremy Manly brings gourmet farm

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a beautiful small country in South Asia at the eastern ends of the great Himalayas. It is extremely popular among tourists because of its natural beauty, scenic landscapes, cultural features and architecturally beautiful monuments especially Buddhist temples, monasteries and Dzongs. You will see several architectural monuments including monasteries, Dzongs, fortresses, temples, chortens, gateways, etc through out the entire Bhutan. One of the One of the most prominent an

Back in 2004, I worked as a tour guide in Palestine (that shot at right is of Hebron, on the West Bank). My clients were, for the main part, politically engaged people of diverse backgrounds, mainly from Europe and the USA, who had been involved with Palestinian solidarity campaigning back home and wanted to see the situation for themselves.

Just a year before, Rachel Corrie had been crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer, and Tom Hurndall had been shot by an Israeli sniper, dying si

Osh Bazaar was a hive of activity. Endless arrays of fruit and vegetables, clothes and mops, electrical components and everything else the people of Bishkek could want were on offer. It also had a contingent of policemen, two of whom were watching me, though I didn’t know it at the time.

I spotted what I was looking for - a stand peddling kumis, fermented mare’s milk. Peering into the large urn, I mimed to the lady in charge that I’d like a cup of Kyrgyzstan’s national drink. After the usual con

If it were 25 years ago, you wouldn’t want to go to San Lucas Island. The small, forested island in the middle of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Gulf was the roughest jail in the country. Being sent to San Lucas Island was a terrible prospect; prisoners’ lives were short and often spent in torture.

Thankfully, today, the prisoners are gone and San Lucas Island has been transformed into a national wildlife refuge to protect the island’s ecosystem, its wildlife, the historic buildings of the penal colony, and

Here's another key question that I have been hearing a lot (both in emails and the comments on this blog) and give you a couple more examples of social proof (video testimonials). The question is this:

“What about traffic to my web site?”

In other words, how do you get people to your website?

This is a great question, and I am really pleased that so many of you are asking it – it shows that we have some really sharp readers. 

You see, in the beginning of the Internet, we were in the “build it and

In our second instalment of West Africa’s best adventure travel destinations, we explore Ghana, a Land of sunshine and reputed for the friendliness of its people. Rich in history, and home to the Ashanti Kingdom, a once prosperous and powerful dynasty, this country is a great place to start of in Africa due to its ‘user-friendliness’ and offers a great deal of opportunities for the demanding traveller looking for the next best beach, the most succulent dish, the intense cultural encounter, or th

It's official: gastronomy is overtaking gambling as Vegas' highest grossing attraction. Most of us want a sure bet these days and our palates rather than the comp card increasingly drive the buying decisions. Thanks to celebrity chefdom and farm-to-table ethos, our awareness of fresh ingredients and demand for exquisite dishes prepared by culinary artists has risen meteorically.

Venetian-Palazzo, a raging culinary flashpoint on the Vegas strip boasts the highest number of James Beard chefs togeth

The Wall Street Journal report pretty much says it all: At $6.9 billion, Expedia is now worth 40% less than TripAdvisor, which is worth more than $11 billion.

How did TripAdvisor, a recent former subsidiary of Expedia, pull off such a gain when just a year and a half ago, it was an Expedia holding?

Hotelmarketing quite correctly reports that TripAdvisor, in its nimble ways, redesigned its website to show shoppers "more hotel options"  side by side with its traveler reviews, "rather than referr

Governor Diego Velázquez was so overawed by lush beauty of this fabulous part of Cuba that he decided to call it the Jardines del Rey (King’s Gardens) in honour of the Spanish monarch Ferdinand the Catholic. And this Spanish explorer could not have thought of a more suitable name for the chain of islands containing Cayo Coco, as they truly do reign supreme amongst the many stunning paradisiacal spots to be found on the spectacular island of Cuba, the largest of the Antilles.

The island of Cayo

With its strategic position overlooking the strait that parts the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, Gibraltar remains in British hands. For tourists, it also makes an almost unique journey back to the colonial times when Britain ruled the world, reports Erik Bergin.

After the British handed back Hong Kong to China in 1997, there’s not much left of the former glorious British Empire, that once ruled land and seas around the globe.But one British outpost remains, undisturbed by Spain’s opposition

Costa Rica se caracteriza por ser un país con un sentimiento muy arraigado a la religión. Muchas de sus costumbres y tradiciones tienen antecedentes en ella. Esto no excluye la libertad de culto, ya que en su territorio convive una gran diversidad de credos. Recientemente, en el 2012, las investigaciones de la Escuela de Estadística de la Universidad de Costa Rica demostraron que el 46% de la población sigue siendo católico. De seguido, un 23% se identifica como católico no practicante; el 22% p

Summer is here, and that means Sitges is in full swing for the season. Of the myriad little fishing-villages-turned-beach-resorts along Spain's Mediterranean coast, this is the one nearest and dearest to the heart of gay men and women across Europe and beyond. In Catalonia about 45 minutes south of Barcelona, Sitges (pronouced “SEAT-jess,” its fetching seaside church – pictured above -- an icon) now has a year-round population around 20,000, doesn't attract queers alone - in fact, they're great

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As I travel around the Caribbean (and to some extent this is true in Latin America, too), I find nearly every island has some kind of homegrown hooch (often rum-based) that purports to be “medicinal” (and sometimes certainly tastes the part), often  including revitalizing, curative, and even aphrodisiac qualities. And if you visit the Dominican Republic, you may well come across the Dominican variation on this type of esteemed elixir.

The name mamajuana (Spanish for “Mama Jane”) is t

Hi, my name is Cara. My husband Ray and I have been in the casino business for most of our working careers. We have decided to show you the view from behind the table. We will pass on a few tips, so that superstition doesn’t ruin you game. Please let us know if they help you win the next time you visit a casino!

If you were a blackjack table visited by thousands of punters a year, you would hear the same five things repeated every day. Guess what, all five of them are misconceptions, mixed up w

Sit back for a moment and imagine yourself in your favorite vacation spot. Whether it’s at your local swimming hole kicking back in a lounger with the ultimate trashy novel or a dream excursion throughout Italy, you deserve some R&R. Here are some wines for wherever your adventures take you:

Butterfly Kiss Pinot Grigio 2011

Sourced from select California vineyards graced with sun-soaked afternoons and cool, fog-shrouded evenings, Pinot Grigio grapes used in this Butterfly Kiss showcase ripe sugar

William Wordsworth once said that the best way to view the mountains of England’s Lake District was from the surface of one of the lakes. Three of the sixteen lakes have large passenger boats cruising on them, so that view is still easily available to visitors.

When the railway first arrived at Windermere, there was already such a boat cruising on the lake of the same name … although it was some distance from the railway station. The railway actually terminated at a village called Birthwaite, bu

At the very bottom of Costa Rica, the placid blue waters of the Golfo Dulce shine like a mirror most days, reflecting occasional clouds and the immense cerulean sky. Its calm surface is broken by the odd small, local boat cruising along, but the most action is caused by dolphins frolicking or fishing, sea turtles swimming, fish jumping out of the water, and marine birds diving for those fish.

This time of year, the Gulf gets even busier with visiting migrating Humpback Whales. The “inner sea” of

Any fan of motion pictures has a favorite film director. Recently, I was able to view an exhibit of one of the true masters of cinematography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA. A tribute to the works of one of the cinematic geniuses of all time, the perfectionist, Stanley Kubrick. More than 1,000 objects on display in “Stanley Kubrick” — a massive exhibition devoted to the legendary filmmaker.

Anyone who has seen a Kubrick flick must admire the filmmakers attention to every last d