Normally I tend to shy away from places you might term "tourist traps." And Puerto Vallarta has certainly had its bread plenty buttered by tourism -- in fact, it seems that half the city is geared toward freespending gringos. And yet... there's no doubt that PV is one of Mexico’smost popular tourist magnets for a darn good reason. Several, actually – starting with its wide, wonderful beachfront on the crescent-shape Bahía de Banderas (North America’s second-largest bay). What makes Vallarta stan
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IT'S NOT A CHEAP TICKET, BUT IT'S STILL A GOOD DEAL
“Premium Economy Class” is often an oxymoron, if not an outright lie. However, Air New Zealand's PE section in the big B777-300ER aircraft appears to be more premium than economy, so I was glad to try it out on an LAX-Auckland roundtrip.
The Premium Economy “space seats” in ANZ's B777s are big easy chairs that wrap around you so you're not thrown into an impromptu domestic arrangement with some stranger. Instead of reclining in the conventio
One important lesson I learned during my visit to St. Simons Island was how difficult it is to promote the use of locally sourced ingredients even in a region awash in native seafood, fruits, and vegetables. The more people seek out and demand better quality food, the easier and more cost-effective it will be for local purveyors to compete with mass produced mediocrity. The King and Prince, an historic resort on Georgia's coast is pulling out all the stops reaching out to local growers and culti
Hi all,
travelers to major cities want to take in excellent theater at bargain prices. If you're in NYC this weekend, you have got to check out this off-off Broadway piece at Astoria Performing Arts Center in Queens. Here's my review from The Queens Gazette newspaper:
A Hard Wall At High Speed: Powerful Play Hits Home
A scene from A Hard Wall at High Speed at the Astoria Performing Arts Center.
I don’t recall ever watching a play that had the audience glued to their seats
Billions Spent, But Are We Any Safer?
In its usual witty, acerbic but always readable content, FastCompany looks at the Transportation Security Administration’s huge expenditures on air travel since 9/11 in their efforts to keep us safe.
How huge is huge?
Fifty-six plus billion dollars spent on schemes and strategies that more of ten than not fall flat or never get off the ground.
But as the publication asks, who’s getting the money? And what is working?
On balance there seem to be more busts than
Occupy Business Class!
After more hours than I care to count sitting in the cookie cutter seats in economy class, I was pleasantly surprised today when Qatar airlines upgraded my wife and me to Business Class. I have not flown Business Class since I stopped working and an employer was buying my ticket. I had forgotten how much better it is to spend 7 hours in a fully reclining seat with incredibly good food and service beyond the pale.
The seat not only spread out to a flat bed, it vibrated.
The fl
Yep, that’s right: I didn’t go see the hottest spot in Miami. I stayed just south of Miami, right next to the University of Miami’s campus with a friend in graduate school there and didn’t even venture to one of the most talked about spots in all of Florida. I guess this little blip shows that every city has two sides …at least.
You may be familiar with associating yourself with a city that you may live near or outside of; I admit to doing this as my address reads Richmond, Vir
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is upon us!
A blaze of festive lights and Yuletide decorations will soon adorn homes and buildings across the globe.
This year, step into an enchanting Christmas atmosphere at one of Europe’s many beautiful Christmas markets.
Villages and towns across the country transform into an illuminated winter wonderland, boasting brightly decorated wooden chalets offering traditional and handmade gifts and festive holiday treats, like mulled wine and sweet gingerbread.
Whet
A very long tradition has the St. Nicholas day in Austria, on the 5th and 6th of December St. Nicholas (the good) and the “Krampus” (the evil) are going through the Gastein valley on this trational festival day in Austria. More than 100 “Passen” with St. Nicholas, Krampusse , one angel and a man with a basket on his back called “Gurzelträger” are going from house to house and thousands of people watch this spectacle LIVE in Gastein.
Here is a video!
One of my favorite ways to travel while home in the States is to do some half-way planning, hop in the car, and hope for the best. This is how my friend, Andy, and I took two and a half weeks of our summer in 2009. We crammed two surfboards and what we thought would be enough clothing for two or so weeks in my Jeep.
We planned out our trip to be as cheap as possible so the first stop came from Andy’s acceptance as a guest at his mom’s high school reunion. So that meant the first le
Kangaroo Island, or ‘KI’, as it’s known locally, is more noted for what it hasn’t got than for what it has. Unlike mainland Australia, rabbits and foxes were never introduced, so the indigenous wildlife has less competition for survival.
Another thing the island doesn’t have is something a Scottish friend once called ‘The Way of the Island’. There’s no sense of being on an island; in many places, you can climb to a high point and see nothing but ‘bush’ in any direction.
That catches many visitors
After coming back from Sierra Leone, and having had one of the most amazing times of my life, I decided to share my experience with others to hopefully inspire more people to go and explore this beautiful yet misunderstood part of the World. This is the first part of Travels in Sierra Leone: Peninsula, Provinces and Palm Wine.
When I first mentioned that I wanted to travel to Sierra Leone, I would have been a rich man if I was paid for every time someone either said: "Isn't there a civil war in S
TripAdvisor Plot Thickens: Second Charges Filed
The review giant seems reeling these days with legal and PR woes from all directions.
In the latest plot development, Hotelmarketing.com reports that a more serious complaint against TripAdvisor has been lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority, the UK organization charged with regulating advertising across all media.
The second probe, instigated by reputation management gadfly, Kwikchex is now asking that all third parties using TripAdviso
Full Article with Pictures: Cruize Cast- Cruise Blog and Podcast
On this cool morning in southern Alabama with no European trip on the immediate horizon, I am wishing I was in Florence. It is strange to have fallen in love with a city that is so different from where I come from, which contains delights that I didn't even know existed a few years ago, but I guess the saying is true "you can't choose who (or what) you love."
Travel writers always seem so worldly, like they have always known abou
A few short weeks ago, I was transfixed and pleasantly taken aback by the spectacle of Ireland's prime minister Enda Kenny slamming the Catholic Church for encouraging and covering up pedophile priests for so many generations (and whoa, nelly, were the intrinsically disordered girls in the Vatican throwing hissy fits over that); more recently, Eire even withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican. I couldn't have asked for a more explicit example of how this country's come a long way, baby – once l
Iceland: Life on the Brink
Icelanders live on the edge.
In 1783 the Laki Volcano in this glacier-covered country erupted in a violent and prolonged paroxysm, killing a fifth of the country's population.
For 10 months 30 billion tons of lava and sulfuric acid belched forth, creating a noxious haze that killed crops and livestock in Europe as it wound its deadly way west.
Some experts say it was this eruption that led to crop failures in distant France, setting the stage for the French Revolution
| by Emily Guilmette |
| One of our all-time favorite hotels in the entirety of South America is Inkaterra's La Casona! I recently had the pleasure of spending an evening there and wanted to take this opportunity to tell you why it's so special. First, you come upon La Casona, tucked away in one of Cusco's prettiest plazas, up the hill from the Plaza de Armas. Bounded by low blue-shuttered buildings and a dusty red colonial cathedral, you find yourself in an oasis of calm. In the distance - shadowy blu |
The quest for next year’s Yellow Jersey is going to be one steep ride.
It seems like just yesterday 34-year-old Cadel Evans assumed the highest step on the podium on the Champs-Elysees, becoming the first Australian to win the 2011 Tour de France title.
However, the Tour’s 99th edition just got one step closer after the announcement of the race’s 2012 routes at the convention center in Paris. The 2012 Tour de France will bring fiercer mountain climbs and longer time trials. With 9 flat stages, 5 m
Agoda is based in Asia, but now they list hotels all over the world like the other booking sites.
I recently booked two hotels in the EWR area of Newark NJ.First because they were a little cheaper and second because I wanted to get some more experience with them, since I'm going to travel in Asia more in the coming years and they have more hotels lis
More than a few vacationers staying at coastal resorts on the Riviera Maya or Cancun do venture into the interior of the Yucatan peninsula, but for the most part it’s on day trips or overnighters to world-famous Maya ruins such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal. As well they should – but sometimes overlooked amid all the ancient wonder is Yucatan’s capital, Mérida, a four-hour drive inland from the coast (add maybe a couple more hours if you take local roads). With a population of some 800,000, it’s t
