Tag Archives: Argentina

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.9.12

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

HI-YO, PINOT GRIGIO!
Touring wineries and sampling their wares is a big business these days, worldwide. There are escorted winery tours by bus or van, and self-driven wine routes you can enjoy at your own pace by car or bicycle (although you definitely want to go easy on the sampling in both cases).

Napa Valley is even world-famous for its Wine Train, featuring world-cass wines and dinners to match.

It was only recently, however, that I learned that you can tour wineries on horseback. Fresh air and gorgeous surroundings, finished off with some equally gorgeous wines. You can do it either as a day trip or as part of a hotel or bed-and-breakfast stay.

In eastern Washington state and Oregon, up and down California wine country, from Mendocino County in the north to the Santa Ynez Valley and Temecula to the south, or as far off as Argentina and Australia, you can saddle up and get your drink on in the same outing.

I myself am not quite ready for this kind of outing; the only horse I ever rode was made of wood and went around in circles. But for those of you possessing both horse skills and a taste for the grape, this might be a vacation worth considering.

If this sounds like something you might like to look into for 2013, drop me an email at greg@imblacknitravel.com and I’ll send you the information directly.

Just remember to go easy on those samples, lest you get caught galloping under the influence.

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YOUR VOICE MATTERS
Have you ever wondered if all those online reviews people write about hotels actually make any difference? A study conducted at New York’s Cornell University suggests that the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

According to an article in Travel Weekly, the Cornell study showed that good or bad hotel reviews could affect not only room demand at that hotel, but could influence room rates by as much as 10 percent, up or down:

“The study found a direct link between the rise or fall of revenue per available room (RevPAR) and improvements or declines in the online reputation of a hotel, driven by ratings on sites such as TripAdvisor and Travelocity.“

To read the entire Travel Weekly story, click here.

Bottom line: Your opinion matters. The Web has given you, the consumer, a more powerful voice than you’ve ever had before. Treat it like the priceless asset it is.

BEST ON A BUDGET
As we know, travel media folks are a bit list-crazy, and never more so than at year’s end. One of the lists you’ll find over at Budget Travel is its 10 Best Budget Destinations for 2013.

Some of their 10 nominees — like Palm Springs, the Bahamas and the Loire Valley in France — are pleasant surprises, because you don’t expect those places to be cheap. Others are a surprise because you’ve never heard of them, like Boracay Island in the Philippines.

And then, there are the ones you’ve heard of, but would never expect to make the list in a million years.

This year’s shocker: Northern Ireland.

To check out the entire Budget Travel list, click here.
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AND FINALLY…
It looks as if Alec Baldwin may get the last laugh, after all.

Remember when the actor/bad boy was famously kicked off an American Airlines flight at LAX last year for refusing the turn off the game he was playing on his cell phone?

Well, almost a year to the day of that incident, the NY Times is reporting that the head of the Federal Communications Commission now says the airlines should allow its passengers freer use of their personal electronics on board aircraft.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said as much in a letter last Thursday to Michael Huerta, acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration:

“I write to urge the FAA to enable greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable electronic devices during flight, consistent with public safety.”

The magic words there are “during flight.”

Nothing yet from the FAA, which has the last word on the issue, but even that agency has appeared in the past to be leaning in that direction.

It’s been reported in the past, including here on IBT, how personal electronic devices that use radio signals, such as cellphones, have shown signs of interfering with a plane’s navigation controls. But word processing, gaming and other functions would seem to offer little such threat, if any.

Either way, with the FCC more or less getting behind the traveling consumer on this, it could be that we’ll finally see this issue solved for good in 2013.

Meanwhile, if the next TV commercial for a Capital One airline miles credit card features a grinning Alec Baldwin with what appear to be canary feathers in his mouth, you’ll know why.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from USA Today
Wouldn’t you know it: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has scarcely entered service, but technical issues are already starting to surface. In this case, fuel leaks.

from the New York Times
American Airlines pilots ratify a new contract with the airline. For travelers, that means no worries about Christmas holiday trip disruptions. For AA, it’s one step closer to a merger with US Airways.

from ABC News via Yahoo
How bad is internal airport theft by TSA agents? The feds are planting iPads and other consumer electronic devices with GPS tracking devices to see if any of them get stolen…and they are. DO NOT check your laptops, tablet computers or smartphones.

from the Huffington Post
Kate Hanni of FlyersRights says the airlines are sticking it to travelers this holiday season with deceptive pricing and hidden fees, especially baggage fees. Bah humbug!

from Agence France-Presse
A French court has cleared the former Continental Airlines and one of its engineers of criminal responsibility for a deadly 2000 crash of a Concorde supersonic airliner in Paris. Civil liability is still on the table, though.

LAND
from NBC News
Here we go again…a simple device small enough to hide in a Magic Marker can let thieves open the electronic door locks at several major hotel chains nationwide. We’ve reported this before. Yikes. The hotel chains know about it, but have yet to correct it. Double yikes.

from the New York Times
Do you love skiing so much that you wish you could do it all year round? Have some frequent -flier miles saved up? Because if you’re willing to travel, you could ski 12 months out of the year, including in a few places you might never expect.

from Budget Travel
There are lots of folks who prefer to travel by themselves, and across much of the world, solo travel is perfectly fine. But there are some places where it’s really better to go with a group. Here are eight of them. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
The Hyatt Regency in Chicago begins the second phase of a $110 million renovation.

from SFGate
Wanna get high? I mean really high, as in “those ants down there are actually people” high. Destinations to take you up, up and away.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Plans by Royal Caribbean International to build a third Oasis of the Seas-class cruise ship may have run aground in Helsinki. The vessel would be built in Finland, but Finnish government is balking at financing the build.

from Travel Weekly
Apparently, not all the cruise lines are holding their noses at the European market. Norwegian Cruise Lines is hooking up with Gate 1 Travel to offer European combination cruise-land tour packages next year, starting with Italy. If they find a way to work affordable airfare into the package, this could be very interesting.

from USA Today
The luxury small-ship Windstar cruise line is offering some end-of-2012 deals on its Northern European cruises, including two-for-one sales.

from USA Today
The weather doesn’t just pick on the airlines. High winds in Cape Town, South Africa force a cruise ship to stay at the dock…for four days.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
New air services in the works for Mozambique, including flights from the capital Maputo to an island resort.

from T. Rowe Price
Ghana, now in the process of peacefully holding a presiddential election, could be the next rising financial star on the Mother Continent. So say these guys, who see five new economic powerhouses on the African horizon — in the west, east and south.

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
Good news for those who’ve traveled to Cuba or are planning to go: Thanks in part to an easing of government restrictions, the food is getting better. Much better.

from SFGate
Arizona has a world-famous wave. But leave the surfboard at home, because this one is solid layers of multicolored sandstone millions of years old in remote southwestern desert. This is one vacation that will make you work.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from CNN Travel
Singaporeans may have an international reputation as being cold fish emotionally, but they’re passionate when it comes to cooking in what some consider the capital of Asian cuisine — and for some remarkably low prices, they’ll show you how Singapore cooks.

from CNN Travel
The best places to shop in Beijing…and some cool places to shop in Shanghai.

EUROPE
from Girls’ Guide to Paris
Ah, Paris, how can I tour thee? Let me count the ways. By foot. By Metro. By tour bus. By bike. By…Segway? Oui, Segway.

from Context Travel
A 3.5-hour tour on foot and by Metro of the immigrant’s Paris.

from The Guardian (London UK)
An agritourism project is saving a fading village on the island of Cyprus — and giving travelers something to do other than party the night away in Larnaca.

from the Washington Post
The Louvre, arguably the world’s greatest art museum, is branching out, opens a satellite museum in an old French mining town. Good way to experience the Louvre’s treasures while avoiding the Paris mobs. You can almost hear the ghost of Louis XVI saying, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that!”

from Travel Weekly
If one of your travel dreams is to see the Colosseum in Rome, you probably shouldn’t put it off a whole lot longer. It’s literally crumbling.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 4.9.12

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The good, bad and bizarre from the world’s best travel media. ​

With this edition of the IBIT Travel Digest, we’re trying a slightly different format. Let me know if you prefer this approach or you’d rather keep it “old school.” Because unlike other social media (*cough* Facebook! *cough!*), IBIT prefers not to force changes down your throat.

​And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR

RYANAIR…AGAIN
Ryanair, Ireland’s low-fare airline will try anything to to lighten its airplanes to cut fuel costs — lighter on-board magazines, less ice in passengers’ drinks. At one point, they even considered removing armrests from seats and imposing a “fat tax” on passengers.

Now, Ryanair is after their female flight crew to watch their weight.

You can’t make this stuff up — and here’s the proof, courtesy of London’s Daily Telegraph.

from msnbc
Flying while (extremely) pregnant — a risk worth taking?

from Smarter Travel
JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines are hooking up to make it easier for Americans back East to head for the islands.

fromUSA Today via DearSkySteward
Looks like Delta has found a formula to beat rising fuel costs: Higher airfares and fewer seats. Meanwhile…

from the New York Times
Delta actually may be looking to buy its own oil refinery. Genius or madness? You decide.

from OutOfTown
IBIT readers absolutely adore gleaming new Asian airports like Changi (SIN) in Singapore and Seoul Incheon International (ICN) in South Korea. An abundance of Internet-friendly facilities is one reason. Changi’s extra effort to make the airport a pleasant experience is another.

from msnbc
Five of the world’s best airlines and the lengths to which they go to earn their reputations.

LAND ​

TAX SHELTER, OF SORTS
Federal income taxes this year are due April 17, and there’s a New York hotel that’s offering you a different kind of tax break.

According to USA Today, if you check into the Andaz Wall Street, A Hyatt property, between now and April 15, they will have their “Accountant in Residence” file your taxes for you — free.

All the hotel needs is your tax information and 72 hours’ notice. So get those receipts together.

from GOOD
Where in America do people walk and bike the most? Probably not where you think they do.

from Eater.com
Want to reserve a table at one of these 11 ultra-exclusive restaurants? It won’t be easy.

from National Geographic
NatGeo’s nominees for the world’s ten best food markets. Most are in Europe, a couple in Asia, a few more in Latin America and the Caribbean. But their top choice is in Canada.

​from Wandering Educators
Can’t visit the world’s great art museums because your bored children make it a miserable experience? The art of getting kids to appreciate art.

SEA ​
COSTA ON THE COMEBACK?
Travel Weekly is reporting that Italy’s Costa Cruises is showing its Easter cruise bookings for 2012 up from 2011.

If so, it represents a nice rebound for a catastrophic first quarter following the Costa Concordia disaster and an engine-room fire that knocked another of their ships, the Costa Allegra, out of service.

But if everything is coming up so rosy now for Costa, why is it — as TW also reports — that Costa is making these upbeat pronouncements solely to Italian media? You’d think the company would want the whole world to know, yes? Curious, to say the least.

from National Geographic
The stream of tsunami debris from the 2011 Japan earthquake/tsunami disaster has tourists paying to see — and literally dive into — the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

from Vacation Cruises Info
A review of the new cruise ship Celebrity Eclipse. Half-acre on-board lawn? Check. Glass-blowing studio? Check. World-class dining? Well…

from CNN Travel
What is about the Titanic that people find so endlessly fascinating? A full century after she went down, people are still bringing her up.

from the Toronto Star (Canada)
New York to Toronto…by cruise ship? Welcome to the world of small-ship and inland waterway cruising.
​
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AFRICA ​
EDITORIAL
It’s been a turbulent week or so for the Mother Continent. A tense presidential runoff election in Senegal. A military coup coupled with a Taureg revolt in Mali. A dispute over presidential succession in Malawi after the incumbent succumbed to a heart attack.

Enough to make most Westerners shrug. Just business as usual in Africa, right? Not really.

In the Senegal presidential runoff, the challenger swamped the incumbent, who gracefully bowed out. In Malawi, politicians obeyed their own constitution and elevated the country’s female vice-president to the top job. And Mali’s neighbors imposed their own sanctions to force the coup plotters to return the country to civilian rule.

Imagine that. West African nations handling their business through diplomatic channels and democratic means. It’s a sign not just of political stability, but maturity. It’s an example for the rest of the continent.
— Greg Gross, IBIT

from The Witness (South Africa)
Soldiers posted in Kruger National Park may not be having much luck stopping poachers, but they’re great at terrorizing lost tourists. Who trains these guys, the TSA?

from the New York Times
A year after its revolution launched the Arab Spring, Tunisia is once again beautiful, serene, historic — and peaceful. It might be a good time to visit, before the tourist hordes come back.

from The Nambian via allAfrica.com
Namibia is trying to become the first African country ever to host the Adventure Travel World Summit, in 2013.
​
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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN

from Gizmodo
For those who’ve forgotten how incredibly beautiful Yosemite National Park is, this time-lapse video will remind you.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Easter is every weekend at the Tierra Santa (Holy Land in Spanish) religious theme park in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

from the Toronto Star (Canada)
You know Francis Ford Coppola for his movies. Get to know him for his California wines.

from the Washington Post
On location in the Big Easy: A two-hour tour of New Orleans sites used as film backdrops.

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ASIA/PACIFIC ​

CAN ANCIENT CHINESE MEDICINE HELP MODERN TRAVELERS?
After China opened itself to the world in the 1970s, we started learning about traditional Chinese healing techniques such as acupuncture, the use of delicate needles to relieve pain by manipulating pressure points in the body.

Not quite as well known is acupressure, which works on the same principles, but without the scary-looking needles.

Could acupressure work on some of the aches and pains common to travelers? There’s a small story on the CNNgo site that suggest the answer could be “yes.”

As always, CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST.

from Travel With A Mate
Ten cool things to do in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on a budget.

from We Blog the World
Speaking of overlooked destinations in Asia, Manila almost never comes to mind. Maybe it should.

from Agence France Presse via France 24
Got a road-rage fantasy? Want to unleash your inner Patton? A company in Christchurch, New Zealand will put you at the controls of a main battle tank…and let you run over cars with it.

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EUROPE ​

from About.com/Eastern Europe Travel
Croatia is not your typical European destination — and that can be a good thing.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Speaking of Croatia, the Balkans may still be a politically fractured and fragile region, but these days, it’s also one ruggedly beautiful landscape that’s welcoming visitors.

from Go World Travel Guide
Cheap flights to Europe are only half the battle. Tips for saving money once you get there.

from Agence France Presse via France 24
In the Black Sea resort town of Batumi, they’re building a tower with a fountain at the top. Once a week, the fountain will flow not with water but with chacha — also known as “grape vodka.” And you get to taste. Pray that your tour bus has a designated driver.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

Art students re-create an Italian masterpiece on street pavement in chalk. Florence, Italy.

GIFTS THAT TRAVEL WELL
Not sure what to get your favorite traveler this holiday season? Never fear, IBIT is here to hook you up!

Tis the season to start making your gift list for the traveler you know and love, and there’s no end of cool “stuff” from which to choose.

Clothing is always a good option. A warm sweater that packs well or a good-looking windbreaker with lots of pockets (especially pockets with zippers and/or hidden pockets inside), or one of those photographer’s vests with enough pockets to stash the supplies of an infantry squad, are always practical presents.

The vest is especially useful. Wearable any season, you can cram it with an unbelievable amount of stuff, maybe enough to let you carry one less piece of luggage, but it should still fold up readily enough to fit in that bin that you have to send through the airport X-ray machine. Think of it as a carry-on you can wear.

Indeed, one company, ScotteVest, makes a whole line of travel clothing designed to stash your belongings, including vests and jackets loaded with pockets for this very purpose. But if you want to go for a lower price range, just Google the term “travel vest” and you’ll find lots of alternatives, some of which may be cheaper.

Between the rigors of airport security and the discomforts with flying itself, your favorite traveler might appreciate a nice jogging suit or something similar. Not too flashy, something done in a simple style and understated colors, but with a few pockets and best of all, a built-in belt with a non-metallic buckle.

Result: an ensemble you can sit comfortably in for hours, even in the most diabolical miserable Coach seat — and no need to take off your belt for the TSA.

The folks at TravelSmith have a half-dozen examples of what they call “travel suits” that fit this bill exactly. The Duluth Trading Co. has a pair of sweatpants they designed for workmen, but also look like they might be ideal for travelers. You may be able to find other examples on the Web.

Or you could forget about all of that and just get your favorite traveler a T-shirt from the IBIT Online Store.

If you don’t want to hassle with clothing sizes, you can always give the gift of luggage. A lot of travelers are forever searching for the perfect travel bag (I should know; I’m one of them). One of the best places online to shop for luggage is eBags. For sheer variety alone, they’re hard to top. You could be on their site for days. Their prices aren’t bad, either.

I have a split-level rolling duffel of theirs that I absolutely swear by.

Electronics is another good bet. Music players, noise-cancelling headphones, digital cameras — the possibilities are endless. Beyond that, however, there are enough gadgets designed for the specific needs of travelers to give one for each of the 12 days of Christmas.

You can seldom go wrong with a Swiss Army knife from Victorinox or Wenger. I always travel with one, and it’s never failed to come i handy. (I lean toward Victorinox myself, but that’s just me).

Speaking of handy, the folks at Smarter Travel have created their own Christmas gift list for the traveler in your life, and it’s a beaut.

A voice-activated alarm clock that you tell what what time you want to wake up? (I could use that at home!) A power converter that sits in your car’s cup holder while it charges multiple devices at once?

A camera bag disguised as a stylish purse? An insanely flexible tripod for your camera or iPod that you stand on or attach to just about anything?

And even that list barely scratches the surface of what’s available out there.

Or you could just get your traveler a nice aluminum water bottle from the IBIT Online Store. Just sayin’!

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Airfarewatchdog.com
George Hobica knows as much about airfares as anybody, and more than most. He has ten tips for scoring a bargain fare — or at least, what passes for a bargain nowadays.

from Frommer’s Travel
The perpetually peripatetic Johnny Jet has eight tips on how to survive airports this holiday season. Pay attention. SLIDE SHOW

from Smarter Travel
Could you be ripped off by the TSA? Some travelers have been.

SEA
from USA Today
Royal Caribbean is seriously considering creating cabins aboard its cruise ships specifically for singles, and Norwegian Cruise Lines is already moving in that direction. I can already hear some of you out there muttering, “It’s about time!”

LAND
from Smarter Travel via Yahoo! Travel
Looking for a winter getaway that won’t render your family finances null and void? The ST folks have these five nominees — the cradle of American liberty, an African desert kingdom, the nation that gave us Caesar and Chianti, some of California’s most beautiful seashore and…Bulgaria?

AFRICA
from the Times of India
While most tourism efforts in Africa focus on bringing more tourists to the Mother Continent, India is looking to draw more visitors from Africa.

from GhanaWeb
Is Ghana ready to put its failed aviation past behind it and build its own air bridge from West Africa directly to America. These writers say yes, and the sooner the better.

from allAfrica.com
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Airlines has just picked up the first of five Boeing 777-200LR jumbo jets. The “LR” stands for long range — long enough to connect any two cities on the planet. Non-stop.

from the Voice of America
The State Department has reissued its travelers advisory for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It can be summed up in one word: DON’T.

from the Jamaica Observer
A look at the bond between reggae music and Africa.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
The Tigre Delta near the mouth of the world’s wide river is a watery playground undergoing a renaissance in Argentina, within easy reach of Buenos Aires. And while we’re already deep into an increasingly bone-chilling fall up here, down there below the Equator, spring is moving into summer. Just sayin’.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Ecuador’s Isla de la Plata offers wildlife on a par with the better-known Galapagos Island, but without the equally wild prices.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Times of India via asiaoneNews
Word to the wise men: If you’re visiting Delhi and travel by subway, don’t — as in DO NOT — slip into the car reserved for women only, even if there are a bunch of empty seats. The ladies aren’t HAVIN’ it.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Is winter the best time of year to visit Venice? The weather may not be picture-perfect, but the tourist mobs are gone and Venice is still Venice. The NYT’s Rachel Donadio makes the case.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

Amsterdam water taxis | @copy; Greg Gross

SCAN THIS
Depending on how you look at it, the TSA’s latest efforts to protect air passengers from terrorism are either keeping them safer in the air, or violating their personal dignity and possibly exposing them to cancer on the ground.

There actually are two types of airport full-body scanners. The one that’s causing all the uproar is the X-ray backscatter machine. That’s the one that’s hitting your skin directly with radiation in the form of X-rays.

The radiation dosage is extremely low, hence the government’s insistence that the cancer risk is extremely low. The flip side of that argument is that you’re subjecting millions of people daily to that risk, and many of them repeatedly over the course of a month or a year.

Disclosure this summer that some branches of government had been surreptitiously retaining some of these full-body images — after telling the public that the scanners can’t and don’t do that — hasn’t done much for their credibility, either.

Imagine you’re an airline pilot or flight attendant. Would you want to go through a backscatter machine as many as 400 times a year?

By the way, did you know that you and everybody else aboard an airliner flying at altitude are subjected to low doses of radiation every time you fly?

You can learn about this via this transcript of a recent experts’ discussion on National Public Radio.

Of course, you could decline to be scanned, but that makes you a candidate for what the TSA, showing government’s gift for whimsical wording, calls an “enhanced pat-down,” of a sort most folks first experience as teenagers in the back seats of cars.

This has led to, among other things, a woman being forced to remove her prosthetic breast and a small child being strip searched, as you can see on this YouTube video.

And as you’ve heard a great deal in the news over the last week, not everybody is down with having strangers feeling them up, even in the name of security. TSA’s response is basically: “PHFFFT!”

The TSA has since relented and will now allow uniformed pilots to skip all of this, as long as they go through metals detectors and have two forms of identification. Cabin crew — so far, at least — no such luck.

Meanwhile, some Republican types in Congress are trying to get airports to take TSA out of the equation entirely and turn their screening over to private companies — and some airports are indeed looking into that. Even were that to happen, though, the private screeners would still be required to follow TSA security rules. So for you and I, the flying public, not much would change.

Bottom line: prepare to be groped and/or radiated for the foreseeable future. Or think seriously about taking trains.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AFRICA
Ethiopian Airlines becomes the first African airlines to operate the Boeing 777, its most modern jumbo jet. Another step up in class for EA, and a piece of good new for Africa-bound travelers. It gives EA the ability to connect virtually any two major cities in the world, non-stop.

They also plan to be among the first to fly Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner — provided Boeing can ever get the thing off the ground. Its delivery is now three years late.

from GotSaga
Ten things to enjoy in Capetown, South Africa — for free.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
A Guardian reader describes the many social roles played by the beaches in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. They’re not just for tourists. The locals use them for everything from beach soccer to baptisms, and more. Sounds like my kind of beach.

AMERICAS
from AP Travel
Where do you find America’s most affordable fine dining? According to the folks at Zagat, it’s New Orleans.

from the New York Times
Argentina produces some of the best wines in the world. A lot of those wines come from the wineries in and around Mendoza, which welcomes visitors. You’ll need to rent a car to get around the 100 or so wineries that welcome visitors, but the experience may be more than worth it.

ASIA
from the Japan Times
Americans aren’t the only ones giving thanks in November. Instead of turkey, though, a Japanese meal of thanksgiving might include crab cooked wine.

from the Japan Times
Sapporo is more than just a popular brand of Japanese beer. It’s a city with a lot going for the visitor — good food, good fun and good transportation, all packaged in a city smaller and a lot easier to comprehend than Tokyo.


EUROPE
from Europe Up Close
Paris is a city of neighborhoods, 20 districts known as arrondissements. Each has its own personality and character. Some are packed with attractions, and some are where Paris really lives. Not sure which is right for you? This blog post offers an excellent guide.

from the New York Times
In the study of humanity, Man was considered to be advancing when he stopped living in caves. In southern Italy, they’re converting caves into hotels…and putting tourists into them. If you stick around long enough, everything comes back.

from AP via US Today Travel
Follow the path of Catholic faithful on a pilgrimage trail in Spain that dates back more than a thousand years. You’ll need a backpack, a good pair of comfortable hiking shoes — and if you want to do the whole thing, about six to eight weeks.

AGRITOURISM

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Guadalupe Valley vineyard, Baja California, MX | © Greg Gross

It’s one of those forms of vacation we call “niche travel.” It’s a chance to learn, meet people, re-connect with Nature and see the world at the same time. This niche has gone global, and it’s growing.

But you can get a taste of it right here at home.

Winery tours and dude ranches were among the earliest forms of agritourism. You could argue that farmers markets fill a part of that niche, too.

These days, though, it’s gone much further. The number of things lumped under the agritourism banner is incredibly broad; I couldn’t begin to list them all. Everything from horseback rides and corn mazes to agriculture fields where visitors can pick their own produce and “entertainment farming.”

Those are farm stays that not only give the visitor an education on how their food is produced, but lets them get hands-on in with the process.

You can see where your coffee comes from on Hawaii’s Big Island, and why it costs so much. You can see what it takes to make your favorite glass of wine from France or Italy or Argentina or South Africa. You learn what milk tastes like after you get it from the cow yourself.

These experiences can be as brief or as lengthy, as laid back or as strenuous, as you like. And when you tell folks back home that you got some international “flavor” on your vacation, you’ll be speaking literally.

Indeed, some of the most unforgettable memories of any trip are the ones you bring back on your tastebuds.

Being from New Orleans, I thought I knew a thing or two about shellfish, until I tasted fresh oysters harvested off the Normandy beaches in France. Ohhhh my…!

That’s one of the beauties of travel. There’s always something else, something more, out there, waiting to take you farther — and further — than you thought you could go.

But you need not travel long, far or expensively to get a taste of agritourism. America’s farmers and ranchers, especially the little guys, are warming up to this concept.

Odds are, a check with your local county government or farm bureau will yield plenty of agritourism opportunities within an hour’s drive — or maybe just a health walk or bike ride — from your own doorstep.

IBIT guest columnist Tracy Gross was interviewed on the subject of agritourism by travel writer Rudy Maxa on his radio show. You can hear it here.

There’s a very cool little synergy that takes place in all this.

On one side, you’ve got small farms, dairies and the like, run by families who often can trace their labors back through generations. Many of those families today are struggling to survive in the suffocating shadow of corporate agribusiness, which is daily driving under small family farms around the world.

On the other side, you’ve got a lot of consumers out there who want to know more — a lot more — about where their food comes from. Some of them are “foodies” or people into the Slow Food Movement, but many others are just regular consumers trying to safeguard their long-term health.

They’ve heard a lot about the chemicals, hormones and genetic modifications in the foods we all eat — and it scares the hell out of them.

Agritourism has become the tie that binds — and benefits — both.

The family produce grower who can’t hope to compete with the corporate mega-farms can turn their farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast that includes a close-up look at the operation, demonstrations, cooking classes — all of which helps them to keep going.

In turn, the visitors can learn and see firsthand how their food becomes “their food,” what it takes to bring it from a seed in the ground to a meal on their plate. They can get to know some of the people behind all those faceless product labels, which is always a good thing.

And they can remind themselves what real, fresh, unaltered food tastes like.

For those who’ve spent their lives eating whatever came out of a can, a bag from a fast-food joint or chemically treated supermarket produce, the flavor shock at a farm or a farmer’s market can be almost overwhelming.

In some countries, agritourism is viewed as a way of keeping not merely family traditions, but whole cultures, alive — to the point that the United Nations is starting to offer financial support to major agritourism projects around the world.

So if you’re looking for a travel experience that active, affirming and tasteful all at once, especially one that gies you almost endless options, consider giving yourself a taste of agritourism. Your palate will thank you.

IF YOU GO
Agritourism World has an extensive list of locations and activities from which you can choose.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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A roundup of the good, bad and bizarre from the world of travel

Canal houseboat, Amsterdam

Canal houseboat, Amsterdam | © Greg Gross

THE WORLD ON YOUR SHOULDERS
Every year, travelers in the know save tons of money by ignoring the major holidays and doing their traveling during the so-called “shoulder seasons.” Maybe you could be one of them.

The upcoming Labor Day weekend marks the official end of the summer vacation season and the start of what the travel industry people call the “shoulder season,” those months just before and after a major holiday, when business falls like a bungee jumper for airlines, hotels, resorts, cruise ships.

To compensate, they all start offering deals, sometimes outrageously good deals, in the hope of drawing business. An airline seat or a hotel room sold at a loss, they figure, is still better than letting it go empty.

Want to see some destinations where going off-season can save you some bucks this fall? The folks at Smarter Travel offer up a set of five.

Some locales have their own shoulder seasons, dictated by climate. Take New Orleans. Summer is actually a time when tourism falls off in the NOLA. A daily regimen of searing heat and thick humidity will do that to a place.

Which explains how you can find four-star New Orleans hotels offering room rates in the dead of summer for less than $100 a night. Heat, humidity? That’s what snowballs, beer and frozen daiquiris are for.

Or what about Buenos Aires, Argentina or New Zealand, both well below the Equator. Their winter is our summer, their spring our fall. A little careful shopping could yield some great trips.

Spring and fall also are when cruise lines move their ships to and from warmer waters on one-way sails called “repositioning cruises.” They can last from a week to a month, like the traditional transoceanic liners, but at a fraction of the cost.

Work and school schedules are the biggest obstacles to shoulder-season travel, but if you can manage it, you can nail down some serious travel bargains.

And when your friends ask how you did it, you can just smile — and shrug your shoulders.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

from the New York Times
People are starting to travel again, but they’re doing it cheaper.

from the New York Times
Our old-fashioned credit and debit cards, with their magnetic stripes, are running into problems overseas, where many countries are shifting to cards embedded with digital chips and require a PIN to use.

from Smarter Travel
The attack on vacation rentals continues. It’s spreading now to San Francisco. More and more, you can expect to see cities cracking down on private renters and trying to force travelers into pricier hotels.

from Smarter Travel
You paid for those frequent flier miles you haven’t used yet. Don’t let them expire.

AFRICA
from The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)
Freretown is a Kenyan community with a unique and bittersweet legacy. The usual African tribal rivalries don’t exist here. Why? Because its inhabitants are all the descendants of freed slaves.

AMERICAS
from the Los Angeles Times
Are you a fiend for chocolate? Do you love great cities? Leave your heart — and your diet — in San Francisco next month.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Easy rider in Central America: Simon Gandolfi takes you around Guatemala by motorcycle.

ASIA
from the Guardian (London UK)
Looking to do a little shopping for electronics, or just see what happens when geeks take over an entire neighborhood? Bargain + bizarre = the Akihabara district of Tokyo. They call it Electric Town for more than one reason.

EUROPE
from the Daily Mail (London, UK)
Did you hear the one about the Mile High Pickpocket? No joke. Wonder why all those little padlocks are dangling on my carry-on backpack? Now you know!

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Ever play in a treehouse when you were a kid? In Sweden, they have treehouses from grown-ups — and they are nothing like your childhood.

IBIT on The Cheap: Introduction

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First of an occasional series

Amsterdam Centraal station | © Greg Gross

One of the notions that keeps a lot of black folks from traveling is that the cost puts it beyond the reach of anyone not named Gates, Buffet or Trump.

I was reminded of this by a story this week by Audra E. Lord of Clutch, an e-zine for young black women. It’s title, “How African-Americans can travel on a budget:

“The young, Black budget traveler that backpacks across Africa or Europe is hard to come across. But why?

“There is a certainly a “tradition” of sorts or perhaps an acceptance among White Americans and White non-Americans for people without the means to jetset around the world to find cheaper ways to travel. It’s an “adventure.” No frills required.

“On the other hand, sleeping in a hostel for $10 a night or going a few days without showering is a dreadful thought for most African Americans. Our culture simply doesn’t condone it. But after you’ve spent a week horseback riding in the mountains of Argentina, with no hot water or access to an actual toilet, you realize that hot showers are overrated and that you would have never gotten a view like this on your block.”

Read the entire article on The Grio website.

If Ms. Lord ever checked out IBIT, she’d know about The Black Backpacker, who only recently completed a six-month trek around South America, and is plotting another journey elsewhere in the world some time next month. But she’s still on-point.

You can’t walk through the downtown of a major American city — or anywhere near its bus or train stations — without seeing college- and even high school-age backpackers from Europe going here and there. In the words of an old Simon & Garfunkel song, “they’ve all come to look for America.”

A lot of us, when we see these young backpacking Europeans, either shake our heads in bemusement or laugh out loud. We think there’s something inherently wrong with this kind of travel. We think there’s something wrong with them. We think getting around this way is bizarre, demeaning and somehow beneath us. We think they’re nuts.

They’re not nuts. They’ve just decided that seeing the world matters more than keeping up appearances. Among too many of “us,” on the other hand, the attitude seems to be “either 5-star or nothing.” And since most of us can’t afford the 5-star travel life, that financial reality becomes our excuse to stay home.

We’re going to start stripping away that excuse, right now.

Not everyone can, should or wants to travel around the world the way The Black Backpacker or his white European counterparts do, but there are plenty of ways to save money on travel. For a lot of us, it’s less about a need for funds and more about changing our priorities. So we’re going to talk about ways to save money on travel, with or without a backpack.

We’re going to look at ways of trimming dollars off airfares and other transportation, ways to save on food, lodging, sightseeing. We’re going to show you the amazing amounts of great things you can see and wonderful experiences you can have all over the planet — for free.

Don’t look now, but the “we can’t afford to travel” excuse is about to go down in flames.

The United States — a mixed welcome

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Increased red tape to visit the United States has fewer travelers coming here…and we’re all paying for it

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama signed into law the Travel Promotion Act.

Good. Our beat-up economy can use all the tourist dollars we can get, especially when more than half the 50 states have economies wholly or partly dependent on tourism. So come to the United States. See our great country, our beautiful lands, our historic sites. Meet our terrific people. Have a ball. Spend money.

But first, cough up $130 for a visa, one each for every member of your family. And prepare to be hassled and humiliated in the process.

Arthur Frommer, the Godfather of Travel, pointed out recently that since 9/11, the United States has been charging a $130 visa fee to visitors in a lot of countries which were ever levied a visa fee before.

UNLIKELY CANDIDATES
We’re not just talking about countries like Yemen or Indonesia or Kyrgyzstan. We’re talking about Chile and Brazil and Argentina, nations that don’t exactly have a reputation for nurturing terrorists.

In fact, if you’re coming from virtually anywhere other than Western Europe and a handful of countries in Asia and the Pacific, prepare to ante up.

Most of Asia and…all of Latin America? All of Africa? Really?

Okay, we know why Sudan is on this list — Darfur, anyone? Somalia, sure. Given our testy relations with Cuba and Venezuela, even that would have a certain logic to it. And anyone who’s seen the roster of the 9/11 hijackers knows why Saudi Arabia gets this treatment.

But Costa Rica? Botswana? The Seychelles? Fiji?

Imagine yourself with a family of four or six. You’re $520 or $780 out of pocket — and you haven’t even left home yet. And that doesn’t take into account the hassle and cost of traveling to the city where the U.S. Embassy or consulate is located, then waiting in a hotel while your visa is processed.

But it’s not just the money. You may be forced to wait for weeks to make an appointment…just to go through the time-sucking process of applying for a US visa.

You also will be fingerprinted, as if you were a criminal. No fingerprint, no visa, period.

So while you’ve got American business practically begging foreigners to come here, you’ve got the U.S. government doing this stuff. it’s called a mixed message, and definitely not one that encourages visits to the United States.

RETALIATION
Why is any of this your problem?

It really isn’t — unless you plan on traveling abroad yourself, or unless you just slipped a tax payment check into the envelope along with your Form 1040.

According to Frommer, a lot of the countries whose citizens are now charged $130 for a U.S. visa have decided that turnabout is fair play — and profitable fair play, at that.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro. That’ll be $150, please — per person, of course.

That’s money you could’ve spent on clubbing in Rio or Amazon River tours or capoeira lessons — or maybe just your airfare.

Some might call this payback. Others would call it blowback. Either way, it’s money you won’t get back. And it’s making it that much harder for already cash-strapped Americans to travel.

And they’re not alone. Foreign visits to the United States have dropped the last three years running. Instead of submitting to fees and fingerprinting, foreign travelers increasingly are giving America “the finger” by staying home or going elsewhere.

When tourism is either the first, second or third-largest employer in 29 out of 50 U.S. states, that’s a problem.

Need another reason to give a damn? According to the U.S. Travel Association, the average American household would be paying out $950 a year in additional income taxes were it not for the money poured into our economy by tourism.

These measures may have been meant to slam the door on would-be terrorists, but they’re catching all our fingers in it.

EXCLUSIVE: Q & A with Pauline Frommer

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Pauline Frommer may be known as the daughter of The Godfather of budget travel, Arthur Frommer — but she’s rapidly making her mark as a travel expert in her own right with her own award-winning series of guidebooks. During the recent Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show, she took some time out between presentations for this exclusive interview.

Q: Should Americans be fearful of traveling in Muslim countries?

A. I think that what a lot of Americans don’t realize is that there is a deep tradition of hospitality in the Middle East. A Muslim loses face when he does not treat people well in an inter-personal communication, whether that happens in a hotel room or on the streets of a Muslim nation. I would say that 99.9 percent of the Muslims you meet are very happy to meet you, even knowing that you’re American.

Pauline Frommer

Pauline Frommer

My father went to Egypt right after 9/11. When people heard that he was from New York, they grabbed him in a bearhug and said “We are so sorry for what happened to your city. This does not represent us. This does not represent who we are.”

There are extremists in every culture, but they do not represent the majority of the Muslim world. There are wonderful people in Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, everywhere in the Middle East. And they want to welcome you.

Q. A common fear of a lot of Americans is based on the language barrier. How big of an issue is this in international travel?

A. It shouldn’t be a barrier for international travel if you don’t know the language. As long as you take the initiative to learn maybe ten words of the language of the country that you’re going to. If you learn to say “hello” and “goodbye” and “thank you” and “please,” people will bend over backwards to help you out. They want tourism; it’s the world’s largest industry. and in many nations, English…may not be the primary language, but it’s taught in schools.

You can almost always find somebody who speaks English; it depends on the place. In China, that’s rough. In Japan, it’s rough to find people who speak English. So you get the characters written down for you and you hand them to (cab drivers and so on). But you’d be amazed how much you can get along just with body language.

Q. For independent travelers looking for an authentic travel experience — as opposed to what you might get with a busload of tourists — what are some of the ways an independent traveler can get a real sense of the people and culture in their overseas travel?

A. I think you have to be a little creative to have an authentic vacation. You have to to get off the tourist track.

One of my favorite things to do is simply get lost in a city and just let yourself wander. And don’t worry that you’re lost. You’ll be able to find your way back eventually. And that way, you wander into residential areas and you wander into places that are far from the museums and tourists ties. You see what the local culture is like.

One thing we do in the Pauline Frommer Guides is we have a chapter called “The Other.” The Other Paris, the Other London, the Other Las Vegas. And we give people activities they can participate in which will give them a more authentic experience of the place they’re visiting.

For example, in Paris, there are these weekly “cafe philos,” where people gather to discuss the great philosophical questions.

They actually have this in Las Vegas, too, if you can believe it! I actually sat under the escalator in the Mandalay Bay casino with a group of about 30 people, and we discussed whether politics ultimately corrupts politicians. It was mostly locals, and I felt like I finally had an insight into what made the people in Las Vegas tick. It was absolutely fascinating! I felt like I made friends.

And that’s the great thing, when you’re not just talking to the concierge at the hotel, but going out and engaging in these types of activities. It might be a cooking class in somebody’s home; you can do that in Paris. It might be these things called “pirate dinner parties” in San Francisco, where people who love to cook gather and try out dishes on one another. It has nothing to do with pirates; you don’t have to wear an eyepatch!

There re all kinds of activities like this that break down barriers.

Q. Why would you say it’s important for Americans to travel, specifically travel overseas, in 2010?

A. You know, only 25 percent of Americans even have a passport. I think that has led to us being much more scared of the rest of the world than our counterparts in other Western nations. And unfortunately, I think we’ve had a foreign policy under our past president that was based on xenophobia.

We’re living in an age of global warming. We’re living in an age of great problems. And the only way to solve them will be for the nations to work on them together. And we need to be electing people who understand that. And we as citizens need to better understand the world, because we are part of a global community. We can’t be isolationist anymore.

A. Talk about the visa wars. What was the root of that?

Q. Well, after 9/11, we really slammed our borders shut, and hurt our businesses greatly. We instituted (a requirement for visas) from many nations from whom we had never required them before, like Brazil, like Argentina (and) many other Latin American countries where you would think the threat of terrorism is pretty much nil.

Brazil is humongous country. To get an American visa, you had to get to Sao Paolo; that was the one place in the country. You had to get it in person, and it would take two days. So just to get the visa, if you lived in a place far from Sao Paolo, would cost you hundreds of dollars, first in your airfare and then staying in a hotel. And because of that, Many Brazilians stopped coming to our conferences and trade shows. Many stopped coming as tourists to the United States. And I would say that the loss of revenue because of that is in the millions.

Because of that, unfortunately, what’s happening right now is that a lot of countries are angry about these visa fees, which are $130 to get into the U.S. So they’ve started imposing on us the exact same fee. So that’s what it costs now to get into Brazil. That’s what it costs now to get into Argentina. So even though costs on the ground in those countries are very low, with those onerous fees, it’s going to be impossible for a family of four to go to Argentina now.

England has now imposed a new tax to pay for their bank bailout of $130 to leave the country. So that’s going to really hurt tourism to England, unfortunately. I think it’s very short-sighted on their part.

Q. Voluntourism. You say not all of the projects that draw in tourists are things that necessarily benefit the people on the ground in those areas. What would be the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to choosing a volunteer vacation?

A. (You) want to look at the track record of the organization. I wouldn’t volunteer with an organization that was less than a year old. You want to ask the questions whether or not the community asked for these services to be done.

I think you have be a little wary of the corporate voluntourism. Some luxury hotels now are saying that they’re offering voluntourism projects. (LAUGHTER) And I just think it’s…you know…not so much.

To find a good one, go to the travel sites that you trust. Go to Concierge. com or Frommers.com. We have a lot of material there by journalists, which tell you not only which programs deliver a great vacation for people, but really help the areas they’re supposed to be helping.

Volunteer vacations are tax-deductible. So even if they’re more expensive, you can save money later on on your taxes, possibly. You have to talk to your accountant.

Q. This has come up as an issue on my blog — what some people call “poverty tourism” or “poorism.”

A. Oh, poorism, yeah. Now that’s an interesting and very controversial issue. Should you be touring the favelas of Rio de Janeiro? Should you be going to the shantytowns outside of Capetown? Should you be visiting the levees in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans?

I personally think it is appropriate when money goes back to the community. And so you want to make sure that that’s happening, that you’re not just going there as a gawker.

In the Ninth Ward…I took a tour of all the levee breaks. And I think that kind of tour hopefully keeps the help going to New Orleans. It inspires people to write to their Congresspeople and say “the city still needs help.” There are parts that look like war zones still, that never got rebuilt.

I don’t know. It’s a rough issue. There is no one right answer whether it’s right or wrong. On the one hand, do we only travel to see palaces and museums? Shouldn’t we be seeing real social conditions in these places? But on the other hand, is it voyeurism?

It’s a tricky issue. I don’t think there’s a cut-and-dried answer to it.


NEW SERIES: Wine travel

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First of an occasional series

Vineyard, Guadalupe Valley, Baja California, Mexico

Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Othello, II. iii. (315)
The chance to experience a truly fantastic wine is a great reason to go out to dinner. It’s an equally good reason to travel the world.

The old Latin saying tells us that “in vino veritas” — in wine (there is) truth. You may also find that in wine, there is culture, geography, politics, intrigue and a whole lot more. A lot the Old World’s history can be found inside its giant wooden wine casks.

It’s also one way to get the flavor of a place, literally.

A cabernet sauvignon from Napa may use the same variety of grape as one from Naples, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to taste exactly the same. The air, the soil, the climate, all the things that make those two regions unique, also make for a unique wine.

And if you’re drinking for taste instead of “the buzz,” you will pick up the difference from one region to another.

So how many regions are we talking about? Lots!

When I was a kid and someone mentioned wine — real, serious wine — you thought of France and Italy, and that was about it. As I grew a little older, I added Spain and Germany to the mix, but to my mind, good wine was still all about Europe.

If you thought of California at all, it was because of what one Internet wag calls “bumwines,” which serve no purpose other than to prematurely kill as many of your brain cells as possible. I’m talking about things like Ripple, Thunderbird, Boone’s Farm and similar offerings from what I used to call “the trashcans of Ernest and Julio Gallo.”

For my next trick, an understatement: Things have changed!

The French and Italians are still very much in the game, and the wine-producing regions that gave their names to their wines — Burgundy, Champagne, Chianti, to name a very few — are happily still with us. In the 21st century, though, their list of competitors has grown considerably. Argentina. Chile. Australia. New Zealand. South Africa, and that’s just scratching the surface.

These days, it’s hard to find a region of the world that doesn’t produce some wonderful wines. You could rack up a lot of frequent-flier miles on your favorite airline in pursuit of the grape.

You could start right in my home state of California, which has spent the last half-century shedding its image as the trash wine capital of the world. A drive or a bike tour through the Northern California wine counties — Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, among others — will leave you with an educated palate and a trunk or pannier full of bottles.

The same can be said of New York and Washington states, among others. They don’t have to be huge, sprawling operations, either. Just as American microbreweries are producing some really tasty craft beers, there are small wineries around the country putting out some excellent wines.

Some of those wineries may be no more than a half-day’s drive from your house.

Want to use your passport in the name of wine? Head north to Canada. There, you’ll find ice wine. No, it’s not wine made from ice!

Remember those Shakespearean tales and Robin Hood stories from Olde England that made reference to a drink called mead? You can still find lots of Canadian wineries making it.

As you might expect from Canada, they also have a fair number of wineries producing organic wines.

If you’d prefer both your wine and yourself not frozen, you can always head south instead of north. Mexico has some significant wine-producing regions, and the most important of them are within easy reach of the U.S. traveler.

Look at that. We’ve got you happily sloshed already, and we haven’t even left the continent yet.

But we will. Count on it!

First, however, we’re going to take a look at the two California wine countries. That’s right, two, one on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border. Those will be our first stops on our global wine road. So pack up your tastebuds, decide who’s going to be the designated driver…and get ready to get your drink on!