Tag Archives: Brazil

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 3.21.12

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media.

Amsterdam canal houseboat

Canal houseboat in Amsterdam | ©IBIT G. Gross

VIVA MEXICO
For all the negative talk about crime and violence related to its ongoing drug war, Mexico endures as a travel destination.

Travel Weekly reports that Carnival Cruises Lines, which has already sunk some $100 million into improvements for Mexican seaports, is looking at investing in two new ones — Calica on the Caribbean coast and Puerto Cortés in Baja California Sur.

No dollar signs yet, but the fact that Carnival would be interested at all says a lot, as does the fact that Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill was down south last week to meet with Mexican president Felipe Calderon and tourism minister Gloria Guevara.

So too does this little tidbit from TW: In a story about how Spring Break travel has picked up in 2012, they point to Student City, an online travel agency that caters to high school and college kids. According to Student City, its top two destinations were Cancun and Puerto Vallarta, both on the Mexican Riviera. Panama City, FL was third.

SUMMER AIRFARES — INTO THE STRATOSPHERE?
That’s definitely how it looks to the folks at USA Today, who checked the situation with aviation and travel experts.

What do you want first, the bad news or the very bad news?

Airliners may not have to pull up to the local gas station to fill their tanks the way you and I do, but when it comes to fuel prices, the oil companies don’t cut the airlines any more slack than they do for us. So whatever causes the cost of a barrel of crude oil to jump hits everyone hard.

Even the airlines’ ability to buy options on jet fuel, a tactic pioneered by Southwest Airlines and copied by many other airlines since, doesn’t help as much as it used to.

Bottom line: Airfare prices already are higher than they were a year ago, and the pain is only going to increase once the summer “high season” arrives. You need to plan accordingly, and the US Today story has a few tips that may help.

VACATION — WHO GETS IT AND WHO DOESN’T
Embedded in a story from CNN Travel about Swiss voters rejecting a proposal for six weeks of paid vacation a year (like their neighbors in Germany) is a survey of 20 countries from Expedia, listing them in order of the amount of vacation time employees receive, how many of those days are actually taken and how many go unused.

France, to no one’s surprise, was at the top. The United States, again no surprise, was near the bottom. What may be unexpected is that nations with some of the strongest economies in Europe, as well as some of the weakest, rank among the highest for vacation days offered and actually used.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
The FAA finally decides to consider adding to its list of consumer electronics devices approved for in-flight use.


from eTurboNews
The 2012 London Olympics are only a few months away. Can London’s five airports handle a crush of visitors flying in? The heads of four British airlines seem to have their doubts.

from Travel Weekly
They’re coming to America…or at least trying to. Gol, Brazil’s low-fare airline, wants to fly Boeing 737s from Miami to Sao Paulo, with a stop in Caracas, Venezuela.

from the New York Times
How to avoid the worst seat on the airplane.

from Travel Weekly
There’s First Class, and then there’s this: Etihad, the national flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, is installing chefs to prepare in-flight meals for their First Class passengers.

from Travel Weekly
Remember People Express, the low-fare airline back in the 1980s that bowled people over with some ridiculously cheap fares — while putting them through some even more ridiculous hassles — until Continental swallowed them up? They may be coming back.

from TNOOZ
Have you ever played with Google Flight Search? It’s only been online for six months. Simultaneously shows air routes and airfares across the United States…and now, internationally.

LAND
from 
Frommer’s Travel
Want to get the feel of a place from a local’s perspective? Take a walking tour. Here’s what you’ll see if you hit the bricks in the Montmartre section of Paris. SLIDESHOW

from Smarter Travel
There are more than 900 World Heritage Sites identified around the globe by the United Nations, all of them worth seeing. The folks at Smarter Travel pick 11 must-sees. See if you agree. SLIDESHOW

from the Los Angeles Times
Ever have trouble with those balky remote controls for the television in your hotel room? Now there’s an app that will let you operate the hotel TV right from your smartphone. Unless, of course, you own a Blackberry.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Is it just me, or is the cruise industry taking a beating this year? Princess Cruises cuts short one Caribbean cruise and cancels two more due to engine troubles aboard Caribbean Princess. Oh well, maybe things will be better next year: Princess is among the cruise lines now accepting bookings for 2013.

from Cruise Critic
A head-to-head comparison of the ten most popular mega-ships and their features — cabins, dining options, entertainment. Which one most appeals to you?

from 
CNN Travel
The inside view of ten of the most popular North American cruise ports. One’s in Alaska, while the rest are scattered around the Caribbean. Avoid the crowds and pick up some local flavor.

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AFRICA
from 
Reuters via Yahoo!
Is Britain trying to block access of Africa’s largest airline to Europe?

from 
Capital FM (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
An innovative attempt to promote tourism to Kenya through music. Plans underway to create a musical stage production on Kenyan cultural attractions, with the country’s different languages as a centerpiece.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from 
BBC Travel
Southern, sleepy, set-in-its-ways Savannah, GA is suddenly becoming a hot zone of sophisticated art, music, dining and shopping.

from the 
Los Angeles Times
There’s a lot more to Peru than just Machu Picchu, and the LAT’s Chris Reynolds shows you the what and the where in Cuzco.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from eTurboNews
One unexpected aftershock from Japan’s 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster — a lot more Japanese tourists vacationing in Taiwan.

from BBC Travel
A mini-guide to a mini-country with a lot going on: Singapore.

from the 
Los Angeles Times
A veteran traveler digs through the multiple cultural layers of the Malaysian city of Malacca.

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EUROPE
from The Guardian (London UK)
Berlin has some of the world’s most cutting-edge architecture, and through this self-guided walking tour, you can check out a lot of it.

from The Guardian (London UK)

The three most beautiful words in the English language when joined together: Paris…wine…free. Free wine tastings of some of France’s best bottled offerings through June.

from The Guardian (London UK)
When you’re ready to party hard, head for Spain. A rundown on where and when to go. Who needs sleep, anyway?

from Rick Steves via USA Today
New things to see and do in France and Spain for 2012.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 3.11.12

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media. ​

© Christina Deridder | Dreamstime.com

KENYA: GOING BEYOND BUSH AND BEACH TOURISM
I’ve been saying for awhile now that there’s a lot more to Africa than just exotic wildlife. It looks as if the folks in charge of Kenya’s tourism agree.

According to media reports out of Nairobi, the Kenya Tourism Board is abandoning its focus on beach and safaris. Now, they’re looking to diversify their approach, touting the East African nation as a destination for multiple forms of upscale travel — among them cultural tourism, eco-tourism and sports travel.

Kenya also is looking to raise its profile as a prime African location for MICE — traveltradespeak for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions.

(South Africa is the Mother Continent’s current leader for MICE tourism. Looks as if Kenya wants to break off a chunk of that lucrative market for themselves.)

All this is being done with an eye toward drawing more tourism from Europe and the KTB started pushing this updated concept of Kenyan tourism at the International Travel Bourse show last weekend in Berlin.

Kenya continues to draw international visitors despite its military clashes with al Shabab militias from neighboring Somalia.

For more on this story, check out this report from theNairobi Star.

“LOVE BOAT” TO THE BONEYARD
According to USA Today, the cruise ship that served as the floating set for the TV series “The Love Boat” ‐ and may well have helped launch the modern cruise industry as we now know it — is sailing toward an inglorious end.

The vessel formerly known as the Pacific Princess, has been sold to a demolition company in Turkey, where she’ll be cut up for scrap.

Apparently, she’s been laid up at a dock in Genoa, Italy for nearly a decade.

You can read the USA Today story here.

Those old enough to remember the show also will recall how huge we thought the ship was. In reality, she only held a maximum of about 600 passengers. Today’s mega-cruisers can hold more than that on one deck.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
Is there any way to make airplane food taste good? The airlines are trying everything — and I do mean everything.

from the New York Times
A couple of Sea World penguins get the celebrity treatment aboard a Delta flight. Not only do penguins fly, but in this case, they flew First Class. The humans loved it. VIDEO

from USA Today
The skies haven’t been that friendly of late for babies and parents. In one instance, TSA screeners denied boarding to a nursing mother. In another, JetBlue booted an entire family off a flight after their toddler went to DEFCON-5 with her tantrum.
​
LAND
from the New York Times
From how to save money on whale-watching in Hawaii to why your next pair of contact lenses should come from Thailand. A roundup of tips from the recent NY Times Travel Show.

from Budget Travel
A vacation rental site adds insurance to protect vacation home renters from nasty surprises.

from Frommer’s
Buy fragile things when you travel? Here’s how to pack them to survive the trip home. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from USA Today
The Costa Allegra, the container ship-turned-cruise ship that went adrift in pirate-infested waters off the East African coast after an engine fire, has probably sailed her last cruise. Her owners, Carnival Cruise Lines, say she will be sold or scrapped.

from USA Today
Another bit of fallout from the loss of the Costa Allegra — beleaguered Costa is cancelling its Red Sea cruises this year. The ship that was to be used in the Red Sea, the Costa Voyager, is being shifted to take Allegra’s place.

from USA Today
Carnival Destiny, the first of Carnival’s mega-sized cruise ships, is going to get one of the biggest makeovers ever done on a cruiser. By the time she re-emerges, even her name will be different.

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AFRICA
from Capital FM (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Buoyed by what is sees as an improving global economy, British Airways is adding flight between London and the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

from The Chronicle (Ghana) via allAfrica.com
Aviation officials in Ghana say their citizens are being subjected to artificially high airfares, antiquated equipment and disrespectful treatment by flight attendants aboard foreign airlines. Accra is threatening retaliation if the foreign carriers don’t “come correct.”

from This Day (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
Four years ago, Lagos welcomed the arrival of the first yacht hotel anywhere in Africa. Four years later, the Sunborn Yacht Hotel is a floating white elephant, yet to welcome a paying guest. PICS and VIDEO

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from The Associated Press via The Grio
In New York’s Harlem, the phenomenon of gospel tourism is increasingly filling the pews of dwindling black congregations with white European tourists. It’s proving to be a mixed blessing.

from Budget Travel
How well do you know New Orleans? Test your knowledge of the NOLA with this quiz.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mention the Amazon and the first place you’re likely to think of is Brazil. Add Peru to that list. Especially if the prospect of exploring the Amazon via a small luxury cruise appeals to you.
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ASIA/PACIFIC
​from Voice of America
One year after being rocked by a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan is still trying to get tourists to come back.

from the Los Angeles Times
In Vietnam, the city of Hanoi is making a name for itself among international travelers looking for the best in Vietnamese cuisine.

from the Los Angeles Times
Another sign of growing affluence in China — a domestic wine industry.

from Your Singapore
Remember when Singapore was known for its staid, ultra-conservative lifestyle? The St. James Power Station is an old coal-fired powerplant converted into the ultimate nightlife venue — ten different bars and live music venues under one roof. (Wikipedia lists 11.) So much for staid.

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EUROPE
from TravPr.com
“Paris pour les femmes” means Paris for women. A European tour company is offering luxury tours of Paris—exclusively for women.

​from The Guardian (London UK)
“Foodie” may be a dirty word these days among the travelerati, but if you’ve got a thing for both rustic Italian countryside and great Italian food, there are some places to stay in rural Italy that can satisfy both cravings.

from The Guardian (London UK)
And speaking of Italy, virtually every hotel in Venice is on an island, but this one has an island pretty much to itself, well away from the tourist mobs.

​​

BRAZIL: Coming to an airport near you

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After a couple of decades of quietly making its mark in regional aviation, Embraer may be ready to give both Boeing and Airbus a run for their money.

If you get the sense over the next few years that you’re seeing some new aircraft silhouettes around your airports, jet airliners almost the size and roughly the shape of the familiar Boeing 737, you won’t be wrong.

The new jets will be from neither Boeing nor France’s Airbus, but a Brazilian aircraft builder, Embraer.

Never heard of them? Don’t worry, you will.

You’ll also be flying them.

Actually, if you’ve ever caught any commuter flights from small regional airports around the United States, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve flown them already.

Embraer’s ERJ twin-jets have been the backbone of regional air services in this country (and around the world) for nearly 20 years.

Now, it looks as if the Brazilians are ready to start running with the big dogs, Boeing and Airbus. And Exhibit A is preparing for takeoff in the San Diego suburb of Carlsbad.

A new carrier, California Pacific Airlines, is preparing to start operations from Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport, with flights to Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento, as well as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

According to published media reports, they plan eventually to extend their reach further into Mexico, with flights to Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City.

Their choice of aircraft — E-170 twin-jets from Embraer.

(NOTE: The airline plans to offer 2 x 2 seating throughout the entire aircraft. No middle seat, anywhere. They also plan to assign seats. Both these factors suggest that their fares won’t be in the bargain range, but travelers may decide that the added comfort and convenience are worth it. We’ll see.)

Quite a few airlines already are flying the E-170 — among them, Delta and United in this country, as well airlines in Europe, Asia and Africa.

It’s not hard to see where the Brazilians are going with this.

As upstart airlines like California Pacific start to catch on, and established airlines look to diversify their fleets, it’s easy to envision Embraer stretching out their E-170 to accommodate more passengers per flight.

Once that happens, they’ll be directly challenging Boeing’s venerable 737 and Airbus’ A321 series with newer airplanes and newer technology.

None of this means that Boeing or Airbus are going away anytime soon. But it does mean they no longer have the business all to themselves. In the high-stakes game of aircraft building, a new player is taking a seat at the table.

If this keeps up — and there’s no reason at this point to think that it won’t — American travelers soon may have to stop thinking of Brazil as a “developing country.”

Edited by P.A.Rice

BLACK CULTURE: Freedom towns

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One of the things we learn when we travel is that our African ancestors did more than just rebel against slavery. They built communities throughout the Americas. This one survives to this today.

The IBIT family has some great readers out there who teach me a lot. One of them is Rasheed Dennis, who just this morning got me thinking very hard about Colombia.

Tropical beauty, a rich blend of Spanish, indigenous and African cultures and the only country on the South American continent with coastline on the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Caribbean. For all those reasons, Colombia has long been “on my list.”

Now, thanks to Rasheed, it’s just moved up several places, after he “pulled my coat” to a place called San Basilio de Palenque and a man named Benkos Biohó.

ENSLAVEMENT AND ESCAPE
Born sometime late in the 15th century, he hailed originally from the Biohó region in the West African nation we now call Guinea-Bissau. There, he had been a king.

Captured by 16th century Portuguese slavers, he was sold and resold until he ended up in the Spanish colony of near what is now the Colombian city of Cartagena.

There, he and other African captives were subjected to brutal treatment. Many submitted to it.

Benkos did not; he escaped by boat.

He was recaptured, but soon escaped again. This time, he led a group of 30 slaves into the swamps with him.

But the slave who had been king was only getting started.

THE BLACK GIBRALTAR
He led a five-year guerrilla war against the Spanish slaveowners, raising his own small army of escaped slaves — freeing still more slaves andkilling their masters, even creating his own intelligence network within the colony.

Every Spanish attempt to crush the revolt failed.

They formed their own walled town, known in Spanish as a palenque, at a place called San Basilio. for those escaped slaves who could reach it, it was their little Gibraltar, a small rock that the Spanish army couldn’t crack.

Eventually a deal was brokered and a treaty signed. Benkos walled town and its inhabitants would be left in peace. That made San Basilio de Palenque the first town of free Africans in the Americas — north, south or central.

Before Toussaint L’Ouverture, before Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, there was Benkos Biohó.

Through it all, Benkos made but one mistake; he actually trusted the Spanish to honor the treaty they’d made with him. He let down his guard and a Spanish army “caught him slippin’.” He was captured and executed.

But the town he and his followers had built remained unassailable, inviolable, free.

It still stands today as a living icon of African heritage in Colombia. UNESCO has listed it as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

THEIR OWN LANGUAGE
It’s a small place, a poor place. Maybe about 3,000 souls live there. They not only have preserved many of their original folkways, but developed their own language, known as palenquero, which they are struggling to keep alive.

There were a lot of palenques like this back in the day, places where our ancestors stood up and fought back, where they formed their own communities, maintained their own languages and cultures, and lived out their lives as free men and women.

The people came to be known as Maroons — cimarrones in Spanish — and they formed their own communities throughout the the New World. There was even one in Florida, which was home to the Black Seminoles.

Few of the palenque towns still exist, but the descendants of their founders can be found all over the Americas &imdash; in places like Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Bahia state in Brazil, to name but a few.

Places like San Basilio de Palenque hold as much meaning and importance for me as Jerusalem does for Christians, Mecca for Muslims or Bodh Gaya does for Buddhists. They are my sacred ground.

And before I’m done, I mean to see as many of them as I can.

IF YOU GO
San Basilio del Palenque is in northern Colombia, about 30 miles from the regional capital of Cartagena.

From the United States, the Colombian nation airline Avianca operates direct flights to Cartagena, as does Spirit Airlines. Other airlines serving Cartagena include TACA, LACSA, Condor, Iberia, Lufthansa and Air Canada.

Your next fastest option probably would be to fly into the Colombian capital of Bogotá, then get a connecting flight to Cartagena.

From there, you can rent a car for the roughly one-hour drive to San Basilio de Palenque.

If you’re not a backpacker prepared to camp out, your best bet probably would be to treat it as a day trip, using Cartagena as a base. Visit the town. Meet some of the residents. See the statue of Benkos Biohó in the town square.

While you’re there, you might as take a little time to check out Cartagena, a coastal city with a good deal of charm and history of its own.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 10.16.11

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media.​

My Point Loma bodyguards | ©Greg Gross

CANADA SPEAKS BIKE
Cycling is a great way to experience a new city, and as the Los Angeles Times points out, two of the best cities to enjoy by bicycle are up in eastern Francophone Canada, Montreal and Quebec.

Given Montreal’s close cultural ties to France, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the capital of Canada’s Quebec province has followed the example of Paris and created a city bike rental program.

They call it Bixi — part-bike, part-taxi.

Pick up a bike from one outdoor Bixi station, drop it off at another.

The cost: roughly $5 an hour. The beauty: If you drop off the bike within a half-hour, it’s free. As in no charge. The bikes themselves are built to be smooth, comfortable, easy to ride and carry stuff.

The catch: The program doesn’t operate in winter (what, Canadians don’t like to pedal in snow?). Also, such programs almost never provide bike helmets with their bikes, so you’ll have to provide your own — and just on general principles, you really should.

As for Quebec, more about that later.

PAN AM: THE GOOD OLD DAYS?
One of this seasons’s most supremely hyped TV shows is “Pan Am,” a nostalgic look back at America’s flagship airline at the birth of jet travel.

To many travelers of a certain age, the show represents a look back at what “Pan Am’s” producers want to portray as the golden, glamorous age of air travel. However, from the other side of the Atlantic, the view is a bit different.

In particular, Simon Calder of London’s The Independent finds a lot more tarnish than gold. Not only were trans-Atlantic airfares much higher back then, but you had to book your flight literally months in advance.

Maybe the “good old days” really weren’t all that good, eh what? In any case, you won’t find Mr. Calder pining for them, and perhaps we shouldn’t, either.

WORLD’s HIGHEST PORTA-POTTIES?
USA Today is reporting that an environmental group in Nepal is installing portable toilets on Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, as part of an effort to get the thousands of mountain climbers to assault the peak each year to help keep it clean.

Have we turned the world’s highest mountain into the world’s highest outhouse? Guess it’s not just the yellow snow you have to watch out for anymore. EWWWW!

AND FINALLY…
If you read blogs like this one, you probably already know why it’s good to travel. If you know folks who don’t, refer them to this short but on-point essay from Lonely Planet’s Tony Wheeler:

“The media feed us scare stories about those in other countries, but the reality is that most people in the world are searching for the same things we are – a better life, a better future for their children – and they’re only too ready to lend a hand to a fellow human being.”

In a world driven by politicians and media bent on naming and villifying the latest bogeyman of the month, that’s a good thing to remember.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
The NYT’s Susan Stellin offers up some suggestions and Web sites to help you refine your online airfare search. for one thing, look for sites that give you the FULL price of your ticket, including things like baggage fees.

from USA Today
Korean Air brings the Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet to LAX, with the fewest seats of any A380 now in service. They’re billing it as “the world’s most spacious A380.” If any of that extra space is in Coach, it might be worth the airfare.

from the Guardian (London UK) ​
London’s three main airports — Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted — to hit the saturation point in less than 20 years. Some travelers would tell you they’re there now.

LAND
from Frommer’s
Ten rail trips via Amtrak that are cheaper than driving.

from Leave Your Daily Hell
This travel blogger offers up a list of the cities that the world loves to hate. He loves every one of them, and tells you why you just might, also. One of them, quite naturally, is Los Angeles.

SEA
from USA Today
If you’re thinking about doing a cruise in 2012 and you want to get the best deals, you need to start planning — and booking — now.

from USA Today
Some signs of life on the Mexican Riviera: After pulling out due to security fears, Princess Cruises set to return to Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta in the fall of 2012 and spring 2013.

from Lonely Planet
The LP gang share their list of ten of the best places on the planet for a journey on the water.

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AFRICA
from the Independent (London UK)
Cape Verde, a nation comprised of ten small islands 300 miles off the West African coast, is the latest hotspot for Europeans seeking to escape the winter cold. Clear waters, pristine beaches and people whose motto is “No stress.” Yeah, I could do that.

from BBC Travel
The Tour d’Afrique makes the Tour de France look like a weekend cruise. Whether you ride it to win or just to experience the continent of Africa, you will be changed.

from ​allAfrica.com
Zambia and Zimbabwe will co-host the 2013 Genera Assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization. The venue will be Victoria Falls, the world’s largest natural waterfall, which straddles the border of the two countries.

from​ the Independent (London UK)
The 15-year civil war that devastated Mozambique until 1992 also devastated its wildlife. After nearly two decades of peace, both are now coming back strong.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
Think of French-speaking eastern Canada and you’re likely to think of Montreal, a great city. But give some thought to Quebec, a beguiling blend of New World and Old Europe. And one of the best ways to see Quebec is by bike.

from the Los Angeles Times​
Not all the most beautiful fall foliage in North America is to be found back East. According to my friend Chris Reynolds, the small British Columbia enclave of Nelson can match New England color for color.

from the Le Massif de Charlevoix
And as long as we’re on the subject of Quebec, check out this cool-looking new rail trip, courtesy of my friend and fellow train enthusiast, Jools Octavius.

from the Daily Mail (London UK)
Just for a little variety — or maybe a lot — you might want to consider a different venue for next year’s Oktoberfest. Like, say, Brazil?

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Los Angeles Times
The world hasn’t quite run out of unspoiled tropical paradises, as witnessed by Malaysia’s Tioman Island. Development is minimal. Natural beauty is boundless. Just watch out for the falling coconuts.
​from the

from Vayama
Etiquette matters everywhere, but good etiquette really matters in Singapore. A comprehensive lists of do’s and dont’s, especially if you plan to do business in this island city-state.

from Rusty Compass
Vietnam is a wonderful place to visit, but mind your bag — especially your camera bag — in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City). Snatch-and-grab thieves on passing motorbikes can rip you off and hurt you at the same time. VIDEO
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from Travel and Beyond
Where to get your eat on in Singapore, a foodie’s paradise. Second of two parts (the link to Part One is in the text).

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EUROPE
from BootsnAll
Seven things you should know about Germany’s perpetually changing capital, Berlin.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.25.11

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media.

Water show, Bellagio hotel-casino, Las Vegas | © G. Gross

SORE SHOULDER?
When it comes to air travel between the United States and Europe, especially flying west from the Old World to the new, the “shoulder season” may no longer be quite “all that.”

My friend, Porsche, an American expat in London and a blogger in her own right (Spinster’s Compass), has been having an helluva time trying to find a decent airfare to get home during the pre-Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday months.

Fuel costs to the airlines — and the fuel surcharges with which they’re hitting passengers — no doubt play a major role in raising ticket prices. Post 9/11 fees to pay for extra airport security are a factor, as well.

But there may be still other reasons why, to paraphrase Jimmy MacMillan, the fares are too damn high!

IBIT will investigate.

Meanwhile, if you can delay your European travel until deep into the winter — say, January or february — the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, suggests you check out the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus, for potential bargain fares.

DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE
When it comes to dealing with bedbugs, some travelers are finding out the hard way that the cure can be worse than the disease.

Fatally worse.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention are reporting that consumers’ use of do-it-yourself pesticide treatments to fight the annoying little bed biters is proving to be more unhealthful than the bugs themselves.

Prolonged contact in beds with the poisons have led to score of people getting sick since 2010, and at least one person has died, the CDC reports.

Not only that, but these do-it-yourself chemical treatments seldom really work, anyway, according to the experts.

On the other hand, if you can delay your travel until deep in the heart of winter — say, January/February, there may be bargains to be had, especially going to Europe from the East Coast.

Meanwhile, if you’re traveling in bedbug country, your bed may not be the only thing you have to worry about. There’s a company called BugZip that sells sealed, zippered bags designed to keep the little nasties from crawling into your luggage and coming home with you.

At the very least, you should never leave any of your bags open when you travel. When you put something in or take something out, close it back, immediately.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from msnbc
Onboard wi-fi. Power outlets at every seat. Live satellite TV. In-flight programming you can download to your iPod. Welcome to the future of in-flight entertainment.

from USA Today
Don’t think airline baggage fees can affect you on international flights? Guess again, especially if you’re one of those folks who packs too much.

from CNN
Can an airline take away your frequent flier miles if you complain too much?

LAND
from the Wall Street Journal
Don’t look now, but there’s a new generational of jet-setters taking off to see the world. Okay, go ahead and look!

from Electric Bike Tour Company
Cross the Golden Gate Bridge on an electric bike, cruise down to Sausalito, return to San Francisco by ferry. With no big hills to climb, you don’t need an electric bike, but what the heck.

from Frommer’s
Nine great cities in the world to take a culinary vacation or attend a cooking school. Yes, travel can be delicious. SLIDESHOW

from National Geographic
And speaking of delicious, the NatGeo folks serve up a list of ten places around the world featuring some terrific annual food festivals. Any foodies in the house? Road trip! SLIDESHOW

from Lonely Planet
Thinking about doing a volunteer vacation overseas? The folks at Lonely Planet say there are some things you need to think about before you go. Ten things, to be exact.

SEA
from Capital Jazz
A jazz and soul music cruise set for Halloween week out of Miami aboard Carnival Valor, with stops in Jamaica, Mexico and Belize.

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AFRICA
from Shabait.com (Eritrea)
Peace and development in the East African nationao of Eritrea is drawing positive comments from foreign visitors.

from the Art of Backpacking
Three ways to immerse yourself in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

from the Daily Nation (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
It’s not just about safaris anymore. Kenya is developing into a hub for international sports tourism, a place where world-class athletes and wanna-bes alike come to train.

from the ​Daily Champion (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
Nigeria’s Arik Air has won Category 1 status from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It will now be allowed to fly Nigerian-registered aircraft to the United States with Nigerian flight crews. They’re pretty proud.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
Brazil is no longer the cheap travel destination it once was, but in Rio de Janeiro, corner juice bars that double as restaurants are a cheap, tasty and healthy way to stay on budget.

​from the Travel Channel
Hotels in Boston that give you the most bang for your buck. At least, these guys think so.

from the New York Times
Exploring the rugged natural beauty of Maine by bike tour.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Wikipedia and Wikitravel
What do you do when the world’s largest city has no more room to grow? If you’re Tokyo, you build some artificial islands, fill them with ultramodern architecture, amusement parks, shopping and eateries, and call it all Odaiba, aka Tokyo Waterfront City.

from the Press Trust of India via MSN News
If you’re visiting India sometime in the future and you hear Russian being spoken, it won’t be an accident. India is looking to double Russian tourist visits.

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EUROPE
from the National Geographic
Belgian waffles…in Belgium! What a concept!

from As We Travel
Must-dos and sees in Sicily.

from Hike Bike Travel
Doing France with your family by bike? Some tips to make it fun — or at least bearable — for everybody.

from USA Today
Got a layover in London? Don’t just hang around the airport. There are plenty of short, fun tours to help you pass the time.

On my list: TURKEY

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One of an occasional series

Blue Mosque, Istanbul — © Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com

In all the economic and political sturm und drang in this country over China and India, the rising star that is Turkey is sometimes overlooked. Expect that to change, and soon.

I love how folks react when I tell them I want to visit Turkey. Especially that initial blank, incredulous, nonplussed look that silently ask, “Why there?”

To some folks, Turkey is perhaps the least likely of European travel destinations. Others refuse to believe that Turkey is part of Europe at all.

They think it’s in Asia, or the Middle East or some other region that lies just off their cultural radar.

Well, it is a part of Europe. It also is a part of Asia. Which makes Turkey a kind of giant land bridge of cultures.

How else can you describe a land with one city that has had not only three different names in its history — Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul — but has been the capital of three of the world’s great empires?

The Greeks. The Romans. The Ottoman Turks. They’ve all been here. But it’s the Ottomans I know the least about.

They lasted some 700 years and made it all the way into the 20th century. They gave us art, architecture and a whole lot more. And yet, to the average one of us, “Ottoman” is a piece of furniture.

If you made a list of the countries whose history did the most to shape the world we now live in, Turkey would surely be among the top ten. If you said it belongs in the top five, I probably wouldn’t argue.

But my biggest reasons for wanting to see Turkey have more to do with the here-and-now.

Look at the people on the street in Istanbul, right. Look at their dress. Not a lot of burqas to be seen here. Nor will you probably find people exhorting their countrymen for beating Turkish women who dare to drive their own cars, as happens in Saudi Arabia.

Taksim tram, Istabul — © Angela Ravaioli | Dreamstime.com

And yet Turkey’s population is solidly Muslim.

This is a country where the tides of history meet converging rivers of culture. Europe meets Asia. Christianity bumps up against Islam.

What do you get from all that mixing and merging? Among other things:

  • Two different versions of Islam.
  • Two different forms of Judaism.
  • Five different flavors of Christianity.
  • Twenty-four different ethnic groups.

That’s not a melting pot. That’s a paella pan. I want to see what that looks like.

Then, there’s the subway. In how many cities in the world can you go down into a subway station in Europe and come up in Asia?

Two years from now, you should be able to do exactly that in Istanbul.

Part of the city lies on the European continent, the other half on the Asian mainland —, with one of the world’s busiest waterways, the Bosphorus Strait, standing between.

A bridge already joins the two halves. Come 2013, the subway will do the same.

It was supposed to be finished four years ago, but every time they start digging, they dig up something — ancient ships, artifacts, a stretch of wall the Romans built. An archeology student could probably earn a doctorate just hanging around the construction site.

What can you do? When you’re tunneling through Time, you find stuff.

Eventually, I hope to find myself losing myself in an Istanbul market, admiring the Blue Mosque and the Ayasofya, listening to fellow writers over tea in an Istanbul cafe, grabbing a lunch of fried, fresh-caught fish from a fish seller in a boat tied up to a dock.

I also want to get a sense of where this country is headed.

There’s a lot of upheaval these days in North Africa and the Middle East, people throwing off dictators and looking for new models on which to pattern their own societies.

A lot of those folks are looking at neither the West nor Iran nor the lunatic visions of the shark bait formerly known as Osama bin Laden.

Instead, they’re looking, very seriously, at Turkey. A country that guards its past but is focused on the future, one that is solidly Muslim but run by a secular government and is on good terms, culturally as well as politically, with the West.

They think they may have a lot to learn from Turkey.

I know I do.

Which is not to say that all not Turkey is sweetness and harmony. If you don’t believe me, just ask an Armenian or a Kurd.

Discreetly.

Still, if you follow world news, you get the sense that the Turks know they have a unique role in the world — and that they’re determined to play it. This may be an ancient land, but it also is a rising star.

Ortakoi Mosque, briudge over the Bosphorus — © Alper Nakri | Dreamstime.com

WEST AFRICA: Culture and cooperation

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Two neighbors — Senegal and the Gambia — offer travelers this winter a choice of festivals devoted to the culture and history of Africa and the African diaspora.

In the process, they also show how African neighbors can beat the legacy of colonialism to peacefully co-exist — and give the traveler two worthwhile destinations in a single trip.

These are the times that try men’s overcoats, the season when folks north of the Equator — and my friends east of the Mississippi — start looking for any justifiable reason to flee the icy grip of winter.

Senegal and the Gambia are teaming up to offer two, a pair of major festivals celebrating black heritage in art, culture and history.

It starts in Senegal, where the World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures opens tomorrow and runs through New Year’s Eve. In February, the focus shifts to the Gambia for the International Roots Festival.

BLACK WORLD FESTIVAL

It’s only the third time in 54 years that this gathering of Afrocentric art, music and culture has ever been held. The first was held in Senegal in 1966, a mere six years after the country had gained its independence. Nigeria hosted the second one in 1977. Now, it returns to Dakar, with its original title and trans-Atlantic focus, courtesy of the nation invited as the festival’s guest of honor: Brazil.

Indeed, the festival plans to turn the streets of the Senegalese capital into a kind of Rio East — street parades, concerts, dance performances, Brazilian dishes from restaurant and street vendors.

But even that is just a small part of the total festival package. Virtually all the Mother Continent will be represented.

There will be exhibits on African art, music, dance, fashion, architecture, sports, as well as the contributions of Africans and Africans in the diaspora to science and technology. Goree Island, infamous as one of the departure points for slave ships to the Americas, will host a book fair devoted to the African renaissance. Black films and filmmakers will be on hand, along with prominent black chefs showcasing the cuisines of Africa and black cultures around the world.

A special forum of artists, filmmakers, intellectuals, journalists and scientists will take on theme of African resistance, focusing on the contributions of the black people to global civilization, from the rediscovery of the ancient Black-African civilizations in the Nile region to Africa’s current place in global affairs.

Short form: Expect to leave tired but happy.

INTERNATIONAL ROOTS FESTIVAL
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Alex Haley’s ground-breaking book “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” and the even more ground-breaking TV mini-series based on it.

It made Haley an icon of black culture, made stars of Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton, John Amos and Louis Gossett Jr. It launched countless numbers of black Americans on a quest to trace their own family heritage, a quest that turned ancestral research, complete with DNA comparisons, into a national industry.

And it sent thousands of black Americans on their own personal journeys to the Mother Continent.

All of that brings you back to one place, the Gambia, the focus of Haley’s writing.

The International Roots Festival, set for 4-8 Feb in the capital city of Banjul, is now an annual event in the Gambia, and it will take you where Haley’s story took the world, to his ancestral home in Juffureh, to James Island, another of those slave ports, and to the culture, music, history and tastes of the Gambia.

You also will see festival guests undergoing the rite of passage known as futampaf, in which they will be formally inducted int a Gambian family in Kanilai.

But perhaps the coolest thing about either of these festivals is that, for you the traveler, the geography and colonial history of both Senegal and the Gambia work out to your advantage.

How? By giving you the chance to visit two vibrant and tranquil West African countries in a single trip.

The English-speaking Gambia is the smallest nation in Africa, a sliver of a country whose borders barely seem to extend beyond the river that gives the country its name. Even more odd to your eye: The entire country is encompassed within the territory of French-speaking Senegal.

In fact, a look at a map would suggest that Senegal more or less swallowed the Gambia. But theirs is a relationship that much of Africa — indeed, much of the world — could learn from. Each maintains its own sovereignty and its own identity, but their relationship is one of neighbors and friends.

To put it another way: They don’t call this “the smiling coast of Africa” for nothing.

Which means that, if you plan it right, a trip to either country for either festival could well include a side trip to its neighbor. Two West African countries for the cost of one vacation.

Something to think about while you turn up the thermostat. Again.

America — Overworked and under-vacationed?

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Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico | © Greg Gross

So I’m reading this press release about a new pitch being developed by one of the cruise lines, Royal Caribbean International. The theme: “Cruise them or lose them.”

The “them” refers to your vacation days, and the tendency of we Americans to kiss off far too many of them. Yeah, they’ve got cruise ship cabins they’re desperate to fill, but behind the funny pitch are some serious issues.

It’s long been known that the average working adult in the United States gets the least amount of vacation time per year in the industrialized world:

  1. Italy, 42 days
  2. France, 37
  3. Germany 35
  4. Brazil 34
  5. Britain 28
  6. Canada 26
  7. Japan and South Korea, tie 25
  8. United States 13

The Japanese and South Koreans, neither of whom have a reputation for slacking off in the workplace, are the next lowest — and they still average almost twice as much vacation time as Americans.

What’s more, workers in many countries, including Japan, have a certain mininum number of vacation days required by law. Not here.

THE $19 BILLION GIVEAWAY
And of his or her 13 average vacation days, the typical American will give three of those back to their employer. According to the folks at Expedia (another outfit with a vested interest in getting us to travel more), that saves American employers an average of $19.3 billion a year.

Did you even get a thank-you card last Christmas for your share of this $19 billion gift? I’m betting you didn’t.

According to some numbers crunched from 2009 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, we Americans collectively worked through a whopping 459 million vacation days last year.

That’s shade over 1 million years of time off you could’ve taken, America, and didn’t.

It gets worse.

A travel industry survey showed nearly half of those polled, 45 percent, blew off vacation time last year, and 78 percent expect to forfeit ten days of vacation in 2010.

Such surveys have even shown that more than a few Americans actually feel guilty about using their paltry vacation time.

The rest of the world looks at this and thinks we’re nuts. I look at it and think they’re right.

MORE PRODUCTIVE, MORE STRESSED
Nor is this a function of the Great Recession. We’ve always been like this. You know, that whole Puritan work ethic thing? And we wonder why we constantly feel weary in body and spirit?

(Perhaps somebody should’ve reminded our ancestors that the Puritans were religious extremists who basically got run out of England.)

Juliet B. Schor, Harvard economist and author of “The Overworked American,” was tracking this stuff back in 1990:

“Since 1948, productivity has failed to rise in only five years. The level of productivity of the U.S. worker has more than doubled…Yet hours have risen steadily for two decades. In 1990, the average American owns and consumes more than twice as much as he or she did in 1948, but also has less free time.”

We as a nation are among the most stressed out people on Earth, and we have no one to blame for it but ourselves. To paraphrase an old TV commercial from back in the day, we’re creating more and earning more, but enjoying it less.

Some folks, especially those in the mental health business, might well look at all this and wonder: What is the point?

Many of us actually love our jobs; the problem is that the job will never love you back.

KILLING OURSELVES
Face it, it’s not as if your workplace can’t go on without you. The 6.3 million men and women laid off in the last three years can attest to that. So why are you killing yourself for an employer who not only doesn’t love you, anyway, but who may not even know your name?

And if you’re one of those Americans who routinely gives away vacation days every year, you are indeed killing yourself.

John de Graaf runs a non-profit outfit that calls itself Take Back your Time. He has some stats of his own.

“Men who take them are 32% less likely to suffer from heart disease than those who don’t.  For women, it’s 50%.  And women who don’t take vacations are more than twice as likely to suffer from depression.”

So if your doctor ever writes you a one-word prescription that just says “MAUI,” he may just may be trying to save your life.

AVIATION QUEEN: Travel Globally, Eat Locally

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By BENÉT WILSON
One of the best things about travel for me is the chance to sample local cuisine. I have traveled the world, and I’m amazed at people who fly to Paris and make a beeline to the local McDonald’s. 

Not me. I’m all about taking in what the locals eat — and drink.

Back in February 1994, I took my first international trip since living in Brussels in the mid-1970s.  I went to Singapore to cover the Singapore Air Show.

Back then, the Internet was in its primitive stages, so I bought a “Lonely Planet” guide to get an idea of what I would do in my off time.  I’ve always been a big foodie, so I wanted to check out what was available locally.

Singapore is a very modern city that nearly had its ethnicity beaten out of it after decades of British colonial rule.  The city is clean, modern and efficient.  Unfortunately, it looks like any large north American city, and the restaurant scene is similar.

Lonely Planet told me about the famous Singapore food courts, which focus on local cuisine and delicacies in a basic setting at amazingly reasonable prices. 

My boss wanted to have dinner at TGIFriday’s that first night we arrived. I demurred, saying I could go to TGI any day of the week at home.  But how often was I going to have the chance to eat foods from China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Indian, sometimes fused together?

Some of the dishes I still remember include chili crabs, fishball noodles, hor fun, shark’s fin and satay bee hoon.  The servers are very helpful in navigating the dishes, some of which might be a bit much for some American palates.

I love Paris, and have been many times for work and play. One time, I had a wonderful meal from Michelin-starred chef Guy Savoy — and at a fraction of the price of his usual expensive restaurants.  I ate at a tiny six-table bistro across the street from his flagship restaurant, where, on that night, Savoy himself was running across the street between the two eateries, cooking in both kitchens.

I traveled to Sweden several times in the 1990s and fell in love with reindeer, especially a leg loin with a lingonberry sauce.  Everything is served with Aquavit (similar to vodka), Sweden’s national drink.  I did not, however, develop a taste for herrings in cream.

I could do a whole blog post about the wonderful food of Brazil, some of which is similar to soul food.   The national dish is feijoada, a wonderful stew of black beans, beef and pork. It is served with white rice and is eaten with your choice of farofa (made of toasted cassava flour and is similar to corn meal), pork rinds, bananas, fried collard greens and Brazilian pepper sauce.  And of course, you MUST drink Brazil’s national drink, the  caipirinha, is made with cachaça (Brazilian rum) and two limes, muddled with sugar served over ice.

So when you’re planning that next international trip, take a quick surf on the Internet and see what’s what in local cuisine at your final destination.  Food is a key part of the journey and you’ll really miss out if you stick with restaurants you can easily visit when you’re at home. 

I’d love to know some of the great places you’ve frequented when traveling internationally.