Tag Archives: Cairo

NORTH AFRICA: A decidedly mixed travel picture

1 Reply
© Jeffrey Thompson | Dreamstime.com

© Jeffrey Thompson | Dreamstime.com

Resumption of deadly political unrest has Egypt looking like a no-go zone again and Algeria has ongoing issues beyond what the mainstream media focus on, but one major cruise line is returning to Tunisia.

For awhile, it seemed as if things were looking up for travel to Egypt. The political winds of the Arab Spring had swept longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak from power and most Egyptians seemed happy about their prospects for the future.

Tahrir Square was no longer the scene of daily demonstrations and clashes with police and counter-protestors. Tours of historic sites in and around Cairo and Nile River cruises, cancelled during the troubles, were resuming. It was all looking good.

For awhile.

The conflict between the Islamists who back the new president, Mohammed Morsi, and secular Egyptians who fear that Morsi is trying to ram an Islamic state down their throats has erupted into daily street violence that so far refuses to die down. Dozens have been killed, well over 100 hurt.

Morsi has put a state of emergency in effect in three different Egyptian cities, none of which is Cairo, which means the unrest extends well beyond the Egyptian capital.

IBIT says: If you were thinking about making that trip to the Giza pyramids this year, you might want to think a little longer.

To the west, Algeria also looks shaky. Algerians have been protesting for the better part of three years over things like a housing shortage, high food prices, unemployment and corruption, and those issues are far from resolved.

The recent raid on a natural gas facility by radical Islamic terrorists and the bloody government counterstrike pretty much seals the deal.

Cruise ship Rotterdam of the Holland America Line

Cruise ship Rotterdam of the Holland America Line

IBIT says: You go to Algeria now at your own risk — and at the moment, the risk looks pretty high.

The news isn’t all bad, though.

The cruise line Holland America has returned making port calls in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began two years ago.

A spokesman for Holland America Line tells IBIT that the cruise ship Rotterdam is scheduled to make three Mediterranean cruises this fall of 11, 22 or 32 days between Western Europe, Italy and the Holy Land.

Each will be making a stop at La Goulette, the port of Tunis.

Tunis is Tunisia’s capital. It’s also an ancient city whose existence predates the Roman Empire. This originally was Carthage, the land that produced Hannibal, the general who invaded Europe, led an army with elephants across the Alps and for a time, scared the Romans right out of their tunics.

When the Romans returned the favor and overran Carthage, they tried their best to destroy every trace of evidence that the Carthaginians ever existed. They didn’t quite succeed, though, and you’ll find the remnants of that glorious past in Tunis.

Plus, Tunisians are wonderfully welcoming and friendly to visitors, in the true tradition of Islam.

IBIT says: If you’ve got the time as well as the cash why not? Just monitor events closely and make sure you have travel insurance.

Morocco also remains a quiet and stable travel destination these days. However, Morocco may have some issues of its own regarding “us,” which IBIT will be exploring in the coming days.

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.27.13

Leave a reply

The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

IMG_1605

DANCING THROUGH CUSTOMS
One of the fringe benefits of writing a travel blog is that you can make some great friends doing great work. One such friend of mine is Renee King, who publishes A View to a Thrill.

In her most recent installment, she gives us the 4-1-1 on of the US government’s trusted traveler programs that can seriously speed you through the Customs process upon your return to the United States. It’s called “Global Entry” and here’s what Renee had to say about it:

“Originally created to target frequent international travelers, the U.S. Global Entry program has been a virtual god-send for travelers who want a fast and secure way of skipping the lines altogether when re-entering the United States.”

To pick up all the details on “Global Entry,” check out Renee’s article here. And then bookmark it. You’ll want to keep this one handy.

Anyone who doesn’t “get” the importance of this program has never walked/stumbled/staggered off a jumbo jet with about 300 other exhausted souls after a transoceanic flight lasting 12 hours or longer, only to queue up in a Customs line…with the passengers of two, three or four other jumbo jets, all doing the same thing you are.

I have. I don’t recommend it.

If such a trip is a one-in-a-lifetime deal for you, then you may not need this program, especially when it costs $100. You’ll also have to make an appointment to be interviewed, electronically fingerprinted and see if you qualify for the program — and frankly, not everyone will.

But when you walk off that plane in a jet-lagged fog and breeze by all those folks suffering in line, you’ll swear it was the best time and money you ever spent on travel.

And if you make more than, say, three or four globe-girdling flights per year, you need this.

To apply for the Global Entry program, start here.

ALL ABOARD…THE NIGHT TRAIN
If it’s true that, in the words of the old Amtrak commercial, “there’s something about a train, then there’s something even more captivating about an overnight “sleeper” train.

Watching the sun set from the privacy of your own compartment, then bedding down for the night with a window full of stars and awaking the next morning in a different city — or a different country — is unforgettable.

It’s also practical. A sleeper train combines transportation and lodging in one. Instead of losing a day traveling between points, you arrive at your destination early the next morning.

It’s not cheap, but a private compartment often includes all your on-board meals, as well as other perks unavailable to Coach passengers, all of which makes the sleeper experience worth considering.

London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper has considered it at length, and compiled a slideshow of what they consider to be the top ten overnight sleeper train runs in Europe, including one between Europe (London) and Africa (Marrakech, Morocco).

Paris-Barcelona? Paris-Berlin? London-Penzance? Yeah, I could happily do any of those.

-0-

AFRICAN FASHION MADE EASY
Not many folks on this side of the Atlantic are aware of it, but Africa has developed quite the fashion scene. We’re talking high-end threads for men and women from high-profile designers from the length and breadth of the Mother Continent.

Until a few years ago, your best shot at checking out this vibrant and growing fashion world was to fly to one or more of perhaps seven African cities:

  • Lagos, Nigeria
  • Nairobi, Kenya
  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Dakar, Senegal
  • Luanda, Angola

And if you want to get a feel for the sources of inspiration that drive these African fashions, that still might be the best idea.

However, you do have alternatives. Lots of them, in fact.

New York City, Los Angeles and Dallas both annually hosts African Fashion Weeks. But if you feel like giving your fashion trip some international flavor — with a bit less expense and a lot less flight time — there’s the Black Fashion Week in Paris and the Africa Fashion Week London, now in its third year.

-0-

And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Business Insider via Yahoo
A Germany-based air safety monitoring group lists the world’s ten most dangerous airlines over the last 30 years. Read with some large grains of salt.

from eTurbo News
An Indonesian airline adopts new Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliners from Russia. The reason: They can operate from the country’s short runways.

from NBC News
Southwest Airlines is betting that you’ll be willing to pay $40 extra to board their planes early. Would you?

from eTurbo News
Ethiopian Airlines cuts flights from Addis Ababa to Europe.

LAND

from Travel Weekly
A heavy late-December snowfall has the skiing looking good at America’s ski resorts.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
What do you get when you take an Amtrak train between Toronto and New York? A 12-hour rail cruise through US history and some of North America’s most gorgeous scenery.

from Forbes via Yahoo
Can you measure a country’s happiness? The Legatum Institute of London says it can, and it’s produced a list of the world’s ten happiest nations. And no, the United States is nowhere in the top ten.

from Time
Has snowboarding lost its mojo?

SEA
from Cruise Industry News
More evidence of the cruise industry’s growing tilt toward Asia: Princess Cruises to homeport a second cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, in Japan.

from Cruise Critic
For those of you dying to escape the frigid winter, there are six cruise ships sailing in warm waters that nearly always have cabins offered at a discount.

from Cruise Industry News
The upscale cruise line Silversea plans to offer shorter (and thus cheaper) cruises in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

from Cruise Industry News
As cruises go, this one’s the ultimate icebreaker. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is planning an August cruise of the Northwest Passage fron Greenland to Alaska on one of its expedition ships, the Hanseatic. You don’t often see the words “expedition” and “5-star” in the same sentence.

-0-

AFRICA
from Reuters
You might want to hold off on that Cairo vacation a little longer. Things are getting hectic — and deadly — again in Egypt.

from al Jazeera
Museum in Mali trying to protect some of the country’s historic artifacts from the threat of destruction by radical Muslim insurgents.

from eTurbo News
British Airways pulls out of Tanzania, and Emirates is the first airline to step into the void.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
Tourism officials in Egypt report that foreign visits are up, but not as much as expected.

from eTurbo News
Ethiopia turning to China, India and Russia as potential new tourism markets.

AMERICAS
from the Huffington Post
George Hobica says Albuquerque NM has been overshadowed by Santa Fe, but it deserves a closer look. Especially if you’re a fan of beer, road trips and under-the-radar cool.

from Travel Weekly
Want a shot at some warm winter weather and a whiff of that new hotel smell? Start saving your coins and circle Dec. 2014 on your calendar. That’s the the 1,000-room $1 billion Baha Mar casino resort is set to open its doors.

from the Chicago Tribune
If you’re a baseball junkie, a visit to Chicago’s historic Wrigley Field is something close to a religious pilgrimage. Now, the Sheraton hotel chain is planning to put up a boutique hotel directly across the street from the old ballpark. Think they’ll pt bleachers on the roof?

from Reuters via NBCNews
More flights and a weaker dollar have combined to create record-setting tourism in Hawaii.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from BootsnAll
Southeast Asia is a great destination for rail travel.

from China Daily
The dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku (or if you’re Chinese, Diaoyu) Islands is throwing cold water on tourism between the two countries.

from SFGate.com
Walking in the path of samurai. Scenic medieval walkways in Japan.

from The Guardian (London UK)
What would you see on a 40-mile walk across a city of 30 million souls? Marcel Theroux gives us his answers from his trek across Tokyo, the first of a series of walks across the largest cities on Earth.

EUROPE
from ABC News via Yahoo
Welcome to County Kerry in southwest Ireland, where drunk driving is legal. And no, that’s not a typo.

from eTurbo News
Ukraine’s largest airline, AeroSvit, goes belly up, stranding hundreds of passengers in the process.

from The Guardian (London UK)
It wasn’t that long ago that the term “luxury hostel” might have been the ultimate oxymoron in travel especially in Europe. It’s fair to say that things have changed. A lot. SLIDESHOW

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.11.12

Leave a reply

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

RETURN OF THE SLEEPER
Back in the 1860s, a fellow named George Pullman felt that overnight trains were well short on comfort, so he decided to do something about it. The sleeping car he created would make his name synonymous with luxury rail travel for the next hundred years.

Pullman is long gone, but according to Yahoo Travel, the company that bears his name is bringing those cars back.

Pullman Rail Journeys is now offering rail excursions in fully restored sleeper, dining and lounge cars between Chicago and New Orleans.

If you love rail travel, and especially if you love the idea of following the Mississippi River by rail from the Second City to the land of “laissez les bon temps rouler,” this one needs to go to the top of your bucket list.

But this also is a trip back into “our” history, because Mr. Pullman’s plush railcars also gave rise to the Pullman porters, who played one of the most important — and least-known — roles in the black American struggle for civil rights.

You can learn about that struggle in Chicago with a visit to the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum.

What about the other end of the journey, you ask? This, I can tell you from personal experience: A train is one of the two most enjoyable and satisfying ways to arrive in or leave New Orleans (the other being via cruise ship).

For more details, visit the Pullman Rail Journeys Web site here.

-0-

WHEELS OF FORTUNE
Actually, more like wheels that will cost you a fortune. NBC News serves up its list of the world’s ten most scenically glorious, luxuriously glamourous — and heart-stoppingly expensive rail journeys.

Not surprisingly, four of them are in Europe, with two in the Asia/Pacific region and one each in North America, South America and Africa. And on each, the trains are practically destinations in themselves.

Keep this list handy for that day when you hit the lottery. SLIDESHOW

-0-

LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD
In the ongoing struggle to get travelers to pack less — for the sake of their backs as well as their wallets — the folks over at Smarter Travel started looking at what travelers typically bring with them.

The goal, to identify things you should leave at home and buy during your trip.

They came up with seven items, which they put in a slideshow.

Doing this not only can lighten your luggage, but if approached in the right spirit, can become a mini-cultural adventure. You can learn a lot about a place when you go shopping in a different part of the world for something other than souvenirs.

-0-

PRICELINE SAILS OFF WITH KAYAK
The consolidation in the online travel industry continues. After Google bought up the Frommer’s travel Web site, online travel auctioneer Priceline now joins the party by purchasing price comparison site Kayak for $1.8 billion.

Travel planners aren’t likely to notice much difference at first, so long as Priceline sticks with its plan to allow Kayak to continue to function as an independent entity. Sooner or later, however, all of these massive mergers are going to make a difference in how we shop for travel online — and how much we pay for it.

You can check out the details in this USA Today story here.

-0-

RHINO POACHING — LOCAL TRADE, ORGANIZED CRIME
In southern Africa, the ongoing tragedy of rhino poaching not only continues unchecked, but is accelerating to tragic levels, driven by well-financed organized crime.

African Arguments reports that Asia’s growing middle class has more disposable income to spend on folk medicines made from rhino horn and increasingly is doing so, ignoring all scientific evidence that such medicines have no medicinal value at all.

The poachers aren’t quite having it all their own way, though. At least one poaching kingpin recently got 40 years in prison.

-0-

AND FINALLY…
When someone says “Greenland,” what comes to your mind? Frozen tundra? Glaciers melting under the effects of climate change? Icebergs floating menacingly offshore in the Atlantic?

I’m guessing the one thing you don’t think about is fine dining. But Greenland — which, under all that melting ice and snow, actually is green — has this new cadre of creative chefs who would love to change your mind about that.

The London daily newspaper, The Guardian, sent one of its writers, Tim Moore, to see if there was anything to this notion of one of the coldest nations on Earth as a hot foodie destination. Did he find culinary nirvana? Did he stay warm enough to taste anything, or did his frozen fork get stuck to his hand?

Read the Guardian story and find out.

-0-

AND NOW, HERE’S THE DIGEST:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
Congress is siding with US airlines that are balking at the European Union’s plan to charge airlines a carbon tax.

from Smarter Travel
Free concerts. Yoga room. Golf course. Brewpub. A slide four stories high. All this and more at…the airport? If you’re at the right airport, yes. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Flight attendants at Southwest Airlines approve a change in their contract that will allow Southwest to fly over water. What does that mean to you? For one thing, it means Southwest is one big step closer to offering flights to Hawai’i.

from Smarter Travel
Has your flight in Europe been cancelled or delayed more than three hours? You have rights, including the right to “get paid.” How do I love thee, European Union? Let me count the euros…

from the BBC
Is supersonic passenger air travel poised to make a comeback? If you’ve ever flown from LAX to Delhi or Papeete to Paris, you’re praying that the answer is yes. Check out the possibilities.

LAND
from Travel Weekly
Tour operator Tauck and PBS documentary filmmaker Ken Burns are teaming up to create an 11-day Mississippi River tour package, including a week-long steamboat cruise.

from the Los Angeles Times
The Space Needle is now a half-century old. If you saw it when it was new, that thought might be a little scary. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a good excuse to visit Seattle. That and the coffee, of course.

from USA Today
Ten places to get away from the cold-hearted winter wrath of Mother Nature. SLIDESHOW

from the New York Times
A Caribbean Carnival crawl, one island at a time.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Cruise lines are increasingly going “green” these days. A surge in environmental consciousness after years of fouling the world’s oceans, or outreach to increasingly eco-conscious passengers?

from USA Today
When the cruise ship formerly known as Carnival Destiny emerges next spring from its $155 million makeover, it will have been renamed Carnival Sunshine and its attractions will include…wait for it…a water park.

AFRICA
from the Washington Post
Want to see the real East Africa? Bag the safaris and head for the cities, because these days, the “real East Africa” is urban.

from allAfrica.com
The Lonely Planet travel writers vote the ancient Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as Africa’s top travel destination. See if you agree.

from allAfrica.com
A group of adventure travel enthusiasts is traveling the length of the Mother Continent by motor convoy — from Cairo to Capetown. They’re now in Tanzania.

from allAfrica.com
Uganda is world-famous for its rare mountain gorillas. As a tourist attraction, however, they’re gradually being eclipsed…by birds. Surprised? Don’t be. Birdwatching is huge in Africa.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Another chocolate tour — this time of the Caribbean.

from the Los Angeles Times
Ecuador is making a strong push these days to draw more visitors, and one of their lures is the old colonial charm of the newly freshened historic center in the capital, Quito.

from the New York Times
The Corn Islands off Nicaragua have no glitz, no glamor, no huge over-the-top resorts. They’re keeping it real out there. Real, rustic, tranquil Caribbean ambiance.

from the BBC
Can a man be buried in two places at once? Two intriguing travel destinations, one on each side of the Atlantic, claim to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from CNNgo
Go big or stay home. South Korea is planning a massive — and I do mean MASSIVE — new city devoted entirely to tourism and aimed straight at the Chinese market. If it’s built — and its projected pricetag of $275 billion makes that a very large “if” — there will be nothing else like it anywhere.

from CNNgo
A food writer goes on a six-food foodie odyssey in China, and comes back with a list of favorite cities for favorite dishes. If you’re planning a China trip, keep this list handy.

from the BBC
Chimelong Paradise is China’s largest theme park. Amusement at your own risk.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
Up a lazy, intimate, luxurious river. Barge cruising in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.

from Rick Steves via SFGate
How to enjoy — and survive — a European road trip.

from Typically Spanish News
If you get sick or hurt while visiting the Spanish city of Málaga and you don’t speak Spanish, you might want to avoid Carlos Haya Hospital. They just fired their seven staff interpreters, whom they plan to replace with…a telephone service? What we may have here is an unhealthy failure to communicate.

Edited by P.A.Rice

EGYPT: Safe for tourism?

Leave a reply

The kidnapping last Friday of two black Boston-area visitors touring the Sinai peninsula is but the latest in a string of abductions targeting Americans in that Egyptian territory in 2012. It raises questions about how safe the country really is for international travelers.

Two African-Americans from the Boston area, the Rev. Michael Louis and Lisa Alphonse, have been abducted from a tour bus in Egypt by a Bedouin tribesman who wants to swap them for his imprisoned uncle. He also kidnapped the group’s Egyptian guide to act as translator.

Rev. Louis is 61, Ms. Alphonse 39. According to the minister’s son, they were among a group of Boston-area tourists on a missionary trip to Israel who set out to visit St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The son, Jean Louis, also says his father is diabetic and may soon need medication.

The kidnapper has identified himself as Jirmy Abu-Masuh, 32. He claims his 62-year-old uncle was imprisoned because he refused to pay a $100 bribe to police while traveling to the Egyptian city of Alexandria. He claims his uncle also is a diabetic and has not been receiving medical treatment in prison.

Abu-Masuh has told reporters the two kidnap victims are being well treated, but threatened to kill them both if authorities try to arrest him. He’s also threatened to kidnap more tourists from other nationalities.

To read details about this story as reported in London’s Sunday Mail, click here.

I don’t know if Rev. Louis and Ms. Alphonse were the only black Americans on the bus, or even the only Americans, so I can’t say at this point they were singled out either for their race or their nationality.

But media reports from the region have been pretty consistent in saying that this abduction is not an isolated case. This from the Sunday Mail article:

“Friday’s abduction is the latest in a series of kidnappings Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula over the past year.

“Abducted tourists are rarely harmed and usually released within days. In February, the AP interviewed two American women from California who say their Bedouin kidnappers gave them tea and dried fruit, and talked about religion and tribal rights. They were allowed to bring their Egyptian tour guide with them.”

That latter point gives reason for hope that the hostages eventually will be freed unharmed. As disturbing as the kidnappings themselves, however, is that they appear to be part of a trend.

Counting the Rev. Louis and Ms. Alphonse, a half-dozen American tourists have been kidnapped so far this year in the Sinai, a sprawling, arrowhead-shaped desert peninsula of roughly 23,000 square miles and a population of less than a half-million people, of whom about 80,000 may be Bedouins (the rest being ethnic Egyptians and Palestinians).

Even before the fall last year of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, government control over the region was spotty at best, and parts of it have become a haven for drug-smuggling, prostitution rings and other forms of organized crime. Add to that a longstanding grievance against corrupt police by the Sinai Bedouins, and you have a potentially volatile mix.

Coupled with ongoing political tensions in Egypt proper, this might give some travelers pause about visiting the land of the pyramids, which doesn’t help the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians whose livelihoods depend on tourism.

Does this mean I cross Egypt off my bucket list altogether? Not necessarily, though I’d probably be inclined to wait until more of the political dust settles before booking a trip to Cairo.

On the other hand, I won’t be trekking across the Sinai anytime soon.

Edited by P.A.Rice

LA TRAVEL SHOW: A tale of two nations

Leave a reply

Egypt and Taiwan. One is eager for you to come back. The other is waiting for you to discover that she exists.

Every year, a lot of countries are vying for your attention at the Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show. Two of the more intriguing competitors at this year’s show, which wrapped up yesterday, were Egypt and Taiwan.

Unless there’s no cable TV in the cave you live in, you know about Egypt. For the first time in the living memory of a great many Egyptians, the head of state is someone not named Hosni Mubarak.

Three decades after the assassination of Anwar Sadat put him in power, a popular uprising — and an Egyptian army that refused to fire on its countrymen — turned him out. That act has left the Egyptian people proud, exhilarated and hopeful for the future.

“I served in the Egyptian army. I knew they would never shoot their own people,” said Elsayed M. Khalifa, consul-director of the Egyptian Tourist Authority of New York, who manned the country’s small table on the floor of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“It was a historic change and it happened in a very short time. We are very proud, very happy. People are very excited. There’s a new optimistic spirit.”

NEW SPIRIT, NULL TOURISM
No matter how dire the situation in Cairo’s Tahrir Square may have looked to Americans on their television screens, he said, there was never any fear among the Egyptian people that the situation would sink to the level that it has in Libya.

In the short run, though, it’s also left Egyptian tourism pretty much null and void. The revolution exploded in the heart of the country’s high season for tourism, and the country’s two principal cities, Cairo and Alexandria, took the hardest hit.

In a typical February and March, Egypt would get about 25,000 visitors from the United States each month. This February, 6,000. Overall, he said the losses may run into the billions of dollars.

“It hurts a lot,” he told me, “not just in money, but even more in jobs.”

All that’s over now, though, and the descendants of the pharoahs would really love to see Americans, and the rest of the world, come back.

The pyramids and other historic sites, the museums and all the ancient artifacts are still there. The Nile and its river cruises are still there. Cairo, one of the great cities of the world, is still there.

“People should go and visit,” the official told me. “They shouldn’t be scared, because it’s safe and secure. The ordinary Egyptian is very eager for visitors to come back.

“The best way to support the new freedom and democracy is to support our economy through tourism.”

For more information on Egypt and what it has to offer, check out the following Web sites:

HIGH ENERGY, LOW PROFILE

Given all that, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that Egypt was among the top three sponsors of this year’s travel show.

Only it wasn’t. That distinction went to Taiwan. Their huge, elaborate and high-energy presentation literally met you at the door and went pretty much non-stop from opening to closing, both days.

Taiwan isn’t struggling with the aftermath of a political crisis that literally had the whole world watching. Their problem so far is getting the world’s travelers to pay attention at all.

The typical American knows two things about Taiwan:

  1. It’s where the Nationalists went after the Communists led by Mao Zedong won China’s civil war right after World War 2, and
  2. Their Little League baseball teams usually kick the world’s butt.

Beyond that, Taiwan pretty much slips below the radar of most American travelers.

Well below.

Making this worse is that this island nation has to compete with the likes of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Thailand for tourists and their money, turning Taiwan into Asia’s David among a bunch of Goliaths.

How bad is it? According to Trust Lin, director of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau in Los Angeles, the entire island nation took in about 5.5 million international visitors in all of 2010.

That sounds like a lot, until you find out that over that same year, the city of Hong Kong received 36 million.

The city of Beijing takes in nearly three times Taiwan’s total…in a month.

Of those 5.5 million visitors who touched down in Taiwan last year, about 400,000 were Americans.

Drop, meet bucket.

This year, sadly, there is added motivation for Taiwan toboost its tourism from here in the States. Their third largest source of foreign visitors, after China and Hong Kong, comes from Japan. And after what Japan has just been through, it stands to reason that a lot of Japanese won’t be traveling this year.


A LOT OF ASSETS
What makes all this really unfortunate is that Taiwan actually has a lot going for it as an Asian destination:

  • One of the world’s great cities, Taipei, with both a 24-hour pace reminiscent of Manhattan and one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, Taipei 101.
  • Mountainous tropical forests, so much that Taiwan has national parks and scenic areas in all four regions of the island. Marble canyons and multiple types of natural springs — hot water, cold water, fresh water, salt water and volcanic mud — so much so that there’s a whole springs culture.
  • Great food, and not just Chinese, especially in the night markets.
  • Lots of spectacular festivals each year celebrating the cultures of the 16 different ethnic groups that live on Taiwan, including a dozen different aboriginal groups (and no, you don’t have to be in Australia to be an aborigine!).
  • A wide range of wildlife, flora and fauna, some of which are unique to the island.
  • A fast and efficient passenger train system that makes getting around this relatively small country fairly easy (sound familiar?)
  • Taiwan’s location makes it an ideal stopover point for visitors to the rest of Asia. In fact, there are stopover tours of one or two days created specifically for that purpose.

All of which explains why Taiwan was hitting the travel show so hard, and probably will continue that at other travel shows around the country. They’re far from done.

“We want to increase the number of international visitors by 1 million every year for the next five years,” said Mr. Lin.

A visit to Taiwan has one other advantage of sorts: bragging rights. Odds are, nobody you know will have ever been there.

For more information on Taiwan and what it has to offer, check out the following Web sites:

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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

AIRFARES — TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND?
If you’re planning on traveling anywhere distant this year, especially if it involves flying, you need to be looking into purchasing your air tickets now, regardless of when you actually plan to take your trip.

The reason? You’ve been watching the reason on the evening news for the last couple of months — political upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East, the regions that produce most of the world’s crude oil.

The oil companies are using that unrest as a pretext for raising the price of crude, and they’re raising it through the proverbial roof, which means that any fuel made from crude will be going up along with it.

A barrel of Brent crude oil that cost $80 a year ago is orbiting around $112 right now. You already know what those numbers mean to you at the gas station. What we tend to overlook is that airlines don’t get any more of a break on fuel prices than we do.

In the last year, the cost of of Jet A, the fuel that airliners run on, has shot up almost 40 percent (SOURCE: International Air Transport Association)

I have no idea who “Brent” is, but when I see numbers like those, I want to slap him upside the head. So too, probably, would the average airline executive.

There’s no way the airlines are going to swallow major increases in fuel prices. Those costs are going to be passed on to you and me — most likely through increases in those infamous add-on fees at first, then by raising the cost of base airfares themselves.

That’s why it would be wise to examine your travel plans and see if it would be worth your while to buy your tickets now, before airfares really take off.

If you haven’t already done, start using Web sites that let you track the rise and fall of specific airfares. Yapta, AirfareWatchdog and FareCompare are two good examples.

Also, sign up on sites that alert you by email when the airfare you want has dropped or risen to a certain amount.

Use your judgment. Airfares rise and fall with the seasons. Pulling the trigger too soon on your air tickets could end up costing you as much money as buying them too late. If you think yours might be cheaper as you get closer to your travel dates, it might be worth it to wait.

These days, however, that’s seldom the way to bet.

And now, here this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
I turn my back on the airline industry for a couple of weeks and look what happens: United grounds its entire Boeing 757 fleet, more than 90 planes, because of failures to inspect a critical onboard computer system upgrade. “Friendly skies?” Don’t get me started…

from Smarter Travel
When it comes to using those frequent flyer miles, the term “free flight” is a relative concept — and may be one you won’t like.

from Smarter Travel
On the other hand, Delta Air Lines is no longer letting your frequent flyer miles expire. your miles are your forever — or until the Delta execs change their minds again. Given that Delta is positioning itself to be America’s air bridge to Africa, those of you interested in visiting the Mother Continent should take note.

from Smarter Travel
The good news: there are three frequent flyer programs out there that will let you exchange your accumulated miles for cash. the bad news: You’ll only be getting pennies on the dollar. Still, if you’ve got a bunch of miles that don’t quite give you a flight somewhere, and you could use the money, it’s better than nothing.

from CNNGO
Ranking the “world’s hottest airline crews?” Has it really come to this? Has the airline industry run out of interesting topics for folks to write about? Then again, that Etihad stewardess is pretty cute…

LAND
from USA Today
How to score that perfect vacation rental, without your wallet getting scarred for life.

SEA
from USA Today
We told you this would happen: The glut of new cruise ships out there is making Caribbean cruises really…really…affordable. One of the reasons is that, unlike the airlines, the cruise lines aren’t rushing to pass on their added fuel costs to their passengers.

from USA Today
Meanwhile, the cruise situation along the Mexican Riviera just keeps on getting worse. Comes now word that cruise ships are either skipping Mazatlan or pulling out of that port altogether following the shooting death of two men (not tourists) in a hotel parking lot. This follows a spate of muggings of cruise passengers and crew members in Mazatlan back in January.

AFRICA
from the New York Times
The rest of Egypt may be scrambling and struggling to rebuild their tourism in the wake of the the country’s revolution, but there’s one spot to which visitors are already starting to flock: Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the movement that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

from the Toronto Sun
An ancient statue of an Egyptian pharaoh, one of eight irreplaceable treasures stolen from the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests in Cairo, has been found. Two others also recovered. Five still missing.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from USA Today
Are you a fan of “Deadliest Catch?” Ever wonder what it would be like to be out there yourself on the Bering Sea — without having to face death? Well, there’s a tour for that.

from USA Today
Tourism in Chile is still trying to dig out from the impact of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that shook the nation a year ago — and killed some 500 people.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Toronto Sun
Are you a daredevil, an adrenaline junkie? Need to feel the rush? forget skydiving, bungee jumping or caving underwater. Just go driving in India.

from the Toronto Sun
Taiwan is trying to drum up interest in the island as a tourist destination, even to the point of allowing visitors from its political arch-rival, mainland China. Non-Chinese have reasons to visit, too, though.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
There are reasons to visit the French Alps that have absolutely nothing to do with skiing. With or without snow, French mountain towns have more than their share of charm.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Istanbul, a city with one foot on two continents and one foot in two cultures. A city that defies pigeonholing, stereotyping and maybe even description. But you can have a blast trying.

from the Guardian (London UK)
An online walking tour of Kensington Gardens, with literature and poetry as its theme. Not the largest of London’s public parks, but definitely my favorite, even had Princess Diana never spent a minute in its palace. Take a spring stroll along the Broad Walk as the sun sets and you’ll understand why.

from Lonely Planet
A look at the back-alley bars of Venice. On your first visit to Venice,the whole city may seem like a giant collection of back alleys. These are the ones where you won’t be part of the herd of streaming tourists. That alone makes them worth exploring.

the WEDNESDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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

Chicago Midway Airport | © Greg Gross

Okay, my West African sojourn is over. Time to get back to business. And I’m not the only one who’s back.

The Amazing Race, easily one of the most successful of all reality TV series, is back for another round-the-world round on CBS.

This time around, some old friends — teams that fell short for a wild variety of reasons — return for a second bite at the million-dollar apple.

Some of them — like the Cowboys, the Goths and the Trotters, among others — were viewer favorites. Others were more anti-favorites back to raise our collective blood pressures, like the NFL cheerleaders.

While they all battle each other for the bucks, we get to follow them vicariously around the globe. Sounds cool to me.

They started from the desert outside Palm Springs. First leg, Sydney, Australia. First surprise of the series: Sunday night’s debut was a two-parter, so nobody’s been eliminated yet! So if you missed last weekend’s opener, you’ve got a chance to catch up next Sunday.

The Boeing 747 will never die, just modify.

You know how rapper Tupac Shakur, who’s been dead since 1996, somehow magically seems to release a new CD almost every year? So it is that Boeing keeps coming up with new incarnations of its now iconic 747, which first flew 42 years ago.

The newest version is the Boeing 747-8, rolled out earlier this month. Designed to fly farther, faster and quieter on less fuel, this latest version of the original looks like Boeing’s latest bid to throw down with rival Airbus and their massive double-decker A380.

As some of you will recall, that’s what the new state-of-the-art Boeing 787 Dreamliner was supposed to do. But with Dreamliner deliveries top the world’s airlines still stalled by a seemingly never-ending set of problems, the Boeing folks appear to have settled on the 747-8, with its increased capacity and redesigned wings, as their Plan B.

You can read all about this latest version of the 747 in the CNET magazine story here.

This follows an old rule of aircraft makers: If it ain’t broke, upgrade it. When the original design is a winner to begin with, you can do that.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from the New York Times
The FAA held its annual Aviation Forecast Conference last week to look at various indicators for the immediate future of air travel — costs, aircraft and airport room, availability of flights and the like. For the traveling public, none of it looks good.

LAND
from Frommer’s
ATTENTION, BEER LOVERS! Where are the best places in the world to knock back some truly great beers? the Frommer’s crew offers up their 14 nominees. Between my own experience and that of friends, I can vouch for seven of them. WOW, I’m way behind! SLIDESHOW

from the New York Times
When in Rome, shop like the Romans do. From personal experience, I know that if you want to save money when you travel, go local. Nowadays, that includes scouring the Web for sites offering deals and discounts for locals only.

SEA
from Maritime Matters
The Carnival Splendor, crippled by an engine-room fire last November, is back in business.

from Smooth Jazz Cruise
First, all you jazz purists out there, just chill! Aiiight?! Second, for you smooth jazz fans out there — and you know who you are — the Smooth Jazz Cruise is taking bookings for their two Jan. 2012 sailings. So why am I giving notice 11 months early? Because these cruises sell out every year, that’s why.

AFRICA
from msnbc travel
With the political chaos in Cairo having subsided (at least for now), Egypt is desperately trying to get its tourism back up to speed. (NOTE: With Egypt trying to lure back visitors, that could mean some real bargains in the offing. Keep an eye on this!)

from We Blog the World
A look at Swaziland, the last African monarchy. It’s small, it’s peaceful — albeit with perhaps a sternly forced peace — abnd culturally fascinating. All of which may explain why it doesn’t show up on the cultural radar of mainstream media.

from allAfrica
In South Africa, talks are underway that could lead to the African Diaspora becoming more than just a concept, but a place — a formal recognition as a region of Africa itself. The implications, and their potential, are off the charts.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
As expected, the presence of The City’s new fan-friendly baseball park has drawn new restaurants, shops and residential building to an area once known only for run-down warehouses and little-used railroad tracks. King Street is becoming the new epicenter of San Francisco.

from the New York Times
Meanwhile, an hour’s flight to the south, downtown Los Angeles is turning into a place that’s actually worth spending some time in. Best of all, you can actually WALK there. Walk in LA…what a concept!

from The Grio
B&Bs in Massachusetts and Michigan offer a descent into history with their bed and their breakfast — tunnels, trapdoors, secret passages. That’s because a century and change ago, these inns were stops on the Underground Railroad that took escaped slaves to freedom.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Asia Travel Tips
If you’re flying on China Airlines to Taiwan and plan to use their high-speed trains to get around (and why wouldn’t you?) you get a 25 percent discount on your train tickets.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Could you get through a weekend in Paris on only $100? See what happens when the NYT’s Frugal Traveler, Seth Kugel, gives it a shot.

TWO-FISTED PLASTIC

Leave a reply

ATM cards have pretty much rendered the traveler’s check obsolete. But the farther afield you go in traveling around the world, the more you may need more than one card.

One of my all-time favorite philosophy books is called “The Four Agreements” by don Miguel Ruiz. It’s a collection of wisdom based on the teachings of Mexico’s ancient Toltec people (whose facial features, seen in the sculptures they left behind, look remarkably African).

The Four Agreements are:

  1. Be impeccable with your word
  2. Don’t take anything personally
  3. Don’t assume anything
  4. Always do your best

Today’s travel tip concerns the third of those agreements: Don’t assume anything.

Which brings us to the subject of ATM machines, my upcoming trip to West Africa and my newest friend in the travel blogosphere.

For many travelers the world over, automated teller machines have pretty much supplanted the venerable traveler’s check as a means to get cash abroad. Quicker, reliable and so much less of a hassle.

However, all ATM cards are not created equal, something I didn’t realize until I started preparing for my upcoming trip to Senegal and the Gambia.

One line on a Web site about the Gambia stopped me in my tracks:

“ATM machines in the Gambia only accept cards from VISA, not Mastercard.”

In all my travels to date, this is the first time I’ve ever encountered this. I pulled out my wallet and looked at the back of my the ATM card issued by my credit union.

Sure enough, there they were, those two interlocked spheres labelled “Cirrus,” one of the other names that Mastercard goes by outside the United States.

I then turned to HSBC, a massive international bank chain with branches all over the world.

All over the world, it turns out, except in Africa. They’ve got some branches in Cairo. That’s it.

No matter, don’t mind, I told myself. I’ll just use their ATM card in the Gambian ATMs, and swallow my pride — along with the fees that come with using a “foreign” ATM machine.

Then I looked on the back of the ATM card from HSBC.

Two interlocking spheres.

I’d always assumed that all the world’s bank machines accepted all the world’s ATM cards. Being a believer in The Four Agreements, I really should’ve known better.

Greg to self: “We may have a problem here.”

Self to Greg: “Congratulations. Just figured that out, did ya?”

Enter Michael Hodson, an American expat living in Colombia who writes on travel for the Huffington Post. His advice: for international travel, bring one of each.

“Greg, to be safe, you really should carry two ATM cards everywhere — one VISA one and one Mastercard one. Don’t know about Gambia, but I have been caught on that in more than a few countries.”

Turns out he wasn’t the only one. From Kiratiana Freelon, editor of American Airlines’ Black Atlas site:

“I learned the hard way about having Mastercard versus a VISA…left me with no money in Guinea Conakry!!

I’ve resolved the issue. I won’t be out on the streets of Banjul with a sign reading “Will travel for food.” But if you travel internationally, or ever plan to, consider this near-disaster of mine a cautionary tale — and open another bank account.

AFRICA: Not a country, not a cliché

Leave a reply



“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain. There will be a slight delay…”

I love this pic, which first surfaced on the Web seven years ago and immediately went globally viral.

I also hate it.

The reasons for loving it are clear to anyone who hasn’t had their sense of humor surgically removed. You can almost imagine the lions idly joking among one another as they recline in their shady splendor:

Lion A: “I hear these bush pilots are pretty tough.”

Lion B: “Really? I heard they taste just like chicken.”

Lion C: They do. And they’re not exactly gazelles, either, if you catch my drift!”

So what’s not to like?

AN IMAGE OF AFRICA
The problem I have is not so much with the pic itself as with what it represents. An image.

For far too many people in the Western world, and especially here in the United States, images like this are more or less what people think — and sometimes all that people think — of when you mention the word “Africa.”

I remembered this pic when Kiratiana Freelon, the up-and-coming young editor of American Airlines’ Black Atlas Web site, sent out a link to an AOL Travel story by Sean McLachlan on the Gadling site.

The headline is self-explanatory:

“IT’S TIME TRAVEL WRITERS STOPPED STEREOTYPING AFRICA”

The author makes the case that far too much of what we see from travel writers, and from Western media in general, about Africa ranges from the benignly glib and superficial — dusty streets with goats and chickens — to a now-standard laundry list of grim and gruesome sound-bite material.

HIV/AIDS, foreign aid and extreme poverty, crime and violence, corruption, and land being stolen from whites by blacks.

The question is not whether any of this is true. it’s all true and everyone knows it. The problem is that by focusing on these themes nearly to the exclusion of all else, Western mainstream media have embedded the idea in millions of minds that when it comes to Africa, that’s all there is.

And on that last point, whites in Africa being stripped of their lands by blacks, McLachlan has this to say:

“If black people get their land stolen, you won’t hear a peep from the New York Times or the Guardian. If rich white ranchers get their land stolen, well, that’s international news.”

All those who think that white farmers are the only ones on the Mother Continent who get ripped off and dispossessed, raise your hands — and remove your rose-colored blindfolds in the same motion.

MORE THAN SLAVERY
We won’t even get into the number of Americans, including some fairly prominent public figures, who still labor under the incredible notion that Africa is a country.

You can read the entire AOL Travel story here.

Something you won’t find in the article also bears a mention: As important as it is to “Us,” there’s also a lot more to Africa than the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

I haven’t even set foot in Africa yet, and even I know the Mother Continent’s got a lot going on.

Countries living in peace, with governments working toward the betterment of their peoples’ lives.

Places where Muslims and Christians, Africans and Arabs, live in harmony.

Africa has thriving urban centers the length of the continent. Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, has just about eclipsed both Cairo and Johannesburg as Africa’s largest city.

A week from now, I’ll be flying into Dakar, the capital of Senegal. Kiratiana and several other friends of mine have already been there. They all say the same thing:

“You’ve got to go, Greg. You’ll love Dakar. Love it!”

And what do you find in cities like Lagos and Dakar and Nairobi and Dar es Salaam?

A CONTINENT ON THE MOVE
You find growing communities of international business, with Africans as their driving force.

Magnets for foodies and some of the finest wines being produced on the planet.

A whirlwind of high-fashion to rival Paris, Milan or New York.

The second largest film industry in the world.

Writers, photographers, artists, filmmakers, sculptors, fashion designers, all in full effect.

And not only the largest, most diverse and energetic music scenes in the world, but one that goes back more than a hundred years. High-life, hip-life, Afropop, Afrojazz, and more that I haven’t even heard, or heard of, yet. Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masakela, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Ali Farka Touré — and I’m not even scratching the surface.

The entire genre of world music, like homo sapiens himself, began in Africa.

They’re also adding their own flavors to American hip-hop and black gospel music. The results are incredible.

Reading your typical American news publication or watching a typical U.S. television network, you might never hear about any of that.

Speaking of which, what do the following people have in common?:

  • NBA basketballer Boris Diaw
  • R&B singer Akon
  • World music star Youssou N’Dor
  • French politician and first woman ever nominated for president in France, Ségolène Royal

ANSWER: They’re all from Senegal. Dakar, to be exact.

Why do Western media do such a lousy job of presenting the whole picture of Africa? In part because they have no “boots on the ground” there. Most major U.S. news organizations pulled out decades ago; many more never bothered going there. That leaves media outlets presenting Africa to their audience through a very narrow view of a very few sources.

Ask them why, and they’ll tell you:

  1. Reporting from Africa is very expensive, and
  2. Their audience isn’t really interested.

Is the audience not interested because the media haven’t told it the full story of Africa, or are the media not telling the story because the “mainstream” audience doesn’t want to hear it? It becomes one of those chicken v. egg questions that can never be settled.

Meanwhile, a week from now, I’ll be there myself, and I have no idea what all is going to happen. But let me leave you with what’s not going to happen.

I’m not going on safari.

I’m not going to encounter ragged, glowering young men slinging AK-47 assault rifles every five steps.

Above all, I’m not going to have my takeoff or landing delayed by lions.

ON MY LIST: Normandy

Leave a reply

First of an occasional series

Mont. St. Michel monastery, Normandy

Mont. St. Michel abbey, Normandy FRANCE — © Mihai-bogdan Lazar | Dreamstime.com


NO BUCKET, JUST A LIST
Around the world, you can find a handful of places where the destiny of humanity turned, one way or the other. One of them is here.

France pulls at me like some gigantic magnet. It’s not so much a country as it is a cluster of regions, each with its own geography, identity and charms, which dangle in front of you like grapes from the lovingly tended vines that yield all those incredible French wines.

As yet, though, even after a half-dozen trips into l’Hexagone, I’ve scarcely seen any of those regions, other than a brief taste of the Alsace during the Christmas market season.

I blame Paris. The city, not the skank.

Yes, I am hopelessly head-over-heels about the City of Light. But I am determined to experience as many of France’s wonderfully varied regions as I can.

And at the top of that list is Normandy.

If you think of the outline of France as a sort of oddly-shaped building, Normandy sits on the top-left corner of the roof. Its coastline, nearly 400 miles long, forms a good part of the English Channel.

It must be a pretty special place if the English were willing to spend a century fighting the French for it, the so-called Hundred Years’ War. The Battle of Agincourt, which Shakespeare would immortalize with his play, Henry V, grew out of that.

Normandy has given so much to the world. Seascapes and pastoral scenes vivid enough to inspire an entire genre of painting — impressionism — and one of its leading artists, Claude Monet. The water-lily pond he made famous was in the Normandy town of Giverny.

And I’d love to have a dollar — or a euro — for every master artist or wannabe inspired by the abbey on Mont St. Michel, pictured above, perched atop its tidal rock. A mud-flat bastion of the Catholic Church at low tide, a lonely island when the tide comes in.

Then there’s the food and drink.

Normandy is one of those regions that gives France several of its approximately 1,000 different cheeses (and no, that is NOT a typo!).

It also produces some of the best seafood in the world, which I know firsthand after having sampled some fresh Normandy oysters from a rue Cler market in Paris.

Do you like French pastries like brioches? You can thank Normandy for that. Macaroons? Those, too. The andouille sausage that Louisiana so loves to cook with? A Normandy specialty.

I told you all these French regions have personalities, right? Normandy is one of the few notknown for its wine. Around here, grapes take a back seat to apples. The area is known for its ciders — “hard” ciders — as well as an apple brandy known as Calvados.

All this would make me want to visit Normandy even if it didn’t hold a unique place in the world’s modern history.

It is because of that history, though, that I must see it. This is one of those places where something happened to re-direct the trajectory of the human race.

The event, of course, was D-Day, the Allies’ home invasion of Adolf Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” We all learned the history in school, but do we really understand the magnitude of what happened here all those years ago?

For just a moment, close your eyes and picture your world with a Nazi Germany in it.

Without what happened here in 1944, today’s world would be very different from the one we know — and there’s a very good chance that you and I would not be in it.

So after I’ve shot some pics of the beautiful countryside and sampled some seafood and introduced myself to Calvados, I need, for just a little while, to walk the beaches and the bluffs where humanity itself hung in the balance, and Fate — with the help of a lot of brave men and women — tipped it to the good side.

Normandy is on my list.