Tag Archives: Caribbean

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.17.13

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


BEER AND THE POWER OF TRAVEL
If you’re ever visiting New York anytime soon and find yourself feeling thirsty, you’ll want to introduce yourself to the Brooklyn Brewery.

If you have any doubts about the difference that travel can make in a person’s life, you’ll want to get to know the man behind the beers from Brooklyn Brewery, one Garrett Oliver.

Garrett Oliver

Garrett Oliver

He spent a year in Britain in the 1980s and developed a taste for Europe’s fine brews. Then, he came home to the United States, where most beers — churned out in industrial quantities by a handful of giant corporations — had no taste.

I remember those days. In much of the world back then, the term “American beer” was a bad joke, the ultimate oxymoron. When Oliver referred to the US beers of the time as “this thin yellow liquid,” trust me, he was being kind.

Most flavors of Kool-Aid had more character — and for that matter, more flavor. Some of this limp-wristed refrigerated dishwater was so pitiful, it couldn’t even form a decent head when you poured it into a glass. You were better off drinking tap water.

So in true American spirit, Oliver took matters into his own kitchen and started making his own beer at home.

Over the next several years, the amateur brewer became a professional brewmaster. And a guy who had graduated with a college degree in broadcast and film morphed into the world’s pre-eminent scholar on the brewing art.

He also became a creator of some truly world-class beers. How world-class? These days, the Europeans are importing beers from him.

Garrett Oliver is one of the reasons you now can find some 2,000 craft breweries scattered across the United States, from Portland ME to Portland OR, Savannah GA to San Diego, each literally lending its own flavor to the city in which it sprang up.

Who knows how much of this, if any of it, would have happened had Oliver not spent that year overseas, having his eyes opened by something he never would have experienced had he played it safe and stayed home. Travel has the power to change lives.

Road trip, anyone?

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AIR NIGHTMARES
Halfway through the second month of 2013, Boeing seems no closer to getting its problematic 787 Dreamliner back into service after grounding all of them worldwide due to in-flight problems with its lithium-ion batteries.

Poland’s LOT went so far last week as to declare that no flights using Dreamliners will be scheduled until October — whether the bird is fixed by then or not.

In addition to grounding all the 787s already in service, Boeing has halted delivery of new ones until the battery issue is resolved. Either way, the airlines already committed to the Dreamliner are losing money daily while this drags on.

Meanwhile, Boeing’s principal rival, Europe’s Airbus Industrie, has dropped plans to use the same battery aboard its new A350 airliner, which is designed to compete with the Dreamliner but has yet to enter service.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from USA Today
Poland’s national airline, LOT, is the latest to ground the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and it says the plane will stay grounded into fall. Ouch.

from Travel Weekly
The American Airlines-US Airways merger may be official, but there’s still a long way to go before it becoes a physical reality on the ground and in the air.

LAND
from Budget Travel via Yahoo
Getting married? Planning on raising a family? Here are eight travel destinations you might want to see before you start having kids.

from the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
Are reading and travel equally fundamental in your life? Five of the world’s most literary cities, all of them suitable for the literate traveler.

SEA
from USA Today
Multiple stories on the Carnival Triumph mess…and “mess” is indeed the operative word here, in more ways than one. And just when the cruise industry was still trying to put the Costa Concordia disaster fully behind it.

from AARP
Three classic cruise rip-offs and how to avoid getting stung.

FOOD & DRINK
from CCSD Tours
You’ve heard of pub crawls. Are you — and your bike — ready for a pub roll? These guys offer a cycling tour of pubs in Britain. They have other cycling tours in Europe, too, but this one’s for you beer drinkers out there.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Want a taste of fine French cuisine in a genteel English setting? Go north, young gastronome, to Montreal.

from the Washington Post
Welcome to Chicago, where the locals take their hot dogs seriously. Very seriously. These dogs “ain’t your average Huckleberry Hound.”

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AFRICA
from Africa.com
Want to start real discussion at your next party? Get three people together at random and ask them to name five livable cities in Africa. When they’re done, you hit them with this list of ten, and the reasons why. Watch their jaws drop.

from New Era (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
The Namibian government and the private sector lay down guidelines for tour guides.

from the Washngton Post
West Africa’s French-speaking Cameroon is a microcosm of Africa, in ways good and not-so-good.

from the Tanzania Daily News via allAfrica.com
Authorities in the Mara region are turning to a new weapon in the battle against poaching — education.

from The Namibian (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
A generation before the Nazis, Germans were waging genocide in East Africa. It’s a story little known in this country and largely forgotten elsewhere — except perhaps Namibia.

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
When it comes to the lush jungles of Costa Rica’s incredible Caribbean coast, the local indigenous peoples make the best guides.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Agence France Presse via France 24
Gamers in Hong Kong are creating their own great escape. All you have to do is figure out how to get out of a locked room while blindfolded and handcuffed, with a ticking clock prodding you on. In high-pressure HK, they call this fun.

from The Guardian (London UK)
What you’ll find in a walk across Shanghai, where 21st-century China coexists, barely, with the 14th.

from The Guardian (London UK)
In the largely unvisited northern Indian hill country of Meghalaya, the wild scenery is but the first of its surprises. For one thing, in this male-dominated nation historically torn between Hindus and Muslims, Christianity is the major religion and women rule the roost.

EUROPE
from France 24
Formerly down and dirty Marseilles is trying to remake itself this year as the official 2013 capital of European culture.

from CN Traveller
Berlin — rooms with a…zoo?

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.2.12

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

Catalina sunset

Sunset off Catalina Island | ©IBIT/G. Gross

ALL ABOARD — WORLDWIDE
If you love rail travel — or just loathe air travel — The Guardian newspaper in London has one of the best resources for planning a fantastic rail vacation.

It’s created its own Web page dedicated to great rail journeys around the world.

Stories about terrific train trips on almost every continent, planning advice, suggestions from readers, photo galleries, it’s all there.

One such trip that’s definitely on my list is aboard The Canadian, a train that travels across virtually the breadth of Canada, from Toronto in the east to Vancouver on the Pacific coast.

It’s not a high-speed train, but given the beauty of the land, including the Rocky Mountains, you won’t want to go that fast, anyway.

Even if you don’t actually use it to plan a train trip, you’ll probably learn some interesting things from it.

For example, thanks to the English Channel tunnel, it’s now possible to travel not merely from London to Moscow, but from London all the way across Europe, Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean — crossing ten time zones and nearly 8,000 miles — without ever stepping onto an airplane.

Not that you’d actually want to, but you could.

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STRETCHING OUT ON AMERICAN
There’s a truism in the fashion world that says if you wait long enough, everything comes back in style. That may be the case among the airlines, as well.

About a decade ago, I joined my first airline mileage program. The airline of choice was American. The reason? Back then, American touting the fact that it was removing seats from its aircraft to create more legroom between rows. When you stand 6’3,” you pay attention to things like that.

Sure enough, a few years later, the airline decided it needed the money, so it put all those seats back into all those planes. Bummer.

Fast-forward to November 2012. An email from American Airlines pops up in my inbox:

“Good things do come to those who wait.

Earlier this year, we mentioned that extra legroom in the Main Cabin was coming. We’re happy to tell you that Main Cabin Extra seats have arrived. You’ll enjoy the following benefits when you purchase a Main Cabin Extra seat:

• Extra space to stretch out
• Group 1 boarding to settle in early
• Seats near the front of the plane so you can get on and off the plane faster”

Legroom is back. Cue the Kool and the Gang music. “Ce-le-brate good times, come on!”

Well, not entirely. There are a couple of differences this time around.

A decade ago, the extra legroom was spread through the entire cabin. This time, it’s being limited to the Main Cabin Extra section at the front of a selected group of new jets.

The other difference is one you’ve probably come to expect by now. If you want a seat in Main Cabin Extra, and you don’t have elite status with American, you’ll have to pay for it, anywhere from $8 to $118 per flight, according to American’s Web site.

On the other hand, you won’t be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra for a First or Business Class seat.

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AFRICAN VISA
If I had a dollar for every unsolicited credit card application that turned up in my mailbox in the last five years (and went straight to the shredder), I could probably fly someplace nice… in Business Class. But here’s one Visa card I wouldn’t mind having.

It’s called the KQ Msafiri Visa credit card. It’s result of a joint venture between Barclay’s Bank of Kenya and Kenya Airways.

Not only do your purchases with the card earn miles toward free Kenya Airways flights, but you also get priority check-in and boarding, and up to $56,500 in travel insurance, free.

Cool. But what I’d really love to see would be for outfits like Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines or Arik Air to partner up with some American banks — preferably some black-owned American banks — to create a credit card whose purchases would build miles toward travel to Africa.

That’s one credit card application I wouldn’t shred.

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AND FINALLY…
This last item sounds like a punchline, or maybe something from the satirical news Web site, The Onion…but it’s neither.

Starting this weekend on selected international flights, Japan Air Lines will be serving its passengers in-flight meals featuring…Kentucky Fried Chicken.

That’s right, JAL is hooking up with KFC. According to the JAL press release, it’s to be called “Air Kentucky.”

Greasy fried chicken at 35,000 feet? Neither I nor my bowels know quite what to make of this. Believe it or not, however, it does make a certain amount of sense, although perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.

It would be logical to presume that JAL is doing this to placate those Western passengers whose faces turn unnatural colors at the very thought of eating sushi. But you would be mistaken.

According to the press release, “KFC is widely popular in Japan, particularly during the Christmas season.” And according to CNN, it ties in with a JAL gimmick of partnering with restaurtant chains popular in Japan, such as “MOS Burgers, Yoshinoya beef bowls and Edosei pork buns.”

And there you have it. Pass me the sushi, please.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
A holiday gift from your friends at ST, the ten airlines that give you the best legroom in Coach — or as I like to call it, Sardine Class. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Flying to the Caribbean from anywhere in the world? No problem, mon. Flying among the Caribbean islands on regional airlines? Big problem, mon.

from Travel Weekly
Delta to begin flying between Seattle and Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport, which is closer to the city than its other airport, Narita. But Seattle’s gain will be Detroit’s loss.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
The ST crew highlights the cold-and-flu season by pointing out the 10 Germiest Places You Encounter While Traveling. Their title, not mine. Never mind that, just take their advice and stay healthy going into the New Year. SLIDESHOW

from CNN
First, the bad news. Hotels are now going the way of the airlines and hitting their guests with hidden “resort fees.” The good news? The feds have taken notice.

from Smarter Travel
Five off-season travel destinations that are really cool, and not just because it’s winter. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Ridership isn’t the only thing growing at Amtrak. Look for a larger number of Amtrak Vacations packages in 2013.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Houston has had a gleaming new cruise ship terminal since 2009, but no cruise ships ever made port calls there. Starting next November, that will change.

from Travel Weekly
More life preservers, better tie-downs for heavy equipment aboard ship and standardized procedures for bridge officers are among the safety changes being proposed within the cruise ship industry as a result of the Costa Concordia disaster.

from CNN
How do you “undiscover” an island?

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AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
British travelers recently declared Cape Town, South Africa to be their favorite city in the world — and it looks as if Europe’s international airlines are getting the message.

from the South African Government News Agency via allAfrica.com
A cultural, historical and anti-poverty industrial center dedicated to the memory of anti-apartheid martyr Steve Biko opens in South Africa. The Steve Biko Heritage Centre is expected to become a major tourist attraction.

from The Star (Kenya) va allAfrica.com
With foreign tourism starting to dry up, mainly over security fears as Kenyan forces tangle with Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists from neighboring Somalia, the government tries to boost domestic tourism to compensate.

AMERICAS
from CNN
The ravages of Superstorm Sandy are not preventing holiday visitors from pouring into New York City.

from CNN
Take a look at Detroit through the eyes of its mayor, former NBA superstar Dave Bing.

from SFGate.com
Up in the Napa Valley, you can find restaurants that design menus around the finest local wines. Not down in Monterey. This beautiful seaside-scenic town, a two-hour drive south from San Francisco, has gone nuts over local craft beers — so much so that several local restos now feature entire dinners built around local brews.

from the Los Angeles Times
Memories of the California gold rush live on in Yreka.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from China Daily
Have you ever seen any of those ancient Chinese paintings depicting incredibly beautiful landscapes, towering bullet-shaped limestone mountains that couldn’t possibly be real? Well, they’re real, all right, and Guilin is the place that inspired a lot of those paintings.

Travel Weekly
With cruise sales leveling off here and sailing over their own “fiscal cliff” in Europe, the cruise lines are turning to Asia to pick up the slack. Singapore has already built a new ocean terminal large enough to dock the world’s biggest liners, and more are coming.

from CNNgo
Paris? New York? San Francisco? Madrid? You can all sit down. The Michelin Guide to the world’s great restaurants has crowned the gourmet capital of the world — and it’s Tokyo…still.

from Travel Weekly
Canada’s Four Seasons becomes the latest luxury hotel chain to plant its flag in China with a new 313-room luxury tower in Beijing.

EUROPE
from The New Yorker
Paris, that gastronomic capital of haute cuisine, is going ga-ga over its newest craze. Brace yourself: It’s American hamburgers. We’re not talking Mickey D’s, either.

from Cisco
The next time you find yourself in one of those classic London cabs, whip out your smartphone or your iPad and see if its wifi is working. Cyberspace is coming to the hackney carriage.

from Reuters
It’s no big deal anymore to find a Muslim mosque in Paris. A gay-friendly Muslim mosque in Paris? That’s a very big deal.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.18.12

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Sahara Desert caravan

The Sahara Desert. Think you could survive here? | ©Simone Matteo Giuseppe Manzoni — Dreamstime.com

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

THE WORLD’S DRY PLACES
This edition of the IBIT Travel Digest is dedicated to my editor, P.A. Rice, whose name you’ll often see at the bottom of my blog posts. In addition to being a fine writer in her own right and a good friend of many years, she loves — I mean LOVES! — the desert.

Having been born in Louisiana and spent most of my life in coastal California, I’ve never been a desert person. Too much sand, too little shade, too many things that stick or bite you.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s usually hotter than all Hell? Unless, of course, it’s freezing cold.

But when she’s in the desert, she sees — or more accurately, feels — something different. Something profound. Something wondrous. And if you try looking at it through her eyes, you may start to see the desert in the same way.

It’s a land that makes you accept it on its own terms. But if you can do that, it will treat you to breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, night skies overflowing with stars and enough solitude to let you have meaningful conversations with your own soul.

I’ve seen sunlight and clouds combine over the Imperial Valley of California in ways that that I’ve seen nowhere else on Earth.

And as evidenced by this story in the London newspaper, The Guardian, she’s not alone in her appreciation of the world’s driest places.

The article lists incredible deserts all over the world — and tours to let you explore them. Deserts in Arizona, North Africa, Mongolia, and countries you may not even think of in terms of deserts.

Like Spain.

Don’t worry…it’s a DRY heat.

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LOW-FARE AIR TO AFRICA
easyJet is Britain’s largest airline and one of the principal low-fare airlines in Europe. It’s orange-and-white Airbus A319s and A320s are a common slight all over the continent.

Now, according to The Guardian, easyJet’s Greek founder is bringing the low-fare airline concept to the Mother Continent.

Fastjet has taken off, literally, in Tanzania.

The implications of this are huge. Africa is one of the largest and most populous of all the world’s continents — and also by far the one most under-served by the world’s airlines.

If Fastjet succeeds, spreads and inspires the rise of competitors, it could revolutionize African air travel.

Stay tuned.

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HIGH-STYLE HIGHWAY STOPS
If it’s been awhile since you took a cross-country road trip — and at today’s gasoline prices, who could blame you? — you will be forgiven if you go slack-jawed when you see what’s happening to highway rest stops these days.

I got my own inkling of that a couple of weeks ago on Interstate 5 in Southern California, heading back to San Diego.

There’s long been a rest stop overlooking the coast within the boundaries of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, but I hadn’t stopped there in years. Small, nondescript, nothing special.

My, how things have changed. Two buildings are now three. Multiple large, clean restrooms, snack and soft-drink vending machines that actually work. And I didn’t check, but it might even have wifi now.

But as you’ll see in this Washington Post travel story, that’s nothing.

America’s rest stops are going upscale, so much so that some are on the verge of becoming destinations themselves. Check it out.

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AND FINALLY…
And as long as we’re toying with the idea of hitting the road again, the financial magazine Kiplinger offers up this list of its 10 cheapest American cities for a good vacation.

The first thing you’ll notice about this list is that only two of its top 10 cities are anywhere west of the Mississippi River. One of them is Phoenix, AZ.

Desert. It figures.

But that’s not as amazing as the city that appears at the top of the Kiplinger list, the Number 1 destination for a cheap American vacation.

Drum roll, please…Riverside, CA.

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was “really?” Then I recalled my several drives through Riverside with my family enroute to and from family visits in Texas and Louisiana, not to mention my stops there on the train.

After thinking it all over, my reconsidered thought was…REALLY???

If you think you can make a compelling case that the Kiplinger folks are right, drop me a comment here on the blog or send an email to greg@imblacknitravel.com. I’m willing to be persuaded.

Just be prepared to work at it.

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And now, here’s the Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
American Airlines adds service to Europe, Asia and Latin America from its hubs in Dallas and Chicago. The flights themselves don’t begin til next year, but you can start booking them now.

from the Huffington Post
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what about the skies of the beholder? Would you fly in airplanes as ugly as these? SLIDESHOW

from CNN
The A350-AXWB is the lightweight, long-range airline that Airbus intends to compete with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Will it catch on with the world’s airlines…and more importantly, their passengers?

LAND
from The Daily Beast
Where to find some of the world’s tastiest cheap eats. No surprise, most of them are in Asia.

from AARP
Airline etiquette — how to deal with rude passengers in-flight.

from USA Today
Is a steady regimen of business travel hazardous to your health?

SEA
from USA Today
NCL joins rival Carnival in selling all-you-can-drink packages aboard its cruise ships.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
British travelers vote their favorite city in the world. New York? Toronto? Paris? Surprise…it’s Capetown, South Africa.

from the Daily Observer (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
For foreign tourists, visiting the Gambia often means getting bum-rushed by “bumsters.” Mostly, they’re just a nuisance, but they can be a BIG nuisance.

from allAfrica.com
An unlikely alliance of US environmentalists, herdsmen from Somalia and financiers from China is joining forces in Kenya to save the rarest antelope in Africa. The hirola is closer to extinction than giant pandas, mountain gorillas or rhinos…and cannot survive in zoos.

from CNN
How to survive in the Sahara with the world’s original desert survival experts, the Tuareg.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Atlantic City refuses to bow down to Superstorm Sandy.

from Travel Weekly
And speaking of Sandy, resorts in the Caribbean are still reeling from its impact, these days in the form of widespread cancellations from US travelers. Good time to swoop in and negotiate a bargain, perhaps?

from the New York Times
Seth Kugel loves São Paulo. He wants you to love it, too. WARNING: You may have to work at it.

from the Washington Post
Have a thing for ghost towns? Then check out a pair of abandoned mining towns in Chile. SLIDESHOW

from the Huffington Post
For all the gloom-and-doom talk in the mainstream media about the demise of American manufacturing, there are a lot of local factories still making their own products — and making money doing it. Some of them will let you come in and watch. SLIDESHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
Want to see where The Hobbit lives…at least on film? Head for New Zealand. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters next month. Check out the incredibly beautiful land where it was shot.

from CNN
The Hello Kitty restaurant in Beijing. The pink ambiance will make you smile. The food will not.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
Greece is pining for more US tourists.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Some of the lesser known but no less worthy attractions of St. Petersburg, Russia.

from the New York Times
The Prague that hides in plain sight.

from the Washington Post
Here in the States, writers joke about tree-hugging hippies who think they can sing their way to revolution and freeom. In the scenic Baltic republic of Estonia, the people there actually did.

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.11.12

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

“Better than Perfect”

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PluPerfect Jamaica 2011
PluPerfect 2011a
PluPerfect 2011b
PluPerfect 2011c
PluPerfect 2011d

A couple of Southern sisters are turning their love for the Caribbean into a travel business, creating trips to Jamaica that go beyond your typical tours.

When I started this blog, I set out with the goal of inspiring more black Americans to travel. More and more, though, I’m running into brothers and sisters who inspire me.

Meet Deloria Pride Chubbs and Radiah Fletcher.

Deloria came up in a family that didn’t travel a lot. Radiah’s family had her traveling practically from birth. When these two met in grade school, they became life-long friends — and travel partners. And they both fell in love with the Caribbean, especially Jamaica.

Between them, they’ve been back to the island so many times, they could be forgiven for feeling like expats. And having caught the travel bug themselves, they eagerly infected others with the same wanderlust.

Deloria Pride Chubbs

Deloria Pride Chubbs

“We’ve been traveling together with a group of about seven or eight ladies,” Radiah says. “Some of them are my family members and some are friends. We’ve been traveling together for 12 years.”

Now, Deloria and Radiah are teaming up to create tours of their own. And both want to share their love of and familiarity with Jamaica with travelers.

The result is the PluPerfect Travel Boutique, which Deloria launched last spring in Atlanta.

“I’ve been planning trips for people over the last decade, simply as a hobby,” she tells IBIT. “No pay involved, just something I enjoyed doing, all the ins and outs, from initiation to closure. I had friends telling me, ‘I don’t know why you don’t have a business.’ ”

Well, now she does, as a home-based travel agent affiliated with the KHM Travel Group.

The name she chose for her agency, the PluPerfect Travel Boutique, is a carefully chosen expression of her approach.

“I wanted the name to reflect a small, intimate, personalized service, so that’s where I got ’boutique.’ I stumbled on a definition of pluperfect that said ‘better than perfect.’ That’s what I want my agency to be. I want to go the extra mile so I can provide true, personalized service.”

She prides herself on really getting to know her clients and going beyond their expectations. Little things like setting up email trivia contests keying on the theme of a tour or the destination, complete with prizes, “to keep them engaged and excited even before their trip.”

“I want to know my clients inside and out. I try to inject something fun for my clients into the planning process itself, before they even get to their vacation.”

Both Deloria and Radiah are on the same mission I am, to get more African-Americans to start traveling.

“It’s a good idea to broaden your horizons and know what’s going on in other places,” Radiah says. “We both know lots and lots of people who have never left home.”

As important as it is for black folks to know the world, however, she thinks it may be equally or even more important for the world to get to know “us.” The real “us,” which goes far beyond the image projected via television, movies and music videos.

“When you have a presence in the world, people get to know you,” she says. “The myths about who we are start to disappear.”

To that end, Deloria is putting together group tours to Jamaica, a place she has come to know well.

“We’re going to be promoting opportunities for people to get into the cultural life outside the resorts,” she says.

Radiah Fletcher

Radiah Fletcher

One of the hallmarks of the tours she designs is giving travelers a chance to connect with local people and the culture of the destination, an idea that began with her first Jamaican visit years ago, when she stayed at a villa with a group of friends in Montego Bay:

“What really stuck out in my mind was that we had a chef in the house with us. She allowed us to go to the market with her to pick out the fruits and vegetables we wanted for the week. When we decided we wanted to have fish for dinner, didn’t just buy the red snapper. We were able to meet the guy who caught the red snapper for the day. We got exposed to the culture in ways you don’t get in the United States

“I was able to meet people there and make friends there, and I still have those friends now.”

The Jamaica tours Deloria designs are broad enough and flexible enough to appeal to a wide age range. The travelers she brought to Jamaica last year ranged in age from 20-somethings to 70. Visitors could stay with the group or break off to explore on their own.

She also offers some activities one doesn’t usually associate with Jamaica visits. You know about the Jamaican resorts created exclusively for singles, couples, newlyweds, and so on. How many times have you heard of American visitors hooking up with a Jamaican church?

Deloria tells how it came about.

“My father-in-law, Dr. Howard A. Chubbs, who is the pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC, developed a working relationship with our tour bus driver during the Taste of Jamaica Tour 2011. Our tour bus driver, Edward Givons (simply known as “Jr”), is pastor of the “Montpelier House of Prayer For All People Church- International Apostolic Ministries.”

“Rev. Givons mentioned to Dr. Chubbs that he dreamed that one day his church will be able to have music equipment for their worship services. With the help of Providence Baptist Church, his dream became a reality. From the pictures, it is amazing to see the very modern music equipment in what we could consider to be a very rustic, unmodern church.”

Am I the only one who gets the feeling that if Jesus Christ were to return to Earth today, he might feel more at home in that “rustic, unmodern church” than all the Crystal Cathedrals in the world?

Deloria and Radiah are currently putting together a group tour for Jamaica in November, and you’re going to be hearing a lot more about that here on IBIT in the coming days.

If you’d rather not wait, send an email at greg@imblacknitravel.com and make the subject “JAMAICA.” I’ll be sure to get you the details. Or give Deloria’s agency a shout at:

PluPerfect Travel Boutique
1-800-291-5097
Atlanta, GA

And when they ask where you heard about it, you know who to mention, right? It could be worth a discount.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 4.9.12

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

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

​And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LAND ​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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ASIA/PACIFIC ​

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

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

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

As always, CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST.

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

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

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

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EUROPE ​

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

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

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

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

IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST

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

THE TRAVEL HORIZON
This is the time of year when travel experts and industry observers offer up their forecasts for the new year.

The folks over at Travel+Leisure are expecting a lot of new cruise vacationers this year — and with all the ships coming out or already sailing, they’ll find no shortage of waiting cabins.
More on that later this week.

Over at Fox News, they expect more travelers to opt for vacation rentals over hotel stays, something IBIT has been advocating since we started up three years ago.

Meanwhile, the budget travel specialists over at About.com look for more travelers to opt for less popular destinations and less travel spending, especially in the face of what they anticipate as an upsurge in travel-related taxes and fees. Lovely.

They also see travelers zeroing in on countries whose currencies are more stable, which makes sense. It’s no fun waking up on the other side of the world to find out that the value of the local funds in your wallet has bottomed out overnight.

As for destinations, South America is hot, and not just for the climate. A lot of travelers are discovering they can find almost everything they look for in Europe by heading south instead of east, be it an urban experience or adventure travel.

Meanwhile, a lot of black American travelers are increasingly connecting with black Latino cultures in South America and the Caribbean as they realize how much of our history is also theirs. You’ll be seeing more about that here, too, in the coming days and weeks.

Another hot travel ticket for 2012: Asia. Between Asia-based airlines scrambling for more passengers and tour companies offering package almost too cheap to be legal, travel to Asian and Pacific destinations should be a strong draw in 2012.

DEPARTMENT STORE DINING
One of the things that was lost with the “malling” of America was the concept of the department store food court.

That’s not the case elsewhere in the world, which explains why multi-story mega-stores like Harrods in London and the KaDeWe in Berlin are as famous for their food courts as they are for their clothing, jewelry and fine furnishings.

Department store food courts are mini-arcades, featuring fresh and canned goods from around the world, along with counters where the hungry shopper can sit down to some incredible cuisine. It’s the best of everything, carefully prepared and lovingly presented, or it’s not there.

They’re seldom cheap, but what you get for the money is usually well worth it.

The Frommers Web site offers a slideshow of some of its favorite food courts around the world. If you find yourself salivating by the time you finish it, that’s quite all right.

SHAKING THINGS UP
Lastly, 2012 in Japan came in not with a bang, but a tremor — a magnitude 7.0 earthquake off the coast, deep under the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo apparently got a good rattling, but no reports of damage or injuries early on.

And just as well, since the country is still recovering from last year’s devastating quake disaster. But when your nation makes its home on the Ring of Fire, you can’t expect any breaks from Mother Nature.

Japan’s New Year’s Day shaker is one more reminder that when you travel, you might actually want to figure out your own plan for getting out of the hotel in an emergency.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from USA Today
2011 was the safest year yet for air travel. That sound you hear is me, knocking on wood.

from the Wall Street Journal
the Christmas holidays may be over, but winter air travel may still give you lots of close encounters with cold and flu bugs. How to get through winter travel in good health.

from fastcodesign.com
Would to take a nap in a box in the airport? There’s a Russian outfit that’s betting you would, and you may one day start seeing their Sleepboxes in departure lounges.

from the National Geographic
NatGeo’s list of its favorite airports and why.

​

LAND
from the MSNBC
Is Southwest Airlines slipping? How do you let a 9-year-old girl fly unaccompanied by an adult, then basically lose the child for five hours? Not good.

from YouTube
Chris McGinnis explains about “dead weeks” and what makes them the best time to find travel bargains.

from the Age (Australia)
There’s a new Ferrari on Italy’s roads — its railroads. And like its four-wheeled namesake, it’s red, and it’s fast. Very fast.

from Bike Radar
Bike garages…in Los Angeles? Is Southern California finally beginning to cool on its love affair with the automobile?

SEA

from USA Today
There’s a lady in Indiana suing Carnival Cruise Lines. Reason: she said the ship was going too fast. You can’t make this stuff up.

from the Travel Weekly
San Francisco is going all in on an $86 million spruce-up on its waterfront, and a new cruise ship terminal is part of the package. If sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge isn’t on your bucket list, it should be.

from the Luxury Daily ​
Celebrity Cruises plans to offer more cruises this year with themes designed around food and wine. They’re called “Excite the Senses” cruises.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
Two hotels in Rwanda earn five-star ratings.

from allAfrica.com
Could medical tourism work for Africa the way it has for Asia? Some folks in Kenya are starting to look at it.

from ​This Day (Nigeria)
Want to know why African regional air travel suffers such a bad reputation? This is one example.

from​ This Day (Nigeria)
The Calabar Festival, Africa’s largest street party.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
How to spend a hip weekend in Trinidad.

from ​the Guardian (London UK)
Are you one of those folks who believes the world is going to end this year? Would you like to meet the folks whose ancient culture produced that prediction? If so, head for Guatemala.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Moderately priced hotels in Hawaii. That’s right, I said it!

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Nomadic Matt
Get your grub on like — and where — the locals do in Bangkok.

​from the BBC Travel
The 2010 World Expo may only be a memory now, but Shanghai isn’t slowing down one bit — not in its growth, not in its swag and not in its rivalry with Beijing.

from the San Francisco Chronicle​
There’s more to French Polynesia than Tahiti and Bora Bora.

from Globetrooper
Train travel is one of the best ways to experience India, but you need to choose your berth with care. These guys will tell you how.

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EUROPE
from the Guardian (London UK)
Each year, the European Union selects a city as the EU’s Capital of Culture. The bet here says you’ve never heard of it, and in some ways, that’s a good thing. Hint: it’s in Slovenia.

from the Girls Guide Paris
I can’t imagine wanting to ever get out of Paris, but if you need a quick getaway from the City of Light, the Burgundy region is a good candidate — and not just for the wine that bears its name.

from the Los Angeles Times
In any other city, an ATM machine will give you money. In Paris, the bread you get from an ATM may be warm and crusty and good with a little olive oil.

from the Huffington Post
​Do London like a Londoner.

Super Bowl Cruise: deadline extended

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There’s still time to get in on a Carnival cruise out of New Orleans — and out of the Super Bowl hype, if you like.

Last week, IBIT told you about the four-day western Caribbean cruise on offer aboard Carnival Elation for a shade over $400. But you only had until Monday to get your deposit in.

But for those of you who had resigned yourself to seemingly endless days of NFL Roman numeral hype, I bring good tidings: The deadline has been extended to Nov. 1.

Think about it. No Super Bowl (unless you want to). Get your party on in the NOLA before and/or after the cruise. Work on your winter tan (and how many of your February-bound friends will be able to say that?).

Check out the link below for more details. And start packing that winter swimsuit.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Escape from the Super Bowl

TRAVEL: Get cookin’!

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Chef-instructor in Paris | ©Greg Gross

Create some international “flava” and see the world at the same time. Feed your mind while learning great new ways to feed your face.

For me, a cooking vacation fills multiple bills at once.

I’m an expert on nothing and a student of everything, so I travel to learn. With the possible exception of electric eel wrangling, I’m a fan of almost any kind of hands-on travel.

Also, I love to cook. (Didn’t say I was good at it, just that I enjoy doing it!)

For some of us, some culinary training is needed. Between our penchant for fast food and food just done fast, we seem to be un-learning our way around a kitchen.

Think about it. If you moved your family to a place with no McDonald’s/KFC/Domino’s et al, could your kids survive?

For that matter, could you survive?

Without the invention of the microwave oven, a lot of Americans under the age of 40 would probably starve.

There’s something just plain cool about being able to combine some of “this” with a little of “that” and turn it into something people want to eat. Why would I want to give that up for pushing buttons on an irradiated box?

Also, food has a story to tell. You learn a lot about the world, including your own world, through that history.

You learn, for example, that things like fried chicken, barbecue and other “soul food” originated with American slave families learning to make do with the least of everything, and that Native Americans and their foods played a major role in creating African-American dishes.

You learn too that it was Europe’s craving for spices from Asia and Africa that sent waves of sea-faring explorers like Columbus and Magellan across the world’s ocean — and ultimately led to the rise of imperial Europe — and a hell of a lot of drama thereafter.

Remember the last time you went out with family or friends for dinner at some ethnic restaurant, and you all left raving about the meal you just had? Learning the backstory on some of those cuisines might lend some spice of its own to your next night out.

But why stop there?

France and Italy have long offered cooking classes to visitors, not only in Paris and Rome, but in some of the world’s most beautiful countrysides.

The Italian region of Tuscany has practically made an industry of this, using farm stays and cooking classes to keep family-owned farms going — with the blessing of the Italian government, no less.

The same is true across France, as regions like Provence vie with Paris over which represents the soul of French cooking.

In nearly every case, the teaching focuses on using fresh ingredients, bought at fair prices from local growers and prepared with “old school” methods. Nothing artificial, nothing processed.

“Genetically modified?” Don’t even think about it.

All of this has contributed to the rise of something that calls itself the Slow Food Movement.

Don’t want to go to a class? If you’ve got access to a kitchen, a chef-instructor will come to you.

I did this a few years ago with an American-born chef living in Paris, who “apprenticed” in the kitchens of his French in-laws. He leads you first to the market streets like Paris’ Rue Cler, where he teaches you how to spot what’s good, then takes you back to your own kitchen and shows you what you can do with it.

Next stop: lunch.

At the other end of the scale are full-fledged cooking tours, either escorted or self-guided, which put you in kitchens with like-minded fellow Gordon Ramsay-Tony Bourdain wannabes. Airfare will usually be separate, but almost everything else generally is included.

A miniscule example of cooking tour companies include:

  • CookingVacations.com and Epitourean.com
    One company, two sites. Cooking Vacations focuses of cooking tours in Europe, the Caribbean, South America and South Africa. They also do a 10-day cruise between Athens and Rome aboard the cruise ship Marina, with several cooking classes along the way. This one includes airfare. Epitourean offers shorter cooking tours in all 50 United States for us vacation-challenged Americans.
  • Cooking-vacations.com
    What a difference a hyphen makes. This outfit focuses strictly on Italy. Not to be confused with the hyphen-less Cooking Vacations site above, okay? They also other cultural offerings, including food market tours in which you learn how to shop for what’s good. After one of these, you may never go near plastic-wrapped produce again.
  • The International Kitchen
    These guys include Morocco as part of their culinary schooling.
  • Culinary Vacations
    these guys put their own spin — on the whole cooking class thing. One of their Italian culinary tours is run as a bike tour. Learn Italian cooking techniques, consume serious amounts of your own Italian dishes — and burn it all off every day. Guilt-free foodie? Yeah, I could do that!

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Here come El TacoBike!
AGRITOURISM
AVIATION QUEEN: Travel globally, Eat Locally
Find Your Niche! — FOOD

This Week on IBIT

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How one African island nation turned itself into a travel brand. And what may be the world’s most dangerous museum.

Creating this blog is teaching me the importance of organizing a work schedule. It’s also taught me that the pace of events in the world of travel has absolutely no respect whatsoever for my scheduling. So be it.

Pending the inevitable unforeseen events, here’s what’s on tap for the coming week:

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When you think of bicycles, you think of maybe Lance Armstrong, maybe the Tour de France, maybe doping scandals and rumors thereof.

The one thing you don’t likely think about is Africa. And yet bikes mean more here than maybe anywhere else on Earth.

At a time when more and more people in Asian nations are trading in their bikes for automobiles, people across Africa are trying to get their hands on bikes in ever greater numbers.

Why? Because bikes are one of the most important forms of transportation on the Mother Continent.

You can go almost anywhere and carry amazing loads on them, without having to buy expensive fuel for your four-wheel-drive or feed for your donkey.

For people in much of Africa, a bike isn’t just fun. It’s life-changing. And IBIT will introduce you to some of the folks trying to change lives, two wheels at a time.

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Here’s what else is in the works on IBIT:

THE SEYCHELLES
See how one small African nation in the Indian Ocean turned itself into a brand, and a travel destination — and get some insight into the man credited with making it happen.

GANGWON DMZ MUSEUM
Would you visit a museum within easy artillery range of North Korea? The South Koreans have one, right on the 38th Parallel. Check out what could be the world’s most dangerous exhibit hall.

AIRLINES: A SILENT MONOPOLY?
Lodged in a wire service story about airlines cutting back on trans-Atlantic service this summer is a little nugget about the way the airlines, through their burgeoning alliances, are creating monopolies that effectively govern air travel. We’ll unearth that nugget and take a closer look at it.

DAY TRIPPING: Escape from London
Just as there’s more to Britain than England, there’s more to England than London. Hell, even Ireland and France are day trips from here.

BLACK and LATINO
From Mexico and the Caribbean to the tip of Tierra del Fuego, Latin Americans of African descent are finding their voice, affirming their identities and pointing out long-ignored (and in some cases, long-denied) contributions to history and culture. All the more reasons to look south when you think about travel.