Tag Archives: Latin America

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.18.12

1 Reply
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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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 4.9.12

2 Replies

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:

-0-

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.
​
-0-

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.
​
-0-

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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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.

African-Americans to Africa, Part 1

3 Replies

Row of kora players, International Roots Festival, Banjul, Gambia | ©Greg Gross

When it comes to travel to Africa, does black America talk a better game than it plays? In some quarters, especially on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, it may well look that way. FIRST OF TWO PARTS

“Why don’t more black Americans travel to Africa?”

Kwerekwere, one of IBIT’s more prolific commenters (and an even more prolific traveler fluent in multiple languages), put that question to me recently — not long after an African put it to him.

It’s a valid question to ask, and there are a lot of people asking it:

*Airlines that see a potential market which so far has largely not materialized.

*Tour operators and tourism ministers in African countries who’ve long heard the political rhetoric of African/African-American solidarity from this side of the Atlantic, but see it being translated into action by too few black American travelers.

*Black American travel agents who find Africa to be a tough sell to many of their potential black American clients.

Finding an honest politician is probably easier than finding comprehensive, up-to-date statistics on Black American travel, but there are two things we generally know:

  1. The black American travel market is worth at least about $40 billion a year.
  2. Most, if not all of the 54 nations currently found on the Mother Continent would dearly love to break off a bigger chunk of that market than they’re currently getting.

At any given moment, you can find brothers and sisters almost anywhere on the globe, on every continent and in almost every country. And yes, we do visit Africa.

Just not nearly as many of us, nor as often, as one might expect. Which brings us back to the original question:

Why not?

The answers, I think, are financial, practical, cultural, educational. In short, a lot of black Americans view Africa not as a destination, but as a mystery, a puzzle, a challenge.

Short form: A lot of black Americans, even those who pointedly think of themselves as African-Americans, find Africa downright intimidating.

Let’s be real here: As a travel destination, Africa is not easy for Americans, even black Americans who feel an emotional bond to the Mother Continent. It’s not close, it’s not cheap to get there, the infrastructure in much of the continent leaves a lot to be desired.

Then there’s the knowledge gap. Americans, including black Americans, know a lot more about Europe, Latin America and even Asia than we do about Africa.

If you don’t think so, I invite you to check out a series of YouTube videos entitled “Whad’ya Know About Africa?” A young interviewer buttonholes black folks at random and asks questions testing their basic knowledge of the Mother Continent.

The degree of ignorance exposed by the answers ranges from disconcerting to downright embarrassing.

Who is to blame for this? You have your pick of the usual suspects — the schools, the media, “the man,” ad nauseum.

You can also add history to this list. Our blood ties back to the Mother Continent, created by the trans-Atlantic slave trade may be six centuries old, but culturally, Africa largely falls off the radar of most Americans, regardless of their race.

Never having had African colonies as European nations did, and never having fought any major wars in sub-Saharan Africa, we lack the easy familiarity with Africa that is common to a lot of Europeans today. Even our World War 2 battles against the Germans in North Africa didn’t lead to any deep or lasting cultural ties there.

What little a lot of us know about Africa, we learn from the evening news — which means that we know precious little about the Mother Continent, and much of what we do know is distorted, outdated or just plain wrong.

As a result, we think Africa is farther away than it really is, more alien than it really is, more dangerous than it really is. That leaves a lot of black Americans feeling culturally estranged from the land that gave birth to our ancestors.

But there is so much there that makes it worth all the hassles. The history, the heritage, the food, the music, the culture, the wildlife, the environment. It’s a place where you can find sights and sounds found nowhere else, and where you can find parts of yourself you never knew existed.

So you’ve made the decision: You’re going. Now what?

That’s next.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
AFRICA page

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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


BOURDAIN BUZZ
Anthony Bourdain, TV’s favorite antihero/contrarian/rebel-without-an-apron chef, has got a new TV show coming out this fall.

Anthony Bourdain

It’s a spinoff of his successful No Reservations globetrotting gastronomy gig, arguably the most popular show on cable television’s Travel Channel (which offers an amazing variety of shows that seem to have little, if anything, to do with travel).

It’s supposed to be called 24-Hour Layover.

Bourdain — or Tony, as his fans call him — is about as unpretentious and unstuffy as wealthy and world-famous TV chef who never actually cooks anything on TV can get.

And I mean that in a good way.

Oh, you want details about the show? The Huffington Post spilled a few of the beans here.

CELEBRATE JAPAN — AND PRAY
Long before Tokyo became the capital and cultural heart of Japan, that role was filled by Kyoto. Through wars, natural disasters and even Time itself, it remains unshaken and unspoiled.

©Chiharu | Dreamstime.com

July is the month that Kyoto traditionally celebrates the Gion Matsuri, a month-long festival held as part of a purification ritual to satisfy the gods who govern natural disasters — like earthquakes.

Which is likely to give this year’s Gion Matsuri a special poignancy.

Events are scheduled throughout the month, including some spectacular parades, featuring some floats that would put my beloved Mardi Gras in New Orleans to shame — like the one seen here at right.

Kyoto was untouched by this year’s catastrophic earthquake/tsunami in northern Japan and is not affected by the nuclear emergency that followed, so you can travel to this beautiful ancient city without worry.

If you can’t make it there this year, then vicariously jump on that float and send up your own prayers and good thoughts for the Japanese people during this important month in the country’s cultural life.

STRASBOURG IN SUMMER
I first fell in love with Strasbourg about four years ago during the Christmas holidays. I wanted to see how the birthplace of the European Christmas market celebrated Noël, and I wasn’t disappointed. Ever since, I’ve automatically associated Strasbourg, the capital of France’s Alsace region, with long nights, cold days, and hot, spiced wine, vin chaud in French.

But while Christmas may be “the big thing” in Strasbourg, the city and the region surrounding it are just as worthy of a visit in spring and now, in summer, as London’s The Independent points out.

Regardless of which season you choose to visit Strasbourg, getting there is a breeze thanks to France’s high-speed train, the TGV. From the United States, you can fly into Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG), jump on an eastbound TGV without even leaving the airport and be in Strasbourg in a little over two hours of quiet, fast comfort.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

-0-

AIR
from USA Today
The FAA and air traffic controllers agree on new rules to combat excessive fatigue on the job. Hopefully, this means no more controllers falling asleep on duty.

from USA Today
Should babies be banned from First Class on jumbo jets? Malaysia Airlines says “Ya!” (‘yes’ in Malay) — and they’re doing it.

from the Wall Street Journal
Do airplanes cause rain?

LAND
from SOSF.com
That’s short for “Streets of San Francisco Bike Tours.” Think The City is too hilly for fun and comfortable group rides? These folks beg to differ.

from laist.com
And speaking of bikes, can it be that the world capital of four-wheeled neurosis, aka Los Angeles, is finally discovering the bicycle?

from Forbes
The ten coolest places to get your vacation on in Latin America, as seen by a Brazilian travel outfit. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from InnerSea Discoveries
When it comes to cruising Alaska, bigger may not necessarily be better.

from Chris Cruises
The Zumba exercise craze comes to Princess Cruises.
-0-

AFRICA
from Uncornered Market
Want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain? Here’s a breakdown on what you’ll need, and what you’ll need to do.

from allAfrica.com
Namibia opens a self-drive tourism route designed to show off the beauty of the flora, fauna and people of the Okavango River region. It’s one of 61 such routes created on the Mother Continent by an outfit called Open Africa.

from allAfrica.com
Want to get a taste of the caliber of film-making going these days in Africa? Check out The Mirror Boy — shot on location in West Africa. But this isn’t a Nollywood production. It was filmed not in Nigeria, but in the Gambia. Don’t sleep on this one when it comes to the States.

from allAfrica.com
US Embassy: Nigerians wanting to visit the United States have to apply for a visa a year in advance…at least. The reason: more applications than the embassy can handle.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Gadling
If you’re thinking about visiting Cuba, you need professional help. Here’s where you can find some.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mexican chocolate. It’s nothing like the Hershey’s chocolate syrup you mixed into your milk as a kid. It’s way better. How it’s made, how it tastes and the best parts of Mexico to enjoy it.

from Food & Wine via Yahoo! Travel
How and where to stay in or near some of America’s most beautiful national parks — five-star or under the stars, your choice.

from CNN
NOW HIRING: State tourist police in Guerrero, Mexico. REQUIREMENTS: Must be gorgeous.

from France 24
Need a good laugh? Head to Canada.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
If that ultra-modern new high-speed train connecting Beijing and Shanghai leaves you longing for just a touch of the old China, here are a few of the extraordinary things you’ll finding waiting for you at either end of the line that can take you back in Time.

from msnbc
China opens the word’s longest ocean-crossing bridge. How long is it? If you run across it instead of driving, you will have completed a marathon…and change. Officially, it’s 2.5 longer than the old record holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. And the NOLA is already crying foul.

from the Los Angeles Times
An American couple tries to breathe new life into a still wounded Cambodia, one tourist at a time.

EUROPE
from France-Best-Restaurants
You keep hearing about all these fabulous Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, but who knows where actually are? These guys do.

from Budget Your Trip
Ten free things to do in London. Being one of the priciest world capitols on the planet, anything free is worth noting.

from CNN Travel
Despite its economic crisis and turmoil on the streets, Greece is actually expecting tourism to pick up this summer. The source — patriotic Greek-Americans, using their vacation dollars to try to help their homeland.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Bored with bicycling through the wine country in California, France or Chile? How about a bike tour through beer country instead? I’m speaking, of course, about the Czech Republic.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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

Florence, Italy | © Greg Gross

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED
The constantly changing political landscape makes it possible to see incredible places — and meet incredible people — once thought to be off-limits. The result: refreshing new options for the traveler.

One of the fringe benefits of an ever-changing world is that opens up new possibilities to us for travel, to places that would’ve been thought unthinkable only a few years before.

The New York Times offers up one of those in its visit to Damascus, Syria. Long at odds with the United States over Israel under the hard-line approach of its late longtime leader, Hafez al-Assad, Syria has toned things down under the leadership of his son, who replaced him as president.

Syria is no longer on Washington’s terrorism watch list and American travelers are free to go there. The Times pieces gives you an idea of what you’ll find when you go.

I have friends, American friends, who’ve been to Damascus in recent years. The love the place, for all the reasons the Times cities, but in particular for the friendliness of its people.

STALKING THE WILD TRAVEL BARGAIN
There’s no place on Earth where you can’t overspend as a traveler, but according to the folks at The Price of Travel, these 17 countries (five in Latin America, eight in Asia, two in Africa and one in Europe) make it easier to stick to your travel budget, and still have a great trip.

NOTE: It’s always a good idea to keep track of currency exchange rates in any country you plan to visit. Murphy’s Law of Travel states that the value of the dollar in that country will always go down just before you arrive. Mercifully, Monsieur Murphy isn’t always right, but you need to be prepared — just in case he is.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Airfarewatchdog.com
George Hobica holds this truth to be self-evident, that all airline vouchers are not created equal. And he has a chart to prove it.

from the New York Times
Want to escape some of those nasty airline fees (and who doesn’t)? The NYT’s Michelle Higgins has the skinny on all the ways to keep your wallet fat at the airport.

SEA
from Singles Travel Company
If you happened to miss this weekend’s International Cougar Cruise, fear not…there’s another one coming up in April, in the Mediterranean. Who knew that cougars had such range?

LAND
from Frommer’s Travel
Are your skis getting restless? Time to start looking for skiing bargains. The Frommer’s folks have a few.

from Frommer’s Travel
If you prefer your showers warm and unfrozen, the FT crew also offers up a list of five of the best hikes in Hawaii for viewing some of its many spectacular waterfalls. SLIDE SHOWS

(CAUTION: All that wet foliage can make some of Hawaiian waterfall hikes quite slippery, and you may be a long way up. Stay on marked paths, follow all safety guidelines and don’t get too close to the edge looking for that perfect shot.)

AFRICA
from Lonely Planet
The LP crew offers up a tantalizing introduction to Nairobi, capital of Kenya.

from the New York Times
Need another reason to visit Africa? How about examining its influence in our very own art world right here in America? The NYT offers up some examples of that influence already appearing in US art galleries.

AMERICAS
from SFGate.com
San Francisco is still a great place to get crabs…and get your mind OUT of the gutter, thank you! These crabs come out of the bay, they’re delicious…and you can catch them yourself. A tasty bit of local heritage.

from USA Today
A few years ago, New Orleans was a city struggling with high unemployment and high crime. Now, it’s being touted as a great place for a second home. What a difference a hurricane makes…

from Frommer’s Travel
Not every tantalizing island getaway is in the tropical western Pacific. The incredibly long coast of the South American continent offers several. SLIDE SHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the New York Times
On Malaysia’s Penang Island, the old city of George Town is undergoing something of a revival, two years after being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

from MacauStag.com
What happens in Vegas stays in…Macau? This former Portuguese colony off the Chinese mainland is known as “the Las Vegas of Asia” for a reason. Several reasons, actually, a few of which are hinted at on this Web site.

EUROPE
from CheapOAir
Five things to do in Madrid. VIDEO

from Entree to Black Paris via Facebook
The 20th arrondissement is home to the Centre George Momboye, named for its founder, an expatriate fro the Ivory Coast who offers 50 courses a week in drumming and dance styles from almost everywhere in Africa.

from the New York Times
As we travel, so do our cultures. Witness the passionate culture of Argentine tango, going strong in Berlin.

from USA Today
It looks as if the British have caught our Fear of Terror bug: Tours of the world famous Big Ben are now restricted to British citizens only. No foreigners allowed.

In search of God

Leave a reply

An individual quest becomes a multibillion-dollar travel industry

Approach to St. Paul's Cathedral, Vatican City, Palm Sunday 2009 | © Greg Gross

How far would you go — in statute miles — to find God? Every year, everywhere, millions of people around the world go looking

Whether seeking enlightenment, lending a hand in a crisis, a chance to touch history or just to share faith and break bread with those of the same mind, what most think of as something intensely personal is now a big business. Very big. Recession or no recession.

Christians of all stripes annually descend not only on the historic Holy Land, but travel across the globe to connect with fellow Christians on every continent. Any date on the calendar of religious significance to Christians is likely to find Vatican City packed with millions of people.

They also go abroad as volunteers, either to lend in hand in disasters such as the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, or as part of longer-term efforts in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Jews from around the world pilgrimage to Israel. A hajj to Mecca (if financially able) is one of the five requirements of a devout Muslim. And Mormons are legendary for their missions.

Travel agencies have gotten hip to this, and some of the bigger ones are now offering religious tours and packages to almost anywhere in the world.

Religious travel even has its own trade groups — the World Religious Travel Association in Lexington KY, for one. They calculate the value of the religious travel market at $18 billion a year.

I don’t have the statistics to prove it, but I suspect that figure is underestimated — by a lot.

In turn, religious organizations are making themselves heard in the travel world. Two groups — the National Council of Churches and Church World Service — are among the folks pushing on the Obama administration to lift the U.S. travel restrictions against Cuba.

A Global Passion

A passion play is a stage drama depicting the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. It’s performed across the United States and around the world.

It’s also how the world has come to know the little Bavarian town of Oberammergau, Germany. From playing the roles and performing as musicians and singers to building the sets and making the costumes, some 2,000 people take part in it. There are only about 4,000 people in the whole town.

They do this but once every ten years, but not because of the massive effort and sacrifice required. It’s all about a 400-year-old deal with God.

Back in 1635, when Europe was being ravaged by the Black Death, bubonic plague, the villagers swore to put on a passion play every ten years if He would spare them. Apparently, He did…and the town has been keeping its end of the bargain ever since.

Today, the passion play of Oberammergau draws visitors worldwide. Packages are reserved months, even years in advance. “Last-minute” travel packages a “mere” month ahead are still available from outfits like Gate 1 and Passion Play Tours, among many others. Just do a Google search on “passion play tours.” You’ll find dozens.

This year’s passion play travel will almost certainly be complicated by the ongoing air travel disruptions due to ash from the recent Iceland volcano eruptions. But that same disruption also could generate some cancellations that could give you a chance to slip in and catch this remarkable mass act of faith.

Or you could wait until 2020.

The United States — a mixed welcome

2 Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Costa Rica? Botswana? The Seychelles? Fiji?

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

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

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

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

RETALIATION
Why is any of this your problem?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Medical tourism

3 Replies

Spanish colonial tax house, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

For many travelers, surgical procedures are becoming an excuse to vacation in distant lands. But if EVER there were a case of “let the buyer beware,” this is it.

Every day, somewhere in the world, some American unpacks their bags in a foreign country to start their vacation — and prepare for surgery. It’s called medical tourism, and Americans by the hundreds of thousands are literally buying into it.

Hospitals around the globe are actively seeking American patients whose bank accounts will never be confused with those of Donald Trump — and they’re exploiting the fact that their countries also happen to be among the world’s more popular tourist destinations.

What places am I talking about? Try:

  • Argentina
  • Canada
  • Costa Rica
  • Cuba
  • Hong Kong
  • India
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • New Zealand
  • Philippines
  • Singapore
  • South Korea
  • Thailand



Surgery and suntans
In some 50 countries around the world, Americans are getting everything from cosmetic surgery to life-saving procedures, all for a fraction of what they would pay back home.

A coronary bypass that might equal the cost of a four-bedroom house in California may set you back only $10,000 in India — and that might well include a post-surgery vacation package and your round-trip airfare.

What’s more, for the money spent, tourist-patients often receive a level of medical care that would leave their hometown hospitals slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are investing millions to create state-of-the-art medical centers. Guest houses and other lodging have sprung up specifically to serve medical tourists.

Then, there are facilities that combine both those functions.

One example is the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand. You may have to look twice to confirm that you’re even in a hospital. Blue Cross of South Carolina thought enough of Bumrungrad to add it to its network of hospitals.

You think a U.S. insurance company is going to include a malpractice magnet as part of its own network?

Increasingly, there are web sites designed to walk people through the process of finding facilities and physicians overseas, even helping with travel arrangements. One example of such a site is Planet Hospital.

In a sense, medical tourism is as old as recorded history. Centuries before that term was coined, ancient Romans journeyed to “spa towns” in England, France, Italy, Germany and what is now the Czech Republic to drink and soak in their healthful springs.

For many years, until the wait times to cross the border became just too oppressive, my own optometrist was in Tijuana. For decades, Americans have gone down to Mexican border towns — not for trinkets, but for dental work.

Today’s medical tourism has gone far beyond the spa town. The treatments you can buy for yourself cover the entire spectrum of modern medicine, including psychiatry.


THE COMING THING?
There are those who predict that medical tourism will soon be embraced by both government and the health insurance industry in this country.

As with anything else, there are tradeoffs — especially if something goes wrong with your care. The rest of the world isn’t nearly as lawsuit-happy as we are. Lacking the need for hugely expensive malpractice insurance is one reason why medical care is so much cheaper overseas.

The flip side of that means that if Dr. Idun No in the Republic of Idontunderstan reattaches your lip where your ear should’ve been, your prospects for winning a huge malpractice judgment may range from slim to are-you-kidding?

The country’s political stability matters, too. I mean, do you really want to go under general anesthesia when there’s a coup d’etat going on outside?

There also is the potential for some localized resentment. In Thailand, for instance, so many doctors are rushing to cater to foreign patients that locals can have a hard time getting care.

Even so, studies have been done showing that 750,000 Americans left the United States to seek medical care in 2007, a figure that was expected to double last year, and could multiply by a factor of ten over the next decade. A Gallup Poll from earlier this year suggests that nearly 30 percent of Americans are willing to go outside the United States for health care.

Maybe if we had a true national health insurance system, as nearly every developed country in the world does, none of this would be necessary. But, we don’t, so—

WHO SCREENS THESE PLACES?
But how can you be assured of getting quality health care abroad? If ever there were a time for the buyer to beware, this is it.

Luckily, you’ve got some allies there.

There are accrediting agencies that check out these hospitals and give them their stamp of approval…or not. Among the better known and more credible of these are the Joint Commission International in the United States and the Trent International Accreditation Scheme in the United Kingdom. There also is an umbrella group for international accrediting agencies, the International Society for Quality in Health Care, based in Ireland.

Cheryl Clark, good friend, veteran medical writer, and now senior editor for HealthLeaders Media, has some added suggestions:

* Make sure that the doctor who’s going to do your procedure is board-certified in that field (this is something you probably should do anywhere, even at home).

* If your procedure is going to require transfusions, ask lots of questions about the hospital’s blood supply and where it comes from.

* Make sure the anesthesiologist is going to be on hand throughout your procedure.

* Last but not least, be certain that the facility where your procedure is going to be done has a full-fledged emergency room — or has a good working agreement with a hospital that does — just in case something goes wrong.

So, like anything else involving travel, do your homework before you commit your body to something like this. On the other hand, if the choice for your post-surgical recuperation is a condo in Omaha or a beach chair on the Copacabana, well…