Tag Archives: Puerto Rico

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.10.13

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

Hong Kong fireworks — © Farang | Dreamstime.com

Wishing peace, health and prosperity to our IBIT friends in China and Chinatowns around the world as they ring in the Year of the Snake on this Lunar New Year.

EAT, DRINK AND GO TRAVEL
Every so often, I go back through old digests of mine to look for recurring themes — and if you’re a regular reader of the IBIT Travel Digest, there’s at least one you’ve spotted already. Nearly every digest, it seems, features at least one mention of food or drink.

So starting today, FOOD & DRINK gets its own section in the digest — and it kicks off with two subjects equally dear to my heart and my tastebuds.

New Orleans was a foodie town long before someone invented the term “foodie.” The word itself is out of favor these days among the blogerati (not that I give a damn), but the NOLA’S flare for flavor will never die.

From its beginnings, New Orleans cuisine has blended a mélange of influences — French, Spanish, Native American, African, Italian, Irish. Starting with the 1980s, though, a new taste fell into the city’s gumbo pot — the flavors of Vietnam.

San Diego was the first American city to receive South Vietnamese refugees en masse following the 1975 fall of Saigon, which made it the first to be exposed to Vietnamese dishes in a big way.It didn’t take long for pho and banh mi, with their fresh ingredients and vibrant mix of flavors, to become staples here.

And for you gumbo purists out there (and you know who you are): Yes, they do put in okra on request.

But while the Vietnamese cuisine tsunami was washing over San Diego, other refugees gravitated to the Gulf of Mexico to resume their lives as fishermen. Inevitably, many settled in New Orleans.

A city that already treated po’boys and gumbo as basic food groups had little trouble embracing pho soups and banh mi sandwiches. And among the Vietnamese and their descendants who grew up in the NOLA, the feeling seems to be mutual, as the New York Times recently discovered.

Today, within an easy drive from my house in San Diego are at least two Vietnamese restaurants whose menu is a mix of Vietnamese and New Orleans Creole dishes, run together by people from both locales. The nearest one features a daily special that includes half a banh mi and a bowl of gumbo.

But the best place to see the result of this marriage of cultures is in the Crescent City itself and you’ll see it below in the inaugural FOOD & DRINK section of the IBIT Travel Digest.

IBIT says: Bon appétit…or perhaps, chúc ngon miệng!

-0-

WILL TRAVEL FOR JAZZ
Back at the turn of the 20th century, as Europe was plunging into the first of its two disastrous world wars, Paris witnessed the arrival of blacks from America, mostly soldiers, who brought with them a style of music Parisians had never heard before.

The Americans called it jazz, and Paris promptly fell in love with it. And as Jonathan Lorie discovered when he went roaming Ernest Hemingway’s old Parisian haunts for London’s The Guardian newspaper, the love still burns.

Jazz may be an American invention — perhaps the best of all American inventions — but there may be no better place to enjoy it than Paris. And as you’ll see in Lorie’s article, there are a lot of venues in the City of Light where you can enjoy it.

Lorie’s piece also links four other famed Jazz Age authors — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Christopher Isherwood and Somerset Maugham — and their jazz hangouts from New York to Germany and even Sri Lanka.

But if all these folks were still around today, they all might leave their hearts in San Francisco. The reason is SFJAZZ, which opened late last month in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

It is the first concert hall in the United States — and maybe the world — built expressly for jazz. It features an auditorium, an ensemble room, rehearsal areas, a digital learning lab, and even a sidewalk cafe.

IBIT says: Hemingway would’ve dug it…once he got used to the no-smoking rule.

-0-

AND FINALLY…
USA Today reports that Kate Hanni, head of the airline consumer organization FlyersRights.org, is stepping down as the group’s executive director, walking away from the outfit she founded in 2006.

You can read the entire USA Today story here.

She formed Flyers Rights after being stuck on the tarmac aboard an American Airlines flight in Austin, TX — for nearly nine hours — and getting little more than lip service from the airline. Her outspoken efforts since then led to federal regulations governing how the airlines handle flight delays.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Hanni didn’t make a lot of friends in the airline industry during her time with Flyers Rights, but she did prove that consumers who organize at the grassroots and speak truth to power can make a difference.

IBIT says: Thanks for all you did, Kate, and all you tried to do.

-0-

And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from the Los Angeles Times
In the eternal hunt for airfare bargains, booking too early can be as costly as booking too late.

from Travel Weekly
You may soon be able to watch in-flight shows and movies on-demand on Southwest Airlines flights, streamed to your own personal electronic devices. That’s the good news. The bad news? You’ll be paying extra for it.

from Budget Travel
A survey of travel agents says that when it comes to booking their clients on connecting flights, Atlanta-Hartsfield is one of their most favorite airports. It’s also one of their least favorite airports. Am I confused? No. I’m just booking non-stops.

from Travel Weekly
Frequent-flier miles…from an airport? Starting in June, the parking, food, merchandise or airport hotel stay you buy at Dallas-Ft. Worth International (DFW) will count toward airline miles.

from FareCompare
When is a “free” airline ticket not really free at all? FareCompare’s Rick Seaney counts the ways, and there are five of them.

LAND
from Condé Nast Traveler
The world’s ten most beautiful train stations, according to CN Traveler, right on time as New York’s Grand Central Terminal marks its 100th anniversary. Some are classic, others ultra-modern, and some brilliantly mix old and new. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
For the third time since it first opened in 1981, San Francisco is set to expand its Moscone convention center.

SEA
from the New York Times
Lust and luxury aboard the Queen Mary 2. Just don’t call it a “cruise.” It’s just not done, you know…

from Travel Weekly
Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s old airport, where almost every landing seemed like an adventure, is returning to the travel business — this time as a gleaming $1 billion cruise ship terminal that can handle the largest vessels in the business, even Royal Caribbean’s behemoth Oasis-class ships.

FOOD & DRINK
from the New York Times
In New Orleans, they know their pho — and their yaka mein. If you don’t know either, read up. WARNING: Your mouth may involuntarily water while reading.

-0-

AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
The Radisson hotel chain opens its first Radisson Blu hotel in Mozambique.

from TechZim (Zimbabwe)
New travel startup, Zimbabwe Bookers, aims to make finding hotel rooms easier for travelers in one of Africa’s growing tourist markets.

from Tanzania Daily News (Tanzania) via allAfrica.com
Tanzania draws up plans to aggressively promote tourism in overseas markets. Its top four markets — Britain, the United States, Germany and Italy.

from Angola Press via allAfrica.com
Angola’s environmental agency building bungalows, other facilities in the country’s national parks in a bid to boost ecotourism.

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
When your mother takes you on a sailing excursion to Central America at the age of six, just the two of you — and it lasts for four years — school field trips may have a hard time holding your attention after that.

from the New York Times
A look at San Juan, Puerto Rico, starting with one of my favorite spots — Condado Lagoon. SLIDESHOW

from The Guardian (London UK)
Are you into “Girls?” I’m referring here to the HBO hit TV series, set in Brooklyn. A look at the neighborhoods that give the show its inspiration.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Washington Post
Singapore spent so many decades living with the reputation of being the straight-laced capital of Asia, that it’s hard to imagine this city-state having a quirky side. But it does have one. Yes, it does.

EUROPE
from France 24
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of…graffiti? The city’s Shoreditch neighborhood is becoming a mecca for lovers of street art.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT Travel Digest 11.25.12

Leave a reply

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

Shopping for Christmas lights, Strasbourg, France | @copy;IBIT/G. Gross

-0-

UNEASY MIDEAST
The so-called “Arab Spring” may have brought political change to North Africa and the Middle East, but it’s bringing little good cheer to the travel industry. The ongoing turmoil in that part of the world continues to make it — justly or unjustly — a no-go zone in the eyes of many travelers.

Travel Weekly reports that between now and next April, Norwegian Cruise Line is dropping Egypt from its 10- and 11-day cruises, scheduling port calls in Istanbul, Crete and Naples in its place.

And NCL came to that decision before Egypt’s new president got involved in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and then tangled with his own nation’s judiciary over sweeping new powers he claimed…for himself.

Bottom line: Many of the countries now being avoided by travelers and travel companies alike may be perfectly safe to visit, but it may be a good while yet before the traveling public perceives them that way.

-0-

AMTRAK RIDING HIGH
Anyone who tells you Americans don’t take trains hasn’t been to a train station lately. IBIT has and I can tell you, they’re busy.

Amtrak’s business year officially closed out on Sept. 30, and it closed on all high notes, starting with this one: 31.2 million passengers for fiscal 2012.

Two things make that number important. First, it’s the highest ridership for Amtrak since it came into being in 1971. Second, it’s the ninth year in a row that Amtrak has set a new ridership mark.

While you’re at it, smoke this over: Between 2000 and 2012, Amtrak ridership has risen by 49 percent.

You’ll find the rest of Amtrak’s glowing figures in the corporation’s press release here.

A lot of airline CEOs would kill for numbers like these. Then again, the misery that is present-day air travel in the United States is a big reason why more people are turning to trains in the first place.

-0-

AND FINALLY
You know those customer-satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power & Associates, the ones that companies always tout in TV commercials to show how wonderful they are? Here’s one you won’t be seeing anytime soon, from anybody.

With hotel business picking up, J.D. Power decided to survey hotel guests. Those guests put the hotel industry on blast. Low-end, high-end, no one was spared:

“Satisfaction with check-in/check-out; food and beverage; hotel services; and hotel facilities are at new lows since the 2006 study and satisfaction with guest room has declined within one point of its lowest level in the past seven years.”

If I’m that guy at Motel 6 and I hear that, I’m leaving the light on because I can’t sleep. How did this happen?

Here’s a clue, courtesy of Travel Weekly’s Arnie Weissmann: Most of the top hotels in the country aren’t owned by real “hotel people” anymore.

They’re owned by private equity companies, which specialize in boosting profits by cutting costs — mainly by cutting staff and lowering service levels — before selling off the business to someone else.

That may be necessary when you’ve got hotels full of empty rooms at the height of a recession, but to keep doing it after your customers start coming back? Not smart, as J.D. Power vice-president Stuart Greif gently points out:

“Hoteliers need to get back to the fundamentals and improve the overall guest experience. Charging guests more and providing less is not a winning combination.”

-0-

And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
Qatar Airways joins oneworld, the world’s number two airline alliance. QA joins Malaysia Airlines and SriLankan Airlines as members-elect. It’s a big deal for Asian air travel and a big boost for oneworld, but the announcement is overshadowed by the ongoing beef between American Airines and its pilots.

from Travel Weekly
The Middle East may still be too hot politically for some travelers, but that’s not stopping three major Persian Gulf airlines from building alliances with European carriers.

from Travel Weekly
Southwest Airlines will start flying this spring from Florida to Puerto Rico. Officially, it’s a simple takeover of existing service from AirTran, which Southwest bought. But as its first air service outside the continental United States, it’s a big step.

LAND
from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pickpockets in Spain, gypsy cabs in Rome and other avoidadable travel scams.

from Travel Weekly
JW Marriott opens the world’s tallest hotel in Dubai. How tall? About eight stories shorter than the Empire State Building in New York. Yep, that’s tall, all right.

from Independent Traveler.com
Lots of folks have tips on how best to travel with kids — but what about traveling with grandkids?

from NBC News
Honeymoons…with friends? Really? Yes, really.

SEA
from Cruise Critic
Cruising for grown-ups. Seven options for sailing without the kids.

from Travel Weekly
Norwegian Cruise Line is going all Grinch on Hawai’i. Seeing strong demand for its Hawaiian cruises, NCL is raising its Hawai’i cruise prices 10 percent starting Jan 1, 2013. Merry Christmas…

from Gadling
Travel insurance is one purchase a lot of cruise travelers try to do without. Don’t. But have a clear understanding of what travel insurance will and won’t do for you.

-0-

AFRICA
from the Ethiopian Press Agency via allAfrica.com
Addis Ababa starting to become a destination for conference travel.

from The Herald (Zimbabwe) via allAfrica.com
The justly famed Victoria Falls are starting to get some serious competition as a tourist attraction from the Mana Pools. Chinese tourists in particular just love this spot.

from allAfrica.com
Citizen of Vietnam caught in Mozambique with a half-dozen rhino horns in his possession. Wonder how to say “You in a heap ‘a trouble, boy!” in Vietnamese?

from Inform Africa
An African looks at our Thanksgiving tradition, and wonders why African-Americans find anything to celebrate.

AMERICAS
from Travel Weekly
If you’re used to paying $51 in airport fees when flying into and out of Antigua, get ready to go a little deeper into your wallet from now on.

from the Los Angeles Times
The Hotel Chimayo de Santa Fe in Santa Fe, NM walks a fine line between respecting an impoverished local culture and providing a successful escape for its visitors.

from USA Today
If you’ve been frightened away from Mexico over the last several years, you can at least think about returning now. The most recent State Department travelers warning about Mexico exempts most of that country’s traditional tourist destinations.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the New York Times
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, is obsessed with good food. For a traveler, that could be a very good thing, indeed.

from the New York Times
A short but worthwhile visit in the city we used to know as Calcutta. Nowadays, it goes by Kolkata.

from The Guardian (London UK)
With a sleek new mountain eco-resort not far from Shanghai in Zhejiang province, China hopes to lure environmentally conscious tourists — and perhaps simultaneously clean up its international image as one of the world’s major polluters.

from France 24
Are the people of Singapore real-world Vulcans a la Star Trek, utterly lacking in emotions (as well as pointy ears)? A US Gallup poll says yes. Even worse, a fair number of Singaporeans seem to agree. It seems they’re too busy making a living to have a life.

EUROPE
from The Guardian (London UK)
A look at the town of Vicenza, one of northern Italy’s under-appreciated jewels, and the creation of one of its most famous architects. A UN World Heritage Site that still manages to slip below the tourist radar.

Edited by P.A.Rice

Leave the bling at home

Leave a reply

Port of Naples, Italy — ©Dennis Dolkens | Dreamstime.com

The death of a 66-year-old cruise ship passenger in Italy during a mugging attempt is a warning about sporting your fine jewelry when you travel.

In almost every travel guidebook written for the past 30 years, experts have been issuing the same warning somewhere in their guidebooks or on their Web sites: Don’t wear flashy or expensive jewelry when you travel.

This, courtesy of the Associated Press via Yahoo!, is the reason why:

ROME – A Naples hospital says a Puerto Rican tourist who was knocked to the ground by muggers trying to grab his Rolex has died, nine days after he was hospitalized with severe head injuries.

El Nuevo Dia photo

Police said 66-year-old Oscar Antonio Mendoza was pushed to the ground by two muggers aboard a scooter after he resisted their attempt to grab his watch shortly after he arrived in Naples aboard a cruise ship on May 18.

Dr. Maurizo Postiglione, head of intensive care at Loreto Mare hospital, told the AP by telephone that Mendoza never regained consciousness after suffering multiple cerebral contusions and despite brain surgery.

Mendoza was strolling with his wife near Naples port when he was attacked.

It turns out that Oscar San Antonio Mendoza (his full name) wasn’t simply a “Puerto Rican tourist.” He was a former member of the legislature in Puerto Rico.

It wasn’t as if Mr. Mendoza and his wife had wandered off into some especially unsavory part of Naples. They were attacked within minutes of leaving the ship, by a couple of thugs passing by on a scooter.

In a perfect world, you’d be able to travel anywhere and wear whatever you wished, without fear of being hassled or assaulted. In a perfect world, a cruise ship passenger could disembark at leisure, confidant that he or she was a perfectly safe environment.

I have no idea where that world is, but I know that I don’t live in it — and neither do you.

In your home environs, your diamond rings, your Rolex watch, may set you apart as someone successful, a person of style and class and taste. A person of means.

When you travel, they mark you as a potential pay-day for a thief.

It doesn’t even have to come to the extreme of mugging. There are unscrupulous people in airports and seaports who have no qualms about rifling baggage, looking for valuable baubles.

Since their start-up in 2001, roughly 500 TSA inspectors have been suspended or fired for stealing from passengers’ luggage. Few have ever been prosecuted.

Will your self-esteem really take that big of a hit if you’re not glittering like Times Square on New Year’s Eve when you travel?

When you’re lying on a gurney in a hospital ER, nobody cares how brightly your diamonds shine.

Unless, of course, they’re looking to steal them while you’re lying there.

If you just have to bring the shiny little pretties, be judicious about how much of them you wear and the time and place you choose to wear them.

For true peace of mind, though, do yourself a favor. Bring your energy, your enthusiasm, your sense of adventure and your open mind with you when you travel.

But leave the bling at home.

POSTSCRIPT
At the time of the attack on Mr. Mendoza, the Naples cruise ship terminal was crawling with ex-cons…with not only the knowledge, but the blessing of city government.

Since 2009, the city of Naples has been hiring ex-felons as tour guides to ensure the safety of cruise ship passengers. It’s called the Escodentro Project, and had actually been credited with reducing crime against tourists around the port.

You can read more about it in the New York Times and The Telegraph of London.

So far, there’s been nothing to suggest that any of these guides was involved in the botched mugging that led to Mr. Mendoza’s death.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

Art student in the Louvre | ©Greg Gross

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

One of the truisms we live by is that there’s safety to be found in numbers. When it comes to travel, there are bargains to be found there, too.

You’ve already got lots of reasons to travel with family and friends. Camaraderie, shared experience, the special bond that grows from tasting new flavors of life with people you know and trust.

I’ve traveled to Europe twice in my life — once to London, once in France. I’ve also gone with a handful of friends on baseball trips to Arizona, the Midwest, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Those were some of the best travel experiences of my life.

But if you play the travel shopping game right, it also can save you a nice chunk of change.

Billie Cohen of the New York Times has some tips on how to save when it comes to group travel, whether you’re looking for bargain airfares, cruises an hotels or tour packages.

Just on general principles, you should always ask about group discounts whenever you plan or book travel, even if you have no immediate plans to put together a group trip. The knowledge could com in handy later on.

To read the New York Times story, click here.

-0-

I’ve always known that you could get a good brew and a decent meal in a British pub, but I only recently discovered that you could spend a night in one.

And that’s without falling a drunken stupor at the foot of the bar.

Many pubs actually have guestrooms where you can spend a few nights. By and large, they’re not very big, but they look to be more than adequate for a night or a weekend, whether in London or in smaller cities and towns around the United Kingdom.

In some of the more upscale “gastropubs,” those rooms can be downright posh, in fact.

A London Telegraph story on some of the better pubs with rooms can be read here.

Granted that a place that looks five-star on its Web site can end up earning a five-roach rating when you see it in person, but I’ve seen enough references to snazzy pub digs to conclude that this is one London lodging option that merits more investigation.

Preferably over a good plate of fish and chips and a good British ale (or two) to wash it down with.

-0-

Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the fear, loathing and bigotry his deeds promoted are still alive and well in the U.S. airline industry.

Two Islamic clerics from Memphis were taken off a Delta Connection flight from that city to Charlotte, NC after being told that the pilot was refusing to fly with them aboard.

What made the pilot freak out? Both were Muslims and both were wearing traditional ethnic dress, one Arab, the other Indian. Both had been screened and cleared by the TSA.

Both were on their way to Charlotte for a conference on …

…wait for it…

…Islamophobia.

You can read the Associated Press story about the incident on the MSNBC site here.

The irony alone is staggering.

-0-

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
Which American airports do more to help you get through the trauma of today’s air travel experience? The Smart Travel folks give you their list of U.S. air terminals where the stress is less. SLIDESHOW

LAND
from the Guardian (London UK)
If you and your bike can get out of London’s nightmarish traffic in one piece, England has some lovely scenic cycling routes for you to enjoy. here are a few of them.

SEA
from USA Today
When it comes to bargain European cruises, the cruise lines giveth — and the airlines taketh away.

from USA Today
A visual tour of the new Carnival Magic. SLIDESHOW

AFRICA
from the Guardian (London UK)
Lesotho is defined by mountains and water. That makes for long drives, strenuous hiking…and some of the world’s most spectacular scenery.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
Why on Earth would anyone want to spend a weekend in Detroit? The NYT’s Jennifer Conlin counts the ways.

from USA Today
The slow-moving flooding catastrophe rolling inexorably down the Mississippi River is drawing awe-struck gawkers and disaster tourists, even as it is forcing regular tourist attractions to close up and evacuate.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the New York Times
Silence is golden everywhere. In Java, it also is exotic.

EUROPE
from the Guardian (London UK)
The 500-mile Christian pilgrimage trail across Spain to Santiago de Compostela &mdah; ironically known in Spanish as the “Camino Franc&eacue;s” or “French Road” — has popular with hikers and the faithful for more than a millennium. An upcoming film starring Martin Sheen figures to make it even more so.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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

© Elifranssens | Dreamstime.com

BOLIVIA, UNDER THE COVERS
It’s an old expression with which we’re all familiar: “Never judge a book by its cover.” When it comes to travel, no nation may fit that saying better than this land-locked South American country.

About the only thing most of us know about Bolivia is that statistically it’s considered the poorest country in South America. We tend to hear that and instantly strike Bolivia from our mental list of desired destinations. Nothing there worth seeing, right?

The folks at Lonely Planet say we couldn’t be more wrong:

“This landlocked country boasts the soaring peaks of the Cordillera Real around Sorata and the hallucinogenic salt flats of Uyuni, the steamy jungles of the Amazon Basin and wildlife-rich grasslands of the Southeast. Unparalleled beauty is also reflected in its vibrant indigenous cultures, colonial cities such as Sucre and Potosí, and whispers of ancient civilizations. “

Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat — larger than the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah or the Cabo Rojo Salt Flats in Puerto Rico. The city of Potosí, which claims to be the highest city in the world, is a UN World Heritage Site.

You’ve got the Andes, you’ve got ruins of the ancient civilization of the Incas. And you’ve got the Uros, indigenous people who predate the Incas and still live on man-made floating islands on Lake Titicaca, which is the highest navigable lake in the world.

For a “poor” place, they’ve got an awful lot to draw the traveler.

But make no mistake, Bolivia is for serious travelers, not casual tourists. Not too many 5-star hotels, cushy resorts, or luxurious rail tours. A lot of the country can be reached only by road, and some of Bolivia’s roads are literally among the most dangerous on Earth.

Bolivia is full of beauty. But it’s a stark, rugged, take-no-prisoners kind of beauty…and it’s going to make you work for it. The payoff at the other end, though, could be memories that last you a lifetime.

All of which makes Bolivia a book you might one day find worth reading. In-depth.

You can read the rest of LP’s views on Bolivia here…and you should.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

from LifeHacker
Do you dread having to pack your good suit? These guys show you how to do it without turning your formal duds into a fierce ball of wrinkles.

AIR
from Frommer’s Travel
When you go searching for airfares, where do you look first? Some of the answers — and some disturbing moves by Google — are revealed here.

from the New York Times
With the airlines escalating their war with online travel sites, it’s only going to get harder for the flying consumer to navigate through the fare maze. The Times folks offer some useful tips to help out.

LAND
from Lonely Planet
Foodie alert! Our friends from LP want to whet your appetite for travel in 2011, so they’ve come up with a list of the 11 best countries in the world to find good food. Six are in Asia, four in Europe and only one in the Americas (HINT: Think carne asada).

from Travel + Leisure via Yahoo! Travel
Does a 5-star hotel shine brighter when it overlooks an ocean? T+L offers up a list of the ten most luxurious coastal hostelries. One even gives you the free use of a Lexus.

from AOL Travel
Enterprise Rent-a-Car is ready to give you a jolt. It plans to introduce the Chevrolet Volt into its vehicle lineup, making it the first rental car company to offer electric cars.

from Gadling
Deals on potentially handy travel gear.

SEA
from The Window Seat
The parade of new cruise ships that began before the turn of the decade continues with a look at five of the newest, biggest and glitziest.

AFRICA
from the New York Times
Where in the world would you return to in a heartbeat if given the chance? The NYT put that question to five of its current and former correspondents, and their answers covered the Earth. Jeffrey Gettleman’s nominee is a hotel in the Congo.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Libera Media
A series of videos on the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. Start with this one on San Telmo, then save the link and enjoy the rest at leisure. English subtitles. En Español.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from National Geographic
Craving adventure? Then pack up your caving gear and head to Vietnam, where they’ve got a cave big enough to hold a block of Manhattan skyscrapers. How big is it really? Who knows? Nobody’s found the end of it yet.

from The Planet D
A globetrotting couple from Canada treat you to some views of China by night.

from the Daily Mail (London UK)
Speaking of China,Shanghai is China’s second city behind Beijing — but don’t tell them that. Shanghai is high-energy and hot times.

EUROPE
from BBC News
A musical map of London, marking well-known locations in the city and the music they inspired from the Sixties to the present. Even if you don’t like any of the songs, or never even heard of them, you have to admit, it’s a pretty cool concept.

from the New York Times
Veteran European travelers will tell you that Versailles is not the only glorious palace that survives from Old Europe. The Times presents for your consideration the Palace of Caserta in Italy.

from Lonely Planet
One guy’s nomination for Europe’s best train trip. You know who I get about trains, but this is 308 miles over, around and literally through the mountains of Norway from Oslo to Bergen. When you’ve got 182 tunnels in 308 miles, you know you’re looking at an incredible ride. And it’s cheap.

from Oneika the Traveler
One of our very own IBIT Out There travelers uses bad weather as an excuse to delve into the traditional souks of Istanbul, Turkey for a slice of Turkish culture, and some serious retail therapy. Bad weather…sure, Oneika, sure!

If Istanbul looks like an interesting destination — and it’s hard to imagine why it wouldn’t, check out the tours available from the Onenation travel agency.

Passports: The 63 Percent Solution

Leave a reply

©Quinton Davis photo

Two out of three Americans don’t have a valid passport. We have the power to change the world, maybe even destroy the world, but two-thirds of us can’t even legally step out and see the world?

That’s just embarrassing.

The good news from our State Department is that after the number of American passport holders dropped by nearly 3 million in 2009, the numbers began to creep upward again last year, albeit by a measly 400,000.

About 114 million of us have passports, which makes us about 37 percent of the population, well above the 25 percent mark that stood for years.

The bad news: That means that 67 percent of us are without a passport. We still have about the lowest per capita rate of passport holders of any nation in the developed world.

In some respects, we may not be as “developed” as we think.

CAN’T GO ANYWHERE
Nowadays, the lack of a passport can be pretty limiting to a person. Forget about seeing any part of Europe, Asia, Africa, Central or South America.

Forget about taking a cruise anywhere, except Hawai’i or maybe one of our quasi-colonies in the world: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

In today’s post-9/11 world, you can’t even drive across the border into Mexico or Canada without a passport or a passport card.

What’s up with this?

We’ve long been living on a kind of cultural island, protected by friendly neighbors north and south, buffered by the world’s two largest oceans to the east and west. Behind those shields, the American nation grew powerful and rich.

We also grew isolated, and a lot of us were just fine with that, so long as we remained powerful and rich.

STUCK ON THE PORCH
One decade into the new century, things are a bit different. Waves of technology — from the telegraph and the airplane to the telephone, the computer and finally the Internet — send information, culture and people back and forth across the planet almost as easily as air travels over water.

No place is out of reach anymore. The world is well on its way to becoming one large neighborhood, joined by commerce and communications.

But here we sit, two-thirds of us afraid to venture off our sheltered cultural porch, fearing and loathing large parts of a world of which we know little or nothing.

Is this how a great nation behaves?

It’s holding us back economically. A lot of the great opportunities today are turning up beyond our shores, but only those who are culturally agile will be able to make the most of them.

It’s also endangering our safety, because our lack of understanding of the world we live in makes it harder for “we the people” to make smart decisions about our dealings with other nations.

OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD
Whether we like it, understand it or not — and let’s face it, we often don’t — we are a part of this world. We need to be able to function it, thrive in it, get along with others in it, take our full and rightful place in it.

And after four centuries of second-class citizenship, that especially applies to black Americans.

There are places in the world where an ambitious young man or woman who’s got the skills and the drive can find success, regardless of their “paint job.” And if you do a little traveling, you’ll see that for yourself.

That’s why I love seeing see talented young black 20somethings and 30somethings making their way out into that world with determined hearts and passports in hand, making names for themselves as students or professionals in virtually every corner of the globe.

In the process, they’re finding that they can more than hold their own, anywhere.

Writing this blog has afforded me the chance to connect with some of them, and through my Out There series, you will, too. They inspire me, and I hope they inspire you. I’m proud of them.

I just wish there were more of them.

Time to step into the sunshine, America…and step off the damned porch.

GET YOUR PASSPORT!
The State Department has a Passports Page with all the information you need to get you started on the process of obtaining a passport. If you have a computer and printer at home, you can print out the application and mail it in, along with a regulation-size photo of yourself and the required fee.

This link from State will show you where you can apply nationwide. You can search by state or city, or just enter your ZIP code.

You also can apply at your neighborhood Post Office, the advantage there being that their fee includes taking your passport photo on the spot, instead of forcing you to make a separate trip.

If you need a passport in a hurry, there are passport agencies that will expedite the process for you — for an additional, naturally. The bigger your rush, the bigger the fee.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

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

© Onestepbeyond | Dreamstime.com

GO SOUTH, YOUNG MAN/WOMAN/CHILD
This winter is shaping up as one to avoid travel north of the Equator, or the Mediterranean, if at all possible.

If you’ve got Christmas/New Year’s travel plans that include Europe, I have three words for you:

“Sorry about that.”

Mother Nature decided this month to give the European continent a blanket for Christmas. A thoughtful gesture, except for one thing. The blanket consists entirely of ice and snow.

The last time Europe saw this much snow, Napoleon was trying to find his way home from the gates of Moscow. It’s enough to make the Abominable Snowman go shopping for space heaters.

And it has unleashed chaos on the road grid, rail networks — and most of all — the airports of Europe.

From London and Belfast, Northern Ireland to Frankfurt, Germany, the number of delayed and/or cancelled flights already numbers in the hundreds. By the time you read this, they may number in the thousands.

In Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport, perhaps 3,000 stranded passengers were forced to spend the night this weekend — and they were among the lucky ones. At London Heathrow, thousands of air passengers didn’t even have that luxury; they were stranded on the tarmac, still in their planes.

Elsewhere in Britain, stranded motorists trapped by ice and snow were forced to sleep in their cars. They may be doing the same in Germany, where traffic on some highways has been backed up as much as 25 miles.

The farther east you go on the continent, the worse it gets. News agencies are reporting nearly 100 dead in Poland alone.

I truly adore European Christmas markets, but this might be a really good year to defer that white Christmas you were thinking about.

Puerto Rico has the only true rain forest in U.S. territory, and the Dominican Republic has some very cool — and very cheap — all-inclusive beach resorts. Down in Rio de Janeiro and Bueno Aires, below the Equator, they’re heading into mid-summer. And Hawaii looks awfully nice this time of year.

Just sayin’.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Budget Travel via Yahoo! Travel
What do snow globes, peanut butter and underwire bras have in common? They can all set off TSA detectors at the airport. Think I’m kidding? Read.

from the New York Times
Airport apps for your smartphones that you can’t — or shouldn’t — be without.

SEA
from Smarter Travel
Is it better to book shore excursions aboard your cruise ship, or book them independently from local operators. Booking on the ship is more convenient. Booking on land saves you money. But there are other factors to consider.

from USA Today
Cruisers love them some Royal Caribbean. Readers of Travel Weekly, a travel industry magazine, chose RC as the world’s best cruise line overall, and gave it top honors in a half-dozen individual categories. Its sister line, Celebrity, pulled down a couple of individual honors of its own.

LAND
from Forbes via Yahoo!
Tis the season to be shopping, and according to the Forbes folks, these are the ten best shopping cities in America. Note that New York City didn’t even make the list.

from USA Today
A list of when and where to get the best price breaks on hotels at major destinations around the world.

AFRICA
from CNN/Inside Africa
Travel books on Africa…written by Africans? A novel concept, to say the least. But a group of African writers is on a pilgrimmage around the Mother Continent with the express goal of making that happen. Their work eventually could change the way the world sees Africa, and the way Africa sees itself.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is developing a thriving arts scene. VIDEO

from the New York Times
Madagascar is not the easiest destination to get around in, but its flora and fauna, much of it found nowhere else on Earth, make it worth the effort.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
If you enjoy reading or writing, you know there’s something especially cool about seeing for yourself the places that inspired your favorite stories. The Chron lists five places in the western United States, most of them in or near San Francisco, that served as the setting for major works of fiction. Think about your favorite readings, and come up with a list of your own!

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Todd’s Wanderings
Ten free things to do in Tokyo, one of the world’s greatest — and most expensive — cities.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Malaysia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Asia, and nowhere is that diversity of culture better reflected than in its food — a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian and its own unique cuisine called Nyonya. Tasty, and if you follow this guide, really inexpensive.

from the BBC
German-style Christmas markets come to Japan. VIDEO

EUROPE
from Associated Press via CBS News
Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, is being opened to tourists by the Ukrainian government some time next year. They swear it’s perfectly safe. They do. Honest.

from Associated Press via Yahoo!
Three years after creating a successful citywide bike-sharing program, Paris is upping the ante in a major way: a car-sharing program featuring 3,000 electric cars, available 24/7 to anyone with a subscription or a credit card, and a valid driver’s license.

America's Castles

2 Replies

Think lavish palaces and imposing bastions are strictly Old World? Think again.

Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA

In our proudly egalitarian American minds, castles are an aristocratic symbol of Old Europe, or maybe ancient Asia. But there are at least two Old World castles here in the New World — and you won’t need your passport to visit either of them.

One is Hearst Castle in California, a few hours’ drive north of Los Angeles. The other is Morro Castle in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The first was a monument to one family’s wealth and power. The other was a massive “We ain’t playin’!” fortress with stone walls 18 feet thick.

Hearst Castle overlooks the southern end of state Route 1, aka the Pacific Coast Highway or — as most Californians know it — Highway 1. You’ve seen this stretch of road in at least a few dozen car commercials on TV over the years, but nothing equals seeing it for yourself.

The drive getting there, from north or south, is literally too lovely for words. If you chose to skip the castle entirely and just keep on going, few who’ve ever driven this highway would blame you.

But don’t do that.

You need to see this place — not just to drink in the incredible opulence, but to touch a big piece of modern American history. In their time, the Hearsts weren’t just major figures in the media. They practically were the media.

There are those who believe, with some justification, that they deliberately used their influence to push the United States into an expansionist war with Spain in 1898.

The movie Citizen Kane, widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, all but made a target of the life and deeds of the family patriarch, William Randolph Hearst.

(It also made a legend out of Orson Welles, who wrote, produced, directed and starred in it!)

If you’re one of those who insists that America has never had its own royalty, what you learn here about the Hearst family just might change your mind.

Even in this era of mega-mansions and MTV Cribs, the splendor and comfort in which the Hearsts lived on this mountain is hard to fathom.

(NOTE: If any of you fans of the old Star Trek TV series feel like you’re suddenly having flashbacks, it’s no surprise. The set for the episode involving the Greek god Apollo clearly was inspired by this pool!)

Morro Castle — El Castillo de San Felipe del Morro in Spanish — was designed to make unwanted visitors to San Juan as uncomfortable as possible, and history shows they did a pretty good job of that.

Britain had Gibraltar. Spain had this place — and she needed it.

Madrid was getting rich off her Caribbean colonies — and just about everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece. Over the centuries, the British, Dutch and Americans would all try taking a bite out of Spain’s Caribbean holdings…starting right here.

Some countries even enlisted pirates to plunder Spanish shipping on their behalf. You know, that whole “plausible deniability” thing?

See? They weren’t really pirates. They were “contractors!” Before there was Blackwater, there was Blackbeard!

Bottom line, this part of the world was no place for a pacifist. Morro’s massive cannons fired iron shot the size of bowling balls, and the Spanish soldiers who manned them were cold-blooded professionals who “handled their business” with deadly precision.

These heavy guns defended San Juan from invasion

England’s legendary sea captain, Sir Francis Drake, found out just how precise in 1595.

Drake, a full-time adventurer and part-time slave trader, figured he could force his way into San Juan with a British battle fleet at his back.

It must’ve been a majestic sight — a classic battle line of galleons under billowing sails, blasting away with their rows of guns.

The Morro garrison, apparently, was not as easily impressed as I am. Taking aim at Drake’s famed ship, the Golden Hind, the castle gunners calmly put one of their giant cannonballs right through his cabin.

Sir Francis took his business elsewhere.

The British got a measure of revenge soon after, storming the castle from the land side, only to have their army so ravaged by disease that they withdrew after a mere six weeks.

Today, the castle is listed as a national historic site by the U.S. Park Service and a world heritage site by the United Nations. It draws some 2 million visitors a year — and nobody gets shot!

The one thing Hearst and Morro castles have in common: You can’t actually drive right up to either of them.

You have to leave your car at the bottom of the mountain near San Simeon and take a tour bus up to Hearst Castle. Even if they let you drive up the mountain — which they won’t — there’s no place for you to park up there.

As for Morro Castle, a decision was made about ten years ago to return that area to its natural state. This led the Park Service to tear up the parking lot in front of the gate. So if you visit, be prepared for a little hike over a long gravel path.

Hearst Castle. Morro Castle. One symbolized power. The other projected the real thing. Both are worth a visit.

Baseball, beaches and the world's coldest beer

3 Replies

The Dominican Republic — one part baseball mecca and one part beach colony, with a ton of Caribbean history and culture thrown in for added flavor.

The island of Hispaniola sits in the eastern Caribbean between Cuba and Puerto Rico. The western third of Hispaniola is controlled by Haiti. The Dominican Republic occupies the rest.

The Dominican Republic sends a steady stream of talent to Major League Baseball. You’d be hard-pressed today to find a National or American League team that doesn’t have at least one dominicano on its roster. One town, San Pedro de Macoris, practically specializes in producing infielders.

The DR also is known for its all-inclusive beach resorts — more than 30 of them at last count. Lodging, meals and just about everything else are included in a single, sometimes staggeringly low price.

But is that all there is to the country? Not by a long shot. The capital city, Santo Domingo contains enough history of the Americas to make it a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Most of that history is packed into the Zona Colonial, where the age of almost everything except the residents is measured in centuries.

For instance, the Pat’e Palo restaurant has been doing business on the same spot for 500 years, which makes it three centuries older than the United States! The Hotel Palacio, where I stayed on a baseball trip a few years back, is a mere 400 years old.

The remains of Christopher Columbus are buried here. At least Dominicans think so. It’s a long story, and a big argument. There’s also a museum where you can see treasure from sunken Spanish galleons.

Even the thoroughfares have history. Calle de las Damas, so named because frilly ladies used to promenade there, is the oldest street in the Americas. It runs just below the perimeter wall of the old Ozama fort, which is not your typical Caribbean bastion.

Most colonial fortresses were erected to discourage pirates; Ozama was built to lure them in. Its buildings were designed to resemble a European church — from a distance. Only when they came into gun range did the pirates learn that the canons of this “church” were really cannons. Oops!

Americans still can’t legally visit Cuba because of the US embargo (although thousands skirt that ridiculous rule annually), but two stretches in the Zona Colonial can give you a sense of what Cuba is like. One is the seaside boulevard known as the Malecon. The other is El Conde.

The Malecon is lined with major hotels, casinos and restaurants overlooking the Caribbean. This is where we encountered a tasty liqueur known as Guavaberry. But don’t go looking for a bottle of this stuff to take home. It’s sold only on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. You can order it online, though.

When the sun goes down, lovers take over the concrete benches on the side of the street closest to the sea. On Sundays, the Malecon is closed to traffic. Kids play basketball and soccer and fly kites in the street, while vendors sell sweets, cold drinks and ice cream.

El Conde is a tree–shaded alleyway in the Zona Colonial lined with restos and shops. You’ll also find the Cubania cultural center, a good place for Cuba Libres, daiquiris, piña coladas and mojitos. This spot was used to simulate Havana in the film Godfather II.

If you’re into jewelry, El Conde also is a good place to find larimar, a stone similar to turqoise — and found nowhere else in the world.

Along both the Malecon and El Conde, you’ll see folks selling pieces of art done in the style of the Taino people, the original inhabitants of Hispaniola. The one thing you won’t find is any trace of the Taino themselves. The Spanish colonizers — and the diseases they brought with them — pretty much wiped them out.

(The decimation of the Taino by the Spanish led to African slaves being brought to Hispaniola, a pattern that would be repeated by Europeans throughout the Americas, including in what eventually became the United States.)

One of the must-sees in Santo Domingo is a restaurant called El Conuco. They specialize in traditional cooking known as criollo. The food is tasty, but that’s not why you go. What makes this place a command performance is the dance they call “bachata in a bottle.”

Baiguate waterfall, Dominican Republic

Bachata is a traditional Dominican music and dance style. The dance is performed by a couple who take turns spinning on one foot, while balanced atop an empty bottle of Cointreau. Think I’m kidding? Take a look!

As with the rest of the Caribbean, the DR is not the best place to be during hurricane season but makes an ideal winter getaway — especially if you live anyplace where it snows. The weather is warm and the Presidente beers are always — and I do mean always — ice-cold. In fact, don’t be surprised if your beer arrives with little chunks of ice stuck to the bottle.

If you’re inclined to rent an SUV and go exploring, the countryside is also tropically beautiful, especially in places like Baiguate, with its waterfalls.

But the most beautiful thing about the DR may be the people who call it home. Bright-eyed, quick to smile, warm and strong in spirit despite the poverty that makes life a struggle for many of them. Ultimately, they may be the nation’s best tourist attraction.

Tis the season…to GO somewhere!

Leave a reply

Condado Lagoon, San Juan, Puerto Rico

If Thanksgiving and Christmas for you are more “Bah! Humbug!” than “Ho, ho, ho!,” take a vacation from it all. Seriously, you can do that.

Not everyone looks forward to “the holidays.” Ice, snow and winds sharp enough to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. There’s all that hassling with holiday dinners and Christmas trees and Christmas lights and presents and Christmas cards and…well, you get the idea.

If the above description makes your skin crawl, if you want to “deck” Santa before he gets out his third “ho!,” you seriously need to readjust your thinking — and your vacation calendar.

Most folks tend to think of winter as the time to dig in — or if they’re looking for their car, to dig out — settle in around the nearest space heater and pray for an early spring. But winter can be a great time for a major getaway.

This is especially true if you’re a baseball fan.

Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic all offer winter–league baseball.

Even better, they play a four-nation championship called the Serie del Caribe. The venue rotates annually among the four countries. You’ll see lots of future stars, mixed in major leaguers.

The Dominican team in particular has the look of a major–league all–star team every year.

But the best show may be the fans. They “represent” their countries with huge national flags and banners, drums, trumpets, noisemakers of all sorts. They paint their flags on their faces, their bodies, even their goatees. The Mexican fans often show up with their own band.

I don’t even know why the Dominican fans bother paying for seats; they scarcely sit down the entire game!

What baseball stadium in the States is going to sell you a piña colada at your seat?

(Note to the guys: The “scenery” in the stands is often quite nice, too! And yes, ladies, that does go both ways!)

Use one of the the DR’s all–inclusive resorts outside Santo Domingo as a base when it’s that nation’s turn to play host and you have yourself a mellow — and fairly cheap — tropical vacation.

There are even more advantages in Puerto Rico, which has lots of beautiful tropical scenery to enjoy, plenty of historic sites and a glitzy nightlife in San Juan. You adventurous types can check out some of the world’s most beautiful caverns in Camuy.

With it being a U.S. territory officially, as much English is spoken there as Spanish. And American citizens don’t need passports here.

Rather not wait until winter to get your game on? There’s always the Arizona Fall League. You get the crack of the bat, the swirl of the margarita, and a nearly total absences of crowds on weekday games. Your beer may cost more than your seat.

Waterfall, El Yunque rainforest, Puerto Rico

If you get nostalgic for winter, just turn on The Weather Channel on your hotel TV mdash; after your dip in the pool!

Not into the tropics? Not a problem. There are plenty of reasons to see London or Paris or Rome in the winter months.

Winter airfares and lodging costs often are lower. January and February may be the cheapest time of the year to travel abroad in the Northern Hemisphere. The price of admission to major attractions also may be lower.

Another advantage — MUCH shorter lines of people waiting to get into to major sights like the Tower of London or the Louvre. Often, there are no lines at all. Hey, if you’re going to be cold, anyway, you might as well get something out of it, right?

But who says you have to be cold? Just head below the Equator, where their seasons are the opposite of ours. Our summer months are their winter, our fall their spring, and so on.

Shorts and short sleeves on Christmas Eve? Believe it!

A place like Buenos Aires, a beautiful, historic city with the atmosphere of Europe and prices closer to those of Mexico but without the public safety issues, could turn winter into your favorite time of year.

Worried about communicating? There’s Australia and New Zealand. The list of Australia’s natural wonders and urban delights in cities like Sydney rival much of the world, and New Zealand’s reputation for natural beauty is international. They also have these crazy jet boat river rides. Ones of these trips may ruin you for water-based theme parks!

One cautionary note about winter travel in the Southern Hemisphere. Because the seasons are reversed, our winters up here are their summers, which may mean that, in some locales, peak-season prices may apply. Shop carefully.

I'm Black and I Travel!

"Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer." — Unknown

Tag Archives: Puerto Rico

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.10.13

the IBIT Travel Digest 11.25.12

Leave the bling at home

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Passports: The 63 Percent Solution

America's Castles

Baseball, beaches and the world's coldest beer

Tis the season…to GO somewhere!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: