Tag Archives: Thailand

The IBIT Travel Digest 10-22-12

Leave a reply

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

James Bond Island, Thailand

© Ihar Balaikin | Dreamstime.com

The latest James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” is now blowing up (almost literally) in theaters worldwide. 007 has been a lot of places for Queen and country these past 50 years — which locations were your favorites? London’s The Guardian offers up a slideshow of their must-sees. Does their list match yours?

The one that really set my imagination racing was Khow-Ping-Kan on Phang Nga Bay in Thailand, seen above. This was the climactic location for “The Man with the Golden Gun,” one of the lesser flicks in the Bond series. These days, a lot of people just call it “James Bond Island.”

A sight like this could make me happily forget all about Bangkok, at least for a day or two.

-0-

In its ongoing efforts to swallow the Earth whole, Google has bought up the Frommer’s travel brands — all of them — for an undisclosed price. This after buying the Zagat restaurant review publishers.

What all that means for the traveling consumer remains somewhat unclear. It’s unlikely that what you see online or on book shelves from these two well-known travel publishing names will look or feel any different in the near term. But as we all know, things change.

Will Google insist on putting its stamp on its new travel possessions, or will it be content not to fix what wasn’t broken? Stay tuned.

-0-

IBIT doesn’t offer a Travel Outrage of the Week feature. If it did, this might top the list.

There are reports out of San Francisco that the local Travelodge motel recently refused the credit cards of famed New Orleans funk band The Meters Experience on the grounds that they are black.

And no, that’s not a misprint, nor did you misread it.

You can read the entire story yourself at SFWeekly here. For a more detailed report on the incident, go to the NOLA.com story here.

It really shouldn’t make any difference, but it’s not as if we’re talking here about some garage band composed of a bunch of high school kids with delusions of grandeur. The Meters are a New Orleans institution known around the world. Its guitarist, Leo Nocentelli, is a nominee for the 2013 class of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

I have emailed the Wyndham Hotel Group, which owns the Travelodge chain, asking it for clarification and its side of the story. Whatever I get in response will be published here.

There’s no indication that the motel clerk or manager even tried to verify whether the credit cards were valid, a swift and simple process that hotels and motels conduct routinely with all hotel and motel arriving guests millions of times a day around the world. Instead, if the initial reports are correct, the Travelodge people took one look at these black musicians and said, “Forget about it!”

Why are we still having to deal with this kind of treatment in 2012?

ADDENDUM
I emailed Christine DaSilva, a spokeswoman for Wyndham Hotel Group, about this situation. Here’s a portion of what she had to say:

“Hi Greg,
Thanks for checking in with me – not everyone that’s written about this allegation has done that, and it’s greatly appreciated.

As you can imagine, we are deeply troubled by this allegation. We invite every individual regardless of ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation or generation to experience our products and services, and we are troubled that the guests’ experience didn’t reflect our values.

“Please rest assured that we have been looking into this situation and are handling it directly with the franchised property’s owner as well as the guests.”

Sounds like Wyndham’s on the case. I suspect that a certain Travelodge property manager in San Francisco is going to be put in check…bigtime. And that’s exactly as it should be.

And now, here’s the rest of The Digest:

AIR
from ABC News
This is the sorry state to which US airport security has sunk: A list of the 20 airports in this country where a TSA inspector is most likely to steal something out your luggage. It sounds like the punchline of a bad joke, but it isn’t. The joke’s on us.

from SmarterTravel
Seven simple ways to get yourself kicked off an airplane. SLIDESHOW

from Travel+Leisure
If you’re flying out of any of these ten US airports, you’d be well-advised to a) get there early and b) not schedule your connecting flight too tightly. These Tardy Ten are notorious for flight delays.

LAND
from Travel Weekly
According to the numbers the US Travel Association fished out of the US Labor Department, travel has become a major source of new jobs in America. Guess you can’t outsource Disneyworld, can you? It’s also a growing source of cash. Foreign visitors dropped $82 billion in the US in the first half of 2012, an 11-percent increase over last year. So when you see that foreign tourist in your town, be nice. Be very nice.

from the New York Times
In Manhattan, home to some of the priciest hotels on Earth, a decent room for $150 or so a night constitutes a good deal. This guy tells you where and how to find seven of them.

from Travel Weekly
Which would you rather pay for at your hotel — your breakfast, access to the hotel gym or your in-room Internet access? US hotels are making the choice for you.

from Travel Weekly
At the San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel, they really give a hoot. Lots of hoots, in fact. Nesting barn owls, it seems, love the place.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Here’s an idea from Carnival Cruise Lines. Want to get your cabin early, have priority dinner seating aboard ship, be first in line to embark or debark? Easy. Just pay an extra $49.95 per cabin. And you thought the cruise industry wasn’t paying attention to the airlines and their add-on fees.

from Travel Weekly
Bermuda is starting to fall off the cruise ship industry’s radar. Royal Caribbean is the latest to cut back.

-0-

AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
Egypt reopens a major stretch of the Nile River to cruise ships.

from Wilkinsons World
Sitting off the coast of Namibia, Shark Island today is a wildlife preserve and resort. But a century ago, it served a very different purpose. Long before the Nazis came into being, the Germans created the world’s first death camp on this island…to exterminate Africans.

AMERICAS
from Travel Weekly
Go to Mexico, get well? Mexican tourism officials are pushing the nation’s capital, Mexico City, as a medical tourism destination. Meanwhile, they’re also looking at giving small groups of visitors exclusive access to historic sites like Chichen Itza — for a fee, of course. Ever dreamed of having a pyramid all to yourself?

from the New York Times
In Portland, OR, the gritty old industrial area on the east side of Willamette River is going upscale. Check it out while it’s still both fun and relatively affordable. SLIDESHOW

from the Los Angeles Times
Before it was America’s 50th state, Hawaii was a sovereign state, an independent kingdom with its own royalty. The LAT’s Catherine Hamm shows you where to go to dive into the Hawaiian history your mainland teachers left out of their lessons.

ASIA
from Travel Weekly
Europe isn’t the only part of the world where river cruising is taking off. Aqua Expeditions, which operates Amazon River cruises in South America, has its sights fixed on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia.

from the Los Angeles Times
A generation ago, Da Nang was known to the world mainly as a gigantic US Marine base during the Vietnam war. Today, it’s Surf City East.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
The competition for the European river cruise market is heating up. After watching the Viking line add fresh new ships left and right, Uniworld is firing back with plans for two new ships of its own.

from the New York Times
The Belgian city of Antwerp, which first gained wealth and power as a 16th-century port city, is undergoing a revival.

from the New York Times
Wine lovers know all about Spain’s Rioja region, and for good reason. But there’s a lot more to Rioja than just great wines. There’s great food to go with them.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 4.22.12

2 Replies

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

©James Vallee | Dreamstime.com

​AIR
AIRPORT APP
You’re at the airport, with hours to kill before boarding, but your laptop’s battery is running low. Ever wish there were a smartphone app that could not just tell you, but show you where the electric outlets are in your particular airport terminal?

Well, according to the folks at TNOOZ, there is one — or soon will be. It’s called AirportPlugs.

It’s stil in beta test mode, and so far, it’s only set for five airports in the western United States, but you’ve got to love the concept. Can’t wait to see how it looks — and performs — once it’s ready to go.

DON’T TEXT AND FLY
It was bound to happen: An Australian airliner blew a final approach into Singapore’s Changi airport recently. The reason: Instrument interference from the pilot’s cell phone, which he later said he’d forgotten to turn off.

It forced the crew to declare a “missed approach” and go around for a second landing attempt, which is serious business at any airport and led to an official inquiry.

They’re lucky Alec Baldwin wasn’t in the cockpit; the plane might’ve crashed.

CHARGING FOR CARRY-ONS
Allegiant Airlines has become the second air carrier in the United States to charge passengers for stowing carry-on luggage in the overhead bins.

Spirit Airlines, not the most passenger-friendly carrier in the industry, started this nonsense back in 2010. Two years later, Allegiant has seen fit to follow suit. Allegiant president Andrew Levy calls this latest add-on fee part of “an ongoing effort to develop an innovative, new approach to travel.”

I have my own terms for this kind of “innovation,” but I try not to use that kind of language here on IBIT.

-0-

from the New York Times
Take advantage of the federal government’s express check-in programs to speed past security lines. You’ll have to pay for them, but the time saved — and aggravation avoided — just might be worth it.

from the Washington Post
Even as those federal express check-in programs take hold, however, one of them may already be on shaky ground. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s from the TSA. What a surprise…

from USA Today
For the airline business, rising fuel costs are becoming like Jason in all those Friday the 13th horror movies, a killer that won’t go away.

​from msnbc
A TSA inspector at Dallas-Fort Worth airport finds an envelope with $9,500 in cash inside…and not only turns it in, but tracks down its owner and returns it to him. There may be hope for this outfit yet.

from CNNgo
Is airline code-sharing dead? The head of an up-and-coming low-fare Asian airline says yes, among other things.

​LAND ​
RENT THY NEIGHBOR’S RIDE?
It was Airbnb that really launched the idea of couch-surfing, travelers saving money by renting rooms in private residences instead of more expensive hotels or even hostels. Now, there’s a new site called Getaround that’s trying to do the same with cars.

It’s still in beta, but it’s a beta worth looking at.

Basically, Getaround connects people looking to rent a set of wheels with individuals willing to rent out their own vehicles by the day or even the hour. It claims to screen the renters, and even provides insurance. The renter gets cheap local transportation. The car owner gets paid.

Couch-surfing…say hello to car-surfing.

-0-

from the New York Times
With travelers able to hunt for bargains and book their own trips online, travel agents looked to be headed for extinction, but it’s not panning out that way.

from USA Today
Five smartphone apps that literally could save your life when traveling overseas.

from CNN Travel
Climate change is gradually turning Greenland into a tourist hotspot. Why? Because so much of its ice has melted that you can actually see the place.

SEA ​
ANOTHER CRUISE FAIL
The cruise industry has taken yet another hit with reports that the cruise ship Star Princess ignored a drifting fishing boat desperately signaling for help, even after passengers pointed out the stricken boat to a member of the cruise ship’s staff.

By the time help finally reached the boat, two of the three men on board were already dead from hunger and dehydration. In its subsequent apology, Princess said word of the crippled boat never reached the captain nor the officer of the watch.

Do you buy that? Modern cruise ships have powerful radars to detect surface traffic, and bridge officers with binoculars whose job is to scan the waters around them. It shouldn’t even have been necessary for someone to tell the bridge crew about the fishing boat and its frantically waving victims.

When your passengers are more conscientious than your crew, you’ve got a problem.

-0-

​from USA Today
If you’re leaving from Seattle on a cruise and need a place to stay before you embark, these hotels come with a “cruise concierge” to help you out.

from USA Today
What do you get when you subject a 15-year-old cruise ship to a $54 million makeover? In the case of Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas, you get a virtually new ship.

from msnbc
With the cruise lines trying to shore up sales in the midst of a problematic year, this might be a good time to score some serious bargains on cruises to the Bahamas.

​AFRICA ​
CRUISING INTO THE FUTURE?
Quiet as it’s kept, the coast of West Africa has enormous potential as a cruise venue, and some folks are positioning themselves to make the most of it.

Already there’s an outfit called G Adventures offering 27-day all-inclusive cruises between Cape Town, South Africa and Dakar, Senegal.

In both time and money, the G Adventures cruises are out of reach for a lot of travelers for now, but they show what’s possible once more competition and more West African ports enter this market.

It’s not hard to envision a great circle trip from the United States — a flight to Cape Town, a cruise with stops along the West African coast, then a flight home from Cameroon, Nigeria or Ghana, perhaps.

It’s going to happen. You watch.

-0-

from IOL Travel
In South Africa, the Protea Hotel Ranch Resort will let you walk with a pride of what it calls “disciplined and well-trained” lions, including three rare white lions. The lions will even let you hold their tails while you walk with them. Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

from Eyewitness News (South Africa)
South Africa has some of the world’s best surfing. Unfortunately, it also has some of the world’s most dangerous sharks.

from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
The government is urging Kenyans to embrace wildlife conservation as a way of boosting the country’s tourism.

from ​The New Times (Rwanda) via allAfrica.com
Another sign that tourism in Central Africa is on the rise: Expedia is expanding its presence in Rwanda.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
AGRITOURISM: A GROWING ATTRACTION IN HAWAII
There’s always been more to Hawaii than pristine beaches, towering waterfalls, volcanoes and big waves. Even the most casual tourist can’t help but notice everything from pineapples to poinsettias, coconuts to coffee beans, just growing wild along the sides of the roads.

It’s as if the islands were a giant collection of farmers markets.

Now, the phenomenon known as agritourism is turning Hawaii’s agriculture into a growing tourist draw in its own right. Farmers markets. Ranch tours on horseback.

And the souvenirs are delicious.

A NEW MONUMENT
Near Monterey on the central California coast — one of the most gorgeous stretches of the Golden State — more than 14,000 acres of federal land that once belonged to the Army’s Fort Ord installation have been designated by the Obama administration as a national monument.

If hiking, mountain biking and camping on rolling hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean sound like your idea of a good time, you’re going to love this place. The fact that you can take one of the world’s most scenic highways to get there — California’s famed Highway 1 — doesn’t hurt, either.

-0-

from the New York Times
Need a reason to visit Bend, OR? If you love lots of good, locally-crafted beers, you’ve already got one.

from USA Today
For those who don’t find the Las Vegas Strip exciting enough, a zipline is being planned between the Luxor and Excalibur resorts, apparently high enough and close enough to McCarran airport that the FAA had to sign off on it first.

ASIA/PACIFIC ​
REAL LIFE, CHINESE STYLE
If you’re like me, you don’t just want to see “the sights” when you visit a different country. You want to get a feel for what real life looks like — or used to look like — before modernization swept over everything.

If you’re in Beijing, China’s sprawling capital, that means you’ve got to check out a hutong, a traditional Chinese neighborhood.

Many have been torn down to make way for high-rise apartments and office towers, while others are runddown, but a relative handful survive as well-maintained communities and are open to visitors. This slideshow from CNTV lists some of the best to visit in Beijing.

-0-

​from CNNgo
At the Bamboo Nest guesthouse in the mountains of Chiang Rai in Thailand, bamboo is everything. and I do mean everything. SLIDESHOW

from CNNgo
Want to play soldier? Then put down the remote, put on your cammo gear and head for the jungles of Thailand, where the Royal Thai Army will put you behind the trigger of an M-16 assault rifle or the controls of a tank. As real as it gets, including the insects you’ll be eating for dinner.

EUROPE ​
CATALUNYA: VISITORS UNWELCOME?
Spotted this on the TypicallySpanish.com site. Check out what this commenter has to say about Catalunya, a semi-autonomous region where people have a reputation for being fiercely proud of their Catalan heritage:

“…here, not only do most of those involved with tourists refuse to speak English (apologies but it is recognised as the ‘World’ language) – most insist on not speaking Spanish!!! It’s a case of ‘if you can’t be bothered to speak Catalonian, then I can’t be bothered with you, wherever you happen to be from!’ “

If this is true, it’s a real problem for Catalunya and for Spain in general. This is the kind of word-of-mouth advertising no country can afford, especially one in the midst of an economic crisis.

-0-

from The Telegraph (London UK)
Speaking of Spain, an extensive guide to the Andalucia region sponsored by the Spanish tourism folks. Extensive and potentially useful.

from The Guardian (London UK)
The tiny Greek island of Kalymnos is carving out a niche for itself as a destination for climbers and cavers.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Europe has a vibrant, diverse music scene, and that extends to its summer music festivals.

Edited by P.A.Rice

LA travel wars, Round 2

Leave a reply
LA travel show

2011 LA Travel & Adventure Show | ©IBIT G. Gross

Los Angeles is set to kick off its second major travel trade show in two weeks. They’re gonna make me lose my MIND up in here!

You’ve heard of Star Wars, Storage Wars, Shipping Wars, even Monster Bug Wars. To that semi-illustrious list, you can now add:

Los Angeles Travel Show Wars.

The opening shot was fired two weeks ago at the annual Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show. Only this “Los Angeles” show was actually held at the Long Beach Convention Center.

This weekend, the Los Angeles Times Travel Show kicks off its debut exhibition at the Los Angeles Convention Center, right next-door to the Staples Center, where Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers hang out.

For me, shows like this are an exercise in information overload. It literally takes me months to process and write about all the interesting, important and valuable things I learn from the speakers and exhibitors from just one of them.

Now, Los Angeles is going to hold two, two weeks apart? If you see white smoke in the sky this weekend, it won’t be coming from the Vatican. It’ll be coming out of my ears.


IF YOU GO
WHAT: The Los Angeles Times Travel Show (see Program Schedule here)
WHERE: Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015
WHEN: 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday
COST: Tickets $10 ($2 off if you buy early online). Kids 16 & under free.
Parking $15 a day at the convention center lots, no in–and–out privileges.

For the last few years, the Los Angeles Times teamed up with Unicomm LLC to put on the Travel & Adventure Show, one of a series of such shows Unicomm holds around the United States.

For reasons I don’t yet know, the Times decided to break off and start doing their own thing. Unicomm took theirs to Long Beach; the Times opted to stay in LA.

Round 1 took place the weekend of Jan. 14-15. From Unicomm’s standpoint, it appears to have been pretty successful, well-attended both days. Prominent in the crowds were young brothers and sisters, as well as black families with their children in tow, a sight that definitely warmed my heart.

Now, the Times is up to bat with its travel show this Saturday and Sunday. Round 2 coming up.

THE GDDFATHER
The highlights of all such shows are the featured speakers, and there’s none bigger than the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer. He never fails to pass on valuable, money-saving advice, but his love and enthusiasm for travel may be worth even more than his tips.

I mean, the man is 80-something years old, he’s been writing travel guides since the end of World War II, and he’s still traveling the globe with the same spirit he did when he was half my age.

Arthur Frommer is who I want to be if I ever decide to grow up. He’ll be speaking on Saturday.

Rick Steves, the European travel maven of American public television, also will be back. He’s a big one for getting off the beaten path and off the tourist bus, two ideas I heartily endorse. But it’s his sheer love for Europe, more than anything else, that will make you want to start packing.

This being an LA Times show, you know there will have to be some journalists involved. TV’s Lisa Ling will be speaking, as well as some of the Times’ own travel staffers, chief among them my good friend, Christopher Reynolds, who’s been to almost as many places as Arthur Frommer.

In addition to the speakers, there are the exhibitors, hundreds of them, from virtually every corner of this cornerless world.

But for all the presenters who will be in Los Angeles this coming weekend, there are plenty who won’t be. Why? Because they were in Long Beach two weeks ago. A representative of South African Airways broke it down for me.

“A lot of people you see here came all the way from their home countries for this show,” she said. “They can’t afford to hang around for two weeks and put up another booth in Los Angeles.”

Which is why there’s a sizable number of exhibitors whom you won’t be seeing this weekend, including South African Airways.

The flip side, of course, is that there are exhibitors whom you didn’t see in Long Beach whom you will see this weekend in Los Angeles, and all of them will be worth a visit. But there are a few in particular that hold special interest for this traveler.

A RAINBOW OF CULTURES
One is Afro-Brazil Tours, which specializes in tour of Brazil’s Salvador Bahia region, where the heart and soul of Africa still beats in every aspect of the Brazilian culture.

And naturally, I have to hit up the folks at Fulani Travel, a British outfit that offers tours to 13 countries in North, East, West and Central Africa.

Are you surprised that African travel companies will be “in the house” in Los Angeles? They were in Long Beach, too, and for good reason: Southern California sends more travelers to the Mother Continent for recreational travel than any other region of the United States.

I’m also interested in meeting the folks from the Azerbaijan Tourism Association.

Azerbaijan for years was one of those obscure republics under the shadow, if not the heel, of the former Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire went bankrupt and dissolved back in 1991, Azerbaijan was able to step out of that long, red shadow and show its true face to the world.

It’s one with a rich cultural heritage, a portion of which is tied directly to the legendary Silk Road.

LOTS OF ASIAN TRAVEL
Another outfit that interests me: Ceylon Express International, for a couple of reasons. For one, it offers tours not only to Asia destinations, but to Ethiopia. How many Asian travel companies do you suppose include Africa in their offerings?

The other reason: It offers tours to Sri Lanka and Myanmar, two destinations back in the world’s travel sights after years of being “off the grid — Sri Lanka because of a terrible civil war and Myanmar because it was a military dictatorship with human rights “issues.”

Peace has returned to Sri Lanka, and Myanmar — the country we used to know as Burma — appears to have cleaned up its act, to the point that the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Yangon (or as my generation grew up calling it, Rangoon) only last week.

Both countries are awash in tropical beauty and fascinating culture, as well as wrenching poverty.

There will be plenty other Asian travel exhibitors here, too, just as there were at the Long Beach show. Asian nations are pushing hard on their tourism at shows like this, and have been for the last several years.

Taiwan is consistently one of the biggest sponsors of all these shows and it hits you with a mega-presentation literally as you walk through the door. It did it two weeks ago in Long Beach; I fully expect it’ll do it again in LA.

China also will be “in the house,” as will Japan, still struggling to rebuild its tourism after last year’s earthquake/tsunami disaster.

Korea, Guam, India, Singapore, Thailand, Fiji, Malaysia and more — they’ll all be there to “represent.”

For you who want your adrenalin-overdose thrills closer to home, there’s…Extreme Tornado Tours? Oh…uhhhh, okay!

According to Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning, the paper wanted to place a special emphasis at this year’s show on family and kid-friendly travel, so you’ll see exhibitors specifically devoted to that, along with a special kids area. You’ll also see a Cruise Pavilion, dedicated to cruise travel, and a Travel in Style Pavilion, focusing on luxury travel.

If you can’t be in Southern California this weekend, check out IBIT for the reports I file from the convention center as the Los Angeles Times Travel Show makes its debut. Otherwise, I’ll see you on the floor.

And if anybody there asks how you heard about them, be sure to tell them about IBIT!

ALSO CHECK OUT:
LA Travel & Adventure Show 2012

Edited by P.A.Rice

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.18.11

Leave a reply

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

Liverpool | ©Greg Gross

COOL SAVINGS IN the NOLA
When it comes to travel, summer is the best of times and the worst of times for New Orleans.

A typical summer weather forecast calls for 99 degrees with 99 percent humidity, which will make it feel more like 109 — and you can just about set your watch by the pounding afternoon rain.

That’s the worst.

It seems to work some special hardships on the restaurant business in the NOLA, as this msnbc story points out.

But those same conditions that send rivers of sweat pouring down your face can bring tears of joy to the dedicated bargain hunter, because summer is when New Orleans starts lowering prices at hotels and restos.

The msnbc story makes mention of this, and a quick check of your favorite travel sites (you do have more than one, of course…right?) will lead you to still more bargains.

Meanwhile, how do you handle all that heat and humidity? Stay in the shade. Stay by the water, be it Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River. Dress in cool, light colors.

And always keep some change handy for a big snowball, an ice-cold local soft drink — or an even colder hard one, like a frozen daiquiri.

You will survive, and your travel budget will thrive.

And as long as you’re there, you might as well check one of these daytrips, courtesy of CheapoAir.

PLANES v. TRAINS
A travel story in USA Today compares air travel against train travel for comfort, the check-in process, luggage and food.

The author tries to make it sound like it’s a contest. Those of you who’ve traveled on both already know:

It isn’t. It just isn’t.

At this point, the only thing the airlines really have going for them is speed over long distance — and the fact that American trains are literally a half-century behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to speed.

For anything short of a transcontinental trip, trains are easier, more convenient, more comfortable — and you don’t feel as if you’ve been abused with fuel surcharges and other add-on fees.

Train stations are even easier to use, more fun and classier than most airports. Often, they’re more beautiful than airports, as this BBC Travel slideshow suggests.

And you can enjoy the best ones, like New York’s Grand Central Terminal or Washington DC’s Union Station, without even taking a trip.

Trains v. planes? It’s not even close.

PASS/NO-PASS
And speaking of trains, Europe’s advanced network of high-speed trains and frequent local trains make getting around the continent almost sinfully easy.

Sooner or later, however, one question always comes up when you’re planning a European rail vacation:

“Should I get the Eurailpass or just buy point-to-point tickets for each leg of the trip?”

I’ve struggled with this more than a few times myself, believe me. The closest I could come to a definitive answer is: It depends on your budget and your itinerary.

Which basically is that the folks at Lonely Planet tell you. Only in much more clarity and detail, and with all your options neatly broken down.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

-0-

AIR
from CNN
TSA fires 28 employees in Hawaii for failing to screen luggage for explosives. Let’s see: They’ll feel up women and search babies in their diapers, but can’t be bothered checking the BAGS? Oh, okay…

from CheapoAir
Meanwhle, TSA creates the first express security line in Pittsburgh’s airport.

LAND
from Frommers
Great locales for cooking vacations or to attend cooking schools, SLIDESHOW For my own take on the whole cooking travel thing, click here.

from Good Transportation
Three brothers are walking the route of California’s proposed high-speed passenger rail, from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

from Gadling
Your hotel safe may not be all that safe.

from Mallory on Travel
Travel insurance, yes or no? Iain Mallory breaks it down.

from The Urbane Urbanite
How to wine and dine during a power outage. If you live in hurricane country, tornado country — or anywhere within range of an Arizona electrical worker doing maintenance — you need this info!

SEA
from USA Today
How to pick your perfect cruise.

from Travel+Leisure
Are you one of those folks who turns up their nose at the mention of traveling on a ferry? This list will show you why you shouldn’t. SLIDESHOW

-0-

AFRICA
from The New Vision (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Northern Uganda ready to replace armies of insurgents with armies of tourists.

from the Maghreb Arabe Presse (Morocco) via allAfrica.com
Morocco is emerging as a medical tourism destination for Europeans.

from​ The Independent (Rwanda) via allAfrica.com
Another sign of Rwanda’s emergence as a serious travel destination: Marriott is building a 254-room, $55 million hotel in the capital city of Kigali.

from the ​Daily Nation (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Fore…Africa! Plans announced to build a five-star hotel in Kenya’s capital city, Mombasa. The motivation: to encourage the growth of golf tourism in the country.

-0-

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the Matador Network
Nine — count ‘em — cool and safe places to visit in Mexico.

from the Wall Street Journal via Zagat
Attention, foodies: Peruvian cuisine looks like it just might be the NBT — the Next Big Thing. Next stop, Lima? Road trip!

from the ​New York Times
Suriname — the most captivating South American destination you never heard of.

from the New York Times
The NYT’s Michelle Higgins says the folks who treat Quito, the capital of Ecuador, as just a jumping off point for the Galapagos Islands are missing something worthwhile.

-0-

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Canada’s Adventure Couple
Cool things to do in Malaysian Borneo.

from Lonely Planet
A tour of China — one tastebud at a time. SLIDESHOW

from Velvet Escape
World traveler Keith Jenkins examines the other Thailand, the one all the tourist hordes haven’t ruined yet. Large. Poor. Beautiful. Endearing. Welcome to Isaan.

from The Guardian
Broome, western Australia. Once, this was where you came to find pearls. Now, Broome is the pearl. The part of the story that deals with Australia’s aborigines, as usual, is anything but pretty.

-0-

EUROPE
​from The Daily Mail (London UK)
London hotels have the worst reputation in Europe? There’s a British-based travel site that says yes. Jolly good…NOT!
​

from Bonjour Paris
The only thing I like more than farmers markets are farmers markets in Paris, and the 7th arrondissement has one of the best. Even if you don’t have access to a kitchen, it’s worth a visit.

from eTurbo News
Portugal is making a comeback as a European travel destination.

from eurotrips
A list of secret spots in Paris, compiled by a small group of former Parisians and mapped.

TV and travel

Leave a reply

How did I get hooked on travel so young? Blame it on an Egyptian cinematographer and a young black comic from Philadelphia.

There’s a movie out called “Midnight in Paris” whose biggest star is, well…Paris. Such is the power of place that some cities possess.

Which got me thinking about the films and TV shows that stoked my love of travel as a kid.

There was “N.Y.P.D.,” (not to be confused with N.Y.P.D. Blue, which came out decades later), which gave me my first real glimpse of New York City — warts, grit and all.

It’s West Coast equivalent was “The Streets of San Francisco.” Having partly grown up in the Bay Area made watching “Streets” a special treat.

When “The Graduate” showed Dustin Hoffman on an AC Transit bus down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley near the University of California campus, I had to smile. I’d been on that campus, that street, even that bus!

But the most important to me by far was “I Spy,” which made TV stars out of the late Robert Culp and a young black comic from Philadelphia named Bill Cosby. I loved it.

Why? Because these guys went damn-near everywhere.

Unlike most TV shows of that era, “I Spy” went to real places — Athens, Rome, Florence, Madrid, Venice, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Acapulco, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Mexico and Morocco.

(This was made possible by a young Egyptian-born cinematographer named Fouad Said who adapted a van to carry filmmaking equipment just about anyplace. His “Cinemobile” quietly revolutionized the film industry.)

I hardly paid attention to the storylines; I just wanted to see where in the world they would end up next. And I told myself that, God willing, I’d see those places myself someday.

Those were major days in America. Selma and the >Freedom Rides had already happened. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were now law.

Now, I was watching a black guy and a white guy traveling the world together — as equals.

Wow.

A decade later, I took my first real overseas trip, to Japan. For any first-timer, Tokyo is major sensory overload. A sprawling cityscape. Seas of pedestrians. Rivers of cars you don’t recognize, all on the “wrong” side of the road. A visual blizzard of signs you can’t read.

But when we arrived at our hotel, the New Otani, seen here, I knew exactly where I was.

I’d “been there” before, with “I Spy.”

Maybe I really could manage this behemoth world capitol.

See, Mom? TV didn’t completely rot my brain, after all.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

Leave a reply

Ferry from Banjul to Barra

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

GOING IN THE NO-GO ZONES
Paul Theroux has made a living going, and writing about going. Recently in the New York Times, he wrote about the idea of going where you’re not “supposed” to go.

Actually, it’s more about going to those places where the most common and immediate response when you broach the idea is “Are you crazy? Why would you go there?”

This statement is often followed by frantic insistence that it’s too far, it’s too strange, it’s too dangerous, it’s too…something.

If you’re familiar with Theroux’s body of work, you won’t be surprised if he disagrees. He makes a case for going off the beaten tourism paths, way off.

I got similar reactions from some folks when I told them I was going to the Gambia, for no real reason except that it was totally unfamiliar to them.

It turned out to be perhaps the greatest and most important trip of my life.

To read all of Theroux’s thoughts on this issue, click here.

HIT THE BOOKS
Contrary to popular opinion, not only has the digital age not rendered the library null and void, but many are actually thriving and some of the newer ones, like Seattle’s, are actually leading revivals in the downtown cores where they were built.

I personally enjoy going over to the Geisel Library on the campus of the University of California, San Diego to work — among other things, on preparing this digest. Quiet. plenty of resources, plenty of room, plenty of electric outlets for my laptop — and it’s an architectural marvel besides.

And I could probably livehappily in the Library of Congress in Washington DC, which many be the greatest repository of knowledge since the original Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt.

The folks at USA Today has assembled a list of ten cool libraries, old and new, municipal and collegiate, that offer activities and tours. If one of them is near you, check it out.

And be sure to check out their Travel section.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from the Associated Press
How old is old in airplane years? From the ordinary airline passenger to the Federal Aviation Administration, a lot of folks are pondering that question after one of southwest Airlines’ older Boeing 737s developed a 5-foot hole in its fuselage recently in mid-air, causing the plane to depressurize and forcing an emergency landing.

from the New York Times
The art of being “bumped” from a flight, and how to profit from it. See why some travelers actually look forward to it.

LAND
from The Daily Basics
The Walkin’ Desk is equal parts rolling suitcase, mobile desk and anywhere-chair.

SEA
from USA Today
With the glut of new cruise ships out there, we’ve been telling you this was going to happen: Royal Caribbean is offering last-minute deals on two of its newest luxury behemoths, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. Watch for other cruise lines to follow suit.

from Associated Press via Yahoo!
Carnival is the latest cruise line to pull the plug on Mazatlan in the wake of reports of crime and violence there. That means more port calls for Cabo San Lucas and Manzanillo.

from USA Today
Mexico isn’t the only cruise destination having problems. Passengers landing at the new cruise ship terminal in Falmouth, Jamaica are getting bum-rushed by drug dealers and prostitutes. The facility only opened in February. Royal Caribbean is threatening to bar their passengers from going into town. Nervous local officials are scrambling to beef up security.

AFRICA
from the Calgary Sun (Canada)
The popularity of adventure tourism in the West African nation of Mali is exposing ever more Westerners to the art of Dogon woodcarving. Result: a lot of Dogon wood work is turning up in art galleries all over the Western world.

from Agence France Presse
Africa’s lions are getting some unwanted company. The latest animal on the Mother Continent to show declining numbers in the face of changes to its habitat — South African penguins.

from the Sunday Times (South Africa)
Americans may not be traveling in sizable numbers to visit northern and sub-Saharan Africa, but Russian tourists are — and the country’s tourism ministry apparently is pushing African tourism, hard. Zimbabwe, whose president, Robert Mugabe, is largely a pariah in the West, is looking toward Moscow for the same reason. Meanwhile, back in Washington DC…

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
Ever thought about backpacking? Looking for a place to ease into it, but still offers the great outdoor, complete with ocean views? Consider the Point Reyes National Seashore, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. I did that there myself as a college student. There’s nothing like the feeling of walking on a beach where the only human footprints are yours.

from the New York Times
An underground food market. Not a cave…a movement. No commercial kitchen? No licenses? No problem. Just what you’d expect to pop up in San Francisco.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
If you’re speeding about in jet boats, exploring caves and listening to Shakespeare all in the same day, odds are you’re in southern Oregon.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Bangkok Beyond
Thailand enthusiast Frank Munkvold gives the breakdown on Thai markets, including all-important tips on how to haggle. Pay close attention to that advice, because it’s good for almost anywhere in the developing world.

EUROPE
from USA Today
Believe it or not, Europe could be a travel bargain this summer — if you’re willing to forgo to usual tourism suspects and head for destinations that are both attractive and super-cheap. And yes, Europe has several of those.

from Sock Mob Events
Not your typical tour of London. These are led by London’s homeless.

from the Guardian (London UK)
A list of ten places for cheap eats in West London — although the British pound definitely makes “cheap” a relative concept to most travelers.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam. The American West? Nope, try Poland. that’s right, Poland.

LA TRAVEL SHOW: A tale of two nations

Leave a reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGH ENERGY, LOW PROFILE

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

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

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

The typical American knows two things about Taiwan:

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

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

Well below.

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

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

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

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

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

Drop, meet bucket.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

OUT THERE: Jabari Smith

Leave a reply

One of an occasional series introducing black travelers and their Web sites

SITE: Jabari Inspires (YouTube)

At age 25, this young brother from New Orleans and Howard University alum has already taught English in Japan and seen a good chunk of Asia. His goal: Become the black face of world travel on American television.

Look out, world — this one’s definitely comin’ atcha!

Oftentimes, people are reluctant to venture too long or too far from the familiar. Upon leaving Howard University, Jabari Smith left to teach English in rural Japan for a year.

“As I was preparing to graduate, I decided I really wanted to push myself beyond the great comfort zone I had built at Howard, to prove to myself I could stand on my own as Jabari, without the organizations, without the girlfriend.”

And without any real knowledge of Japanese.

“I never studied Japanese before going. I knew three words: hello, thank you, good bye, That was it.”

Few in Fujisaki, in Aomori prefecture had scarcely ever seen a black man in the flesh. None had ever seen one living in their midst.

“Jabari Sensei, that’s who I was. I taught every kid from elementary too junior high, and also adult school.”

He taught them English, and they taught him some things, in turn.

“I got a first-hand perspective on the image of what a black man was. Everywhere I went, it cause a stir and created attention. At first, I was compared to every popular black entertainer from 50 Cent to Will Smith. And also (martial artist turned fitness guru ) Billy Blanks. I’d go out someplace and it would ne, ‘Ooh, ooh,! Billy! Billy!’

“But I didn’t let it disturb me because I knew what they were experiencing. And everywhere I went, people were incredibly kind to me.”

His one-year teaching commitment turned into two, and he left Fujisaki with an important lesson for himself. He taught them English. They taught him Japanese.

“It’s possible to develop cross-cultural ties, even though there’s this language barrier that seems to stand in the way. I really watched myself evolve as this global citizen, this person who could adapt to another culture and still maintain my sense of self.”

Unlike others his age, it wasn’t academic study, a stint in the military or any other external factor that led him to embrace travel. He came to it entirely on his own.

“I just had this innate desire to carry me to the beauty of everything this world has to offer.”

While in Asia, he managed to work in a little travel around Asia and the Pacific — Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia.

And everywhere he went, he saw other black folks, travelers and expats, even a black barber in Hong Kong, which taught him something else.

“The black diaspora was present in each of those countries. The black diaspora is truly worldwide.”

After returning to the United States, Jabari entered himself into a contest to become host for a year of the weekly Paradise Hunter TV travel show. The winner travels the world for a year in search of the ideal vacation spot.

“At the end of the year, you have the opportunity to reflect back on all the places you’ve been and pick the one you see as your own paradise.”

In addition to 52 experiences of a lifetime, the winning host also gets a $60,000 salary and a $100,000 home in the location they’ve chosen as their paradise. Or you can just keep the $100,000.

Each contestant has a YouTube video they’ve submitted to make their case why they should be chosen, and viewers get to vote online for their favorite. They also get to vote more than once.

The last person to enter the contest, Jabari has already cleared the first hurdle, making the initial group of 40. Now, he’s trying to make the top three in hopes of eventually winning it all. But his ambitions extend far beyond a one-year stint with Paradise Hunter. Even before entering, he’d auditioned for a slot on Oprah Winfrey’s new network, OWN.

He’s also started up his own motivational speaking business, Jabari Inspires. He wants to motivate people “through positive ideals and not settling for less.”

And that very much includes travel.

“I will most likely to find funding to find a professional cameraman, travel around the world. and record my experiences. My ultimate goal is to not only host my own show but to own my own show.”

If you want to vote for Jabari Smith to be the next host on Paradise Hunter, click here.

All that JAZZ!

2 Replies

If you love jazz and long to travel, are you ever in luck. Every year, hundreds of the world’s best travel destinations also just happen to host some of the world’s best jazz festivals.

Jazz is one of the few cultural creations America can truly call its own, a lively, soulful, passionately expressive style of music that has spread and is respected the world over.

Why then does it seem that people in other parts of the world have more respect for jazz than we do? These, it’s all about rock, country and hip-hop.

Among black kids in particular, jazz seems to be thought of as old folks’ music. When you consider that it was black America that gave jazz to the world in the first place, there’s something especially sad about that.

These days, you often have to hunt for a good jazz station on commercial radio — and in much of America, you won’t find one. Were it not for Internet radio, a lot of Americans might never hear a jazz broadcast.

In your typical music shop, the jazz section will be among the smallest in the store…and you may have noticed it shrinking over time.

AMERICAN MADE, RESPECTED WORLDWIDE
But jazz was more than just America’s first homegrown cultural artifact. It also was America’s first cultural export, and it has spread just about everywhere.

Outside the United States, there is no generation gap when it comes to jazz. It’s as popular with the young as it is with their parents, and new waves of jazz musicians around the world are pushing it forward.

What does all this mean to you as a traveler?

It means that if you want to pack your bags and see the world while you listen to some of its greatest jazz artists in the world — old and new — at the same time, you have a delightfully dizzying array of destinations from which to choose.

All over the world, virtually any time of the year. Straight ahead jazz, Dixieland jazz, “smooth” jazz, Latin jazz, acid jazz, and everything in between. It’s all out there for you.

TOO MANY TO COUNT
My first plan for this blog entry was to count up all the major jazz festivals around the world so you could have your own list of options. When I got to a hundred with no end in sight, I stopped.

Your best bet is to choose a region and pick a season, then do a Web search on your chosen destination along with the term “jazz festivals.” Unless you’re contemplating a vacation in Antarctica or North Korea, you’ll probably find at least one.

One? Between them, the United Kingdom and France at least 30.

Theoretically, you could easily do a summer jazz fest in Britain one night, then hop the Eurostar train under the English Channel the next morning and catch one somewhere in France the next.

After stopping for a leisurely lunch and a kir in a Paris cafe.

Equally short rail runs could take you to major jazz gatherings in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria.

Denmark? Norway? Sweden? Russia? Ja, ja, ja and da. Finland? Jep! Montreux, Switzerland and island of Malta. Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Europe is awash in jazz.

Not in the mood for Europe? What about Asia or the Pacific? China. Japan. The Philippines. Thailand. India. Indonesia. Hong Kong. Australia. New Zealand.

Prefer to stay a just closer to home? The Caribbean is dotted with gorgeous destinations — and jazz festivals. The Dominican Republic, Aruba, Jamaica, Barbados, Anguilla, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba.

Want to catch a major jazz festival on the Mother Continent? The Cape Town Jazz Festival in South Africa has got you covered.

If you’ve got some favorite jazz artists, and a part of the world you’ve always wanted to see, the odds are pretty good that at least one of them is playing in festival in at least one of those places in any given year.

GO CLUBBING
If the timing of your vacation won’t allow you to hit the big jazz fests — and given the number of options you have on both side of the Equator, that’s frankly hard to believe — the world’s great cities also are home to many of the world’s great jazz clubs. Especially London and Paris.

Paris, in particular, has a love affair with jazz that goes back to the days of World War 1, when black American soldiers and expatriates introduced it to them, along with gospel music (and you’ll find festivals in Paris for that, too).

For black Americans, Paris is as much the City of Sound as it is the City of Light.

At these varied festivals around the planet, you’ll hear the best jazz artists on the planet — not just the established superstars of the music world, but local and regional greats, up-and-comers whom you might never hear if you had to rely strictly on American commercial radio.

The only downside to that is that your monthly budget for music may go drastically up. But really, is that such a bad thing?

So when you’re ready, start packing, pick your destination, and go take a listen to the sound that America gave to the world!