Countries
Prague’s Charles Bridge crowded with pedestrians. Photo by Dennis Cox, Worldviews
Somehow the Czech Republic had eluded me in my travels until two weeks ago, when I was invited as a guest on an Insight Vacations tour that spent two days in Prague and one day in Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town in the southern part of the country.
If you’ve been following my previous posts, you’ll know that we toured the main attractions as well as some of the more historic beer halls and restaurants in Prague, and spent a day with overnight in Cesky Krumlov, a well-preserved “fairytale town” that “went to sleep,” as our excellent guide put it, for 300 years following Europe’s destructive Thirty Years War in the early 17th century.
Here are ten things I didn’t know about the Czech Republic before I arrived (with thanks to our Insight Vacations tour director,… Continue reading
Cesky Krumlov, viewed from the castle. Photo by Clark Norton
Cesky Krumlov, a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride through country roads south of Prague in the Czech Republic, has often been described as a “fairytale” town, and it fits the description well.
As our Insight Vacations tour director, Neira Milkovic, explained en route, the town was cut off from trade routes by Europe’s destructive 30 Years War in the 17th century and “went to sleep” for about 300 years after that.
It’s now awakened as a tourist magnet, for good reason. If you want to see what European towns looked like hundreds of years ago, Cesky Krumlov — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — is a great place to do it.
It comes complete with a hilltop castle, winding cobblestone streets, a scenic river cutting an S shape through town, a central square, and — in a nod to modernity — plenty… Continue reading
Pilsner Urquell is the Czech Republic’s most famous export. Photo by Clark Norton.
When you think of European beer, Germany may spring first to mind, but the real capital is the Czech Republic.
Czechs are said to drink more brew than any other nationality in the world: 40 gallons annually for every man, woman and child in the country. I’m guessing that the average is somewhat higher than that for adult men.
The very word “pilsner” derives from the city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic, where the country’s best known export — and my longtime favorite beer, Pilsner Urquell — is brewed. It was the first golden pilsner ever made.
On my recent Insight Vacations tour of Prague, I discovered that Pilsner Urquell is only the beginning of what Czech beer has to offer.
Along with 30 other journalists from around the world, I was fortunate to join the… Continue reading
Hiking along Virginia’s Appalachian Trail is a favorite activity of international visitors. Photo by Clark Norton
In yesterday’s post, we asked the rhetorical question “Can A Rebranding Campaign Boost Tourism to the U.S.?”
According to new research that’s just out, apparently so.
Brand USA, a public-private partnership that aims to improve the image of the U.S. around the world for the purpose of increasing international visitation to the States, is now citing a study by Oxford Economics that shows the new advertising campaign — called “Discover America, Land of Dreams” — resulted in 1.1 million new visitors to the U.S. in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013. That’s a 2.3 percent increase over the number that would have visited without the campaign.
Those 1.1 million visitors, according to the study, spent $3.4 billion in the U.S. and had a total impact on the economy of $7.4 billion, supporting… Continue reading
From Maine’s Acadia National Park….
If you’ve traveled overseas recently, you may have noticed a well-produced ad that promotes the United States as an alluring tourist destination: part of the first U.S. national advertising campaign designed to draw more international visitors to America.
The campaign is called “Discover America, Land of Dreams,” and the commercial now running in Germany and other countries features Rosanne Cash singing her song “Land of Dreams” while images of America — from Manhattan to California to Florida to New Orleans — flash across the screen. The Americans pictured reflect the country’s diversity: Muslim women in New York, an Asian-American man riding a motorcycle, a gay couple on a San Francisco cable car, a blonde woman in the Florida Everglades.
Spearheading the campaign is a public-private partnership called Brand USA, with the federal government and the U.S. tourism industry joining forces to promote the country as… Continue reading
A friendly Galapagos iguana. Photo by Clark Norton
In my previous post, I contrasted my list of “must-see” sites around the world with that of Patricia Schultz, author of the best selling bucket list guidebook, “1000 Places to See Before You Die.”
With an eye specifically on baby boomers, and without wanting to be too grim about it, I wanted to accentuate places that are themselves at least somewhat in danger of dying or being considerably altered in coming years, for a variety of reasons.
So far, we’ve covered five regions of the globe — Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Islands. Now let’s tackle the U.S./Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean area.
U.S./Canada: There are so many possibilities in North America, but I’ll pick Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming/Montana over Schultz’s Monument Valley.
Yellowstone is not only a remarkably diverse collection of sights — from… Continue reading
Utah’s Monument Valley, author Patricia Schultz’s absolute must-see sight for North America. Photo from Utah Tourism.
Jordan’s ancient stone city of Petra. Photo by Clark Norton
I just read an interview with Patricia Schultz, author of the extremely successful travel guide “1000 Places to See Before You Die,” whose first edition publication in 2003 presaged the bucket list craze.
She has since published a second edition, which includes another 200 entries, so if you’ve somehow managed to see the initial 1,000, you still have your work cut out for you.
Depending on how much travel baby boomers — the youngest of whom turn 50 this year — have done earlier in their lives, they face a daunting task of keeping up with Schultz, who says in the interview that she has now visited all the places she’s written about, though when the first edition was published, there were about… Continue reading
Are we losing baby boomer and other tourists from Britain because of onerous visa requirements for British travel writers? Photo from examiner.com.
As of 2012, the last full year for which data is available, the United Kingdom saw visitor volume to the U.S. drop for the fourth consecutive year, with volume down nearly one million visitors since its peak of 4.7 million in the year 2000. Since 2005, the drop-off has been 13 percent, representing 582,000 fewer visitors from the UK.
In financial terms, this represents a spending drop by British tourists in the U.S. of $848 million in 2012 as compared to 2005.
That’s a big loss for U.S. tourism.
One traditional way for tourism agencies to ramp up visitation is to invite foreign journalists — specifically travel writers — to tour a country and write about it. Of course, magazines and other publishers also send travel writers off… Continue reading
Nelson Mandela’s life is the focus of two tours now being offered by separate African safari operators.
Sad news: Just hours after posting the item below, I learned that Nelson Mandela had died today. Following in his footsteps in South Africa would be an appropriate way to honor his life.
I don’t know who had the idea first, or whether it was simultaneous and coincidental, but two African safari outfitters have come out with similar trips tracing the “footprints” — or “footsteps,” depending on the tour company — of South African liberation hero Nelson Mandela.
Both are touting their trips as complementing the recent release of the film Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom, and both are meant to highlight milestones and significant sites in Mandela’s life.
One outfitter, Great Safaris, is offering a trip called “Madiba’s Journey: In Nelson Mandela’s Footprints,” while the other, African… Continue reading
Jerusalem ranks fourth on TripAdvisor’s list of global destinations “on the rise.” Photo by Clark Norton
Which destinations do travelers really want to go to right now — as opposed to ones that they might only be dreaming about for the future?
The always informative travel news site skift.com has a piece that tries to answer that question, based on “millions of searches and reviews” on the mega-review site TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has come out with lists of “places that have seen the greatest increase in positive traveler feedback and traveler interest” of late — in short, destinations that are “on the rise.”
The destinations are listed in “top ten” order globally as well as for the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific. The lists reflect all age groups so there’s no way of knowing what percentage were baby boomers doing the searching.
Here, according… Continue reading
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