Crowds at the New York Times Travel Show.
Each winter, the New York Times Travel Show draws hundreds of exhibitors — national tourism bureaus, tour operators, and various travel-related organizations, among others — to meet the public and try to lure them to their destination or onto their tours and the like. It’s the largest such trade and consumer show in North America.
There are also dozens of travel-related talks and seminars you can attend led by veteran travel writers, publishers and broadcasters, some beautifully costumed women dancing on stages representing various nationalities, some free food giveaways, a number of special travel discounts good only at the show, and various other enticements.
With winter slush outside, it’s the perfect time to get people thinking about warm-weather destinations or at least traveling somewhere when the weather gets warm.
I was there this weekend making contacts for StrideTravel.com, the new travel… Continue reading
This is one of the beautiful images you’ll find on StrideTravel.com. Photo by Dennis Cox.
“The Savvy Path to Breathtaking Travel, Without the Hassle”
“Less Planning, More Experiencing”
“A Journey of a Thousand Smiles Begins With a Single Click”
These are some of the taglines that express the essence of the new travel website, StrideTravel.com, where I worked for more than a year as Content Director. (My job is now in the capable hands of Content Coordinator Samantha Scott, who, together with co-founders Gavin Delany and Jared Alster, comprise a formidable team.)
In practical terms, Stride aspires to be — and in many ways already is — the best place on the Web to survey the wealth of multi-day, pre-planned trips that are now available from hundreds of travel suppliers around the world.
“Pre-planned trips” may encompass guided group or private tours as well as independent journeys… Continue reading
I resolve to spend more time…cruising. Photo by Clark Norton
According to a recent study, only eight percent of Americans successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions throughout the year.
That means that the perennial number one resolution, “lose weight,” is a perennial loser. I’m guessing it’s knocked out in the first round — or first week in this case — by leftover Christmas cookies and wintertime cravings for lasagna and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, sometimes at the same meal.
The perennial number two, “Getting organized,” is always my first resolution, and the first to be broken. For example, it took me 15 minutes of sorting through assorted papers to find the results of this study. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be organized by, well, 2016.
The number three resolution, at least for 2014 (according to the study by the University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology), was “spend… Continue reading
An African rhino, in the wild. Photo from Travellers Building Change.
The statistics are staggering. Over the past half century or so, Africa’s black rhino population has fallen by some 97.6 percent, mainly as a result of poaching.
Rhinos are killed for their horns, which fetch big prices in some parts of Asia. They’re reputed — wrongly — to have medicinal benefits, particularly as aphrodisiacs. After their horns are cut off, the rest of the rhino is left to rot. It’s a horrible, cruel death for any animal to suffer, much less one of these magnificent, endangered creatures.
In South Africa alone, the number of rhino deaths from poaching has tripled in the past four years.
At this rate, future generations will know of wild rhinos only through books. The so-called Big Five of African safaris — lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo, and rhinos — will be reduced to… Continue reading
Some of Cuba’s “classic” American cars. Photo by German Cruces Rajoan, Panoramio.
It’s been more than 50 years since Fidel Castro came down from the mountains to lead a guerrilla movement ousting the corrupt, Mafia-tied Bautista regime in Cuba. Since that time, U.S.-Cuba relations have been both red hot (during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis) and icy cold (for most of the rest of the time since).
It’s time for a thaw, and I applaud President Obama’s initiative to restore full diplomatic relations with that island nation just 90 miles south of Key West.
As readers of this blog know, I always come down on the side of fewer travel restrictions between nations, not more. I think they lead to greater understanding among peoples, who often are far ahead of their governments in their innate grasp of the need to travel freely and exchange ideas and get to know… Continue reading
York Minster, an impressive Gothic cathedral, smells like…?
Until this morning, when I read about it in eTurboNews, I hadn’t heard about York, England’s “world famous” (as the Visit York website puts it) smellable travel guide to that alluring city, adding a key sensory sensation to what is normally a sight-only medium.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a smellable picture must add a few hundred more.
The guide, called Smell York — which is straightforward enough, though I might have chosen something less edgy like “York Aromas” — invites you to scratch and sniff 12 different scents to cajole you into literally sniffing out various York attractions and shops.
Some are clearly pleasant — drawing you towards the city’s chocolatiers, tea shops, and floral gardens — and others perhaps less seductive. For instance, one scratch and sniff yields the “haunting aromas of… Continue reading
North Korea supreme leader Kim Jong-un with Dennis Rodman. Photo from the Mirror, London.
Imagine a country with scenic mountains, some with “surreal” rock formations similar to those you might see in China, uncrowded ski slopes, ancient temples, and a general feel of a place that hasn’t changed all that much in the past few decades.
It holds an annual marathon with opening and closing ceremonies held “in a stadium filled with thousands of cheering North Koreans,” according to a dispatch from eTurboNews.
It also has the dubious honor of being the most closed, secretive society in the world today.
Obviously, we’re talking about North Korea, where tourists — especially Americans, with the notable exception of Dennis Rodman — have been made to feel less than welcome. Some American tourists have even been detained for long periods of time or sent to prison camps based on flimsy evidence of… Continue reading
A South African white rhino — endangered enough as it is. Photo by Dennis Cox / WorldViews.
According to recent reports, East African safari tour operators have suffered a 30-70 percent drop in bookings (including cancellations) in recent weeks due to the Ebola scare.
Southern Africa tour operators have been hurt somewhat less, but are nonetheless feeling the pinch.
Let’s put things in perspective.
Just because Ebola has tragically ravaged three West African countries — Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone — doesn’t mean it’s not safe to travel to East or Southern Africa, where the vast majority of wildlife safaris take place.
Here are some (perhaps surprising) facts:
London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro are closer to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa than are East and Southern African safari centers like Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Nairobi is about 3,300 miles from the outbreak,… Continue reading
A Hurtigruten vessel makes its way through the Antarctic ice. Photo from Hurtigruten.
Since one of my favorite cruises ever was the Hurtigruten voyage along the coast of Norway, and Antarctica is currently number one on my bucket list, I thought I’d pass along this news from Hurtigruten about big price cuts in some of their upcoming Antarctica cruises, even though you may beat me to a cabin I’m eyeing myself.
You can currently save up to $7,820 per person on a 10- to 19-day voyage to the White Continent, with the new fares running as low as $6,081 per person, double occupancy. While that may not seem cheap compared to, say, a Caribbean cruise, a trip to Antarctica is typically a once-on-a-lifetime experience, and it just got thousands of dollars cheaper on a very experienced expedition-style cruise line:
* The 10-day “Land of the Penguins” voyage is available from… Continue reading
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson”s home, is just outside Charlottesville and can be reached by a hiking trail. Photo by Clark Norton
Last fall after a visit to Charlottesville, Virginia, I wrote about Ten Things I Didn’t Know about this lovely Virginia city where my daughter now lives.
And now, after a recent second visit, I’ve compiled a list of Five More Things I Didn’t Know About “C’Ville.” So I guess I’m learning. (Stay tuned next year for “One or Two More Things I Didn’t Know About Charlottesville?”)
You could call this the “sports and outdoor activities” edition of the things I didn’t know. It was warmer in October than it was last year in late November, so I got outside more, including to a University of Virginia night football game, a win over Pitt that came complete with exploding scoreboard every time UVA scored, enough cheerleaders and band members to… Continue reading
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