Destination: Caribbean
Time Magazine’s 100 List Includes Elizabeth Gilbert, Cuban Blogger
by Julia Ross | 05.05.08 | 9:58 AM ET
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzHaiti for Lifestyle Magazines
by Jim Benning | 04.21.08 | 1:00 PM ET
Jason Wilson reconsiders a magazine story he wrote a decade ago about Haiti, in which he predicted Haitian-grown gourmet coffee offered the struggling country hope. “Ten years later, I now freely admit that this was typical lifestyle-magazine hyperbole,” he writes in The Smart Set. “My excuse? I wanted badly to write a positive story about Haiti, quite possibly the only positive story about Haiti that would appear in the American press that year, or in any year. Looking back on my visit now, I realize how misguided my plans turned out to be.”
Related on World Hum:
* Q&A with Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named ‘Jason’
R.I.P. Cachao
by Jim Benning | 03.24.08 | 10:25 AM ET
Hey, Let’s Turn Gitmo Into a Cruise Ship Terminal!
by Jim Benning | 02.22.08 | 1:03 PM ET
Photo by lyng883 via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
You have to love all the rampant speculation and wild ideas floating around about Cuba tourism following news of Fidel Castro’s resignation this week. Take this USA Today report that “Cruise lines are ready to pounce on Cuba.” Um, is there any sector of the U.S. travel industry that hasn’t been ready to “pounce on Cuba” for decades? It drew a number of comments, including one from someone claiming to be a former security officer at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Adios Fidel, Hola Cuba?*
by Jim Benning | 02.19.08 | 10:09 AM ET
What does today’s big news of Fidel Castro’s retirement mean for American travelers now barred from visiting Cuba? Likely very little in the short term, experts agree. But Reuters, among other outlets, is taking the opportunity to review the presidential candidates’ positions on Cuba. Who knows? They could actually be relevant now.
Eating Cuban on Miami’s Calle Ocho
by Jim Benning | 02.14.08 | 1:37 PM ET
The cultural heart of Cuban life in Miami is, naturally, Little Havana. And in Little Havana, the main drag is Calle Ocho—8th Street. It’s on Calle Ocho where old men in elegant guayaberas gather to play dominoes, and it’s on Calle Ocho where a number of fine Cuban restaurants have been serving up strong espresso and garlic-infused fried pork for years. For Americans who want to experience authentic Cuban culture without violating U.S. laws with a clandestino trip to Havana, Miami’s Calle Ocho is the place to start.
R.I.P. Philip Agee
by Michael Yessis | 01.09.08 | 11:47 AM ET
The former CIA agent, who died this morning in Havana following ulcer surgery, famously outed purported agency operatives in a book, but he also played an eccentric role in the world of travel: He established a travel Web site to help U.S. travelers visit Cuba in defiance of the government ban. He was 72.
Related on World Hum:
* Americans Defy Cuba Travel Ban Before ‘Other Americans…Ruin it All’
The Che Image, 40 Years Later
by Jim Benning | 10.09.07 | 5:32 PM ET
Forty years ago today, Che Guevara was killed by CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers, and the anniversary has prompted gatherings around the Latin world—Bolivian President Evo Morales, fresh off a visit to The Daily Show, choppered in for an event near the site where Che was killed. Predictably, media outlets have published a slew of stories about the man, the myth, the travelers on the “Che Trail” and the iconic image.
Warning for Haiti’s Carbintair Airlines
by Jim Benning | 09.24.07 | 1:31 PM ET
Reports San Francisco Chronicle’s World Travel Watch column: “The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince now prohibits all U.S. government personnel from flying on Haiti’s Caribintair Airlines, and warns travelers to avoid the carrier.” Caribintair planes have made two forced emergency landings in the last month, the paper adds.
Americans Defy Cuba Travel Ban Before ‘Other Americans…Ruin it All’
by Jim Benning | 09.11.07 | 8:02 AM ET
Yes, this is the peculiar form of national self loathing a number of Americans express in defying the Cuba travel ban. Just how many Americans visit Cuba without U.S. permission? Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but a new AP report citing Cuban government sources puts the number at close to 20,000 in the first half of this year alone. And according to the story, “many say being sneaky is part of the fun.”
Letter to a Volcano
by David Wallis | 09.10.07 | 12:18 PM ET
Photo: AP Soufriere Hills Volcano may have thought it delivered a knockout blow to the Caribbean island of Montserrat, but David Wallis has news for the "Lady in the Mountain"
Three Travel Tips: Planning a Caribbean Vacation in Hurricane Season
by Jim Benning | 08.21.07 | 1:45 PM ET
Travel tips are easy to find on the Internet, but some are better than others. Each week, we’ll bring you World Hum-approved travel tips from around the Web.
1) Play the odds. “Travelers can minimize the risks by choosing islands like Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao or Trinidad and Tobago, all located so far south that they are rarely hit by major storms.”—The Washington Post
Travelocity Fined $183,000 for Selling Cuba Trips
by Jim Benning | 08.16.07 | 1:19 PM ET
In what’s believed to be the first penalty of its kind for an online travel provider, Travelocity has been fined nearly $183,000 for booking nearly 1,400 trip to Cuba between 1998 and 2004, violating the U.S.-Cuba trade embargo. Travelocity officials say the bookings were the result of a technical glitch and that the company never intended to sell the trips. “Travelocity’s penalty comes amid conflicts over foreign arms of U.S. firms selling trips into the popular Caribbean vacation spot,” the Miami Herald reports. “And it touches on the complications of isolating a country commercially amid an increasingly global and digital economy.”
Related on World Hum:
* Duo Charged With Inventing Fake Religious Organizations to Facilitate Travel to Cuba
* Did Hemingway Really Drink Mojitos at La Bodeguita del Medio?
Counting Caribbean Fish, Debating Voluntourism
by Jim Benning | 08.08.07 | 12:25 PM ET
Elisabeth Eaves recently visited the Caribbean island of St. Vincent to voluntour with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. The scuba diver spent her underwater time identifying and cataloging glassy sweepers, barracuda and other assorted fish, all for the benefit of ecology and science. “These days, lots of organizations send travelers on ‘voluntours,’ wherein you pay for the privilege of doing a short stint of conservation work—on turtle hatcheries in Central America, bear-tracking missions in the high Andes, or wildlife parks in East Africa, to name a few projects,” she wrote in a series of stories for Slate. “What do-gooderism I possess is tied to Jacques Cousteau fantasies. Maybe, just maybe, I can contribute a tiny little bit to marine biology.” So what does she think about voluntourism now? I asked her a few questions via e-mail.
Voluntourism, like all trends, is being scrutinized. Some suggest it’s not all it’s cracked up to be—that many outfits put profit ahead of doing good work, that all the money people spend on costly voluntourism vacations could be put to much better use. Any thoughts on that?
Did Hemingway Really Drink Mojitos at La Bodeguita del Medio?
by Jim Benning | 08.06.07 | 3:23 PM ET
Depending on your perspective, mojitos are either all the rage and part of “mint’s moment” or as dated as “Sex and the City” reruns. I polished off a too-sweet-for-my-taste mojito last night at San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado, as evidenced by this photo of my empty glass, mainly because the drink set me back $11 and I couldn’t stand the idea of wasting it. I like the occasional mojito, but I’ve been enjoying the mojito press coverage even more, and I particularly liked this piece in the Wall Street Journal focusing on Ernest Hemingway’s relationship—or lack thereof—with the drink. I thought it was a given that Hemingway tossed back mojitos at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana. Tourists flock to the bar for that very reason.