Destination: South America
Bring Your Tray Tables to the Upright Position and…Duck!
by Jim Benning | 04.03.07 | 7:35 AM ET
The pilot of a Lan airline jet reported seeing flaming debris fall past his plane as he prepared for a landing in Auckland. NASA officials suspect it was meteors. You want space tourism? Lan’s got your space tourism.
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Yahoo! BuzzTrouble in Cartagena
by Jim Benning | 03.28.07 | 3:36 PM ET
Thanks to reports of dropping crime under President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia just might be the hipster tropical destination du jour. International visits to the country have risen by two-thirds since 2002. But according to an Associated Press report, those flocking to the celebrated colonial port city of Cartagena expecting to find a similarly shrinking crime rate are in for a surprise.
Fidel Castro Dials Up Hugo Chavez’s Radio Show
by Jim Benning | 02.28.07 | 2:24 PM ET
Why don’t we in the U.S. get radio shows like this? Now that’s entertainment.
Colombia: Besieged By Narcoterrorists or Emerging Hot Destination?
by Michael Yessis | 02.14.07 | 11:40 AM ET
In Brazil, Favela Tourism Rising
by Ben Keene | 02.08.07 | 5:45 PM ET
For every cruise ship full of pleasure-seekers tempted to travel by spa treatments, gourmet cuisine, and the occasional shore excursion, there is a tougher sort of tourist in search of a little hardship. Some people go for the controlled experience, forking over $18 for a simulated illegal border-crossing at Parque EcoAlberto in Mexico. Others, as the Christian Science Monitor reported earlier this week, prefer a more authentic kind of cultural exposure. Describing a small but growing trend among Americans and Europeans visiting Rio de Janeiro, Andrew Downie writes: “To many Brazilians, favelas are dirty, violent, frightening places. But to many foreigners, they are exciting, interesting, and romantic. More and more outsiders are coming from overseas to live, work, and just visit favelas, observers say. In doing so they are highlighting the difference between Brazilians who regard favelas with fear, rejection, and even disgust, and foreigners who embrace them as vibrant crucibles of modern Brazilian culture.”
From Ipanema to Copacabana: What Rio de Janeiro’s Beaches Say About Brazil
by Michael Yessis | 02.07.07 | 8:17 AM ET
A lot, it seems. “Brazilians like to say that the beach is their country’s ‘most democratic space,’” writes Larry Rohter in a terrific story in the New York Times. “But some bodies—and some beaches—are more equal than others.” Rohter focuses on Ipanema and Copacabana, revealing what groups frequent each of the 12 postos (lifeguard stations) that span Rio’s most elite beaches and how Brazil’s cultural and social trends are often born on the sand. “When, in the early 1970s, for example, the actress Leila Diniz wore a skimpy bikini to Posto 9 while gloriously pregnant and unmarried, traditionalists were horrified,” Rohter writes. “But feminists point to the episode as a galvanizing moment in their efforts to gain equal rights.”
The Venezuela-Cuba Freebie Vacation?
by Jim Benning | 01.25.07 | 4:13 PM ET
You bet. It’s Karl Marx meets Club Med! USA Today reports: “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has plans to sign an agreement with Cuba to send at least 100,000 poor Venezuelans to the communist-led island for no-cost vacations, an official said Wednesday.” A free vacation? That’s one item on the socialist agenda I can get behind.
Nouveau Sandalista on Venezuela: ‘There Is So Much Vibe and Passion’
by Jim Benning | 01.25.07 | 2:22 PM ET
We noted early last year that Venezuela was the new, hip Latin American travel destination for good sandal-shod lefties (or naive commies, depending on your perspective). Cindy Sheehan, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte, among other famed agitators, had already made the trek. Now comes another breathless report on the phenomenon. “From a trickle a few years ago,” the Mail & Guardian reports, “there are now thousands, travelling individually and on package tours, exploring a left-wing mecca that promises to build social justice in the form of ‘21st-century socialism.’”
Peru: It’s No Nepal
by Michael Yessis | 01.12.07 | 6:16 AM ET
Royal Nepal Airlines apologized to Peru for promoting Nepalese tourism using an image of Machu Picchu, perhaps the most iconic attraction in all of South America. How does such a blunder occur? M.B. Khadka of the airline said the mix up was caused by the printing agency in charge of making the airline’s advertising posters, according to news reports.
Marajó Island, Brazil
by Ben Keene | 01.05.07 | 7:20 AM ET
Rocking in Chile, Post-Pinochet
by Jim Benning | 01.04.07 | 5:13 PM ET
National Geographic Adventure’s Top 2007 Destinations
by Jim Benning | 01.03.07 | 1:54 PM ET
Where to go this year? The world is wide open, but some countries seem particularly good choices now. For the December 2006/January 2007 issue of National Geographic Adventure, I worked with editors on a list of six countries offering compelling reasons to visit soon. Among them: China (now’s a great time to check out the new train to Lhasa); Morocco (for a major splurge before a visit to the High Atlas Mountains, spend a night at the historic, Winston Churchill-approved La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech, due to reopen this year after a renovation); and Brazil (TAM airlines is now flying nonstop between Miami and Manaus, making a visit to the Amazon easier than ever). To further stoke some wanderlust and inspire, the magazine celebrates the feats of a number of travelers, including the “new Magellans,” Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who recently circumnavigated the globe by walking, cycling, skiing and, yes, rowing.
Nation Branding: What the World Can Learn From Spain, India and New Zealand
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.06 | 7:30 AM ET
They’re “universally acknowledged to be the crown jewels in the recent annals of nation branding,” writes John Cook in the January 2007 issue of Travel + Leisure, the latest publication to address one of our favorite topics: how countries present themselves in an effort to lure travelers. Cook recounts success stories—Spain’s transformation from a “sleepy low-rent vacation spot for the British and German working classes to a hip, cutting-edge cultural destination” and New Zealand’s capitalization on its starring role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy—but, more interestingly, also examines countries with branding problems. Among them: Serbia, Ecuador and Kazakhstan.
Good Riddance, Pinochet
by Jim Benning | 12.11.06 | 7:43 PM ET
Observes Marc Cooper in today’s Los Angeles Times: “Not with little irony did the gods choose to reclaim former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on Sunday, which was International Human Rights Day.”
Tourism Official Insists ‘It’s Not Whatever Goes’ in Brazil
by Jim Benning | 12.01.06 | 6:43 AM ET