Browsing: Holiday Travel

Some of the most beautiful places in the world are not found on land, they are alive underwater, in the coral reefs of crystal clear waters where entire sea life habitats exists. So, how do you get to enjoy this beauty? Not by bus, plane or train — the only way to experience this delight is by strapping on a dive cylinder and putting on some flippers.

Scuba diving is a fast-growing sport that takes …

Read More

Mouthwatering piña coladas aside, the largest island in the Eastern Caribbean has a ton to offer every kind of travel enthusiast. From its old-world charm and stunning beaches to its vast array of adventure options, making the trek to Puerto Rico will satisfy even the most severe case of wanderlust.

Get adventurous.

Snorkeling and zip lining? Kayaking and cave exploration? Canyoning and surfing? Yes, yes and yes. Options abound for thrill-seekers, so allot a …

Read More

Over 10 million Americans travel with their pets every year, according to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA). Most of the travel (76%) is done by car, but that still leaves a whooping 2.4 million pets flying somewhere every year.

When it comes to traveling, sometimes it’s the simplest and most basic mistakes that put your pets at risk. So if you already know what to do to keep your pet safe, maybe it’s …

Read More

Though best known for their colorful Carnival, Aruba has all kinds of cool festivals, annual events, and visitor-inclusive celebrations happening all year round!

Though Carnival lasts for three months, it really doesn’t matter when you visit Aruba as there are all kinds of gala events going on all year-round. And you need never worry about the weather for outdoor festivals: Aruba is outside of the hurricane belt and boasts a balmy average of 85 degrees …

Read More

Germany has hundreds of Christmas markets – Munich alone has twenty four. Contrary to what many visitors believe, the most charming Christmas markets in Germany are not always the well known ones, but the smaller ones that often have a unique theme. These are often the Christmas markets that are most popular with locals as well.

Esslingen Medieval Christmas Market
Visiting Esslingen’s Medieval Christmas Market feels like stepping into a time machine and coming out …

Read More

Home to Tom Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, the world’s oldest language and more castles per square mile than any other place else on Earth, Wales is an old and fastidious land of charmed, dreamy landscapes – farmhouses and snug villages tucked away amongst deep woodlands in the most inaccessible lush places. Heading due west out of England, towards Wales’ Snowdonia National Park and its mystical mountains, the roads unfurled before me, winding through …

Read More

The Romans called it ‘Terra Magica’ and it’s no surprise why. There are many things about Istria which make it a unique and enchanting place to visit: its scenic landscape of rolling hills which rivals the countryside of Tuscany, picturesque hill-top villages and medieval fortified towns, lush valleys covered in vineyards, and a beautiful coastline and spectacular islands.

The region also boasts many stunning architectural treasures which are testimonies to its Roman, Venetian and Byzantine …

Read More

Some of early-America’s greatest painters and writers called this one of the most beautiful spots in the world. On the map, it’s only two hours north of Manhattan. But it may as well be a world away.

The Kaaterskill Clove is a Catskill Mountain ravine of stunning beauty, with dense forest and thundering waterfalls. And the biggest of those waterfalls — Kaaterskill — is higher than Niagara.

This region is a place of Technicolor surprises …

Read More

A million words of poetry and prose have been penned to describe the wonders of Petra, the ancient city that lay forgotten for centuries beyond a secret mountain gorge.

Artists and photographers strive to capture the mystical beauty of this pink-tinged city carved into desert sandstone. Every guidebook to Jordan bristles with views of Petra’s magnificent monuments, now considered one of the seven modern Wonders of the World. Heck, even Indiana Jones swung through the …

Read More

If you’re traveling to Africa, chances are that the city of Cape Town is somewhere on your itinerary. The “Mother City” has long been the prime tourist spot in South Africa, but for those who’ve seen it more than once, the cold Atlantic seaboard of Camps Bay and Clifton beaches has started to seem a little too full of traffic jams and tourists, and a lot less appealing than it once was. Visitors from around …

Read More

Americans mark autumn with two major holidays: Thanksgiving in late November, and Halloween on Oct. 31. The latter is a personal favorite: Ever since I watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! as a  child, Halloween has been one of my anchor points for the fall season. Halloween as we know it, with the trick-or-treating and funny costumes, is for all intents and purposes a strictly Western practice. Though it has in recent years spread …

Read More

Don’t laugh.

Often, when I travel, one of the first places I seek out is the local cemetery, and not just during Halloween season. Why? Because there, believe it or not, you can learn a lot about the place you’re visiting — about its people, about its history, about its lifestyle, and about its colorful characters and legends. You can be moved to tears, of course. But you may also find yourself laughing out loud, …

Read More

Antigua’s small sister island  Barbuda is truly unspoiled Caribbean at its finest, and we were enroute to Lighthouse Bay Resort www.lighthousebayresort.com sandwiched on a thin sandbar that snakes for some 17 pristine, private miles and accessible only by air, (small plane or helicopter) or a  long ferry ride (three hours) and water taxi.  But we were arriving in high style via Caribbean Helicopters http://caribbeanhelicopters.com/, as complimentary return passage by whirlybird is included with a seven …

Read More

I suspect that if you looked up the phrase “finding paradise” in the dictionary, one of the definitions you’d be given would read like this:

“the act of spending five carefree, abundantly sunny days exploring the idyllic Hawaiian island of Oahu.”

The Hawaiian islands are legendary. The image of arcing palm trees casting shade over a fuzzy-haired surfer as he waits for the tide to come in, has become so iconic in American culture that …

Read More