As I reported in this blog on Monday, Roe Gruber's tour company, Escapes Unlimited (tel. 800/243-7227; www.escapesltd.com), has always specialized in the island of Bali, its most popular destination. But when the cost of aviation fuel and -- therefore -- air transportation began to skyrocket, she noted a strange phenomenon, which I discussed with her on my Sunday radio program last weekend. Moving into second place in terms of popularity was Argentina, the least expensive of all destinations within a 12 to 15-hour flight from most of the United States. And today her staff is handling almost as many tour passengers to Buenos Aires as to Bali.

That Buenos Aires is a suitable vacation destination for today's hard-pressed American is a point that one of our readers, Donna Cuervo, made in a response to my recent blog about "staycations". Her remarks are so apt that they should not be missed, as such responses sometimes are. Because her advice may indicate a good choice for your own next vacation trip, I'm reprinting it here:

"If a staycation is what you want, fine, but I would find it really depressing after working a whole year.

"Although I hoped to return to Paris this year and take an apartment for a month, I realized that the exchange rate would take a lot of the joy out of it for me. I'll do that another time - hopefully next year.

"But I won't stay home. If I can't take an expensive vacation, I'll take a cheap vacation. I'm going back to Buenos Aires.

"Doing the math, I find I can have five fine meals in Buenos Aires for the price of one in Paris. A decent apartment in Buenos Aires can be had for less (often a lot less) than $1,000 a month. Go a little over that, and you have something really exciting. In Buenos Aires I can attend the theatre, concerts, etc., in the best seats for low prices. In Paris I would have to sit in the balcony and bring binoculars.

"In Buenos Aires I can actually shop and buy things. In Paris I could only shop for ideas, as actual buying wouldn't make sense with this exchange rate.

"To Buenos Aires, frequent flyer tickets were available at a price of only $37 tax. For Paris, there was no availability for many months.

"While I could take a staycation and see the sights of my own New York area, the real vacation in Buenos Aires will probably be cheaper than staying home. Prices for doing things in New York can be pretty high."

Buenos Aires, anyone? Roe Gruber's Escapes Unlimited takes you there for $759 (plus fuel surcharge), including round-trip air on COPA from Miami, 5 nights at the centrally-located Regis Hotel or similar, breakfast, transfers, and half-day city tour, with extra nights only slightly more. Add $250 from New York, $350 from Los Angeles. And for an extra $122, you can overnight on the way in Panama and take a tour of the Panama Canal.

Escapes Unlimited also goes to several other unusually cheap destinations, charging as little as:

$599 to Ecuador, plus fuel surcharge: Round-trip air on COPA Airlines from Miami, 5 nights at a 3-star hotel, breakfast, transfers, half-day city tour.

$679 to Panama, plus fuel surcharge: Rainforests, beaches, nature, tribes and the Canal. Round-trip air on COPA from Miami, 5 nights at a 3-star hotel, breakfast, sightseeing. Slightly higher from other cities.

$949 to Saigon, plus fuel surcharge: Round-trip air from Los Angeles or San Francisco, with 5 nights' hotel in Saigon, transfers, breakfast daily, and a half-day city tour. Extensions to the Central Highlands, Danang, Hue, Halong Bay, and Hai On, are also available.


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Labels: argentina, budget travel, ecuador, packages, panama, vietnam

# posted by Arthur Frommer : 11:39 AM Links to this post

Nowadays, newspaper travel sections and travel magazines think nothing of listing air-and-land packages that cost $1,700 and up for six nights. When you realize that the price is "per person double occupancy," and requires that two people travel together and pay $3,400 for only the partial ingredients of the trip, you discover how much travel has suffered during this past year of steep travel inflation.

Except -- except -- for the products of Roe Gruber's Escapes Unlimited (Roe Gruber is the social worker turned altruistic tour operator whom we profiled in a June post). Along with Go-Today (which operates mainly to Europe), she continues to negotiate breathtaking rates from airlines and hotels, and combines them into five-night packages at delightful prices.

Keep in mind, first, that you can always extend the duration of her packages for small, additional, per-day fees. Bear in mind, also, that to the price of all her offerings, you must add a fuel surcharge (about $100 to Central America, up to $200 to Asia). And finally, note that her website address doesn't use "unlimited" in the title, but is www.escapesltd.com.

What exactly does Escapes Unlimited offer? Roe Gruber's six most popular programs, concisely described, are the following:

$599 to Ecuador: Round-trip air on COPA Airlines from Miami, 5 nights at a 3-star hotel, breakfast, transfers, half-day city tour.

$679 to Panama: Rainforests, beaches, nature, tribes and the Canal. Round-trip air on COPA from Miami, 5 nights at a 3-star hotel, breakfast, sightseeing. Slightly higher from other cities.

$759 to Buenos Aires: Round-trip air on COPA from Miami, 5 nights at the centrallylocated Regis Hotel or similar, breakfast, transfers, half day city tour. Add $250 from New York, $350 from Los Angeles. And for an extra $122, you can overnight on the way in Panama and take a tour of the Panama Canal.

$799 to Bali: Round-trip air on Cathay Pacific from Los Angeles, midweek departures, 5 nights' lodging in a choice of several beachfront hotels or in the cultural center of Ubud in the rural uplands of Bali (recommended). You can also mix and match areas in whatever configuration you wish. Round-trip airport transfers. Breakfast daily. Half-day village and temple tour. Hotel taxes and service charges are extra.

$919 to Bali and Singapore: Round-trip air on Singapore Airlines from Los Angeles or San Francisco. Five nights' hotel at a two-and-a-half-star property in either Sanur, Kuta or Ubud (or mix and match locations), airport transfers, breakfast daily, half-day village/temple tour, plus 2 night in Singapore at a three-star hotel, with airport transfers, hop-on trolley sightseeing, Singapore river cruise.

$949 to Saigon: Round-trip air from Los Angeles or San Francisco, with 5 nights' hotel in Saigon, transfers, breakfast daily, and a half-day city tour. Extensions to the Central Highlands, Danang, Hue, Halong Bay, and Hai On, are also available.

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Labels: bali, buenos aires, ecuador, panama, tour companies

Still reeling from the fact that our Panama City hotel had a full-scale casino of roulette wheels, baccarat dealers, craps tables and slots (nothing had prepared us for Panama's Las-Vegas-style gambling), Roberta and I headed for our first morning in town to the city's outstanding quarter of colonial gems, the Casco Viejo district of 17th century Spanish charm. Preserved as the conquistadors left it, Casco Viejo vies with Old Havana and Old San Juan in authenticity -- but is beginning to leave the others behind with the restored beauty of its courtyards, the sparkling tiles and marble that line many of the cafes, restaurants and shops that now occupy these historic structures. Just as Panama City's downtown across the bay is transforming itself into a totally-unexpected, skyscraper-packed Hong Kong, Casco Viejo is in the process of being restored into the most tastefully-attractive area of the city.

Here, the district is studded with fun gift shops (pot-holders and eyeglass-containers in the strongly-colorful designs -- "molas"--of Panama's indigenous Indians, dolls in the ruffled long skirts of Panama's 19th century women, feather-light Panama hats), the cafes and restaurants are gracious and courtly, the sight of the city's skyline across the water is stunning, the Presidential Palace (currently housing the Honorable Martin Torrijos) is the center of power and surrounded by military -- but friendly -- guards), and the chief sightseeing attraction is the Museo del Canal Interoceánico (the museum which relates the history of the Panama Canal -- though its inscriptions are in Spanish only, its many visual aids and movies are easily understood). That Canal museum is an indispensable stop, a necessary prelude to your visit to the Miraflores Locks later in the day.

After a $30 lunch for the two of us (including appetizers, main course, two Panama beers and dessert) at the elegant Mostaza Restaurant, we cabbed it to the Miraflores Visitors Center on the outskirts of town for a look at the actual workings of the Canal. As we stood on a high outdoor balcony overlooking the Miraflores Locks, a live announcer speaking over a loudspeaker in Spanish, England and French explained the intricate workings that lifted these giant vessels to different levels of the artificial waterway. Asian sailors stood on the deck of one enormous container ship, looking up at us tourists as we gazed at them and their ship.

From Miraflores, we visited not one but two successive marketplaces of Panama City, and bought gifts for relatives back home at prices that were a quarter the levels charged in the lobby gift shop of our hotel.

The tourism of Panama is centered not simply in Panama City, but to a far greater extent in the picture-perfect, uncrowded beaches (with several large resorts) just outside Panama City, and in the renowned San Blas Islands, Pearl Islands, and Bocas del Toro off-shore islands, as well as on the Gulf of Chiriquí. It's found in the mountain stretches of Boquete housing rain forests, coffee plantations, Embera and Kuna Indians, resorts and retirement communities.

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Labels: deals, panama

Because of a turbulent political history and the virtual occupation of the country by the U.S. military for so many years, tourism was late coming to Panama. The same in Nicaragua, where a fierce civil war made visits there almost unthinkable. Only recently, some twenty years following the end of conflict in Nicaragua and seven years after the transfer of sovereignty over the Canal to Panama (and the full departure of the U.S. military), have both countries embarked on a major effort to attract vacationers.

And in both instances, the tourism effort has been preceded by massive publicity about real estate in Panama and Nicaragua, just as tourism to Costa Rica was preceded by a similar real estate boom. In the case of that latter country, American seniors were tipped off about the low cost of land and living and moved there by the tens of thousands. Tourism followed.

For the Panama City conference which I attended last week, major real estate developers in Panama and Nicaragua had published glossy, 100-page catalogues and elaborate brochures which are also being distributed and publicized all over the world. P.R. agencies had been hired to spread the word about the joys of living there. As I saw last week in Panama City, property people are bank-rolling promotions that greatly surpass the efforts even a well-funded tourism program would be capable of making.

Some of these promotions raise disturbing questions. One real estate firm declared triumphantly that in Nicaragua, it is possible to hire a full-time maid who doubles as a cook, for about $7 a day. A full-time gardener who doubles as a chauffeur, earns about $10 a day. An American, on a total income of $25,000 a year, lives "like a king" in Nicaragua, it was claimed. A couple receiving social security income of $18,000 a year lives moderately but well. (These examples remind us that we American travelers often enjoy special comforts based on the sub-standard wages of the people at the destination; we often "live off others").

Still, it's hard to deny that costs in Panama and Nicaragua are low not simply for an American retiree, but for the tourist. In Panama, taxis are ridiculously cheap. Museum admissions are half what they'd be in the United States. A can of beer costs 50¢. Movies (top-notch U.S. films) are $3.75. Though Panama's tourism effort is currently emphasizing its beaches, its charming countryside villages, its countless off-shore islands offering an enchanting stay, and conversely, the lively discos and nightclubs of its Amador Causeway in Panama City, its museums and Canal, all such hype is delivered against a background of low cost.

At a time when the U.S. dollar is plunging in value against numerous currencies, Panama's tourist representatives are talking up the fact that Panama's currency IS the U.S. dollar -- you needn't change your money at a loss into fewer foreign funds. And when Panama's remarkable Minister of Tourism -- the world renowned music super-star Ruben Blades -- is interviewed by a journalist, he almost always slips in a comment that Panama's cost of living is low, as he did in a print interview during my stay in Panama City last week.

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Labels: central america, panama

Minutes after arriving at the airport of Panama City and driving into town, you glimpse an awesome sight, as I did last week: a line of massive ships, one behind another on the seaside horizon, waiting their turn to enter the world-important Panama Canal. It is the distance saved by that unique "path between the seas" that enables all of us to pay affordable prices for raw materials and products shipped from thousands of miles away.

Later, on your first day in Panama, you take a cab to the visitors' center at the Miraflores Locks, as I did, and from a fourth floor balcony look down at enormous container ships and humongous tankers lifted or lowered like toys to the various levels of the Canal. It's a sight that rivals many others as among the great learning experiences of travel.

In the years of controversy leading to the U.S.-Panama Treaty that transferred the Canal to Panama starting December 31, 1999, cynics claimed that the Panamanians would lack the competence to properly operate the Canal. In fact, they have operated it brilliantly, raising its earnings and usage to historic peaks. They are now engaged in a five-billion-dollar project to widen the Canal and make it available to more and bigger ships each day.

And the energies unleashed by control of the Canal have, in turn, created an economic boom. I know of no city in the world, with the possible exception of Beijing, which is currently erecting as many high-rise skyscrapers as Panama City: office buildings, condominium apartments, hotels.

Its skyline is beginning to resemble Hong Kong or the financial district of New York. Some 11,000 modern apartment units will come on stream in the next two or three years, and the city is awash with real estate developers selling those apartments to visitors (especially from other Latin American countries) looking for a safe haven for their cash or (in the case of Americans) a second home or retirement location.

I delivered a speech on travel trends last week to a convention of retirees in Panama City, and got the full treatment -- a massive pitch--from the real estate interests in my audience: claims that glamorous apartments in Panama City cost half the price of their equivalents in Miami; enthusiastic judgments about the stability of Panama and the rule of law; the access to fine medical care; the ease with which foreigners can establish residence; a cost of living said to be only 40% of American levels.

I'm not a real estate expert able to weigh those claims, and I can only suggest you make the trip (a five-hour flight from most parts of the U.S.) and see for yourself. But in a subsequent blog, I'll discuss the current campaign by Panama's new minister of tourism, the musician/actor Ruben Blades, to encourage touristic visits. It's the new "hot spot" for American vacationers in more ways than one, and so is nearby Nicaragua (which I'll also discuss).

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Labels: central america, panama