If you were ever in doubt about the iffy safety of a trip to Egypt, those qualms would surely have been reinforced by the picture of conflict and demonstrations on yesterday's TV reports. Although I've received numerous suggestions to include Cairo and its attractions on a list of up-and-coming destinations for the year ahead, I remain convinced that public order can not be guaranteed in any part of Egypt, until a constitution is firmly adopted and a large majority of the Egyptian public has accepted the basic principles of their democracy. The riots over President Morsi's attempted coup -- the tear gas response of the military, the extremist sentiments on placards, the burning tires, the hurling of rocks at police, the grim sentiments of Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Morsi -- all reflect the fact that Egypt is still in chaos. I can't imagine anyone planning a trip there now, no matter how cheap are tourist expenses, how eager the suffering tour guides and hotels for a renewal of their once-thriving industry.
Though conditions are different in Myanmar, where a thuggish military still keeps things in check, it's hard to imagine that any large number of tourists can comfortably carry out stays there. To begin with, the hotel capacity is pitifully slight, and whatever decent hotels it has are apparently filled with avaricious business entrepreneurs eager to exploit the natural minerals of the country and other opportunities. The boycott of tourism to Myanmar during the time when Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest -- a boycott to which I responded, refusing to advocate or myself visit Myanmar -- kept tourism quite low, and it will be some time before tourist facilities are developed in number, if they ever are. I've read article after article about a supposed land-rush of visitors to Myanmar, and I don't find any of them convincing.
A better picture of what is presently going on in Myanmar is a recently-released 70-minute documentary on that country by a Cornell University professor, Robert Lieberman, entitled They Call It Myanmar: Lifting The Curtain, which I recently viewed at a nearby movie theater. It reveals the horrendous poverty widespread throughout every section of the country, the continuing rule of the military, the slim chances for a democratic outcome, the prevalent corruption, that mar the chances for heavy tourism. So I'm going to have to desist from including Myanmar in an on-going attempt to single out the probable touristic hot spots for 2013.
Around this time of year, people in the business of travel journalism are asked to predict the destinations that will be unusually popular -- the term is "hot" -- in the year ahead, namely 2013. Seems to me there are several obvious candidates, including the five I've noted below. (I'll be writing about others in a future post.)
Miami Beach, Florida
This white-sand-lined part of the sultry Miami is currently awash with tourists from Brazil and Peru in particular, and their heavy presence and expenditures have caused dozens of new commercial enterprises to erupt and many others to enjoy special prosperity. New Peruvian restaurants are especially apparent, and one of my favorites (serving aji de gallina) called Mixtura is found on Collins Avenue in North Beach. I would guess that the addition of many thousands of Brazilian, Peruvian and other South American tourists is causing total visitor numbers here to reach record levels. Since so many foreigners also own Miami Beach condos (their method of stashing their savings outside their own countries), and because they are not always in residence, you'll find a great many empty apartments offered at low rates through VRBO.com. Last winter, I took out a ten-day condo rental here from an absent British owner, and enjoyed a moderately-priced vacation in a glamorous, beachside setting.
Dubai
Though I am myself bewildered by the popularity of this budding resort, and cannot understand how anyone could enjoy a stay there, I am obviously in a dwindling minority, given the huge numbers of Americans who are now boarding flights on giant new planes (A380s) of Emirates Airlines and then spending a couple of weeks in what they look upon as heavenly luxury. Luxury is what Dubai purports to sell -- some of the world's most spectacular skyscraper-hotels and restaurants, amid countless upscale shops and stores -- but who can enjoy luxury where culture is absent? From what I've heard from a great many visitors, there isn't a single attraction here that taxes the mind or excites your intelligence. But clearly, in a place owned, in effect, by an aristocratic family enjoying unheard-of wealth, Dubai has achieved worldwide fame, and is among the top "hot" spots for 2013.
Lima, Peru
Viewed by too many as simply a gateway to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, Lima, Peru is currently gaining fame (and crowds of new tourists) as a culinary capital, the location for famed ethnic restaurants that are now opening branches all over the world. Several celebrated chefs have made publicity tours to spread the word about Peruvian cuisine. Other are opening cooking schools within Peru, while still others are actually operating the branches of such well-known Peruvian restaurants as La Mar Cebicherria in New York and San Francisco (owned by the well-known Gaston Acurio). The big Peruvian drink is a Pisco Sour, the big appetizer is ceviche (which they, who invented the dish, call cebiche), and the tourist office claims that 80,000 young Peruvians (from former poverty backgrounds) are now in training to open even more Peruvian restaurants both in Peru and abroad. It's an interesting approach to generating tourism.
India
Just when it seemed that devaluation of the Rupee could not go further, the currency charts are now showing India's money to be on the verge of declining to a rate of 56 to the U.S. dollar. At that exchange, a cheap-to-visit country has now gotten cheaper, and adventuresome tourists would miss a good bet by not considering a trip in the coming winter months. Using carriers like India's Jet Airways, and aggregators like Momondo, Hipmunk or Do-hop, you can fly round trip to India from America's east coast for just over $1,000, and once there you'll find countless bargains in accommodations, meals and sightseeing. At 56 rupees to every dollar, India is bound to be among the more popular destinations for 2013.
Seattle and Denver
Though local tourist officials are openly critical of the recent statewide votes in Washington and Colorado that legalized the recreational use of small amounts of marijuana, I suggest they are actually overjoyed. Already, hotels in Seattle and Denver are reporting numerous requests for reservations by pot supporters planning visits to Washington and Colorado, and numerous articles have drawn comparisons to the way in which tourism to Amsterdam in The Netherlands has been increased by the easy availability of the well-known drug. Even before the recent vote on legalization, it was known to many that "medical marijuana" was easily obtained in dozens of outlets in both cities that issued the drug in response to a doctor's prescription. For that matter, major cities in other western or near-western states have quietly tolerated the same use of the drug for many years; in San Francisco, as one example, there are numerous "medical marijuana" shops with supplies exchanged for a prescription; and the prescription is fairly easily obtained from compliant doctors issuing the drug for all sorts of mild anxiety problems, and not simply for terminal illnesses. In any event, expect a torrent of new tourism to Seattle and Denver.
I probably get more questions about staying cheaply in New York City than on any other topic, and the reason is -- quite obviously -- the awesomely high prices of New York City hotels. How to avoid those grotesque expenses?
Rent a room in someone's apartment (booked through AirBnB.com).
Accept a hotel room with bathroom down the hall (Hotel Larchmont, The Chelsea Lodge, or Chelsea Pines).
Stay in a religious hotel (Leo House or House of the Redeemer).
Stay in the borough of Queens or in Long Island City.
Bid blind on Priceline.com, but no sooner than the week before you come.
To my surprise, there's been only negligible media attention to the fact that the incoming, new government of The Netherlands has reversed the former ban preventing tourists from ordering various forms of marijuana in the some-200 "coffee houses" of Amsterdam. Through a local-option provision in the law, smaller Dutch cities will be able to continue the ban, but Holland's commercial capital, the swinging Amsterdam, has been exempted, in effect, much to the relief of Dutch tourist officials. A large part of tourism to Netherlands is attracted, it's felt, by the open-minded policies of Amsterdam. It's becoming ever more clear that some tourism interests in Colorado and Washington are hoping to enjoy the same response, now that voters in both states have approved the regulated sale and recreational use of the famous drug.
But to those tourists expecting to enjoy the new legal use at parties and other mass occasions in Denver or Seattle, calm down; the laws specifically require that use be in private, by persons over the age of 21, limited to one ounce of the formerly-forbidden stuff.
Planning a trip to Brazil? An expert interviewed on last Sunday's Travel Show was emphatic in suggesting that "pousada" accommodations should be rented in advance, as a means of avoiding the unusually-high current prices of Brazilian hotels. These cheap inns or B&Bs are listed in all guidebooks, of course, but can also be rented from HiddenPousadasBrazil.com or Booking.com. As for your meals in costly Brazil, these should be taken in "self-service restaurants" (whose Portuguese name sounds like "self-service"), where food is served cafeteria-style, and your dish is weighed to determine the cost.
Another guest at Sunday's show was Thomas Farley, "Mr. Manners," who prescribes rules of etiquette for tourists, among other classes. Who gets the arm rests, we asked him, on a row of three seats? The person in the undesirable middle seat, he answered. It's only fair that the crowded victim should enjoy some small advantage. And when a passenger carrying electronics (laptop, tablet) gets to the airport and finds that all the power outlets are hogged by an earlier arrival with multiple electronic devices plugged into all available sockets, what should that tardy passenger do? His answer: It's important to charge all your electronics before going to the airport so that you won't encounter such problems. But it's also permissible to politely ask the power-hog to free up at least one outlet. Ask. Don't be a doormat, he went on.
On one recent morning, in the space of two hours, my incoming e-mail brought three separate requests from readers for suggestions of an unusual Caribbean vacation. We're tired of Cancun, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, they said. We've been several times to Puerto Rico. Are there any lightly-visited and somewhat-unusual islands left? Places that aren't inundated with other tourists?
I immediately dashed off a trio of short suggestions, which I'm repeating below. They are of places to which your neighbors probably haven't been. And to me, they always guarantee a unique experience of Caribbean pleasures, without the massive shopping malls and high-rise casino hotels that sometimes mark the other tropical locations.
Bequia: This island (pronounced BEK-wee) is one of the thirty-some-odd islands (only a few inhabited) that make up the lightly-visited, British-associated, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Moderately-priced, unlike its notorious posh neighbor, Mustique, it possesses several small hotels on exquisite beaches, numerous B&Bs, and even more villas and bungalows for rent -- the latter the most popular vacation choice. Sailboar rentals and scuba are also popular. Life is slow and gentle, and will remain so until an international airport is completed in a year or so on nearby St. Vincent. Until then, most visitors arrive here by ferry from St. Vincent, though you can also fly here from Barbados.
Bonaire: Tiny Bonaire is ranked by avid scuba enthusiasts as among the world's top two or three best dive locations. Though you may never have even remotely considered the sport, you'll be instantly corralled by your small hotel (all the properties here are low rise and modestly-sized) and enrolled in a "resort course," and within a day or two after arriving, you'll be floating upside down 60 feet below the surface of clear, bathtub-warm waters enthralled by the coral sights and sealife. A member of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao), Bonaire is a Dutch paradise. You reach it via connecting flight from "A" or "C."
St. Lucia: St. Lucia belongs to the British Commonwealth, but has a strong French history as well, leaving a powerful culinary tradition that makes dining -- even at all-inclusive resorts -- a particular treat; you'll be delighted at the tastiness of even the self-service buffet dishes. Scenically awesome with dramatic mountains throughout, the island's shore is dotted with glorious white sand beaches flanked by upscale hotels supplying every courtesy and amenity -- one is better than the next. But most resorts are perched high above their beaches, requiring a walk up and down -- be prepared (and be ready to pay substantial rates).
While avoiding any claim that there has been a major improvement in the security situation within Mexico, the US State Department yesterday issued a statement of where it felt tourists could safely vacation in Mexico. And to the relief of Mexican tourist interests, it gave what appears to be a mild bill of health ("No advisory is in effect", "No warning is in effect") to most of the Mexican areas heavily visited by American tourists: San Miguel de Allende, Chichen Itza, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico City, Cancun, Riviera Maya, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Merida, Tulum, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Huatulco. Although, in some instances, it warns about travel in areas adjoining or near these popular touristic lures, it exempts the resorts themselves from any warning.
But -- and it's a big "but" -- it failed to include the popular Acapulco, Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo, and Mazatlan, in the list of clearly-approved places. Mind you, it wrote that most of Acapulco and Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo (the tourist-heavy sections) was safe, but then proceeded to mention problems with certain nearby areas and especially with roads leading into and around these locations. It also advised, amazingly, that tourists should avoid non-essential wandering in areas of Acapulco more than two blocks further inland from the Costera Miguel Aleman, the boulevard that parallels the sea and the seaside hotels! To me at least, it seemed that they were damning these once-popular locations with faint praise.
As for once-popular Mazatlan, it approves visits to the Zona Dorada and "historic town center" of that city, but seems to warn about everywhere else, especially at night and in early morning. It points out that the State of Sinaloa, in which Mazatlan is found, is headquarters for one of the most active of Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs).
My analysis of the cities included and excluded from the government warnings is a highly limited one, and you should base your plans not on this blog but on a close reading of the State Department document. And keep in mind that the big tourist locations, except for Acapulco, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, and Mazatlan, are apparently felt to be safe.
The following are some random travel thoughts on the eve of the Thanksgiving weekend.
Though I will sound like a broken record, I must again remind readers that the Indian rupee is still selling at the extraordinary rate of 55 to the US dollar, making everything in India quite inexpensive. India looks more and more like the hit destination for unusual vacation trips this coming winter
In recently writing about the difficulties of finding air space for Christmas-season trips, I should have pointed out that planes empty out not simply on Christmas day itself (when they fly almost empty and at ultra-low rates) but also on Christmas Eve. Reader Donna Cuervo, a flight attendant, has advised that she worked on a Christmas eve flight from Fort Lauderdale to New York last year, and there were only 17 passengers on a 150-seater plane. They had paid as little as $39 for the one-way flight.
That log jam at the Treasury Department that held up the renewal of licenses to operate tours to Cuba has at last un-jammed, and dozens of tour operators are again happily selling those trips to Havana. But less happily, rates remain unusually high: a typical $400 to $500 a night per person, not including airfare between Miami and Havana. The reason, as the CEO of Insight Cuba pointed out on last weekend's broadcast of The Travel Show, is that the Cuban government requires that every tour be physically accompanied, 24/7, not only by an American tour escort but also by a Cuban escort. And US Treasury regulations require that passengers be kept busy meeting Cubans at artificially-canned meetings in their studios, schools, stages, arboretums, orphanages, and the like, all throughout each day. Though the tours are called "People to People" trips, they actually prevent you from meeting any real people in unrehearsed encounters. What a farce!
A great many travelers to Canada and Mexico are arranging to obtain Enhanced Drivers Licenses in place of passports, as a means of legally crossing those borders. Recent regulations permit the issuance of those documents (costing $30 apiece) in several states. But many purchasers then encounter problems because these easier-to-obtain IDs are to be used only by motorists, and not by persons who fly into Canada or Mexico.
I've received a great many endorsements for two travel facilities recently mentioned in this blog: the hotel-finding website called Oyster.com, which now claims to print on-the-spot analyses of 3,000 hotels in 200 destinations, and the Armed Forces Vacation Club, which slashes the rental rates at vacation homes to people who are either presently serving or have ever served in the US armed forces (along with federal civilian employees). You can bet with fair certainty that the Club doesn't make fine distinctions about people who have served in the military for less than their entire career; if you can make a plausible case for your veteran status, you surely will be accepted as a client.
We're coming up on travel show time again. My daughter Pauline will be speaking at the Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show in the Long Beach Convention Center on January 12, 2013, probably around 11am, and if you'd like to obtain tickets, you go to www.latravelshow.com. Both of us will be speaking at The New York Times Travel Show in Manhattan's Jacob Javits Convention Center on January 19, 2013, both in the morning and afternoon. Information and tickets at www.nyttravelshow.com.
Finally, if you can currently predict a need for a hotel room -- I'm talking about a trip within the United States that you have planned to make in the next two or three months -- then you should become sensitively aware of the fact that most large hotel chains will be offering discounts of 20% to 40% to persons who book those rooms on Black Friday or Cyber Monday coming up. Set aside some time to go to the big hotel websites on those two days, and you'll find that almost everyone in the hotel field is looking for discount-prompted business at the properties they own.
We are about to enjoy the popular season of winter cruises in the tropics. The cost of that, which came down in recent months because of the public's unhappy reaction to the Concordia disaster, will rise again, and most commentators are expecting at least a 10% increase.
But more important than the basic price for such cruises is the increasing tendency of cruiselines to nickle-and-dime their passengers with unexpected fees and charges. For the first time in cruise history, such big cruiselines as Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are charging extra amounts for quality dishes ordered in the main dining room of their ships -- for steaks ($14.99), for lobster ($20), or for surf-and-turf ($27.50). What's more, there's an extra "gratuity" charge for steaks ordered in the main dining room, and therefore an incentive for waiters to persuade you to order them. What used to be a haven far removed from the world of extra charges -- namely, the main dining room of a cruiseship -- is no longer free from commercial greed. Extra charges abound. Hamburger, anyone?
And beware the lure of those special, new, outdoor restaurants on the top deck of ships, where meals incur another surprising extra charge. What used to be a single charge for the entire cruise is now a medley of many multiple charges which increase your final bill. More and more, it appears that all-inclusive resort hotels in Mexico and the Caribbean, which charge nothing extra for your drinks or for their specialty restaurants, are now generally cheaper than the average cruise. On a cruise, watch yourself!
There's also special advice for air passengers seeking to enjoy a Christmas vacation this year. By the time you read this blog, it may be too late to obtain seats for Christmas-period flights. But if you're one of the lucky ones with confirmed space for that ultra-heavy period of travel, you'll want to arrive at the airport much earlier than you ordinarily would. Many passengers at Christmas time are inexperienced travelers unaware of the tactics needed to pass quickly through security gates. They don't wear slip-on shoes that can be quickly doffed, they carry all sorts of elaborately-wrapped Christmas gifts that have to be painfully unwrapped for TSA officials; they aren't aware that they have to take out their metallic change and take off their wrist watches or jewelry, and for a dozen other reasons, they hold up the lines of people waiting to reach the departure areas. It will take you much more time to pass through security.
If you don't already have tickets for travel in 2013, you'd be well advised to wait until January to buy them; the airlines aren't presently discounting flights several months in the future. But this advice doesn't apply to spring break travel; so great will be the demand for those dates that you'd be well advised to purchase your seats now, regardless of their price. They won't come down any further.
Returning to holiday travel: It will be difficult this year. Airline capacity has been sharply cut, but the number of would-be passengers has greatly increased with the improvement in consumer confidence. So be super-cautious: go early to the airport, and expect the worst.
I've just spent a pleasant half-hour idly moving a computer cursor over the many items of information displayed on the three-year-old, heavily-revised, and expanded Oyster.com, which purports (among other things) to expose the deceptions in hotel advertising and marketing. I last reviewed Oyster.com back in 2010, when its emphasis was on the hotel reviews prepared by employees of the site who had, by that time, physically visited and inspected some 900 hotels in 14 major cities. Oyster.com was since brought to my renewed attention by a reader of this blog, who suggested I re-visit it.
It now performs what seems to be a more dramatic function, placing its initial emphasis (the subject of its main menu page) on pointing out the fakery in hotel photographs. That's only one of Oyster's many efforts, of course, but exposure of deceptions is the initial bait it uses to get you interested in the site. "The Hotel Tell All" is how it describes itself.
One example: Oyster.com posts a picture of a rooftop swimming pool used in the brochure of a particular hotel, and then shows a wider-angle view of the same swimming pool showing it to be flanked (and made unpleasant) by a mammoth Macy's department store adjoining the hotel. It shows the misleading photo of a hotel's beach, and then -- alongside that photo -- it shows a more revealing and realistic photo of the same beach.
But that's only one of its current revelations. It posts (in a blog carried in its archives) amazingly frank write-ups of many hotels, including an admiring plug for a Denver hotel that allegedly will now be enjoying a great deal of business because of the recent legalization of a certain relaxing substance in Colorado. What other hotel site would imply such a thing? It lists "romantic" hotels, among groupings of deluxe hotels, pet-friendly hotels, hotels for destination weddings, hotels for drinking and dining, and so on.
It also performs a more standard function by permitting you to make reservations at hotels in numerous cities, after you have first scanned what purport to be advantageous rates at those hotels. It is apparently an aggregator (my own guess) of the results appearing in the many standard hotel search engines, which is how, I guess, it earns money. I can't for the life of me figure out how else this elaborate (and very attractively designed) hotel site funds itself, or pays the salaries of the many full-time hotel investigators it claims to employ. These are the people who allegedly roam the world inspecting and taking photos of hotels, and then identify "Facts or Fake Outs" in the way these hotels present themselves.
The website is so broad in its coverage, going into so many angles, working hard to be the website for hotel freaks, making the choice of a hotel the most important selection in travel planning, that you could spend hours reading and trying to understand it. If any of our readers have any better information about the ownership of, or purpose of, Oyster.com, I'd be grateful to receive it in a comment to this blog. And if any of our readers have used it to actually obtain a hotel reservation, I'd be grateful to hear of your experiences. In the meantime, I think you'll find it entertaining -- and useful -- to spend a few minutes with Oyster.com.
Though it's not one of my own favorite places, Atlantic City is apparently open for business. That's a report by Seth Kugel, the "frugal traveler" of the New York Times, who traveled by bus to Atlantic City this week for the purpose of checking out damage from Hurricane Sandy. According to Kugel, those TV images of a destroyed boardwalk were of a residential area of the gambling city, and not of the well-preserved, open-for-business boardwalk fronting all of the famed casinos and saltwater taffy shops beloved of gaming types. Kugel won $60 at the slots, treated himself to a good meal at one of several restaurants jammed with happy patrons, and reports that all the attractions and lures of AC. are as potent and supposedly satisfying as ever. Don't ever say that we at Frommers.com are dismissive of low-life urges.
Until November 20 at 5pm Eastern Time anyone who has ever served, or is presently serving, in the armed forces, or is otherwise a federal or state employee, can take advantage of a rather remarkable sale offered by the Armed Forces Vacation Club (www.afvclub.com; click on "Search Space-A"). It's the option to book a vacation home or apartment in any of the 50 states (including Hawaii), or in nearly any foreign country, for a flat $299 covering a seven-night rental. Literally thousands of properties are available at that price. I should have brought this deal to your attention several days ago, when I first learned of it, but have at last remembered and are curing my own laggard memory. If you have any vacation plans and are one of the privileged, government-related group, you can save big by going fast to the website listed above.
