Web Travels
finding travel inspiration onlineTravel forums: don’t be too honest?
The Los Angeles Times revealed a scary side effect of online travel forums - legal action. Some hotel visitors who’ve left unflattering reviews on sites like Trip Advisor have been contacted by lawyers threatening to sue for libel. One reviewer was asked to remove his negative review within 14 days. It seems Trip Advisor did not stand up for the reviewer, perhaps because the site has protected itself with fine printed rules.
Indie Music Travels Well
Music fans will love this week’s NYTimes Travel Music Issue, including a great piece on a Moroccan event called the Gnawa and World Music Festival, held in the seaside resort of Essaouira. There’s also a report on “the next Austin,” the college town of Denton, where a band called Midlake is taking off. Midlake has prompted comparisons to Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Yardbirds.
Try Midlake’s Myspace page and read more about the quintet in The Guardian. And, don’t miss these five must-bookmark music sites to keep track of concerts, artists, and lyrics with a few clicks.
Surfing - Peruvian style
The New York Times featured surfing in Peru this week - calling it the next new “it” spot for global surfers. It sounds like the area around Lima draws an interesting bunch: carefree teenagers, businessmen, and twenty-something beautiful people, according to the article.
Apparently, surfing is thriving up and down the coast of Peru, but “the epicenter of the neo-surf scene is undoubtedly in Punta Hermosa, a summer beach community about 30 miles south of Lima, where surfing is virtually a religion,” said the Times.
Check out this Punta Hermosa surfing video on You Tube, and the South America travel guide from findingDulcinea.
Making a case for Munich
Munich is called “Germany’s Hot Spot of the Moment” in today’s New York Times Travel section.
“Hot Spot” usually means the article will go on and on about underground clubs, quirky galleries, indie musicians, and throngs of young hipster-types inhabiting artsy neighborhoods. But this piece is different. Author Nicholas Kulish is the Times’ Berlin correspondent, giving him a unique perspective on Munich’s personality in comparison to the more bohemian Berlin.
Take these notable observations, for example:
“Munich eschews Berlin’s ‘poor but sexy’ mantra. Fur-clad ladies of leisure still climb out of prowling Ferraris…Yet across town in the younger Glockenbachviertel, a night crawler can drain cocktails at the hip, Portuguese-themed bar Maroto”
“Munich has succeeded in winning me over by blending tradition with a new feel — epitomized by the city’s strengths in art and design. In contrast, Berlin’s thrift-store, ’80s-inspired counterculture can feel a little flat, monochromatic, even uniform at times. Some days it feels like a textbook case of “we’re all different in exactly the same way.”
Kulish wraps things up by saying that he’s not ready to give up on Berlin, but he has found himself longing for, and making more frequent visits to Munich. The article is refreshing - it doesn’t worship either young or old, rich or struggling, cultured or fun-loving - it embraces all of Munich’s attributes.
Planning a trip to Munich? Here’s an awesome Germany travel guide from findingDulcinea.
Springtime Vino
On April 1, it finally started to feel like springtime in New York City – temperatures in the low ‘60s, a few people wearing flip-flops, and a few more smiling faces. Something about warm weather makes me want to sit outside and drink wine, or maybe it was just the fact that I’d been working on the findingDulcinea wine travel guide. Either way, it’s good to know that spring is fast approaching.
For springtime wine, try Albarino, says San Francisco Gate writer Tim Teichgraeber. The U.S. is now the biggest importer of Albarino, but many people still don’t know what it tastes like.
Teichgraeber explains:
“Albarino grapes make neat, distinctive wines that smell and taste like a remix of other, more popular grapes. It has some of the citrusy, grassy flavors of Sauvignon Blanc, flashes of the richer peach and pineapple flavors of Viognier, and the delicate, minerally character of Riesling.”
Albarino is produced in Rias Baixas, a region in Galicia, Spain. I’m already longing to visit after reading Teichgraeber’s description, which likens Galicia to one of my favorite places, the Pacific Northwest. Read the whole article in the San Francisco Gate travel section.
Don’t miss the findingDulcinea Wine Guide for a lesson in basic wine knowledge, the health effects of drinking wine, tips for making wine, and buying and selling it online. We’ve also got a feature piece about “Wine on the Cheap.”
To plan a trip to Spain and taste the Albarino where it’s grown, turn to the findingDulcinea Spain Travel guide.
Spring breaks in Pondicherry and Berkeley
Sunday’s New York Times spotlights Pondicherry, a small, cheery sounding Indian city whose French aestetic is drawing tourists. Pondicherry was cut up by French colonialists into ethnically organized blocks, and the native population was for a time “one of the most exploited in the world.”
Things have changed though. Pondicherry is looking brighter, more energetic, and more appealing to foreigners lately. Boutique hotels, great shopping, and an eclectic culinary scene, all with a bit of French edge, are turning the city of just one million people into an appealing Indian getaway.
The author describes the garden of a new hotel called the Promenade: “well-heeled patrons – mostly Western, with a smattering of Indians – drank cocktails and dangled their feet in a small pool. It was a Tuesday in March, but it felt like a summer Friday.” If that line’s not enticing enough, view the photo slide show of sunny Pondy’s streets, meditation sessions around huge Bodhi trees, vivid flower market and street vendors.
Plan a trip with the findingDulcinea India Travel Web guide
Another springy Times’ Travel piece describes how to spend 36 Hours in Berkeley, CA. Although the city maintains a ‘60s sensibility via “patchouli-scented advocates of homeopathic medicine, and crusty purple-haired free-love followers,” there’s a trendier scene as well. “The town’s main drag is packed with more hipsters with BlackBerrys than hippies with beards,” says the Times.
For more Berkeley lore, head to findingDulcinea’s News story on Sara Jane Olson, who was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group of “Berkeley Radicals” who kidnapped Patty Hearst in the 1970s.
Are travel guidebooks doomed?
A good interview with Lonely Planet guidebook writer Robert Reid on World Hum discussed whether print guidebooks will eventually become obsolete as online travel content continually expands. Reid, who is at work on a Burma guide and has his own online Vietnam blog/guide
says, “I still think many, many travelers like holding a book in their hands.” It’s a nice thought, but when someone like Reid, a successful guidebook author who has also published travel pieces on Bulgaria in the New York Times, resorts to online guide writing, surely a transition is underway. Perhaps a combination of online and print travel advice is the future?
Buenos Aires: Another “New Prague?”
This week’s New York Times travel section highlights the ever-enticing Argentina, particularly, the increasingly bohemian capital, Buenos Aires. The article explains how a growing group of ex-patriot artists and writers from Europe and the U.S. are changing the face of the city, opening hotels, restaurants, boutiques, and galleries. This free spirited city with “cheap prices and Paris-like elegance” thrives on creativity, drawing comparisons to Prague in the 1990s.
The New York Sun echoed this sentiment in late February, but also emphasized the City of Lights aspect found in Buenos Aires, and the appeal of aging architecture:
“A city like New York is so relentless in its constant reinvention that it can be difficult to find a store or restaurant or anything else that is more than a few years old, or that retains the look it had a few years back. In Buenos Aires, by contrast, there is an abundance of old buildings, done up in the Beaux-Arts style that, more than anything else, has earned this metropolis of 12 million souls the right to be called the Paris of South America.”
Can’t resist a jaunt to Buenos Aires? findingDulcinea has an Argentina Travel Web guide to help you plan a trip - flight, hotel, etc.
As for the “new Prague” thing, travel writer David Farley puts in his two cents, and he should know; he lived in the Czech capital for a few years and edited “Travelers Tales Prague,” a collection of essays on the city. Check out the interview with Farley on the new-ish site Brave New Traveler<a
Sydney Rock Pools and Icy Dips
This Sunday’s New York Times Travel section spotlighted rock pools in Sydney, Australia, which are chiseled out of rocks near the shore of beaches like Bondi and Coogee. As a study abroad student in Sydney five years ago, I walked the coastal trail that the author Raymond Bonner mentions, “a well-maintained cliffside path, with spectacular views, just over two miles to Bronte Beach” from Bondi.
I remember thinking that it must cost a fortune to swim there and dine in the restaurant overlooking the pool, ocean, and beach in the distance. But according to Bonner, who swims in rock pools regularly and is married to an Australian open water swimming enthusiast, there is only a small fee for use of the rock pools, and they are popular among families.
Some of the pools were built in the 1800s when, oddly enough, daytime swimming had been banned. Pools vary in size and shape, from compact and “boutique,” to Olympic size.
The author mentions the Bondi Icebergs Club, founded in 1929, which has a grueling initiation requirement: swimmers must complete three Sunday swims per month during Sydney’s chilly winter season from May to September for five years before becoming official members. A traditional tossing of ice lumps into the pool on opening day of winter season is an added obstacle.
Sydney summer has a couple of mild months remaining, which means you can swim in one of the city’s amazing rock pools before the Icebergs show themselves. To plan a trip to Australia, the findingDulcinea Australia Travel Web guide is a helpful resource, offering advice on cities and attractions in Sydney and beyond, as well as flight and hotel searches, the scoop on passports and visas for Australia travel, and a few blogs and forums where you can connect with other would-be downunder visitors.
