Part of the landmark Café des Artistes restaurants on New York City's Upper West Side (just across the street from Central Park on West 67th Street), The Leopard at des Artistes features museum-quality Howard Chandler Christy wall murals…

In Costa Rica – a country renowned for its legendary sensational amount of plants and animals – it’s one thing to boast about having the greatest biodiversity. It’s quite another to have tons of scientific research to back up the claim.



Not only is the rainforest around …

Yountville, California embodies many quintessential visions you undoubtedly have when planning a Napa Valley excursion. It all started in 1836, when George Calvert Yount founded the town planting Napa Valley's first official vineyard. Today, vines…

“Inspiration 911” Sculpture – Porscheplatz Stuttgart Germany

We began…

“Honey, I still don’t see any action in the restaurant!”  



We were sitting on the balcony of our hotel high above the Adriatic with a view directly into a large, empty, open-air restaurant built in a cave which was also high above the crashing surf. For experienced independent travelers we were getting a little concerned. Did we just make a big leap of faith on a…

The transition from rainy season to summer season in Costa Rica is a time…

As NASA and the part of Florida known as the ‘Space Coast’ is trying to reshape its selfimage after the permanent grounding of the Space Shuttle program, the agency’s last surviving vehicle, Atlantis.

During NASA’s heydays, the agency drew crowds from all over the world to every new rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. But the days of government organized and financed space adventures are long gone, and as the Traveling…

Whether you love grand architecture, great art, animals, scandals,…

Skiing on the cheap has always been a serious challenge. When we start booking your holiday and calculate the prices for accommodation, flights, equipment and lift passes, you may well start to wonder whether all this is seriously worthwhile. However,  if you are prepared to make your own travel arrangements, cut the accommodation expenses in half by renting a self-catered ski accommodation, shop around, avoid eating out three times a day and stay in the lesser-known resort, you can still…

One hates to split hairs. Especially the hairs of the dead. But a joyful discovery in my local cemetery was soon followed by an almost instant disappointment.

According to a few 19th-century published references, the remains of New York's own Philip Livingston--one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776--were buried in…

With the onset of the summer travel season in much of the world June is a good time to ask ourselves how well we are protecting our tourism sites.  Airlines and other forms of transportation have the advantage that they received government security.  Most other forms of tourism, such as hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and major attractions such as theme parks receive little or no government security or protection.  In most cases, the tourism industry can depend on no one but…

One day in Bocas del Toro an indigenous man dropped by with a parrot to sell me. I knew I wasn't going to be here long enough to buy pets, but I had owned a parrot when I lived in South America as a kid, and I always wanted another. I figured that when I left Bocas I would let him go, like I did my macaw in Cochabamba.



As long as he was there, I decided to ask him about the indigenous culture. Not necessarily how they lived now, but what…

Travel and tourism professionals can never forget that their profession is not only one that evokes high levels of emotions, but is often open to all sorts of liability cases that range from the frivolous to the extremely serious.  To add to the confusion, what may be legal in one place may be illegal or liable in another location and often visitors may not only sue in the location in which an incident occurred but also once they have returned home.  This…

(TTBS) I like to think of myself as a good person and responsible traveler but here's a confession, I'm not.



Sure, I've chastised litterbugs and those molesting animals in national parks and even…

Will buying an airline ticket soon be as personalized as buying a suit from a sales person? Probably, as trends go.



It's no surprise that airlines want to personalize their relationships to their customers. If they can figure out how, it would be a huge step toward making the ticket-buying process a lot more individualized, and…

It's that time of year again - Oktoberfest (aka Wiesn) is right around the corner (September 22-October 7; next year it's 9/21-10/6)!  But even if you don't make it for the world's biggest beer bash, Munich is still one of Europe's most attractive and fun…

The B&B industry is out to bust some myths, and are taking advantage of the election-year thinking to do it. With a totally tongue-in-cheek approach, it’s poking fun at the very symbol that has haunted them for years: the doily.



According to research conducted by the Professional Association of…

Summertime and the living may be easy, but summertime is also prime time for identity theft, says security expert, Alan Wlasuk. He’s managing partner of 403 Web Security  a company committed to evaluating and eliminating website…

By Roy Heale

Rosario is a radiant city on the move with a tolerant and gay-friendly population. The city is nestled in a gentle twist of the mighty Paraná River about 300 km northwest of the city of Buenos Aires. Due to this close proximity to the Capital City, it is often overlooked as a potential gay vacation destination by first time LGBT…

Not surprisingly, when any country or territory takes the bold step to legalize same-sex marriages the business community subsequently decides it is acceptable to adopt a gay positive attitude. Such was the case in other countries like Canada following the 2005 Same-Sex Marriage Act and it now appears to be the circumstance in Argentina since the…