The World Seems the Same From Inside a Hotel I spent my summer vacation in the Maldives. I snorkeled, I snoozed. I caught up on back issues of the New Yorker. I got to know the local marine life, from the baby sharks and rays that swam up to my villa to a black-and-yellow fish [...]
Islands create lures for the passport-weary New regulations that went into effect in January made passports mandatory for air travel to Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda. Suddenly, U.S. travelers were in a mad scramble for the document, which created such a backlog of applications (now estimated at just under 3 million) that the federal [...]
Caribbean trips surprisingly cheap Would you ever have believed that the Caribbean would become the cheap area in which to vacation and Europe the costlier place? With European currencies surging almost daily against the U.S. dollar, hiking the price of rooms and meals, cost-conscious Americans are flocking to a handful of tropical islands costing less [...]
Marley home ‘inspiring, cheesy’ A visit to the Jamaica birthplace of reggae megastar Bob Marley includes traversing a narrow potholed road, a store with over-the-top T-shirts — and the odour of ganja. A rattling pickup truck honks and squeezes by us on a type of road Jamaicans aptly named a “one-lane two-way.” “Head gown. Head [...]
Jamaica – tacky and tasty To consider Jamaican jerk chicken gourmet may be a lonely stand to take in the minds of culinary critics. For that matter, Jamaica’s draw in general for many travelers may have waned in recent years. Between tales of violence and harassment, crime aimed at visitors and an overdependence on the [...]
Jamaica’s quiet side It’s a starry night, a nearly full moon lighting our path through the lounge chairs scattered on the beach. Splashing into the Caribbean Sea, there’s no shock of cold to slow our steps across the sandy bottom. The water is warm as a baby’s bottle. We walk out, and out some more, [...]
Deep discounts are afloat for Caribbean itineraries Always dreamed of a Caribbean cruise? This is the year. Cruise lines have slashed prices for 2007 voyages to rarely seen levels, as low as $399 a week for February sailings, in an aggressive effort to jump-start sagging sales as the busiest booking period of the year begins. [...]
Sex tourism in full boom In winter, a tourist woman’s fancy lustily turns to thoughts of sex. By the thousands they descend on the Caribbean every year, women driven by one urge: to spend a week or two sleeping with local “beach boys” and paying them back in drinks, meals, gifts, and cash. And it [...]
Process for getting passports to change “… gamblers taking the cheap bus trips to Niagara or Windsor won’t pay the $100 to get a passport. And parents are not going to want their kids going to Toronto if they have to pay $82 for a five-year passport for the school trip.” – John Latkovich, who [...]
Caribbean airlines struggle Passengers traveling to and from Trinidad and Tobago on the Caribbean nation’s flag carrier are no longer greeted by the famous steelpan and green and gold trademarks that have distinguished BWIA West Indies Airways. As of midnight Sunday, Trinidad-owned BWIA ceased to exist. It is being replaced by Caribbean Airlines, which was [...]