America
Pure & blissul experience awaits in Astoria Plaza Boracay: Mango Tours in Balitang America
Nothing could compare to the image Boracay has shown to its visitors. With its powdery white sand beach, this award-winning island paradise has been the all-time favorite getaway hub of both the local and foreign tourists. Boracay is home not only to many electrifying water activities and parties but it is likewise a home to relaxation and pure comfort. Astoria Plaza, one of the newest 5-star hotels in Boracay, offers the combination of luxury, comfort and affordable experience in every stay. With its clean, pure and villa-like ambiance, everyone can enjoy his/her stay in this island paradise and take home the unforgettable, blissful experience brought to them by Astoria Plaza Boracay! Book your Boracay vacation now and have this luxurious experience by calling us at our US toll-free number at 1-866-2-MANILA or visit www.mangotours.com for more amazing travel deals.
Westerdam, Holland America – Travel Movies
Pictures of the Holland America ship the Westerdam in Alaska.
Best Guide for Adventure Travelers in America
In 1996 two friends and I undertook our first backpacking experience. We traveled from Costa Rica to Guatemala in six months. We originally planned to travel for a year, but half way decided to do something more useful with our presence in Central America and applied for volunteer jobs in Honduras and Guatemala
Adventure Travelers in America
The travelers we met during our adventure were very different from the travelers you would meet now on the same route. Most people were, like us, looking for a real escape. It would have been rare to find anyone traveling for less then three months. As a matter of fact, most people had started in the northern region of the continent.
They would give themselves eight months or more to do so. The main reason for their trip was not so much traveling in itself; most backpackers were looking for a different lifestyle, which they had found traveling this region. They had already found what they were looking for and had been successful in becoming accomplished adventurers. These adventurers had more time than money and were consciously escaping the first world. The idea was to make a statement against modern life. Traveling to third world countries was their way of expressing disagreement with the hectic first world.
Changes in Central American Tourism
As so very often, things have changed. Tourism in Central America has grown enormously. Nowadays, you will find a different kind of backpacker there. This adventure seeker needs to work harder to find his escape. He will need to travel to even less accessible locations to avoid the vacation atmosphere found in popular destinations throughout Central American countries. Backpacking and adventure tourism has grown more fashionable over the last ten years. It is now most common to take a two or three-week holiday to an exotic place like Guatemala.
The new wave of travelers in third world countries has both downsides and upsides. Tourism is a great way for the local community to develop themselves and create better living conditions. Unfortunately modern tourists have demands that can compromise local communities, forcing them to change their way of life.
A New Profile
What about the environment?
The original article can be found at Adventure Travel: Adventure Travel
The new adventure tourist is much less adventurous as our explorers ten years ago. He is not interested in departing from daily first-world life. He is simply looking for a short break from it all, from the busy, stressed out atmosphere experienced daily in the fist world. This adventurer does not have the time to really adjust to another lifestyle; he just wants a taste of it. Not genuinely interested in getting to know a third-world lifestyle, he is naturally not willing to live like the locals surrounding him on his travels. As if the world is one big museum, he wants to be there and watch from a short distance, experience it without being stuck in it. And with all the riches the world has to offer, who can blame him?
The consequence is that local hotels and restaurants need to adjust their services to this new demand, even if this means loosing their own culture. Although the current traveler claims to be interested in other cultures, he is really demanding it to change to his needs so that he can experience it the way he desires. A shift in backpacking culture is leading to a shift in local third-world culture.
Samuel Christ is part of the Duende Tours team. Duende Tours is a highly experienced local multi-sport adventure travel provider of ecologically and culturally-oriented tours in the rainforest of the Mayan World in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. As an international team of Europeans, Americans, and Latin Americans, we have been able to integrate western travel needs and quality standards into a local culture with different living standards and understandings. You can book tours and find a great deal of travel information on www.onejungle.com , the website of Duende Tours.
Bike Adventure to Ecuador – Lonely Planet Travel Video
Our bike journey through Ecuador was quite an adventure! The scenery was spectacular, and the locals were friendly…. Just be careful where you pitch your tent! Produced by Jo Robinson for Lonelyplanet.tv
Duration : 0:6:38
Visit Alcatraz, San Francisco’s Notorious Ex Federal Prison
Image via Wikipedia Guest Article:By current standards, the prison wasn’t large, housing only 250 inmates, but because of its island location, there were never any escapes recorded from it – thus adding fuel for entertainment industry to create movies such as “Escape from Alcatraz” where real life escape attempts were transposed into movies for the big screen. TV’s “Mythbusters” have since proved that escape was in fact a possibility, despite Alcatraz’s reputation to the contrary.
Today Alcatraz, known also as the Rock, is overseen by the National Parks Service who have representatives on the island. Visitors will be able to ask NPS staff any questions they have, but there are no formal tours around the prison. There are self-guided tours – including the cell house audio tour – however, which together with videos and exhibits make for an interesting trip around this famous building. The evening ferry ride out to Alcatraz offers a greater insight into the island than the daytime ones as it circles the island, and has a narration about the island’s history – this should be balanced against the fact that there are some areas of the island that not open at night because of safety issues. There’s no fee for actually visiting Alcatraz, but the ferry companies that transport visitors across the Bay do charge for their services.
Whether you are interested in the Alcatraz myth, the celebrity inmates such as Al Capone, and Alvin Karpis, movie locations, or the historical past of San Francisco, you’ll find Alcatraz an interesting way to spend a few hours.
Source: travel
