Archive for August, 2005

Confessions of an Electronic Traveler

Sometimes I think that the days of leaving your life behind are a thing of the past, and maybe that’s a bad thing. But, like it or not, today we are more connected than ever. We’ve got e-mail from cruise ships, satellite calls from the Serengeti, cell phones in flight. BlackBerrys, Palms, PDAs, and PIMs — they’re becoming as common as calculators. But what are the really essential electronics for the traveler? And how best to use them? Cell phones. Perhaps the greatest invention of the last 20 years is…

Living It Up In The Riviera Maya

Suggest a Mexican getaway, and most people think of Cancun, a balmy beach resort area manufactured as a tourist destination in the early 1970s. The first hotel broke ground in 1972. Now, 33 years later, Cancun has more than 50,000 hotel beds, hundreds of restaurants, and a couple of mega-malls for the throngs of American sun worshippers who come here to play, sometimes every year. I say, skip Cancun and head 40 minutes south — to the Riviera Maya, a long stretch of beautiful Caribbean coast on the Yucatán peninsula.…

So, You Wanna Be A Travel Agent?

Back in the mid 90s, I almost bought a restaurant. It was a great restaurant — great location, great food, great patrons and great potential. Then a friend of mine who owns several restaurants took me aside and warned me, “You don’t want to get into the restaurant business unless you are born into it!” Probably very good advice. So what did I do? I got into the travel business, instead. Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Well, yes and no. Certainly the travel industry has faced…

A New Look At New Orleans

Whatever your vice, it can probably be found in New Orleans, home of Mardi Gras, zydeco, bimbos and booze. But this bad-ass river town has another side: romantic, soulful, epicurean, and yes, even familial. Take a new look at the Big Easy with the loving eye of a local. Some say Paris is the most romantic city in the world, but in the absence of a transatlantic ticket, New Orleans might give it a run for the money. From the quaint carriage rides around the French Quarter to the splendor…