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Car in Havana

Cuba Calling

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Timing is everything. We’re on our way to Cuba. I won’t say that our bags were already packed, but our tickets were booked when Obama surprised the world (and us!) with his announcement. It has all the intrigue of a best-seller – secret talks for months, even the papacy is involved…and just where is Fidel? Hey, this is long overdue! Obama is on fire for his last two years! And we hee Cuba Calling.

I last visited Cuba so many years ago I can’t remember, and in those days you could use dollars instead of Cuban pesos. And what will be the consequences for Cuba of lifting the ban? More Americans for sure, although over a 100,000 Americans visit Cuba each year, either legally or illegally. We’ll be flying from Miami on a charter flight and we can bring back, legally, $400 in Cuban cigars. No more sweating at the airport going through customs with those Cubans innocently packed in your backpack! And imagine, in the not too distant future we’ll be able to use credit cards and not carry bundles of cash around with us.

Here is the delicate balance that Cuba needs to strike. The US has been in fast-forward, meanwhile this island just an hour flight from Miami has remained unchanged. There is speculation that Cuba will become the new Cancun – let’s hope not. Let’s hope they take everything that’s good about modernization – without disrupting the old world charm that makes visiting Cuba so great. How do you avoid the mess and all that you get through overdevelopment? And remember, that none of this stuff is going to change overnight.

I could just see the auto industry salivating at the prospect of getting into Cuba – but Cubans need money to buy cars and the most important thing is to invest in the Cuban people, not the foreigners who are apt to move in, make their money and leave a whole bunch of people in pretty much the same situation as they were before. Smart tourism investment is key.

Carrepair_cuba
And what would we miss once this thing starts to happen? Well, the cars. The average lifespan of an American car is 16 years; the average lifespan of a Cuban car is 60 years! And Castro’s 1959 revolution came at a great time for American cars, which is why the streets of Cuba, and specifically Havana, look like a car museum. Imagine if the Cuban Revolution had taken place in 1971 – it would be a Ford Pinto graveyard!

Christmas Cracker Celebration

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Christmas Crackers are such a part of an English holiday celebration, I couldn’t imagine not pulling a cracker and putting a really silly paper crown on my head while eating Christmas dinner.

So, where does this Christmas Cracker Celebration and Tradition come from? Its particular to the UK and the commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The Irish have a cracker celebration too. It all started as a candy wrapper idea. A chap called Tom Smith originated the concept in 1847 with fancy wrappers for his bon bon candies or sweets as the English call them. When his candy market fell flat, he resorted to a different concept.

Tom thought of making his sweet wrapper much bigger and stuffing the wrapper with fun stuff and more importantly inserting a thin tape that would explode into a crack when pulled . He filled his cracker with ornaments and silly riddles and hats . And hey presto, Christmas was never the same . One is supposed to cross hands around the table and pull the crackers at exactly the same time. Then the hat ceremony which is facilitated by the vast quantities of alcohol that have been drunk around the dinner table.

When you play the fool, it’s better to not be completely aware! There is even a memorial water fountain to Tom Smith and his family in Finsbury Square in the center of London near the Barbican area. My mum used to make crackers in a factory just after the war. Never a shortage of paper crowns around our house when growing up. It was the closest I ever got to the aristocracy!

Jet Blue

Got Jet Blues?

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Got Jet Blues? According to all those Jet Blue junkies, Jet Blue is heading down the corporate greed path. They’ve taken their biggest single value proposition,” more legroom,” and shrunk it – and all because they want to make more money. Shame on them! Imagine an airline looking for ways to make more money, surely not! Oh hang on, most airlines make no money at all and usually the way to try to break even or make a little bit is to scrimp on practically everything. So what is Jet Blue doing that is so horrid to the Jet Blue faithful? It’s charging for luggage and it’s shrinking its seat pitch from 34.7 inches to 33.1 inches. In other words, it’s decided to take the money that’s currently being left on the table.

I know that Southwest let’s your luggage travel free, but JetBlue offers Direct TV and free Wifi! Plus Jet Blue offers Mint, a premium service for not much more money, that connects the East and West Coasts. Look at this way, I doubt they’re headed the way of Ryan Air, where you practically have to pay to go to the toilet.

So Jet Blue’s introducing new slimline seats that are two inches thinner. All of this means that the magic tube we sit in will give them an increased dollar yield, make it a little less comfortable, but still, and this is the sad news folks, they lead the way in seat pitch. By redesigning their seats and adding a few more, they still are not cramming and jamming the folks in. Most legacy carriers offer 31 inches on long-haul…yikes!

This is a great common sense move for Jet Blue; we want them to be a viable airline and make money. And they still lead the way in the two things that are important to most travelers – legroom and a smile. Below is what you can expect on the misery space level on the worst offenders for seat pitch in the business.

Virgin 32.6
American 31.8
United 31.8
US airways 31.8
Delta 31.3
Sprint 28.3
So if you want to save money, Sprint is the game – but you may have to buy some new knees at the end of the flight! And is that Virgin I see?

san miguel

The Senses Of San Miguel

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He who speaks the most, eats the least. He who eats the most, listens. He who listens, will own the secrets. – anonymous

The Senses of San Miguel: In 1810 the revolution started in these hills around San Miguel. The town itself became an inland harbor offering safe passage along the Camino between Mexico and Guanajuato. It’s a favorite place for artists and hip retirees (the Florida alternative without the hurricanes and the five o’clock specials). And you get siesta! It is simply a wonderful place to live.

There is so much going on and the culture is pouring over and into the lovely cobbled stone calles. Narrow streets with tiny doors and decorative spouts that slosh water sometimes onto the unsuspecting passersby below! There are vivid colors, pinks and greens everywhere. There are smells that stay with you, lavender, jasmine, orange and the aroma of roasting coffee. There are street vendors selling churros and tortillas and tacos on the street. The climate is practically perfect, never hot enough in the day to make you sweat and cool in the evenings because of the high altitude. 7000 feet. There are beautiful views from every direction because the town is surrounded by hills on three sides.

The church bells are a part of the music of San Miguel; bells to mark time and events to commemorate festivals and celebration. These sounds hang in the evening air at the jardin, the central plaza. There are globadores, balloon sellers, for the children who are playing, and mariachi players serenading couples at tables in cafés. The laurel trees in the central square seem to be perfectly manicured, providing shade during the day for the people-watchers and the mariachi taking their siesta. The locals mingle with the tourists as if they are not there. The merchants go about their business and actually let you look at stuff without that constant torment you find in Egypt or Marrakech.

Mexico is getting a bad rap at the moment, but there are real alternatives to the tourist traps of Cancun and Acapulco. And nobody’s suggesting you should opt for a homestay in Juarez! San Miguel is a gem and worth a try.

The Rosewood

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The Rosewood

The Roswewood in San Miguel. A friend of mine had stayed at another Rosewood and liked the hotel a lot. This hotel is amazing. We had a great room with a view, Room 303 incidentally, that looked out across the church, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, this is the iconic sight of San Miguel. It looks Gaudi-esque and the beautiful sandstone gives off a magical hue at sunset when the sky is still incandescent blue. I could take all this in while sitting in my balcony outside the room! Two fireplaces and phenomenal food at whatever time, skyrocket this fairly recent addition to San Miguel’s hotel offerings, to the top.

rsma_pool_cabana_v2

Add the beautiful outdoor pool, actually long enough to do laps, the state-of-the-art gym, and the close proximity to everything and you have a pretty cool set up. It’s not cheap, but pick the right dates and you have a perfect location in a perfect place. The brunch at the weekends is off the charts. Heap loads of those delicious mushrooms that grow on decaying wet corn, slapped on to fabulously fresh-pressed tortillas with a dash of hot sauce were my favorites. It’s all good news on the menu and that’s even before you leave the hotel to explore the city.

 

San Miguel

The Road to San Miguel

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The Road to San Miguel

A quick break. A time out. Mexico, in spite of all the bad press seems like a great place to head. San Miguel de Allende is where we headed. Even though it is a little complicated to get there, it’s the kind of place that makes you glad you made the effort. You know that sinking feeling you sometimes get when you have traveled forever and you get hotel nightmares and bad food as your welcome mat? Not here.

San Miguel Vista

San Miguel Vista

There are three ways to get to San Miguel: Mexico City, 4 hour drive and only worth it if you intend to spend a few days there. Not a bad idea as Mexico City is pretty cool. Leon, about 1 and a half hours away and recommended if you like bigger planes and if you want to pass by Guanajuato( the birthplace of Diego Rivera) or Queretero (the closest), 45 minutes, but accessible only by smaller planes(American Eagle essentially). We chose Queretero and because it’s such a small airport, and the planes are small, you have to check the bags…but at the gate! That is to say, no lost bags! Arrived and met by a limo guy from the hotel. Smooth and before you knew it we were heading down the cobbled streets in the beautifully hilly town of San Miguel. Checked into the Rosewood hotel in the center with stunning views and slept.

Airport Lounges

Airline Lounges getting Lazy?

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Airline Lounges Getting Lazy?

Clubs and places to hang out at airports are reaching a troubling intersection. Once the harbor of calm and safety, where you might feel like a million bucks, airline clubs are fast becoming overcrowded and unreliable.

Take American Admiral’s Club for example. What Admiral are they referring to? Certainly not Nelson! Please. It’s awful. Or the Delta Sky Club– there’s not much to eat: a few pretzels and some awful nuts that even if you’re not allergic to, you should be! You have to pay for the alcohol and if you were planning on a meal before a long flight…good luck! And what’s worse, Delta won’t even allow you in with stuff you have been forced to grab outside – probably for fear that others will catch on that there’s absolutely no value inside! You’re better off taking your chances in the vastly improving terminal buildings.

New concessions have opened, healthy and actually decent – places you don’t mind hanging out at. The other day at Chicago O’Hare I even noticed that Starbucks, the only bastion in days gone by, of decent coffee and half decent sandwiches, had no line. People had found healthier options and better coffee!

So, McDonald’s and Auntie Anne’s and those awful places that are still hanging around, watch out! Your concession license may cost more than your daily take – at least let’s hope so!

But it’s not all bad. Has anyone been to a Virgin International lounge recently? It’s actually good. There’s food to eat – variety, free drinks ! And if you have an American Express platinum card there’s a great club called Centurion Club. Sadly it’s only in 4 locations: LAS, DFW, SFO, and LGA. But the service is great, food decent and it made my transit and the vastly improved Dallas airport actually pleasant. Did I say Amex did something nice for its customers? Where’s the Visa lounge!?

House of Lords

The Town and The Gown

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The Town and the Gown

A friend of mine is a Baroness – I have classy friends! Anyhow, she had invited me over for tea at the House of Lords, and I, ever keen to add this to my resume of drinking spots thought no more than a second before finalizing the time. “Meet me at the Peers entrance,” were my instructions.  I took the tube to Westminster (it seemed the right thing to do), to balance out the afternoon, to ride with the masses ( “the commoners”), to alight under the shadow of Big Ben, walk right by the House of “Commons” – no need to go into that place, and head on to the Lords itself.

It’s quite dramatic really, there are TV guys outside by the Commons waiting for politicians and several policemen mind the store outside which gives the visitor this sense of self-importance (completely undeserved).  I was sent to the wrong place first, but eventually found my way to the inner sanctum where I was dutifully screened, assigned a photo badge and waited to be greeted by my friend. Eventually we met up, took tea in china cups and I saw the odd famous face as I caught up and spent an absolutely delightful hour in the belly of the beast.

It is not corny to say that these kinds of experiences are remarkable: the history, everywhere, drips through the woodwork – it’s not difficult to imagine this place 100 years ago. In fact…it’s all about tradition. Ironically, just that day the labor party under Ed Milliband had introduced the idea once again of abolishing the Lords as an institution.  I have never really been a great fan of the lords, but given the very limited influence they have, it would feel very un-British to not have such an institution part of a government that is constituted by a monarchy that has no power, but is an anachronism that has been more or less a continuous part of the system in England for over a thousand years. And anyway, where would I go for a cup of tea and a crumpet in the afternoon.  It beats Starbucks.

airline food

Airline Food

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Airline Food

All this fuss about Emirates and Etihad and how the food just knocks your socks off, I don’t buy it. I was recently lucky enough to be upgraded to first class on British Airways. The food was unacceptably bad – really if I had been paying the price of that ticket, it would have ranked per bite, as the worst meal dollar per dollop I’ve ever had.

Airline food

Airline food

Those good old days when they’d fire up the stove, simmer the mushrooms and pan fry the sirloin in front of you, have gone. But still, we clamor for those moments on board. No matter that we may have eaten in the lounge before or grabbed a quick sandwich in the departure lounge, we still get excited when they walk down the aisle, no matter what class of service you’re in. Sometimes it’s just a bag of crisps, an infinitesimally small bag of nuts where the packaging must’ve cost ten times the contents, or that delightful piece of overcooked chicken or the omelet in first class that looks as though it were cooked last year. No matter! We wait with expectation as the trolley rumbles down the aisle – and we go for it!

Just like the glass of wine, we know she shouldn’t, but we go for that too. It’s something to do while you’re awake. Let’s be really honest here, the only difference between the categories is the legroom, the rest is all an illusion, best dealt with by a sandwich in the airport or an Ambien just before you take off.

Emirate Air Line

Let’s Go Fly a Kite

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Let’s Go Fly a Kite

At the recent World Travel Market in London, which is held every year in the Dock Lines area at ExCel I decided to fly with the Emirates Air Line. It was quite a thrill, actually! You take the underground to North Greenwich and it’s a five minute walk from there to the entrance. It’s right next door to the O2, the magnificent dome with bits sticking out of it that was built for the millennium and has since been used for everything from concerts to tennis tournaments. You can use an Oyster Card, they simply charge you an extra £3.30 on the card or if you don’t have an Oyster Card the “airfare” is £4.40 one-way. And there you are, stepping into your very own cable car, most people don’t seem to know about it or aren’t willing to shell out for the extra money, so chances are you do get your own gondola.

The journey time is 10 minutes and it reaches 90 meters altitude as you have this fantastic view of London – everything’s on display, the Shard, the Walkie Talkie, the Onion Dome, and in the background you can just about make out the London Eye. This is East London’s new skyline and probably London’s most vibrant reclaimed area. You get a neat little history of the East End of London piped into the cabin and I have to say that for $5, it was one of the highlights of my very quick trip to London. Gotta say that London is a city that embraces the new – I used to always imagine that Paris had the gold medal for this: the new opera, the pyramid, but London has just simply taken off and it seems to perfectly manage innovation, integration, and restoration a lot better than most other cities. If you take a blank canvas like the docklands of London, it’s so cool. It’s like you’re making history all over again for some other generation to enjoy.

I love strolling around the floor at the World Travel Market – you pass through every single country that is, from a tourist’s point of view, “visitable.” For example, no Syria, no Afghanistan and no Liberia – you get the picture. I stroll from a chat with somebody about Mongolia, wander up into the highlands of Bhutan or just get real hedonistic and hanging out at the Mauritius stand. It’s a way to travel the world for the price of an Oyster Card, no jet lag, no baggage except the stuff they give you (resist it all!) and attend pretty interesting seminars on travel trends, social media, you name it – all under one roof.

Poshtel

Poshtel

I’ve noticed now that “poshtels” are popping up everywhere. Those good old days when you could find a really awful cheap guaranteed bed bug place to stay, are disappearing fast. Now it’s the 5-star hostel – chic and groovy, but basic and cheap. You can book your own at PoshPacker. These poshtels are everywhere and for the budget traveler they’re reliable and a great way to stay in the center of the city without paying silly prices.

Incidentally another trend that came out, and I find myself slightly at fault here, is the move away from golf to biking. Apparently as middle-aged men think they’re young, they are donning Lycra biking shorts and it looks pretty grim. Those outfits were made for 20-year-olds, Tour de France winners, and Ironmen Triathletes – not granddad on the weekends. It’s frightening – see Spanx for men! Anyhow, the good news is, there are a whole bunch of designers out there willing to help. Biking clothes, see Paul Smith’s 531 collection, don’t have to be as hideous as they are – loose is good and kind and forgiving to the wearer and to the observer.

traveler's check

Bring back the Travelers Checks!

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Bring back the Travelers Checks!

I just get really tired of spending money or paying for services that are not there. My credit card bill is peppered with tiny charges per transaction every time I use the credit card overseas. That really irritates me! There are cards that advertise no international transaction fees; if you have an Amex Platinum, then it’s automatically waived. But my whole thing is how can you waive something that shouldn’t be there in the first place? It’s just another revenue stream and another rip-off.  So consider this, go look for a credit card that does not charge the fee and also go look for a credit card that has enough access points overseas so that you don’t have to constantly get ripped off at the ATM machine.

There was a recent research survey on Brits who travel and according to that, £180 Million in bank fees were charged at ATMs outside of the UK and the average charge of a cash machine overseas is between $7 and $10! So the bottom line is, do the research first and if you’re desperate and you need to pull money out, pull as much out as you can – which of course brings us back to that other almost amusing circle.  What happens if I’m ripped off the legitimate way, given the fact that I’ve already been robbed at the credit card machine? You’ve taken out too much money because you don’t want to pay for another credit card robbery – you then are robbed legitimately on the metro by hardworking honest to goodness thieves, rather than those corporate bandits, who barely laid a hand on you. So take all that money you get from the ATM and go see if you can find an American Express office and convert that into traveler’s checks. Yah, I know it’s a fantasy, I know those offices have long since gone, but it sure makes you think.

Titanic Museum

Belfast

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Belfast

My Italian friend insisted that we do something at the end of the Dublin conference. He had concocted an idea that we should drive to Belfast. I had never been, he had never been, so we rented a car and headed off into the unknown. My first mistake was to forget my passport, drive twenty miles back to retrieve it, only to discover as we entered the environs of Belfast, that there was no border patrol and no passport officer waiting behind the bushes. It was a seamless entry, with only a cell phone notification to indicate that we had passed from the Republic of Ireland into the United Kingdom. The countryside between the two cities is actually rather splendid. Rolling hills, lots of sheep – about as far away as I had imagined from my earlier nightmare visions of the “Troubles” during the 80s.

 

The funny thing is that when I asked several of my Irish friends who lived in Dublin if they had ever been to Belfast, they looked at me horrified. Who would go to Belfast?! It’s too dangerous they said. We won’t be going there in a hurry. What was I letting myself in for? Well as it turned out it all seemed pretty harmless to me. There is an area of the city now on a sightseeing tour, where you can see the various points where some of the major confrontations took place between the British military and the IRA. But beyond that, most of the place looked a bit like a suburban English town on a bad day.

We had decided to head to the Titanic Museum, constructed in the shipyards where the Titanic was built. It is a modern day masterpiece with six floors that even has a Disney-like train journey as part of the tour. You really need about three hours in the museum; the cost of entry is about £15, less if you’re a student. And frankly it’s worth an afternoon excursion from Dublin. You get to see the fascinating history of Belfast, the city that was built on flax and linen and eventually became one of the world’s major shipyards. This was almost the beginning of the luxury cruise liners we see floating the ocean today.

Disasters are always fascinating and eerie. The museum pitches the final moments and creates this austere atmosphere with only the last words of the telegraph operator and a recreation of the ship going down to provide the backdrop to the tragedy. The heroic stories pull you in and I wish I could’ve stayed there longer. Outside the museum there is a piece of graffiti on the wall that someone scrawled; it made me smile. It said simply, “it was alright when it left here.”

 

WYSTC

A Day at WYSTC

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A Day at WYSTC

It stands for the World Youth Student Travel Conference. WYSTC is where buyers and sellers get together in the student travel business. It runs every year and the locations read like a bucket list for the world traveler. Last year it was in Australia, this year it’s in Dublin, and next year in Cape Town. It’s a place to network, see a new city, find out about new trends in student travel and have fun.

The setup is like most conferences – a healthy mix of seminars and keynotes. But it’s the 6 hours of speed-dating where the real action happens. You get 20 minutes with a vendor face-to-face on an open table – will this be the match? Will the palpitations begin? Where will this lead? Can this person be an important person in my life?

You meet people from all over the world, some work in game parks, some work in conservation centers in South America, and others spend their time selling hostel and hotel rooms. Sometimes you develop a decent contact, and most of the time, you don’t. There’s a gala farewell where everyone gets drunk in a hotel and tells everyone else that they love them. I can’t wait for Cape Town next year!

 

Dublin Convention Center

Dublin

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Dublin

My grandmother is Irish, she’s from County Clare on the western coast. It’s not really relevant, but every time I touch down in Ireland I feel that somehow I belong to the place. My mate is from Dublin, my neighbors are from Dublin, and on a good night with a couple of drinks inside me I can do a half decent Dublin accent.

So here I am arriving in Dublin’s new terminal building late at night (cold and raining of course) and heading to an unfamiliar area around the convention center. http://www.theccd.ie/  I’m staying at the Malvern Hotel on Cardiff Lane (http://www.maldronhotelcardifflane.com/), its most distinguishing feature being that it’s right opposite the convention center and right by the river. The hotel was ok, nothing to write home about, but certainly adequate. The breakfasts were those awful buffet things where everything looks like it’s been sitting around for hours and hours. I risked it once and smothered the whole plate with brown sauce to take away the taste and cut through the grease. My Italian friend watched me in horror. When you’re used to cappuccinos and brioche, it can be off-putting, I guess.

I was in Dublin for the WYSTC conference (http://www.wystc.org /) and in between meetings and seminars I found the time to do a little sightseeing and get over to two great restaurants: Peploes (http://peploes.com/), just off of St. Stephen’s Green and Fade Street Social (http://www.fadestreetsocial.com/) where the grilled meats are cooked in a brick oven. Two great restaurants, two great areas and neither time did I have to go down to Temple Bar, thank goodness. Dublin is a happening place, new buildings are shooting up everywhere, restaurants are full and in spite of tales of woe and recession, I saw little evidence moving around the city. It’s a cool place. And the coolest thing of all, it’s actually a cosmopolitan city at last.

Long day at the Airport

Long day at the Airport

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Long day at the Airport

Hotels always give out bad information on the time it takes to get from them to the airport. It’s not that they’re overly cautious, they’re just wrong. I just often wonder how many of the people who give us this advice, have actually ever been to the airport that they’re guiding us to. Case in point, Marmaris center to Dalaman airport.  The journey takes less than an hour. Hotel advice is that it takes two hours and of course they recommend, given the problem of security, that you get to the airport at least 2.5 hours before departure. Of course it’s all about the rooms really. They wanted the bloody rooms! I should have known.

I hate being at airports too early. I am a “maximum of 1 hour before” guy. As it were, traveling is like marriage. Once you’ve been at it for while you become ever more inventive in your ways to keep it fresh. I like the excitement of possibly missing the flight. I like to see how fast I can move through security, how economically I can buy souvenirs (if I really have to) and it means I don’t have to spend endless hours drinking dreadful coffee and eating plastic sandwiches in some awful lounge.

So here I am, spending endless hours drinking dreadful coffee in some awful lounge, wondering why I fell for the bad information yet again. To add insult to injury, my flight to Istanbul, of course, is delayed. From Istanbul, to London there’s a change of terminals before connecting to Dublin. More delays. More plastic sandwiches. This day, a mélange of Turkish Air, British Airways and Aer Lingus, a feast of cultural diversity and sweaty planes (lovely), started at 6am in the morning. It will not end until Turkish time, 2pm the next day. In other words, Australia would have been a more convenient option and certainly more fun!