Blog

As a veteran of the adventure travel industry, I’ve always prided myself on keeping an open mind about destinations that haven’t yet caught on among North American travelers. I see now that my pride has been misplaced: it took me until two months ago to visit Colombia and to fully appreciate the magnitude of my oversight! It’s easy to get caught up in the euphoria of traveling and to quickly draw exaggerated conclusions. But I find that I’m still enthusiastic about Colombia. I was particularly impressed with Cartagena which, along with Antigua, Guatemala, is the most impressive and well-preserved Spanish

In my last posting (Israel Trip Report) I made the point that Israelis no longer deserve their reputation as a prickly people. I then went on to describe the cultural and adventure highlights of their country. Having had more time to reflect, I regret glossing over the “people” aspect: as much as any of the sites we visited, we’ll remember many of the personalities we came across, both Jews and Arabs. Yes, we did encounter one less-than-fully honest taxi driver but practically everyone else we met was delightful, interesting or inspirational — sometimes all three. Too bad the Middle East headlines