Chronicles of On The Road Travel

Mendoza: Napa Valley of the South

Last weekend's New York Times featured a small blurb on Mendoza, the burgeoning wine region in Argentina, suggesting that Mendoza has become an alternative destination to the Napa Valley with its exotic (and inexpensive!) wines and gaucho culture.  I have to admit, on my last visit to Mendoza this was the first thought that entered my mind.

The first time I visited Mendoza, wine tours were hard to come by and generally disorganized. There were few wine-tasting rooms and even fewer vineyards set up to receive visitors.

Today is a different story. Nicolas Catena pioneered the growth in Mendoza after visiting the Napa wineries and studying the efforts of Robert Mondavi. In 2001 Catena Zapata opened its doors to visitors and Nicolas' neighboring wineries soon followed suit. A 'wine route' has been established with numerous bodegas, lodgings and restaurants, and visitors to the area have plenty to keep them busy.

This transformation has not been without growing pains. In fact the last time I visited, I rented a car and found myself driving in circles in an effort to locate these hidden gems. It seems that the locals had taken to stealing the bodegas' billboards / road signs as prized possessions. Try as they did, the wineries could not keep their markings on the side of the highway and helpless tourists were left disoriented in an attempt to get their hands on these world-renowned Malbecs.

I highly recommend a trip to this blossoming region nestled under the Andes. There is plenty to do and see for everyone from the wine aficionado to the Epicurean to the outdoor enthusiast. The NYT article lists a few of the higher-end options. For OTR travelers, check out our recommended hotels and restaurants in the area as well as our guide to visiting Mendoza's vineyards.

The Holiday Bump

The holiday travel season is just around the corner and this year is expected to be messier than ever. Fewer planes flying and more people traveling means that the number of overbooking incidents on flights are likely to be at an all-time high. Unless you are flying JetBlue, which is one of the only airlines that doesn't have a policy of overbooking, you should be prepared with the facts and know your rights.

Conde Naste Traveler this month has a great guide to the facts and freebies involved with this holiday tradition. Travelers should know that although US airlines are required to ask for volunteers who offer to be bumped (and take the next available flight), there are no guidelines dictating what the compensation should be for those who give up their seats. The gate agents have been trained to negotiate compensation in these situations, so it is up to you to negotiate the best deal possible, keeping in mind that employees (at least those at American Airlines) have the power to offer whatever is necessary in order to get an overbooked flight under way.

It is a different story for those who are involuntarily bumped. In this case there are strict guidelines as to how you must be compensated. If you are re-booked on another flight and you arrive at your destination within an hour of your initial timeframe you are not entitled to compensation. If you arrive within 2 hours (for domestic) or 4 hours (for international), then you are entitled to a $200 reimbursement for a one-way ticket. Anything beyond that entitles you to 200% of your airfare, but only up to $400 (try finding a ticket for under $200 these days!). The important small print here is that you have the right to demand on-the-spot payment - that means cash, not those free ticket vouchers that will never get used.

If you want to avoid the entire scenario, show up super early or better yet, check in online from home  and print your own boarding card (this only works for domestic travel).

Good luck!

Sun, Sand & Scandal

With the holiday season upon us once again, millions of people will be leaving the comforts of home to either visit family in a far off place or to take a relaxing vacation in an exotic location (or both if you're lucky). When people enter a new environment they are often disoriented and let their guard down when it comes to sensible decisions. This tends to leave foreigners and tourists open to common street scams. If you are traveling to a foreign country you are even more susceptible to scams because you may look different from the locals and you may not have a grasp of the language.

Conde Naste Traveler this month featured an article on just this topic. Sad but funny, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

The Baby Toss - where a woman tries to throw her kid at you so that you will drop your purse and catch the kid as a reflex (come on... really?)

The Phony Parking Lot Attendant - who takes money in return for watching your car, or worse yet - takes your keys for the valet (I think I've fallen for this!)

The Metal Detector Trap -  when the friendly airport staff is yelling at you to stop! and proceed! through the line up and you get separated from your bags in the caffufle (amazingly this hasn't happened yet but I usually try to put my stinky runners on the top of the pile on the conveyer belt to stave off any lurking thiefs)

The New Yorker also recently published some fun, but rather off-the-wall situations. Like the guy who  offers to take a polariod of your money doing weird touristy things like admiring art, and then runs away with your money leaving you with a photo to remind you how stupid you were. Now that's just funny... it would almost be worth the photo if someone pulled that off.

Our advice: always keep your eyes open and try to fit in like a local.

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Big News at On The Road Travel

Today we have released the first rollout of our upgrades. You will find all kinds of features designed to make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. You can also enhance your travel CVs by adding your Flickr photo albums. This will allow you to keep track of all your past travel experiences and easily plan your future trips! There's more to come, but in the meantime check out the new site as well as our up-to-date content for Brazil, Argentina and Guatemala.

We'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Please send it to us at this email address.

Happy Travels!

Vacation time: 10 days plus holidays

Staring at the terms of my contract, knowing that it was futile to request more vacation time, I sighed, signed the contract and faxed it back.  Two years ago I had just signed up to work 52 weeks of a year, minus 10 days plus holidays.  This cannot be sane.  But yet we all do it and we all survive.

Today's article from Travel Industry Wire, Reluctant Vacationers: Why Americans Work More, Relax Less, then Europeans, makes an interesting point about the difference between how Europeans and North Americans regard leisure time.  While in Europe taking a long vacation with the family every year is a sign of social status, we measure our self-worth in general more by how much we earn and what we spend our earnings on.  North Americans own larger cars and homes but also only receive on average 4 weeks of paid leave (including holidays) versus the average of 2 months in Europe.  In North America we seem to think that the harder and longer we work, the better we can feel about ourselves.

I remember when I went over to work in the U.K. I was not aware of this huge discrepancy in vacation time and didn't manage to negotiate more days off in my contract.  I did feel like I had the short end of the stick when all my English colleagues would take off in the middle of our project for 3 or 4 weeks at a time and the North American team had to negotiate just to take a long weekend.  To me the additional frustration of how we regard leisure time is that often one is not encouraged to take time off.  Back in my corporate days I often felt guilty about asking for a one week vacation.  A mere 5 days away from the office to get to your destination, take in the views, learn something new, experience a new culture, relax, and make your way back.  (That's me in Budapest early this year looking exhausted from the transcontinental flight, jetlagged, trying to make the most of my 1 week vacation!)  No wonder one often feels stressed when coming back from vacation to face the hundreds of emails that piled up.  That's if you didn't check your Blackberry while you were away.  And the mathematics around how to get the most out of our your holiday break are laughable - you have to make sure you save enough days and half days to ensure you can bridge the right amount around Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's or you'll be stuck in the office for half a day in the middle of what could have been 10 days off!  How obsessed we are with counting the minutes we take off.

I do hope that one day we start taking ourselves less seriously and are able to balance our thrive to be successful and productive with our desire to enjoy life.

This article was posted by Veronica Montero

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The First Snowfall

This week Toronto got its first layer of snow of the season and it actually stayed overnight, signaling the arrival of winter and time to bundle up. As much peacefulness and calm as this layer of white gives to our concrete jungle, my mind immediately goes to warmer climates and exotic places, trying to avoid thinking about the coming 5 months when temperatures will fall to inhuman levels and all you can focus on is Spring at the end of the tunnel.

Torontonians love the topic of the weather. ‘Nice weather, eh?’ ‘Freezing outside!’ ‘Looks like Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter is here.’ The thing is, weather does shape your life in a country with such extreme temperatures. 'Do I need to wear expedition type gear today or will a toque and mitts with a hip length coat do?' It’s amazing the number of coats one collects, and actually uses, to get through a winter in Canada. Fashion aside, there is obviously a lot more to weather affecting our lives these days. Watching An Inconvenient Truth this weekend made me realize that weather is about to become a ubiquitous topic of conversation because even places that normally would have been indifferent to climate changes will now have to take notice.

Earlier this week I was listening to a report on CBC (The Current: Part 2) talking about Venice commenting that due to global warming we may be the last generation that knows Venice as it is, because one day this city may be covered in water when water levels rise, as predicted by environmentalists. Some sobering facts from the documentary also referenced in their website: ‘deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years to 300,000 people a year’ and ‘the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050’. The documentary has a number of shocking stats that Al Gore claims are indisputable. They definitely make an impression on the viewer, even though I tend to suspect that there must be at least one scientist out there that refutes some parts of the research. One general concept that does seem undeniable, though, is that carbon dioxide emissions are at an all-time high in the history of the Earth, which are causing severe climate changes and that most of us will experience the results of this in our lifetime.

Faced with the enormity of the issue of global warming simply turning off more lights or not using your car one day of the week feels futile and negligible. The point, however, is that if everyone took action of some sort we could actually make an impact and hopefully slow down the process of self-destruction that we have begun. As much as I dread the Canadian winters I do hope that one day when I have grandchildren that I won’t have to explain to them, as a distant memory, how beautiful a white Christmas or the first snowfall were.

by hilltoppooh_3

This article was posted by Veronica Montero.
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Travel Funnies

This one was too easy to let pass... no pun intended. Apparently an American Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing on Monday when a passenger let it rip at altitude and tried to cover up the evidence by lighting a match. Let this be a warning for other travelers...

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Rio de Janeiro: The Other Side of The Tracks

Following yesterday's post on the recently reported increase in violence in Rio, I thought it would be a good idea to provide more detail on the city, the favelas and the danger they present. Rio has been glamorized throughout the world since Brigitte Bardot 'discovered' Buzios in the 60's. This city of sun, sand, surf, and beautiful surroundings has been attracting international visitors who fall in love with this vibrant culture and its people.

As with any big city, Rio also has its drawbacks. The upscale neighborhoods of Ipanema and Copacabana are at the base of a hillside that houses Rio's now-famous favelas (slums). Over 1/4 of Rio's 13 million inhabitants live in the favelas. It is in the favelas where the primary drug trade takes place and children are groomed into the system from a shockingly young age. The favelas run on their own justice system and the local police force has traditionally been corrupt and incapable of enforcing any order of their own. That being said, there are a number of people living in the favelas who are not involved in the drug trade and who work hard every day for a better life, descending from the hillsides to work in Rio's hotels and restaurants.

In recent years an industry has emerged promoting tourism in the favelas. Marcelo Armstrong is one of the pioneers of this industry and has established a well run, half-day tour to the favelas. Profits from Marcelo's tours go back into the favela community through various efforts including a school that they fund, Para Ti. I recently came across this blog describing an experience on a favela tour which was not unlike my own.

If you'd like to find out more about the favelas but can't make the trip to Rio yourself there are a number of movies on the subject that are well worth seeing such as Favela Rising, City of God and My Brazil - A Journey of Faith, Strength and Struggle.

State of the Nation: Travel to Brazil

The US consulate in Rio de Janeiro recently released a warning to US citizens living in or traveling to Rio.

...the level of violence has escalated in Rio de Janeiro. Armed gangs have engaged in numerous shoot-outs and taken over one luxury building in Ipanema, robbing several apartments. On November 22, teenage bandits on bicycles attempted to rob and subsequently shot dead a fifty-eight year old Brazilian woman driving in Leblon. On November 26, assailants armed with automatic rifles and grenades held up a bus of sixteen British tourists on a major thoroughfare. Americans are urged to exercise caution and carry a minimum of valuables while traveling in Rio de Janeiro.

Unfortunately this is a fact of life; Rio can be a dangerous city. Violence often erupts as inhabitants of the favelas come into town and stir up trouble. The fact that there has been an incident involving tourists has highlighted the issue in the international news. We always warn On The Road Travelers to take caution in any foreign country - particularly Brazil. As a tourist, you will be a target, especially if someone notices you are struggling with the language. Don't be so worried as to not leave the hotel and enjoy your stay, but always practice caution in your actions while traveling thoughout Brazil. Leave all of your jewelry at home. Keep a photocopy of your passport on hand, or better yet, scan it and send it to your email account. Avoid walking around with large amounts of cash.

Lee Weingast, our editor in Brazil, has the following advice for travelers to Brazil: 'I don't think that the incidents mentioned in the consular warning have changed anything or that the "rise" in violence is necessarily a trend. The risk of violence though, as we've discussed before, is very real.  The brief recommends taking caution. I'm not really sure how tourists could do that since most muggings happen in broad daylight. I guess staying away from Copacabana is a good start, and certainly not walking with anything valuable on the beach when it's not crowded. Another bit of advice is to acquiesce with whatever the assailant requests.'

For up to date information on travel warnings issued by the US government check in with travel.state.gov

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Another Reason to Visit Iguazu

I am often asked if Iguazu Falls is worth including in an itinerary for a trip to Brazil or Argentina. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's a tough question. The falls are spectacular and, time permitting, should definitely be considered on any itinerary. The main problem is with access and flight schedules, requiring visitors to spend an unnecessarily large amount of time in the area. There is little else to do, aside from a bird park - a tourist attraction where visitors can see native birds caged up for viewing purposes.

The New York Times this weekend ran an article on the Guaraní Missions in the area, giving travelers another reason to explore this region where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. Although the Missions have been on a steady decline since the Jesuits were expelled in the 1760s, a rise in tourism in the area combined with the exposure from the 1986 film 'The Mission' has prompted a restoration effort that might make the journey worthwhile. The Brazilian government has even set up 'The Missions Route' in an effort to promote the area.

The article points out that it is difficult to see the area independently due to international restrictions imposed by local car rental agencies and the fact that the Missions are scattered across all three countries. It is recommended to take a bus tour with one of the local agencies. I imagine that if the tourist trail becomes popular enough the car rental agencies will amend their rules, but by then the Missions Route may be overrun by tourists. Either way, it will make for a great extension on a trip to Iguazu Falls.

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