Virgin America lets loose in Cancún

by Stephen Greenwood on

Virgin America just can’t sit still these days. In the past two months, they’ve launched service to Dallas/Forth Worth (and added frequency from both LAX & SFO), placed an impressive order for 60 new A320’s (to be delivered starting in 2013), said adiós to Toronto for the time being, and launched service to two cities in Mexico; Los Cabos and now, Cancún.

Everything about Cancún seems like a good fit for the airline. It’s sunny. It’s flashy. It’s exotic. It attracts a young crowd and has high seasonal traffic with a significant need for competitive nonstop options from the West Coast.

But Cancún is a destination that has a way of polarizing travelers. For most Americans born after 1975, it’s notoriously synonymous with Spring Break, loud nightclubs, and excessive resorts as far as the eye can see. For some vacationers, these are the only reasons to go. For others, they are the reason to never even consider going. Yes, the beaches may be spectacular and the attractions plentiful, but the rush to develop and commercialize both has left most of the city devoid of a single trace of ‘authentic’ Mexican culture – a fact that managed to earn Cancún the top spot on Gadling’s list of places not to go in 2011.

With that in mind, allow me to be the mediator here and tell you exactly why you should go (or at least fly to) Cancún in 2011…

Simply put, Cancún is an affordable, accessible, and a safe gateway to the larger Yucatán peninsula. Yes, it may be an overdeveloped tourist mecca with little soul or culture in the eyes of true travelers. But the vivid blue waters, white sand beaches, and Mayan ruins of the outlying areas offer an entirely different world that’s only six hours away.

Before taking Virgin America’s inaugural flight from LAX to CUN, the farthest I’d ventured in Mexico was Puerta Vallarta. I didn’t really have high expectations for the Mexican Riviera, since my association of it was a blur of generic beach scenes from a decade-old MTV Spring Break broadcast. Which is ironic in hindsight, considering that our flight was the backdrop for an episode of VH1’s Top 20 Countdown; complete with an in-flight performance by the Goo Goo Dolls.

The 5 hour flight itself was great. The margaritas were festive and the atmosphere was as playful as all Virgin America’s inaugural launches are. The only hitch that passengers will encounter in the ‘complete’ Virgin America experience is the lack of in-flight WiFi after crossing the US-Mexico border – an issue that Gogo and Aircell will hopefully address with coverage expansion in the coming years.

%Gallery-115432%

Upon our arrival, our Virgin-worthy accommodation was the gorgeous and brand-new Live Aqua. If you’re accustomed to hotels with two white Rolls Royce Phantoms parked outside, chic interiors filled with hip ambient music, extensive spa services and an array of tasteful eateries, then this is the place you’ll want to stay. It is plausible that you could forgo leaving the hotel grounds and be perfectly content with relaxing by the beach for your entire trip. And for the price of an all-inclusive stay, that’s exactly what I would do.

But, it turns out there are actually things to do around Cancún besides lounging and clubbing. Escape the herds of tourists and head south to quieter beaches at Playa del Carmen, where you can hop across to Cozumel and explore Mayan ruins. Or venture west and check out the ‘authentic’ colonial town of Tizimín on your way to catch a boat to the tiny but charming Holbox Island (and swim with whale sharks in the summer).

If you’re short on time but looking for adventure, then look up one of Cancún’s best day trips; Selvatica’s zip-line & ATV jungle excursion. In the span of a half day, you can fly through the trees on seven different zip lines, drive your own ATV, and swing from ropes into a beautiful blue cenote (Spanish for giant swimming hole).

I can understand why people dislike Cancún. It’d be very easy to come expecting authentic Mexican charm and leave never wanting to lay eyes on another beer-toting American again. But keep your time in the developed area of Cancún short, and you won’t be dissapointed.

Needless to say, my only regret is that I didn’t have more time to explore the outlying areas of Cancún. For a sub-$500 flight that’s just under 5 hours from LAX, or roughly 6 hours from SFO, it’s an easy trip that I certainly plan on making again. Especially if Virgin America can keep their fares low, which they usually do for recently launched destinations. Better yet, enter to win one of three VIP trips that the airline is giving away right here.

If you have your own crazy stories or suggestions about why or why not to go to Cancun this year, leave them in the comments section below!

Adventure travel company accused of killing 100 sled dogs

by Kraig Becker on

Yesterday a disturbing story made its way out of British Columbia, Canada, where an adventure travel company has been accused of killing more than 100 sled dogs last April after suffering a poor travel season. The incident first came to light when a former employee with the company made a claim for workman’s compensation based on his suffering Post Traumatic Stress after he was ordered to kill 70 dogs. That number was later raised to 100 by the company in question.

According to this story, adventure travel company Outdoor Adventures Whistler is under investigation for animal cruelty following the alleged event, which took place around April 21-23 of last year. The report says that the dogs were shot to death then tossed into a mass grave, the site of which is now being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Reports seem to indicate that the travel company suffered a poor season last winter with very few travelers electing to take their tours. As a result, they fell on hard times economically, which forced them to make the decision to kill their sled dog teams rather than finding alternate solutions.

Animal lovers should use caution when reading the full story on this incident. Some of the descriptions of what happened is a bit disturbing to say the least. This report underscores a bit of a dark side to some kinds of travel, where animals can be seen as a commodity used for profit, then discarded when they are no longer useful. Obviously not all adventure travel companies, or even dog sled tours, operate like this, but it helps to underscore the need for researching who we choose to travel with.

This is a sad story and if the allegations are found to be true, I hope those involved are held responsible for their actions.

[Photo credit: Zeledi via WikiMedia]

Cruise Port Update: Grand Turk gets NASA exhibit

by Chris Owen on

It’s not all sandy beaches, shore excursions and shopping in Grand Turk these days. A unique exhibit commemorating the National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s (NASA) Mercury space program and the historic 1962 splashdown of the Friendship 7 capsule off the coast of Grand Turk is now open at the Grand Turk Cruise Center.

“Splashdown Grand Turk” is a 3,500-square-foot attraction celebrating the unique relationship of the American human spaceflight mission which has special significance to the island’s history.

“We believe that having this great exhibit at the Grand Turk Cruise Center not only pays homage to the remarkable history of the NASA space program, but also shows the historical richness of the island,” said David Candib, director of business development for Carnival Corporation & plc, which operates the Grand Turk Cruise Center built in 2006.

Part of the Grand Turk Cruise Center, the free exhibit features a history of the Mercury space program, including replicas of an Atlas rocket model, astronaut John Glenn in a spacesuit, and the Friendship 7 capsule.

%Gallery-115405%
Storyboards at the exhibit depict the accomplishments of the NASA space program and detail the differences in space equipment of yesterday and today while offering an overview of the current space program and future plans.

Grand Turk is part of the Turks and Calicos island chain, located North of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Grand Turk Cruise Center is a beach front cruise facility where guests can swim in the ocean or in one of the largest swimming pools in the Caribbean.

Photo courtesy Carnival Corporation

Travelocity video contest awards winners $5,000 voluntourism vacation grants

by Laurel Miller on

Travelocity knows you work hard. That’s why the online travel company would like to give you a $5,000 grant to go on vacation.

Calm down now. You have to work to win your just reward. And by work, I mean you or a team need to submit a winning video. Then you have to use your five thousand smackers to take a Signature Trip volunteer vacation offered by Travelocity’s voluntourism partners. Examples include doing trail work in Alaska with the American Hiking Society, developing community projects in Tanzania with Cross-Cultural Solutions, working side-by-side with scientists on an Amazonian riverboat with Earthwatch Institute, or living in a children’s home in Peru with Globe Aware. Oh, and there’s one more catch. The top 25 finalists will be determined based on the number of online votes they receive from social networking sites.

Since 2006, Travelocity’s Travel for Good® program has been annually awarding eight, $5,000 volunteer vacation grants to American applicants. Travel for Good’s main objectives are green hotels and voluntourism. As Gadling has previously reported, voluntourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the travel industry.

If hands-on, experiential travel is up your alley, go to VolunteerJournals.com. The site will walk you through the easy process to upload your video. You can then promote your video on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and send it to friends and family for voting.
Each video should explain why you deserve to win, and which Signature Trip from Travelocity’s voluntourism partners inspires you. Volunteers and grant winners also have use of the site’s free blogging platform to share their experiences.

The top 25 finalists will be determined by 50 percent audience support and 50 percent quality of their videos. There are two contest cycles per year, and Travelocity employees will select four winners from the top 25 finalists from each cycle. There are two deadlines for entries: March 31 (voting is April 1-May 31), and July 1-September 31 (voting October 1-November 30). Get filming!

The Joy of Cookbook Shopping: Why Bookstore Tourism Matters 

by David Farley on
The first puzzle one encounters when seeking out (or stumbling upon) Bonnie Slotnick’s bookstore in New York is how to enter. Perplexed non-locals can often be seen standing in front of the shop, housed in a century-old building in the miasma of the West Village’s tangled streets, staring into the big picture window where Slotnick usually displays books based on a theme. Here’s a hint: walk up the stoop, past the mailboxes, and down the hallway; just before the door where the building’s residents take their final steps returning being home, turn to the right–there you will find a strange and increasingly unusual world: a rare and out-of-print cookbook shop.

Bookstore tourism is becoming increasingly popular. Threats to independent bookshops’ existance posed by big chains and online booksellers have inspired a new motivation for travel. The New York Times recently ran a travel feature on bookshops in San Francisco. The Los Angeles Times has done the same for New York. Gadling got into the act a couple years before that. And for bookshop lovers (and/or for the 99.9 percent of us who don’t have a butler or staff at home to prepare food), Bonnie Slotnick’s shop is one of the country’s coolest bookstores.

Slotnick, who has owned the shop since 1997, thinks cookbooks shouldn’t just be for, you know, cooking.

“When I look at an old cookbook, it takes me away, to another place,” said Slotnick who says cookbooks are a great alternative to travel. “My customers tell me they read them like novels, detective stories, and even like porn.”


In that case, Slotnick’s shop is a museum dedicated to international and historic food porn. Where else, for example, can you browse through a Burmese or Kashmiri or Nepali cookbook? Or pick up a “risque” guide to traditional Ukrainian recipes? Ever wondered what Salvador Dali liked to eat? It’s on the shelf. Weren’t you just thinking you wanted a Russian cookbook, published in 1955, filled with enough Communist propaganda to make Bernie Sanders look like a member of the Tea Party? It’s here (though, sadly, there are no booths for private viewing).

Or would you rather get acquainted with the greats–get to know your MFK Fisher from your James Beard–or pick up a signed copy of an early edition of The Joy of Cooking (just $260)? Slotnick has it among the 4,000 books crammed in her narrow, diminutive shop.

But not everyone is looking for a good narrative in a cookbook. Chefs from some of New York’s most celebrated restaurants often pop in to see if they can revive an old recipe. Mark Ladner from Del Posto, April Bloomfield from the Spotted Pig and the Breslin, Andrew Carmellini from Locanda Verde, and Shane McBride (formerly of Colichio and Sons) have all been in. So has celebrity chef Tyler Florence. “I also get a lot of the younger chefs–from the Jean-Georges and Daniel Boulud restaurants, for example–looking to learn the old school stuff,” Slotnick adds.

This brings up the next piece of the puzzle: how is it that in lower Manhattan in 2011, in a neighborhood that that’s becoming increasingly expensive and homogenized, and whose very historic character is being threatened by the encroaching gold-plated presence of Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein (among others), does such a wonderful anomaly still exist?

Slotnick boils it down to the beauty of physically browsing for and buying a book.

“Each book is an individual personal story. Which is a reason I think the Kindle is not going to fully replace the actual book.”

She pauses, looks around at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and then adds: “There won’t be any Kindle material that goes back to 1823.”


Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks is (usually) open six days a week–if you can find it. Just leave the Kindle at home.