Walking around Rio proved hazardous for me earlier this year, but only because I was looking everywhere except where I was going. Early on, my artist friends made sure I didn’t miss the explosion of art crawling up buildings and curving around walls, and I had my eyes—and my camera lens—on Rio’s world-class street art for the rest of the week.

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Posted in Europe, International Travel, Offbeat, South America
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Admittedly, I already liked Richard Branson. He's got the accent, long (but not too long) wavy locks, and that I-know-I'm-good swagger. His brand is him. And Virgin has to be the sexiest airline. Wouldn't we all want to fly Upper Class, their version of first class? Ah, the finer things in life, such as being picked up by private car and swept off to a private screening entry at the airport, mingling at a hip bar over the Atlantic, getting a massage from the on-board beauty therapist, a lie-flat bed... Ok, the price tag is more than my average paycheck, so I'm not likely to get to fly Upper Class any time soon. But I'll take even Virgin's Premium Economy with its sleek interiors, purple leather seats, individual entertainment, meals and more, as well as flight attendants who smile and wear uniforms with a fashionable bent. (Need I go on?) Yet last week when I heard about Branson's latest feat –flying a 747 airplane from London to Amsterdam on 20 percent bio-diesel fuel – I had to say "Hallelujah!"

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Posted in Air Travel, Europe, Green Travel
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Food. It’s all the rage lately. And as a lifelong devotee of its joys (and even its disappointments), I’ve been enthralled by the resurgence of conscious cooking and eating over the past few years: the (slow) death of squeamishness, the booming of farmers’ markets across the US (who would have expected it in the nation that spawned the Big Mac?), and the resurgence of local, farm-to-table eating across the country. Call it what you like—becoming a “locavore,” joining the “slow food” movement, practicing responsible eating—but it all rests on the simple concept of eating what’s in season and grown or raised nearby using natural, sustainable methods. It’s a concept that I wholeheartedly buy into—especially when I travel.

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Posted in Culinary Travel, Europe, Green Travel, Health & Wellness
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Travelers have always followed guidebook advice religiously, scurrying from one historic site to the next, but for some Americans the book they’re taking their cues from has changed. Move over, Frommer’s. It’s the man upstairs’ turn.

Menlo Consulting Group found in a recent survey that one-third of Americans who travel abroad said they hoped to take a faith-based trip in the future and 9.5% of travelers polled had already completed a religious journey. This percentage encompasses 4.5 million travelers and means big business for travel companies, particularly those offering guided tours of holy sites around the world.

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Posted in Europe, France, International Travel, Spiritual & Religious
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I was talking on MSNBC this morning about how it looks like more travelers will be headed far away this Thanksgiving and how Europe seems to be at the top of the list for many US travelers who want a change of scenery. Instead of taking a long weekend, these international travelers are making a real vacation out of it and staying over a week. Not surprisingly, that can also be a way to save on airfares by avoiding peak travel days.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Marianne

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Posted in Budget Travel, Europe, Thanksgiving '07
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Honestly I'm a little surprised it took this long, but it finally looks like soaring costs and an unfavorable exchange rate has started to soften demand for European travel this summer. That continent has always been a favorite for vacationing Americans and so it leaves many people wondering just where to go this summer. While some are taking advantage of places farther afield with better exchange rates on the ground (like India and China, for example) there are many who aren't prepared to go quite that far. For you I've come up with a list of places where you can go this summer instead of Europe. These are places that you can find many of the charms of Europe but a little closer to home and most certainly for less.

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Posted in Europe
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I’m just back from a trip to the Czech Republic and still suffering from some serious jetlag, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. On the way across the pond I read a stat in Vanity Fair’s Green issue that seriously bummed me out: the U.S. will likely emit 19% more greenhouse gases by 2020 than it did in 2000. Meanwhile, our friends over in the European Union have committed to cut those emissions by 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels. Ouch! I’m pretty sure I winced visibly at that one.

The staggering difference in priorities reflected by those numbers made me wonder if I would see a major difference in the day-to-day eco-consciousness in Europe in comparison to the U.S. To be fair, I was coming from one of our country’s greenest cities to a country led by a man who recently said that government spending on global warming studies were a waste of money and who has compared environmentalism to communism (which, if you know anything about the anti-communist sentiment that pervades the Czech Republic, is a pretty brawny statement). So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me when recycling bins were nearly impossible to find, or that there was a shocking number of massive SUVs bumping over the cobblestones despite the tiny streets upon which they have to maneuver. I can only hope that a country which loves beer as much as this one does might find the effects that the current multi-year drought are having on their barley crops at least mildly concerning enough to consider that climate change might have something to do with it.

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Posted in Europe, Green Travel, International Travel
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I've just returned from Copenhagen, where I indulged my love all things Danish: furniture, design, and the hygge culture. There’s so much about the Scandinavian vibe that we as American travelers can take home. For starters, the Danes are by and large a humble population. In fact, it is considered extremely rude to stand out from the crowd by bragging or being showy. Everywhere I went, I experienced a sense of community—people let others pass first, bus riders pick up trash after themselves, and all-around, everyone seems to have a sense of hygge.

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Posted in Copenhagen, Europe
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At our holiday party a few months ago, I won the Grand Prize: A trip to Paris! The last time I toured the City of Light, I was a junior in college. It was 1994 and I was studying abroad in Stockholm, so I spent my spring break visiting pals in Madrid and Paris. I'm sure Paris has changed a lot in the (gulp) 13 years since my last visit. One change I'm especially excited about is that Paris is rolling out a bike-loan program to provide thousands of bikes to commuters and tourists for free.

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Posted in Europe, France, Travel News
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I staunchly believe that smoking is a vile, wretched act. Raised in L.A., I was aghast when I moved to NYC and spied spandexed crowds huddled outside of gyms, puffing in between Pilates and mat classes. I’ve since abandoned my SoCal sanctimony, preferring to make like a New Yorker when I travel internationally. My When in Rome... ethos gives me license to smoke when I’m off gallivanting in places where cigarettes are as fundamental as bread and coffee. It’s a sacrifice I "selflessly" make for cultural immersion, which is why I am so confounded by France’s ban on smoking in public places, which was announced this week. Quell horror!

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Posted in Europe, France
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I recently embarked on a journey through the regions of France, not just to see the sites, but also to experience the culture through its yummy cuisine. Mmmmm, heaven!

I started planning this eating extravaganza before I even booked my ticket – mainly by working out and eating healthy. Hey, I needed some wiggle room if I wanted to pig-out on vacation! One thing I didn’t plan for was the fact that I’d be traveling to France, the land of cheese, with my vegan friend.

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Posted in Europe, France, International Travel
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