Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations

Don’t Be a Victim of Others’ Wrong Assumptions

How much are you influenced by what other people think—even if they don’t know what they’re talking about?

Witness these examples from Seth Godin’s blog:

Texting while driving is more dangerous than driving drunk. It doesn’t feel that way, of course, but will you respect the data and stop, cold turkey?

The data shows that the vast majority of wine drinkers can’t tell the difference between a $20 bottle and a $100 bottle. Will that keep you from buying the fancy wine? How much is the placebo effect worth?

The data shows that famous colleges underperform many cheaper, friendlier, smaller colleges. How much is your neighbor’s envy worth?

You can easily apply this logic to where you travel (cheap places sound scarier, but usually aren’t), how you travel (ignoring the one-upmanship of visiting more places instead of really getting to know an area in depth), or where you stay (foresaking the guidebook everyone else is using).

Heck, even the act of traveling for more than a week puts you in a distinct minority, but it’s a minority that is far healthier and better adjusted. The data proves it—but most people ignore that.

Colombia is far safer than it used to be, so I’m flying down there at the end of this week to check things out for an article. People are looking at me funny when I tell them where I’m going, but I trust the data more than their old assumptions. After all, if I were worried about being robbed, I’d avoid the pickpocket-heavy places tourists cheerfully flock to in droves, like Rome and Barcelona.

How Many Cabins Are There in Hell?

(c) Oasis of the Seas

Here’s one seagoing vessel you will never find me upon: the 6,300-passenger Oasis of the Seas that is now in the ocean somewhere on the way to its home base in Florida. I think you can see it coming if you’re standing on a hill in Alabama.

According to the Associated Press, this monstrosity has 2,700 cabins and more sleeping quarters for 2,100 crew members. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly the number of rooms you find in the sprawling Gaylord Opryland hotel in my home city of Nashville (where guests’ main complaint is that they keep getting lost because it’s so huge). That’s twice as many rooms as the largest convention hotel in sizable cities like Houston, Montreal, Miami, and New Orleans. Think of the last convention hotel you were in, multiply it by three times, shrink the room sizes, then push it and all the guests out to sea. Sound like fun?

“Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater.

The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.”

Can you imagine what it would be like to enter a port city in the Caribbean and disembark with 6,000+ other people? I’d be asking someone to wake me from the nightmare.

Comments open as to who will actually pay to be a part of this “mass tourism to the Nth degree” experience.

High in Fiji, a Boat to Bagan, and America’s Stonehenge

I was running around New York City the past few days, but on Monday we posted the new issue of Perceptive Travel, home to the best travel stories from wandering book authors.

Two of our regular contributors return, including one who let me crash in his apartment a few nights ago: Bruce Northam. He’s got a piece on leaving the beach resorts behind and hiking through the highlands of Fiji. Bruce Olsen last checked in to report on the debauchery at Burning Man, but this time it’s a more cerebral pursuit. He looks into some mysterious stone structures built throughout New England.

Back in January when I was in Mexico City, I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Johnston, who wrote a great opinionated guide to the city. He took up my offer to pen a piece for Perceptive Travel when he waded into the travel conundrum known as Myanmar. (I’m not going there, but I won’t stop you…)

Gillian Kendall returns to review travel books, while I write up some new world music reviews.

Mumbai’s Taxi Problem

One of my many vivid negative memories of India is arriving in Bombay after a 36-hour train ride that was supposed to be 24 hours, only to get in a huge blow-up argument with a taxi driver who tried to charge us double the correct fare for a ride in his beat-up jalopy. Most of India’s cabs are beat-up jalopies with no meters or air conditioning, which is a big problem for a country trying to portray itself to business and tourism travelers as a world economic power. It’s hard to believe all the tales of India being a major business center when you can’t arrive at a meeting without being drenched in sweat and rattled to the core.

Change comes hard though and the attempt to introduce shiny new taxis in Mumbai is not going well, as you can see in this great Wall Street Journal article: On Mumbai’s Streets, Cabbies Fight To Keep Passengers Uncomfortable

Basically the drivers of the new cabs are being harrassed so much by the drivers of the old crappy cabs that you can’t even get one at the airport unless you call a dispatcher and order one to come get you. “Incredible India” indeed. I think I like this tourism slogan better: “India, Where Nothing Ever Comes Easy.”

The Best Books for Round-the-World Travel

I get asked for book recommendations a lot from people planning their first trip around the world or going on an extended trip. Thankfully half of the e-mails have “(besides yours)” in the request. Yes, of course I think The World’s Cheapest Destinations should be the one you look to when deciding where you can afford to spend a good amount of time. And if you’re heading south from the U.S. or Canada, then Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America is the most comprehensive travel planning book out there. Hey, you can even get a Kindle version of either.

Others that are great with the nuts and bolts of traveling and planning are The Practical Nomad by Edward Hasbrouck and Rough Guides First Time Around the World by Doug Lansky,

After that, the ying to those yangs is Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts. Great advice mixed with philosophy of the road. (See the accompanying blog, with only an occasional appearance by Rolf, at Vagablogging.net). Bruce Northam’s Globetrotter Dogma book is a pocket guide with lots of short nuggets and advice.

Need to work somewhere while you’re on the move? Check out one of these from Susan Griffith: Work Your Way Around the World or Teaching English Abroad. For a non-British stance see Teaching English Overseas.

Well past your young and single backpacking days? See The Grownup’s Guide to Running Away From Home , Escape 101, or The Family Sabattical Handbook.

Got a favorite book that helped your extended travels? Put it in the comments below!