Happy New Year from Pat and Mike's Travel

I'm always pleasantly surprised when travel industry surveys mention destinations as "up and coming" when we've been going there for ages. For example, a recent survey from Travel Leaders lists Croatia as the top destination for Europe in 2012 and Vietnam as the top destination for Asia. We've been taking clients to these great destinations for years, so we hope you'll join us on one of our small-group tours to these lovely countries. The food, the people, the scenery--both countries are a feast for your senses!
 
Other trends and hot destinations that are shaping up for 2012:

• River cruising (this is a great way to travel through the heartland of a country without having to unpack!)
• London (the Queen's Diamond Jubilee is in June and the Olympics start in July, so London will be the place to be this summer)
• Literary tourism (everything from the Harry Potter theme park in Florida to the dark and snow-filled streets of Steig Larsson's Stockholm)
• Cuba (while the State Department guidelines are still strict, it's probably just a matter of time before Americans can get there more easily)
• Myanmar (since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit and Aung San Suu Kyi's call for responsible tourism, this remote country is attracting the interest of travelers)

We hope you'll join us on one of our small-group trips this year. And wherever your plans may take you, we wish you a healthy, happy, and travel-filled 2012.

Flex Those Travel Muscles

Spring is just around the corner here in Portland, or at least I certainly hope so! It's the time of year when I take off my rain jacket, shield my eyes from that shining orb in the sky, blind myself and others with glimpses of my winter-white skin, and assess the damage from spending the winter eating frozen Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies and those skipped workouts in the rain.

 

So, it's time to flex those muscles yet again. Amazing how much easier it is to enjoy being outdoors when it's not rainy. And it's also time to flex those travel muscles! After a few months at home, my feet are itching for some adventure. (At least that's what I'm hoping they're itching from, and not some unidentified issue with my old running shoes.)

 

Whether you want to join us on one of our great small-group trips or build your own adventure, we can help! Check out our tours listed below or let us do the planning for you and a group of your family and friends.

 

It's a big world out there -- explore and enjoy! Treat yourself to a good stretch on the road.

Travel During Turbulent Times

Interesting take from Paul Theroux about why we should travel even during turbulent times.

"Travel, especially of the old laborious kind, has never seemed to me of greater importance, more essential, more enlightening."

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/travel/03Cover.html?src=dayp&pagewanted=all#

What to Ask When Disaster Strikes

We've been heartbroken by the images of devastation in Japan, and riveted by the unrest in Egypt. But what do these events mean if you have been planning to travel to those destinations? You've daydreamed, researched, and planned for months. Here's a thoughtful list of questions to ask yourself when disaster strikes your travel plans.

“May I please take your picture?”

I’ve asked this question of people countless times during my travels, wanting to capture a smile, an outfit, a small shop—an image that evokes my experience in a particular place and time. Usually, the answer is a smile and a “yes.” Occasionally, it results in a rather amusing pantomime involving me pretending to snap photos and smiling and the subject looking quizzical. Very rarely is it “no.” I suppose if a visitor to my home town asked to take my picture, I’d acquiesce. But in India, for the first time I found myself on the receiving end of this question. I was surprised and discomfited. After all, I was the traveler, not them.

Initially, feeling somewhat taken aback, I assumed that there was something wrong with me. After a young man in Delhi asked if he could take my picture, I surreptitiously checked my teeth to make sure there was no remainder of my favorite lunch of dal tarka stuck among them. I felt the heat of embarrassment spread across my face, my apprehension assuming he asked so he could later ridicule my image with some derelict gang of his fellow high-school boys.

My tour through Delhi and Agra progressed, and my self-consciousness only grew as the question became more frequent. I felt hounded by people asking the question I wanted to use myself: “May I please take your picture?” It didn’t matter if I avoided eye contact, wore hats and sunglasses, or pretended not to understand. Two young men skulked around me at the Taj Mahal, pointing and laughing. At me, I assumed. A year earlier, I had a rather unpleasant episode of being groped in Egypt by two men who approached me in a similar manner. Now, I allowed my discomfort to lead me, quickly hopping across the bridge of the Taj’s reflecting pool to escape into the crowd.

Eventually, I realized I was being ridiculous. I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve been in uncomfortable situations, something that can be hard to avoid as a solo female abroad. If I didn’t want to interact with others, I should have stayed home. If people wanted to photograph me because I didn’t look like them, then so be it. So what if my photo was going to be the source of amusement across the Indian subcontinent? Who cares if my image went viral on Indian Facebook? Surely the desire to document things and people that are outside one’s daily experience spans the globe. Wasn’t it fair to assume that curiosity is universal? Didn’t I want to take pictures of them for the same reasons that they wanted to take pictures of me? Yes. And yes.

So, I relaxed. Later in my visit at the Taj Mahal, I again ran into the two snickering fellows. They renewed their request. I agreed, but only if they would be in the shot with me. We chatted for a while in the broken English and hand gestures of those who don’t share a common language. Now I’m not ashamed—I’m even proud—to know that somewhere in India, on someone’s cell phone, there’s a picture of me. Smiling.