Archive for the ‘International Destinations’ Category

You start to feel it about an hour after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge: a kind of kick-off-your-shoes, carefree freedom that comes from cruising along the edge of the earth. Oh, maybe it’s mixed with a tinge of nausea, but a few hairpin turns are a small price to pay for endless views of the ocean. After all, this is Highway 1—the Pacific Coast Highway—that drop-dead gorgeous, wildly snaking road that follows the sea almost [...]

The Perfect Pint. The aroma, the color, the head it forms when poured just right—it’s not just the smoky-sweet taste that makes Harveys Best Bitter some beer lovers’ ultimate drink My 10-day trip was a quest to track down the perfect pint. Somewhere in the misty highlands above Lewes, I’d been told, was a farm where a country vicar brews a very good ale. But it had been more than two hours since I’d left [...]

BEST FOR: Mega-zoom in a mini size Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HSThere’s never been a bigger zoom in such a compact package. When it’s not in use, Canon’s 28 mm wide-angle lens with 12x optical zoom (good for detailed, expansive landscapes) collapses into a camera body that’s only .86″ thick. The 3.2″ touch-screen display lets you manually select a focal point and activate the shutter with a tap. $350, shop.usa.canon.com. RELATED: See the 3 Best [...]

Many sites put together their “best” travel lists for the coming year, but few do so with such a keen eye toward savings as we do. Here at Budget Travel, it’s about more than just buzz (although that helps, too). Our editors comb through piles of data, news, currency charts, and industry trends to find our nominees for the world’s new best-value destinations—then passionately debate which of the candidates will make the final list. As [...]

It cut through the Amboise Forest, but the road had no name, none that we knew anyway, which was perfect. As my wife, Robin, and I drove south between two rivers, the Loire and the Cher, spotted sunlight warmed the tunneled lane. Signs said to watch for cyclists and tractors. A particularly French pairing, I thought. We’d also been told, by the helpful wine seller back in Paris who had pointed us to this very [...]

READERS’ TOP QUESTIONS How easy is it to rent a motorcycle?Traveling by motorcycle is every bit as awesome as you’d imagine, which is a good thing, since it’s a bit of a hassle to get started. First off, it’s not as simple as renting a car at the airport-chiefly because motorcycles aren’t rented at airports. In fact, the whole process can be pretty complicated. Unless you’ve signed up for an outfitted trip (see our recommendations [...]

Too often, man-made structures mar the landscape around them. A factory cuts a harsh silhouette against a once-picturesque riverbank; a gaudy hotel sprawls onto an otherwise pristine beach. But somehow, bridges do the opposite. Instead of detracting from the view, they enhance it. A valley that you might have overlooked on its own is suddenly breathtaking with a gleaming white bridge spanning it; an uninspiring river becomes grand when traversed by an elegant steel structure. [...]

When it comes to family travel, few vacations fit all. Some clans are theme park junkies, or sybarites, or scholars. And then there’s the rest of us, simply looking to catch up with relatives and friends in a relaxing setting. Fortunately, a world full of getaway possibilities awaits-and one of those, Yellowstone National Park, manages to satisfy pretty much everybody. Straddling the borders of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, the world’s first national park is so [...]

The job is so intense most people don’t last more than one year The expected life span of an activities director at a resort is roughly one year. To say it’s exhausting doesn’t do it justice. As the entertainment team supervisor, I came up with all the daily activities—a different one for every hour, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.—and developed the shows and contests we’d put on at night. I was constantly thinking up [...]