The Taj Mahal

Lonely Planet author Sarina Singh gives an interesting tour of the beautiful Taj Mahal.

A Gastronomic Visit to South India?

Have immigrants to the US affected what Americans eat? Sure it has but
it has also spawned new kids of tourism and travel packages. Forbes
reports that culinary trips are becoming very popular. "Though
traditional tasting trips to Napa Valley wine country or the heart of
Provence are still popular, more and more travelers are exploring
cuisine in countries like India, Turkey and New Zealand," says the
magazine.

Forbes says that, "An ambitious tour of four South Indian states, for
example, takes travelers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
and Kerala in pursuit of the finest cuisine. No meal is spurned:
participants sample the best street food, join community feasts,
peruse spice markets and dine at high-end restaurants. The day ends at
a local four- or five-star Taj Hotels property, which customizes the
tour. Michael Whiteman, of the international restaurant consultant
company Baum & Whiteman, says this newfound culinary bravery,
particularly among American travelers, comes partly from immigration
to the U.S. over the past 30 years."

Read the full article and see pictures of the worlds top tasting trips at --
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2008/03/15/travel-vacation-tasting-forbeslife-cx_rr_0317travel.html

Slum Tourism - Can we stoop so low?

An excerpt from an article in the Travel section of the Sunday New York Times --
"Slum tourism, or "poorism," as some call it, is catching on. From the
favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the townships of Johannesburg to the
garbage dumps of Mexico, tourists are forsaking, at least for a while,
beaches and museums for crowded, dirty — and in many ways surprising —
slums. When a British man named Chris Way founded Reality Tours and
Travel in Mumbai two years ago, he could barely muster enough
customers for one tour a day. Now, he's running two or three a day and
recently expanded to rural areas.

Slum tourism isn't for everyone. Critics charge that ogling the
poorest of the poor isn't tourism at all. It's voyeurism. The tours
are exploitative, these critics say, and have no place on an ethical
traveler's itinerary.

"Would you want people stopping outside of your front door every day,
or maybe twice a day, snapping a few pictures of you and making some
observations about your lifestyle?" asked David Fennell, a professor
of tourism and environment at Brock University in Ontario. Slum
tourism, he says, is just another example of tourism's finding a new
niche to exploit. The real purpose, he believes, is to make Westerners
feel better about their station in life. "It affirms in my mind how
lucky I am — or how unlucky they are," he said.

Not so fast, proponents of slum tourism say. Ignoring poverty won't
make it go away. "Tourism is one of the few ways that you or I are
ever going to understand what poverty means," said Harold Goodwin,
director of the International Center for Responsible Tourism in Leeds,
England. "To just kind of turn a blind eye and pretend the poverty
doesn't exist seems to me a very denial of our humanity."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/09/travel/09heads.html&tntemail0=y

Eco-tourism in Bangladesh

From Reuters --

Off the beaten path...

These are not just your typical vacations to the Caribbean or to
Europe or to Las Vegas. These are very unusual trips off the beaten
path that sound fascinating and exciting. A great article in the New
York Times about Regent Seven Seas Cruises whose President Mark Conroy
says in the New York Times article, "It's all about creating memories
in many respects. Our customers always like to go back home and tell
their friends that they got to do something that most people haven't
had a chance to do."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/17/travel/17land.html&tntemail0=y