Author: Connie Valimont

  Recently London began a countdown to next year’s Olympics to be held in and near that city. Here’s that and a few more of the “tapas” of celebrations for 2012.   Carnaval in South America (18-21 February, 2012) The Party Never Stops: Carnaval in Brazil is an all-around unforgettable experience and is celebrated all over the country. The dates change each year; it is celebrated 7 Sundays before Easter Sunday. The celebration lasts 4 days, commencing the Saturday prior to Fat Tuesday with the crowning of the Fat King (King Momo, the Greek god of mockery).

During summer in the Lowcountry, it’s tough to leave the comfort of the A/C to go outside and exert any type of movement.  I’ve looked at a few active adventure travel tapas to inspire you to escape to the outdoors and stop being climatically –challenged! SPORTS VACATIONS: Ever ridden an ATV down the coastal beaches of Mexico; surfed the “Dinosaur Coast” on the north coast of Peru; or bareboat-sailed down a chain of islands strung out like pearls on a necklace in the Caribbean? 

As we head into the dog days of summer, I started thinking about cooler places or activities that...

It won’t be long before we celebrate yet another Independence Day – our 135th here in the US. I wondered how many other such celebrations there were around the world and Googled that, which generated a rather lengthy list. Here’s a tapas menu of a few of those places with Independence Days during July:

Memorial Day signaled the beginning of summer – break out the white shoes and, if you haven’t...

The kids are out of school for the summer – now what?  Gone are the days of packing everyone in the family station wagon and heading for grandma’s . . . today’s kids are so connected to their world thanks to electronics that they want to hike in the Rockies or ski in South America (remember, it’s winter down there now) or order room service at midnight while cruising the Caribbean.  Ah, to be a kid again!

There are many reasons to travel, but more and more we see personal passions taking over in the planning of trips – in this case, culinary/food/wine.  From a survey done recently, we see that these are sometimes the driving force behind the way we travel: Deliberate food travelers (culinary activities were the key reason for trip) spend, on average, $1,271 per trip; $593 or 50% is spent on food-related activities.  On the other hand, those considered to be deliberate wine travelers spend more of their overall travel budget on wine-related activities ($950 average trip cost; $339 or 36% spent on wine-related activities). Here are some ways you can take your culinary interests “on the road:”

One of my favorite ways to experience some of our local restaurants is to order tapas.  That way the flavors mix & mingle and open up your appetite for either a main course or more of the tasty little tidbits. When asked to write this article, I thought that a good approach might be to mix and mingle topics about travel in much the same manner.  Who knows – one of these may open up your appetite to visit a new spot on the globe, engage in a new activity half-way around the world, or just enjoy and dream about where to go next. So, here are some small bites from the travel world…