Join ActiveTravels in November and December and we will donate half of your $60 membership to One Caribbean Family. The Caribbean Tourism Recovery Fund is working to help restore and rebuild the tourism infrastructure after the devastating effects of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Tourism employs 2.4 million people in the Caribbean. The more money we can raise together, the quicker we can get the destination up and running again and welcoming guests back to their beautiful islands.
Still not convinced you need a travel advisor in this day and age? Here are some thoughts to consider:
Expertise—A recent study said that the average person spends 29 hours researching his next vacation. Spend as much time on the web as your heart desires, but realize that as a member of ActiveTravels, you can bounce ideas off a travel writer that’s been to over 90 countries. You’ll get unbiased travel advice from someone who’s been to that exact location.
Better Rooms—Hotels treat third-party bookings from Priceline, Travelocity, Hotels.com as their last priority. You’re given the worst room in the house because there’s no sense of loyalty with these sites. The travel business is all about relationships. Aligned with Virtuoso, we have relationships with hotel GMs around the globe and we call them personally when we book one of our clients.
Customer Service—Flight cancelled? Lost luggage? Have to reschedule a flight? Good luck dealing with Orbitz and Expedia. If you’ve gone through this recently, you know the pain. A travel agent makes those calls for you and has contacts at the airlines the public does not have.
Contacts Around the Globe—Want to travel independently to India, Patagonia, or Thailand? Have fun researching that journey on the web. It’s an exhausting task. We work with excellent ground operators in Delhi, Buenos Aires, and Bangkok who know their country intimately and can help with all the logistics.
Annual membership to ActiveTravels is $60 per year, less than dinner for two at a halfway decent restaurant. We guarantee you’ll get your money’s worth!
Six miles south of Benbow, in Leggett, California, Pacific Coast Highway or Hwy 1 comes to an abrupt end. Highway 101 will pick up the slack and hug the shoreline north of Arcata on a picturesque drive of headlands rising from the Pacific as you drive to Orick. But that still leaves 80 miles of wilderness shoreline, not easily accessible from any highway. Called the Lost Coast, it is the longest undeveloped coastline in the continental United States. Yesterday, we took the twisting and turning Bryceland-Thorn Road from Redway to the remote village of Shelter Cove. At this small coastal community, houses hug the shoreline backed by flanks of forest and high headlands that make up the King Range National Conservation Area. Backpackers can take the rugged 25-mile Lost Coast Trail, while day-trippers should head to the crescent-shaped black sand beach. Fishing trawlers were docked in the bay, also popular with stand-up paddleboarders and several surfers. If you want to leave behind the woes of modernity and de-stress on a serene stretch of Californian coast, consider spending some time at the Inn of the Lost Coast. 
Best known for their properties in Laguna Beach and Deer Valley, the hotel brand Montage also runs the vast 
May 29th marks the 100th birthday of John F. Kennedy. To commemorate the occasion, 
Lisa and I recently spent a night on the outskirts of Portland, Maine, at one of our favorite properties in New England, 
As I shovel the 2 feet of snow out of my driveway this morning, my thoughts turn to Tobago. Best known as a beachcombing and birdwatching paradise, the island is also known for it music festivals. One of the best is the annual 
Trust me, when you’re celebrating Passover and trying to stick to a Passover diet—no wheat, no rice—the options become less and less during the course of the week. That’s why I was delighted to hear about