Foreign Perspectives

Although it’s usually the “big” or new tourist destinations that receive the most cover in the travel magazines, naturally the older, more traditional resorts are still around.

That’s not to say that they’ve fallen behind the times because if you look at a typical one like Myrtle Beach Resort you’ll quickly find that it’s bang up to date with the attractions. Rather, it’s down to the simple fact that the newer resorts find it easier to get press coverage and listings in the brochures in a world where new=best in the eyes of a lot of people. However, that’s clearly not the case in a classical resort like Myrtle Beach where that greater development time means that it’s more accurate to talk about Myrtle Beach Resorts than the singular resort.

As you’d expect you can get that olde worlde charm in some of the Myrtle Beach hotels or you can opt for the super-modern if you choose that too. Something that I’d not expected was the level of personalisation that you can add to your booking. For example, in the Grande Shores, in addition to the expected ability to pre-order show tickets and meals you can have balloons or rose-petals in your room on request. Those shows incidently are pretty much on a par to the range that you would expect to find in Las Vegas but, of course, with the added benefit of being at the coast rather than in the middle of the desert.

Myrtle Beach is definitely worth adding to your short list for quite a wide variety of interests.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Hawaii is probably the only place in the world that says “holiday” in every sense of the word.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone who it wouldn’t be suitable for in terms of fulfilling their holiday interests. Want a surf beach? It’s surrounded by them. Just want to crash on the beach? There are loads of quiet ones that’ll let you do that too. Fancy seeing a little of the cultures from the Pacific islands? No problem: the students from the Mormon university run a fantastic cultural centre that’ll let you do just that.

That’s just on Oahu too…. the other islands offer even more choice for you and all surrounded by beautiful and spectacular coves as you can see.

With all those advantages Hawaiian vacations don’t come in one-size-fits-all. Sure, you could do the standard flight and hotel deal but you’ll get much more out of your Hawaiian vacation if you choose a vacation rental property as your base.

With the massive numbers of tourists arriving in the islands, Hawaiian Local Travel Information comes in considerable volume so it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it all but then that’s just a good excuse to go back again next year…

Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s been a long, long time since I was in New York and so it’s time that I was starting to consider it for a future trip once again.

Funnily enough a flight to New York these days costs much the same as it did when I went the last time way back in the 1980s and, if you’re careful, you can even get it cheaper than it was then! Not only that, but with the dollar being so low (or is it the pound so high?), even the hotels are pretty much at the same prices so overall the holiday would easily come out well below the price from 20 years back.

The city has changed a lot over that time. For one thing the Statue of Liberty isn’t shrouded in scaffolding as it was when I was there, the Twin Towers aren’t there any more and I gather that the city has been cleaned up considerably too thanks to a series of zero tolerance programmes over the intervening years.

Shopping is a “big thing” in any New York trip of course. Sadly, they still don’t actually do breakfast at Tiffany’s but it’s a beautiful store to wander around and whilst there’s an awful lot of stuff there at serious prices there are also many items that you can pick up at very sensible prices. Aside from there, you shouldn’t miss the likes of Macy’s.

Given the prices of both flights and hotels, it’s definitely a great time to be considering a trip to New York.

Popularity: 3% [?]