The little-known secret that most tourists don’t know about and that many travelers like to keep to themselves is that fact that most of the best Caribbean Islands to visit are not those found in that linear line of islands stretching southward from Florida’s southern tip, but rather are found [...]

Nicaragua is beginning to appear on the radar of travelers, with its natural beauty and old-fashioned charm that neither tourism nor internal strife has ruined. It’s a low-key, slow-moving Latin American culture, inexpensive to travel and live in, and is often referred to as “Costa Rica 30 years ago.” Nicaragua [...]

Pan-American Transmissions Part Two “Pan-American Transmissions” is a travel series from Special Contributor Diego Cupolo as he travels south from Nicaragua to Argentina. He has few plans, a $10-a-day budget and one flute-playing gypsy companion. Check back as new dispatches are posted from the road. Don’t assume that you need [...]

Where is Nicaragua again? It may be a crashing generalization, but for many people, Nicaragua could just as well be the name of a new prescription to help you stop smoking (just in case you didn’t know, it’s a beautifully diverse Central American country just north of Costa Rica and [...]

What would Che say? Perspiring at a rate that suggests total disintegration is imminent, the police officer wiped another sweat globule from his a forehead. “Where are your papers?” he asks. With nostrils floating in a sea of rubbery flesh, shirt buttons straining against a bloated paunch, the overall impression [...]

Have you been following the exploits of the newly-installed Frugal Traveler, Seth Kugel, this summer as he’s been making his way from São Paulo to New York? This month alone he’s traipsed around Los Zorros, a seaside fishing village on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, with his parents; shacked up [...]

It’s classic travel writing fodder: choose famous author, research trips they took during their lifetime, emulate one such trip. In fact, Rolf Potts wrote about this “tidy narrative formula” in his recent book “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There,” where he pointed out how this classic format is a great angle [...]

You may or may not remember the landscape and the architecture, but you will never forget a face — even if they are only in pictures. Last month’s photo theme, “Faces in Places,” has left an impression. There is something fascinating about a picture of a face. It makes the [...]

Party. Destination. Wedding. What’s not to love? In my own search for the ultimate wedding (think– wedding piñata), I couldn’t help but continually envisioning my impending wedding as the destination type. That idea never came to fruition. Luckily for me, my piñata idea is a go. Luckily for my family, Montana is a destination. In the end [...]

So what does it mean exactly when the Wall Street Journal is talking up Nicaragua? Is it kind of like when you were a teenager and the second your parents had heard of your favorite band you instantly thought that band wasn’t cool anymore? (See, in this extended metaphor the [...]