New York to Tel Aviv for $1085: You know about Birthright, the program where Jews from around the world are given a free trip to Israel? Why don’t other countries do this? Why isn’t Italy flying me out for the summer? That country better be careful, I may just think about converting. Anyway, for the rest of us, deals to the Holy Land are as cheap as $1,085 through Cheapoair.com.

Fort Lauderdale to Bogota from $282 (incl. Taxes/Fees): Great deal for Floridians who want to head south to Colombia before it gets way too hot to do anything there. This bargain deal’s good through May 11.

U.S. to Europe from $473: Amazing, Americans can travel around Europe this summer without completely going broke due to a weak dollar! Even better, this summer’s shaping up to be a great one for flight deals, with round-trip flights starting out as cheap as $473 (Tampa – Barcelona: incl. taxes/fees) and New York to Madrid for $549.

This week Cartagena, Colombia, is getting the “walk-in-the-shoes-of-”blank” treatment from the NYT, with a look at the city through the eyes (and hands) of Gabriel García Márquez, perhaps Colombia’s most famous artistic export (outside of Shakira). Though they note the author never really lived there for much of his life (his family moved there after his own short stint there), he now winters there and is sometimes seen sipping a cocktail at the nearby Sofitel hotel, or dining at La Vitrola, a cuban-themed restaurant specializing in Batista-era ambiance.

So how much did the man make the city, or was it the other way around? “It is a city so pregnant with the near magical that, when Mr. Márquez took a visiting Spaniard on a tour one day that included a Creole lunch and a stroll through the old city, it lowered his opinion of Mr. Márquez’s talents. The Spaniard told Mr. Márquez, as he would later record in an essay, ‘You’re just a notary without imagination.’”

A trek into the jungle in search of Colombia’s “Lost City.”

By Luke Armstrong

Our group grabs the packs from the top of the Jeep’s rusty roof before we set off for Ciudad Perdida, or Colombia’s Lost City. Our guide, Tunyi, decides to begin the six-day trek by telling us about eight tourists who were kidnapped on September 15^th, 2003, by the National Liberation Army (ELN) on the very trail we were hiking. “Three months they held them captive,” he tells us. “They were lucky to be released.” The three Australians in our group find this funny while the two boisterous Russians become quiet and pensive after I translate this bit of information for them. Perhaps Tunyi should have started by pointing out the names of some native fauna.

After the kidnapping incident, tourist treks to the city stopped until 2005. Though an air of danger still lurks on the forbidding trail, Colombia’s army now patrols the path, and according to our guide, the number of robberies have taken a dive. Within the first hour we pass a small group of soldiers wielding semi-automatic weapons. The Russians seem especially agitated by the troops, and they request in broken English that I ask our guide in Spanish their purpose.

We venture into Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountain range along narrow and seemingly impossible trails in saturated air. After a few hours we have crossed the same river a dozen times as it snakes along our difficult path. (more…)

Lonely Planet’s doling out accolades to these ten countries as being very topping, with El Salvador being the toppingist of them all. Okay, they don’t really elaborate as to what this list mean, other than being the “hottest countries for next year,” but I assume they mean destinations that are, or have been, under the radar and are just coming into their own as hot spots for travelers. Which usually means one thing: Get there now before they’re firmly on the tourist trail.

Rounding out the top five are Germany, Greece, Malaysia and Morocco. And at number 10, experiencing a little Obama bounce, the U.S.A., which given the likelihood of a an anemic dollar for the near-term future, will likely be at the top of the list for many visitors, especially those carrying the enviably strong euro.

So what’s missing here? I may sound like a broken record, but let’s give a shout out to Colombia, a country whose culture and diversity, not to mention accessibility, makes it a great “top” country in 2010. A few of my own honorable mentions: Panama (have you seen how cheap it is to fly there in the winter?), Ireland (see Panama), and Namibia (everyone I met in Africa who was visited the country raved about the outdoor adventures that can be had there).

The easy part of about Playa Grande is falling for it immediately. The hard part? Getting there.

By Matt Stabile

I STUCK MY HEAD OUT THE OPEN DOOR OF THE BUS and looked down a steep cliff wall that descended into a wide bay. The public buses in Colombia are usually beat-up looking affairs, with rusty fenders, faded stripes painted across their bodies, and, as is customary across many parts of Latin America, manned by both a driver and an assistant who hangs bravely near the door and collects the fares as they are passed up to him after passengers get a chance to settle in.

This particular assistant didn’t seem fazed the slightest as he stood precariously near the open door, clinging to a bar above the windshield and staring lazily out the door of the bus, his foot hanging in the warm breeze, several hundred feet from the ground. We were crossing over the small row of hills that separate Santa Marta from Taganga, a sleepy fishing village on a bay that, incidentally, has become the region’s capital of scuba instruction. I was not heading there to take advantage of the diving but rather as a jumping-off point to head one beach further to Playa Grande, a secluded stretch of sand with an esteemed reputation for beauty. (more…)

Maybe secluded bays and pristine beaches aren’t the first things that pop into people’s head when they think of Colombia, but a trip to Colombia’s Caribbean coast reveals just that. And the best part? No tourists.

By Matt Stabile

AS I LOOKED OUT THE BUS WINDOW AND INTO THE NIGHT SKY, I could see flashes of lightning igniting the dark, colorless clouds lingering high above the Caribbean Sea, portensions of things to come. It was Friday night. Cumbia music was blasting from a radio hanging by a wire above the driver’s head. Behind me a teenage girl was meticulously applying makeup with the aid of a small compact mirror. Two seats in front of me, a group of young Colombian men were drinking from an open bottle and joking around with each other. I peeled my shirt away from my chest, damp from a combination of a slight drizzle and the tropical humidity that had blanketed my body the moment I stepped off the plane, and I couldn’t have been happier. I had traveled here to Colombia’s Caribbean coastline to visit its famously beautiful and remote beaches — beaches whose mythic-like images were planted enticingly in my mind by travelers during cold, rainy nights in Bogotá hostels and Medellín cafes; usually described in hushed tones, like the disclosure of the whereabouts of a lost city that few had seen.

It was only fitting that the rain began to fall the minute that I stepped off the plane. At first it was a light drizzle, but as the hours wore on, the rain progressed into what I would soon learn was an once-in-a-decade “weather phenomena” that, during the course of my stay along the coastline, would cause rivers to overflow, shantytowns to flood, city streets to become deluged and hidden beneath torrents of water flowing from the nearby mountains, and for me to seriously question what vendetta had I with the gods that was causing this storm to strike during the exact period of time that I was staying there.

The good thing about rain, particularly the kind that falls in the warm, humid months of November and December here, is that it’s still far better to be caught in than, say, a snowstorm in the icy, frigid streets back in New York where, had I been at that exact moment, I would certainly not be wandering around in a pair of swimming trunks and sandals, stopping into various shops, and lounging on the beach with a concoction of freshly squeezed coconut and orange juice served in a plastic mug shaped like a coconut shell.

“When do you think it ends?” I asked a bored barista the next morning, shortly after I had ordered my third straight cup of coffee. (more…)

One of the hard working ladies from “The Lost Girls” is/was in Colombia recently, blogging her way through the northern stretches of the country. Her latest dispatch finds her taking a side-trip to Santa Marta where she lounges on the beaches in Santa Marta and soaks up some rays.

Though mentioned in passing in her article, the real reason to visit Santa Marta is not for its beaches (a little touristy, a little bland) but as a place to stay so you can strike out for Tayrona National Park, Colombia’s renowned reserve containing beautifully secluded, pristine beaches where you can snorkel, eat fresh fish caught earlier that morning, and relax and enjoy your time hours from the closest hotel. Given that the park is made up of isolated beaches and coves accessible by a single road, you could easily spend weeks just trying to see all of the park’s different sites. My advice: sleep in Santa Marta, spend your time exploring Tayrona.

One note on this piece, what really stuck out for me was the fact that she was staying at the Sofitel in Cartagena (I think, she may have just been using their concierge). Though amazingly luxurious, it just seems a little odd given that this is a city where a pretty okay room can be had for as little as $10 a night (hot water may be lacking, but when looking at rates of over $300, I’ll stick with the budget hotels). Besides, the real attraction is the city itself, and as much time away from your lodgings is highly recommended. Or maybe things over at Lost Girls are going the Twitter route and the ladies have a few extra dollars to spare, in which case, Sofitel away.

Here’s a little something I put together with some extra footage I had from my time spent on Colombia’s Caribbean Coast. Initially I was going to combine the above footage with my Cartagena video to make one “Colombia Caribbean Coast” video, but I ultimately decided to let Cartagena have its own video and to make a short about the few days I spent near the Venezuelan border at some of Colombia’s most renowned beach spots.

Colombia’s Caribbean Coast has some of the best, as well as some of the most secluded, beaches in the entire Caribbean. In this video I visit Santa Marta, the traditional jumping-off spot for treks into famed Tayrona National Park, sail to Bahia Neguanje and to the Beach of the Dead, and finish off in the popular beach getaway of El Rodadero.

For the rest of my videos from Colombia click here.

Amanda, over at Jaunted, is blogging her trip down south to Colombia (sound familiar?). I’m looking forward to following this trip. I don’t know why it is, but don’t you always like to hear about someone else’s trip to somewhere you’ve recently been?

I’ve heard a lot of other travelers say this too, and I’m not sure why this is. Either you’re curious to see how different a place can be when seen through someone else’s eyes, or you’re curious to see if they ended up having a better (or worse) time than you — in which case you can either be jealous (or happy). She seems to be seeing things similarly as I did so far, so no difference there, and she seems to be having a good time, and I’m extremely happy for this, so maybe it’s more of the former than the latter. Of course, it’s late February and she’s going to be down there during Carnival; when I was there a giant cold front was dumping a torrential amount of rain — let’s see how long I last following her trip.

Here’s the third and final video from my trip to Colombia: Cartagena.

Cartagena is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world and one of Colombia’s most popular cities to visit. In this video I wander the city’s picturesque “Old Town,” visit a museum dedicated to the city’s history of inquisition and torture, and explore the underground tunnels beneath the massive fort, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.

Here’s the second video from my trip to Colombia: Medellín. Next up is Cartagena and Colombia’s Caribbean Coast.

Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, is a favorite amongst visitors to Colombia due to its amazing scenery, friendly people, and surprising number of sights to see throughout the city.

Here it is, my Bogotá video, the first of three videos I’m doing from my trip to Colombia. Next up is Medellin, then Cartagena and the Caribbean Coast.

Bogotá, Colombia’s bustling capital city, is one of the best places to explore Colombian culture for the very reason that the city is full of Colombians from all over the country. In this video I check out the view from the top of Cerro de Monserrate, see the sights around Plaza de Bolívar, and travel to the small town of Zipaquirá, where I head deep underground to visit the famous Salt Cathedral, a cathedral carved out in the middle of a mountain.

Cartagena is easily one of the most beautiful cities that I’ve ever seen, and that’s true during the day. After the sun goes down and the temperatures level off from their highs, Cartagena comes alive and shows off its true beauty.