Mexico for Cheap: AeroMexico is offering some great deals for travel through June if you book by the end of April, including  San Francisco to Cancun for $212, New York to Mexico City for $281, and Denver to Mexico City for $315.

New York to Paris for $476 (with taxes/fees): This one’s through XL Airways, an airline I had to Google to figure out who they were. At that price, I’m buying even if the plane is named after a shirt size.

L.A. to Newark for $212 (with taxes/fees): What a glorious feeling it is to board a plane in sunny, palm-tree strewn L.A., only to find yourself, several hours later in New Jersey. Northern New Jersey no less. Not to worry, New York’s a short train ride way.

Day two of the Travel Show kicked off Saturday morning with none other than the emperor of excursion, the maharajah of movement, the tycoon of travel himself, Arthur Frommer, and his spawn of sightseeing, Pauline Frommer, who presented their top budget destinations for 2010.

Arthur’s number one destination this year is Las Vegas where, he noted, just this winter there were close to 6,000 rooms dumped on the marketplace as a result of the opening of City Center, the massive condo/hotel/shopping complex. Consequently, Arthur’s been watching rates plummet as the recession-hit city has had to cope with this extra supply, with luxury rooms beginning at $150/night, and basic rooms at some of the less desirable locations (ahem — Circus Circus) coughing up rooms for under $50 (with even more discounts to be had by picking up coupons on the strip). (more…)

As much as I’ve grown to distance myself from the type of travel Spring Break represents — can you say cultural isolation? Or maybe it’s cultural regression — I have to say, I loved going on Spring Break. The respite from the snowy Northeast, the chance to get away from it all for a week, the intellectual stimulation (okay, scratch that last one). Here’s TheExpeditioner.com’s look at spring break deals, 2010 edition.

Mexico for under $300: AeroMexico has some great sub-$300 deals to Cancun, Acapulco, and Puerto Vallarta from various North American cities for travel in March.

Jamaica for under $200: US Airways is offering flights to Jamaica from the West Coast for under $200. If there’s one thing I miss about my trip to Negril it’s the jerk chicken. What is it about Red Stripes and jerk chicken that make the two go together so well?

New York to Miami for $217: Expedia has some great deals down to Miami, a perhaps more upscale spring break destination (is that an oxymoron?). If I went back, I’d spend less time in Miami Beach and more time in Little Havana.

Seattle to Maui for $334: Do people go to Hawaii for spring break on the West Coast? Well they should. Maybe someone can let me know after they take advantage of this fly.com deal where flights to the 49th state are going for half off?

If you are bored and don’t know what to do this weekend, go to Mexico City. I know it sounds crazy. Most of my friends cocked their heads to one side with eyebrows raised when I told them I had done just that one weekend, but it’s worth it. The food is delicious, the flight is relatively short (depending on your departure city) and it’s easy on the wallet.

The NYT explored some ideas on what you could do on a 36-hour excursion to Latin America’s largest city. And, according to them, if you want to see the capital, now is the time to do it. With violence and swine flu on the rise (as portrayed by Western media), prices are slashed on hotels and flights in order to attract more tourists. Perhaps haute tourism is a good thing.

Nevertheless, the 36-hour itinerary spares no expense. It takes you all around the different neighbourhoods in order to highlight the few things you should experience. From French-Mexican fusion food to art at the Kurimanzutto Gallery to salsa dancing at a Drag Cabaret show, Mexico City has it all.

I would like to add a few things to the list if I may. Ahem. Street food in the Distrito Federal is better than most fine-dining, gastronomic delicacies you can find in other cities. Tacos de canastas, tacos from a canister, are amazing and affordable. You can find a vendor just outside of the Zocalo but you have to get there quick because the vendors only bring a few canisters per day. Other delectable delights are elotes, which are white, big-kerneled corn coated in mayo, rolled in cheese and chillies, and finally squirted with lime. You can find elote-vendors on pretty much every corner.

As for party barrios, I was too stuffed from all the food and too exhausted from the altitude. Perhaps another weekend in Mexico City is in order? Maybe get a chance to see the Aztec’s “floating gardens” or the Museo Frida Khalo? Claro.

Stonehenge: A “national disgrace.” Did I miss something?

I’ve never thought of the remarkable prehistoric wonder as such, but a committee involved with the globally-known monument recently described it that way (as well as the Guardian and the Telegraph). The reason is that the million or so people who travel there each year are now forced to pay a fee and walk from their spot to a remote viewing platform near the noisy junction of two highways. Throwing elbows to catch a glimpse of the the circle doesn’t really appeal to me, either.

There are seven other destinations highlighted by Wanderlust that are threatened by too many people, bad planning, and poor security. The kicker? This is their second list. Are we beginning to lose too many places?

Picture this. Tulum, Mexico. The 1970’s peaceful Mayan fishing villages versus the “Girls Gone Wild”-Cancun ridiculousness. Nuff said.

The desert outside of Wadi Rum, Jordan, is being pummeled by the hodgepodge of tours seemingly playing by their own sets of rules. Yangsao, now a fixture on the Chinese tour group itineraries, is being run over by the over 3 million people visiting a year. Although biking is still a way to find some quiet, locals have sold out to entrepreneurs selling hordes of trinkets, and much of the cities charm in the meantime.

Despite surviving wars and earthquakes, Machu Pichu wasn’t designed to handle 2,500 people a day. The damage has led to its listing on the World Monument Fund’s endangered 2010 Watch list. Timbuktu is nearly off limits due to security concerns. The increased water usage at the golden fort in Jaisalmer, India, is literally dissolving the city’s sandstone foundations. Rough Guides describes the Bay of Fires in Tasmania, Australia, as a, “free for all.” Need I continue?

There is a silver lining, though. (Come on, I couldn’t leave you with too negative of a post.) The other side of the coin, destinations on the up-and-up, are on the rise. So, until the others get straightened out a bit, I would recommend the following.

With increasing economic and political stability, and paired with incredible safaris that have weathered the hard times, Zimbabwe is back. Northeast Thailand is still the biggest bang for your buck, and you can take full advantage of the 15% drop in visitors the region has recently experienced. Lastly, Madagascar’s increasing eco-tours are providing money for the locals as well as informally policing the wilds.

There’s still hope.

Around The World for $2,629: Air New Zealand’s offering a deal for fliers looking to finally get that circumnavigation trip under their belt. The trip begins in L.A. or San Fran, then heads to London, then Hong Kong, then Auckland (or you can go the other direction). Hmm, that’s a big question. Which way do you go first? I’d say head to London first. Save the good weather for the end.

NYC to Florida For Cheap: Travelzoo’s got the skinny on a mini price war going on in the New York/Florida flight corridor. Fares via Fly.com are as cheap as $138 to Miami, and just $170 to Fort Myers and Orlando (roundtrip/with taxes).

Mexico For Way Under $200: Did you know that Mexico City is sinking? In fact, it’s estimated that the city sunk 30 feet over the last century (so much so that the famous Independence Tower at the center of the city had to have 23 steps added to compensate for the height difference.)

Anyway, Mexicana Airlines has some great sub-$200 flights from L.A. to Mexico, and for those in the Northeast, flights are dipping down to the mid-$300 range.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to experience Mexico outside the all-inclusive resorts, away from sprawling Mexico City? Francine Prose did. She checked out Puebla, a two-and-a-half-hour drive southeast of Mexico´s capital.

Founded in 1531 by the Spanish, the city has a rich history deeply rooted in religion. Some even believe that the location of the city was suggested by angels, hence the name, Puebla de los Angeles (City of Angels). The religious foundations carry through to present-day. The surrounding areas of the zócalo, the city-center, is where churches and convents have remained intact for centuries.  It helps that Unesco designated Puebla a World Heritage site in 1987, allowing for the 2,600 buildings to be preserved and protected.

However, as Prose pointed out, there is more to Puebla than ornate, grandiose buildings. She ’savored’ the food. Boasting a reputation as the ¨Lyon of Mexico,¨ Puebla has an abundance  of gastronomic delicacies. From its famous sweet liquor to mole poblano (salty-chocolate salsa) to huaraches (sandal-shaped bread with seasoned meat), the food is supposed to be an unforgettable experience. Prose recommends that street-fare is a better experience than the fine dining. From my experience in Mexico City, she is right:

O.K. It’s that time of year. Time to use up the remaining vacation days you’ve saved up for no reason, and the important decision of how you will blow that end of the year bonus check. I guess, that’s just my way of thinking (might not want to follow my lead on that one).

I will soon be heading to Wisconsin, to make a round of family visits, and eat my body weight in German sausages, before the snow in the mountains is too good to pass up. I’ll just live vicariously through all of you for the next month, so here’s and interesting article from BnA about eight destinations that would be worth the trip… and the stories you bring home afterward.  

How about the Crucian Festival in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands? There you’ll get to party island style, with, what looks like, a little Carnival mixed with Mardi Gas atmosphere. Then, there’s the Night of the Radishes (Noches de los Rabanos), on Dec. 23^rd in Oaxaca, Mexico. Radishes as art, that’s an experience you won’t forget.

My choice, besides creating a radish Mona Lisa, would be to kick back, relax, and enjoy a castle of my own. Renting castles can be done all over the world and is surprisingly easy. I would probably choose, hmm, Ireland, strictly because of Matt’s Dublin video, and the three drops of Irish blood Grandma Wick always mentioned I had around St. Patrick’s day.

I can see the water cooler talk now, “Jon, what did you do over break?”

“Live like a king.”

The NY Daily News ticks off some of their favorite hotspots this summer in Latin America. A few may not exactly be terribly insightful (it’s a given Buenos Aires and Rio are great to see come late November), but there were a few good suggestions here I’d take some time to check out.

Nicaragua’s San Juan del Sur is a surfing paradise on the country’s Pacific coast that supports a thriving fishing community and promises to be uncrowded despite its emergence as one of the country’s premier vacations spots.

Belize’s St. George’s Caye is an island just a few miles off the coast of Belize City that’s home to a whopping 20 people (who gets to be mayor do you think?). Though sitting on the world’s second-largest barrier reef system in the world, Moon Travel describes the island as being “far from commercialized — on the contrary, it’s very quiet, with mostly residential homes and their docks.”

And finally, for a historic Mexican experience head to Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende, a town dating back to 1542 situated over a mile above sea level. Though a mecca for artists, performers and musicians, Fodor’s warns of the town’s descent into a “yuppie” friendly, “. . . Mexico-lite destination.” At least they’re not afraid to tell you what they really think.

Located in Guanajuato in Central Mexico, Sunday in the central plaza of San Miguel De Allende means ice cream, fresh fruit, and most likely a parade, something this town is very good at doing. Often.