For those planning a cruise, Crown Cruise Vacations President Ross Spalding and his team of travel and cruise specialists are experts at booking families, friends and individuals on their dream cruise vacations. A great place for inspiration and insight when booking a cruise vacation is the Crown Cruise Vacations blog. Read more...

The Galapagos made the news this week with Celebrity’s Xpedition ship getting its hand slapped for unauthorized lobster. Really, this is a thing down there! The Galapagos Islands are one of the most pristine places on earth where you can still visit, and whose environment the government of Ecuador fiercely protects. We expect the luxury 99 passenger yacht that Celebrity Cruises operates to be back fully on track shortly, but there are some other more intimate options worth considering as well, including the very small group cruises that adventure travel company G Adventures offers. Read more...

Haven’t planned a summer vacation yet? Sometimes the best deals happen by making plans at the last minute. In fact, the next few weeks feature some of the best buys of the year for vacations! We’ve found three surprising locations where the deals are good, but act fast because the sale season for these destinations can be surprisingly short. Read more...

All this way to get to Buenos Aires. It’s an incredibly long flight from the US and having just 24 hours to explore is tragic. But sometimes schedules can simply not be helped, and so we’re here to help squeeze every ounce of flavor and joy out of 24 hours in Buenos Aires. Here’s a 1-day pre-cruise itinerary to enjoy. Warning: it’s really busy so make sure to get a good night’s rest on the red-eye out. Read more...

The following is an excerpt from Roger’s travel journal. He went to Rio de Janeiro in 2006.

The thing about traveling in a great group of people is that it takes forever to get moving. Planning for an early morning start meant that we finally got rolling out of here at about 11:30. About two hours after the plan. One of the things about being in a hostel is that when you find people to gang around with, it can take a while to get us all ready to do the same thing. Once we finally got out and ready to go, we took a bus to Corcovado and instead of the tram, the five of us split with a private driver. He took us to a couple lookout spots on the way up. (Corcovado is in an urban forest – a remnant of the rainforest that was around Rio years ago and some of which is still there to the north and south of the city). The views were stunning, you could see everything and the planes which were landing in the local airport (jet planes, mind you) are just about at eye level. It’s a little nuts. After we got to the base of Corcovado, you have two options. Stairs (which give you more opportunity to pay ridiculously expensive prices for cheap looking souvenirs) or the elevator. I was all about the stairs, all about being the fit, healthy me that I’ve always wanted to be. About half way up the stairs, I changed my mind, but it was too late to stop. Before long, I was at the top, with the same view that Jesus has. Read more...