Travel Features
Caribbean all-inclusive resorts offer variety
Order breakfast while still in bed at the new Aura Cozumel Wyndham Grand Bay. You'll have just enough time for a dip in the private plunge pool above your...
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Campeche - a treasure on Yucatan's Gulf coast
My eyes widened at the pillars, archways, tiled floors and tall wooden doors as my guide told me I could stay at the Hotel Castelmar for $72 a night. ...
Touring Obama's Chicago
"No," the Secret Service agent tells me, his eyes as cold and harsh as this wintry day. Oddly, it's no secret he's a Secret Service agent - 2-inch-high...
Cruise travel looks like a good deal in 2009
On the surface, it would seem as though cruise travelers have smooth sailing ahead. There are more ships than ever - including the next new biggest on the...
See seriously weird Madagascar while you can
Tarzan-caliber vines dangle through a tangle of palm trees and acacias dripping cascades of pink orchids. Our small group is quietly stalking through the...
Cringing look at year's oddest travel stories
If travel in 2009 is anything like it was in 2008 - and we have every reason to expect it will be - you might want to think about staying home. With a...
2008 S.F. Chronicle Geography Quiz
I'm going to stick up for Sarah Palin for a minute and say I don't believe for a second that she didn't know Africa was a continent. I mean, come on. Even...
Durham, the perfect English town
Amost unexpected sound greeted me as I pushed open the heavy oak door of the thousand-year-old cathedral in Durham: laughter. It wasn't coming from a...
"Monkey girls" and macaws in the Suriname jungle
It is a fairly typical afternoon in this remote neighborhood of Suriname's rain forest, and not unlike a day one thousand years ago. The local maripa tree...
Mount Bachelor celebrates 50th anniversary
During the spring I spent the weekend with a nearly 50-year-old bachelor, balding on top, who was hiding out in the wilds of central Oregon. It seemed...
Little slice of France off Newfoundland coast
The simple, crowded boulangerie could not have been a more welcome sight. After stepping off the boat and clearing customs and immigration, I crossed the...
Turks and Caicos Islands offer off-season peace
The only other footprints on this beach belong to the birds. The turquoise-jade water tosses conch shells and sea fans upon this stretch of heaven. I walk...
Inca roots are deep in high-altitude Cuzco
Cuzco, I decided, had to be the gayest city in South America. Everywhere I turned were rainbow flags. They fluttered in front of banks, in hotel lobbies...
Among the orcas
So it turns out "killer whale" is actually the more polite of the two names commonly given to the five tons of muscle, blubber and teeth torpedoing...
Wasilla the gateway to grand Mat-Su Valley
Sarah Palin's hometown, Wasilla, isn't really a town. It's Anchorage's suburban spillover, a bedroom community of highway strip development and large...
New Orleans still thriving - and suffering
Three years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is the tale of two vastly different cities. In the French Quarter, where jazz burbles out of Preservation...
Roaming the Great Wall of Great Britain
Risking serious ligament damage - and possibly a rip in my trousers - I'm braving the chill and rain of far northern England to straddle one of the most...
The Charlottes offer natural beauty
Moss, moss everywhere. Meandering lushly up tree trunks, it envelops woodpiles, grows moss-Afros atop fence posts and encroaches on the cedar plank...
Vermont inn-to-inn hikes - the way to go
The young female backpacker reached the top of Mount Abraham just as we were getting ready to head down. Mount Abraham is hardly a mountain by Sierra...
Decent digs in London for less than £100
Even when the dollar was king, London prices made travelers cringe and cower. Now that our currency is a groveling pauper, Americans feel as if they've...
Cambodia town - stuff of dreams and seafood
Kam Noeun must be some sort of genius. His Kimly restaurant appeared no different from any of a half-dozen others along the attached row of...
Trying for a peak experience on Big Island
Sea level be damned. Sometimes a guy needs a little altitude. I'll admit to a certain admiration for mountaineers like the late Sir Edmund Hillary and...
World's tallest in arboreal witness protection
Ruskin Hartley doesn't want to have to kill me, so he's not going to tell me. Hartley, executive director of the Save the Redwoods League, is one of a...
Old greets new in modern Beijing
As the River Dragon boat chugs up the limpid Kun Yu River, the towers of new Beijing loom in the background, symbols of the Chinese capital's newfound...
Black Rock Unplugged
It's been called the flattest place on earth. The Playa, a dry desert lakebed in northwestern Nevada, is so flat it creates mirages. If you stare into the...
