WORTH A TRIP: The hit TV show in Mozambique is "Fama" (fame), which the June-July National Geographic Adventure describes as "American Idol meets My Fair Lady." But only a few years ago, "Mozambicans didn't need reality TV . . . they had all the reality they could handle." In one of life's crueler ironies, a civil war ravaged the people of one of the world's most beautiful locations. It ended in 1992, and, as the magazine's Paul Kvinta reports, now Mozambique itself is seeking fame -- "attempting to resurrect itself through ecotourism."
Surely it has a lot to work with. Kvinta helicopters over the healing Gorongosa National Park, spying on elephants (during the war they were wantonly slaughtered for meat), hippos, crocs, baboons and warthogs. He swims with whale sharks off Tofo Beach and enjoys "an incredibly diverse wilderness landscape." But, even though tourism has restarted, poverty remains appalling and typical life expectancy is only 40 years. Further, it's hard to make people appreciate the need to save animal populations for tourism, when they're thinking more about finding something to eat.
WORTH A FLIP: Is Wayne Curt
is heroic, masochistic or both? In the
Atlantic, Curtis doesn't go to the airport to start a vacation -- that is his vacation. He spends 106 hours on a self-imposed "layover" stretched over six airports and keeps hilarious notes of the pleasures and indignities: Las Vegas's McCarran airport has 1,300 slot machines that "ding and chime incessantly like cell phones with subwoofers"; LAX actually has a good restaurant (with "unplastic flatware"); Detroit Metro's inside-the-terminal hotel is so nice, "if timeshares were ever offered, I would attend the presentation even without the lure of a free toaster oven" . . . The Fiesta of St. Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, isn't all about the bulls. As June's
Smithsonian tells it, it's also "a sort of invisible social cease-fire" allowing the people of this conservative religious town "to be spontaneous once a year without fear of repercussion." Thus the fireworks, alcohol, parades, alcohol and diving into the fountain. But it's usually the foreigners who run with the bulls. Natives watch on TV . . .
"What's left to explore?" asks Michael Behar in Men's Journal. Hasn't the "gringo invasion" of Costa Rica "flooded the tiny country with surf punks, spring breakers, and octogenarian bird watchers?" But down on the border with Panama is La Amistad National Park, and a "rain forest ecosystem virtually undisturbed since the last ice age." Behar struggles through bogs, bamboo and jungle, climbing 5,400 feet to the peak of Cerro Kamuk, from which he can see both the the Pacific and the Caribbean. In nine days he encounters no tourists. Good thing: One of those octogenarians likely would've kicked his impudent butt . . . In Florence, "you can buy men's underwear with the bottom half of 'David' on them." What David's temperamental Florentine creator might have thought about that is unclear -- as are a lot of things in National Geographic Traveler's tour of Michelangelo's Florence. Did he really hide from political reprisal for six months in that small chamber? Did he buy herbal remedies for heartburn from that pharmacy (and is it really one of the oldest in the world)? Florence seems to encourage conjecture and mystery.
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WORTH A CLIP: "Four years ago I was the guy asking all the questions," says Shanghai-based Web site operator Dan Washburn in
Budget Travel, "and now I'm the one other people look to for answers." The former Georgia sports writer shares dozens of his personal Shanghai picks and tips: restaurants ("Have your hotel concierge write 'please feed us well' on a piece of paper"), shopping (including cowboy boots) and fun and games . . . Also in budget mode is
Travel + Leisure Golf. Now that it's the off season, some famous golf resorts offer dog days discounts. Save big at Pinehurst, Casa de Campo and others . . . Twenty-five is the magic number for
Islands: "The 25 Most Amazing Islands on Earth"; "25 Island Adventures to Do Before You Die" (pardon -- are there some you can do after that?). It's the magazine's 25th anniversary, celebrated with lush photos and writers' personal recollections. We liked Jeff Greenwald's story of climbing seven kilometers up a Sri Lankan mountain in darkness just to see it cast a perfect shadow on the clouds below at sunrise.
WORTH A NOSH: Or two.
Saveur's first bite: "Spice islands," Indonesia's remote Bandas, where we watch local cooks make coconut milk curries, Dutch-Indonesian butter cake and spice-braised tuna. (Try not to lick the page.) The homegrown nutmeg is so prized that it once was a capital offense to remove the trees from Banda. Second bite: Northeast Alabama, for a "Sacred Harp" hymn sing (using rare 18th-century harmonies) and a barbecue on the church grounds. Pulled pig, baked beans with pickle juice, peach ice cream -- and the rum cake "makes us sing better in the afternoon."
-- Jerry V. Haines
