In my routine of travel blogs and sites reading, I found out, at Tim Leffel’s site, that Budget Living magazine, targeted at backpackers and people who travel on low budgets, had closed. And its editor says this:

“The name ‘budget’ worked great with readers,” he said, “but it was a hurdle for advertisers. The name was a mixed blessing.”

That is: while the “budget” denomination is appealing to the public in general, in the same way the word “backpacker” is in our environment, advertisers finds it horrible. Thus, we have a product that may appeal to many people, but also attracts the “wrong” readers, from marketing’s point of view. Why wrong? because they’re not willing to spend a large sum of money in their travel.

Such assumption has caused that at many latin american countries, the travels section is written for five stars travellers. This happens even in newspapers, despite some of them are quite massive. The conflict is important to analyze because the issues between “the public’s interest” and the “advertisers uninterest” should be resolved. Otherwise, we’ll keep lacking good publications for the public that wants to travel without spending too much.

And there’s another issue: my perception -only, since I couldn’t prove it with numbers- i that at least here, in Argentina, the backpacker public is noticeably reluctant to support editorials initiatives regarding to cheaper ways to travel, even when these are good and not pricey. As I wrote in the entry dedicated to “extreme backpackers”, many times there’s some sort of common sense by which one “should not spend a dime at all”. So, in this extreme version of the story, the backpacker is not someone who spends little, but someone who wants to spend nothing. Of course, in the long run, such attitude holds potential dangers in relation to the local people who provide tourism services and who have to deal with people who want everything for free; and without any editorial proposals. The reason is simple: many readers don’t want to spend anything, even when the publication would help them organise the trip and save, and advertisers just don’t want to see their ads there. And that’s that. At least in this part of the world, the only travel magazines existing are aimed at middle-high class tourists. Luckily, we have the Internet, but a complement from the editorial world would be really good.

It’s quite common to consider the Internet a threat in the editorial world. It’s almost as if the perception were “we had a great business model, but now there’s the Internet to disturb and ruin it all”. But to consider the Web as an enemy is a mistake. Rather, we have to turn the Internet into an ally when obtaining better information. For instance, by allowing us to have a simpler contact with our readers, in case of travel guides. What for? To update info, prices, locations, for example. Nowadays, to think about a model of contents creation completely made by paid specialists just doesn’t make sense anymore, since most of these functions can be carried out better if we are able to create a community around our product. The idea is not simply “to lower costs”, but to help the always meager budgets destined to create a travels product find better ways to present information. That is: not just dedicate to collect information. That doesn’t have any aggregate value. We cannot compete with the Internet there.

As I’ve said before, I believe travel guides still have great opportunities in this market, even when the presence of the Internet is, for some, a threat. Part of these opportunities are so thanks to a central point: guides are capable to formalize information and present it neatly; to do the same with the Internet, we’d have to spent a lot of time searching, and finally we’d end up with a bunch of printed sheets, not too confortable to carry around.

This trend to formalize more adequately information is something that distiguishes guides such as Lonely Planet, for example. Recent editions are placing emphasis on the subject of tours. For instance, they make sections where they recommend what places to visit in a determined city, depending on how many days do we have available. This way, they help the tourist organise better his time, a scarce resource when we travel.

The other interesting thing is that guides should emphasize the trend the Internet is finishing to establish: it’s not only about having a didactic speech, from “specialist to student”; rather, there should be a relation among equals. That is, from traveller to traveller. The important thing is not to teach the other what he should see, but to provide him the tools he needs to live his own travel experience. Because that’s travel: an experience.

Cities and their planners always look for a determined angle to show themselves to the rest of the world. And Rio de Janeiro has chosen to be seen from top, from the heights of Corcovado or Sugarloaf. And the sight, of course, is usually spectacular, even when fog conspires against the view and turns everything a little greyish. The “view from the top” allows us to see one of the city’s most spectacular features: its huge number of green spaces, distributed everywhere we see. And that physical space, spattered with morros (hills), impresses anyone who dares to see it under the shadow of the huge Christ and his famous open arms.

Of course, choosing a view point to represent oneself implies to eliminate others, at least as generalized representations. Because, when seen up close, Rio loses spectacularity but gains a much richer view in a human sense. This look is not, necessarily, touristically relevant. Rather, it’s the empoverished side that can be seen, for example, when we arrive to Rio by bus. The city’s bus terminal -Rodoviaria, as they call it in Brazil- it’s almost chaotic, particularly on weekends. As soon as we arrived, we found hundreds of people staring at us from the second floor, behind bars, while we struggled to find our luggage. And the surroundings are definitely not quite attractive. Abandoned sheds, dark streets covered by highways and a local bus terminal in poor conditions. I don’t think anyone who sees that area will have an splendorous image of Rio. But it’s a side one has to see.

To choose between two views, from under and from top, is nothing but an attempt to classify a city. In between, there’s many other views, places, details that might help us form an image of a city. An image that, of course, will be as arbitrary as other ones. An image that will be not only the result of our own direct experiences, but will also be clearly influenced by other sources, such as tv shows, travel guides, third parties stories, among many options.

To put some order here, the next entries about Rio will begin from the top; that is, how to get to the different viewpoints of the city, such as Corcovado and Sugarloaf, and will then lower to the surface, towards bairros (towns) such as Ipanema, copacabana or Santa Teresa -where, by the way, we stayed at. Finally, there’ll be references to the topic of public transportation, because it’s always good to learn how to move around the city without depending on taxis.

An almost common sense overlook would say those touristic destinations that suffered some natural or man-caused disaster, such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks, suffer a very important economic damage. The reason is simple: tourists stop visiting the area because they fear for they safety. You know, there’s nothing less attractive for tourism than lack of safety.

But it seems like we’ll have to change our minds about this. According to the International Herald Tribune, touristic destinations that suffered some kind of disaster not only recovered quickly, but even surpassed the figures in revenues and number of tourists they had before the problems.

For example, Sri Lanka, which last year was affected by a tsunami and no less than 30 thousand people died or are missing, this month has the highest reservations number in its history. In october 2002, more than 200 people died in Bali in a series of attacks to places frequented by tourists. While it’s true that, after the attacks, the number of tourists went down to less than a million, in 2005 almost one and a half million will have visited the island. In Phuket, Thailand, more than 500 swedish people died because of the tsunami; less than 12 months later, the swedish are flying in larger numbers towards Phuket than before the disaster. And something similar has happened with London, which hasn’t had any bigger issues since the metro attacks. The interviewed people in the Herald note say that even destinations that has had quite bad publicity due to unsafety issues, such as Brazil, are getting increasingly more reservations.

Some of the explanations coming from travel agents and specialists are quite impressive. Some say that the war with Iraq and the topic of terrorist attacks has become an everyday issue, and doesn’t impact tourists anymore. What yesterday was a big shocker, today is commonplace. No matter how, the important thing is that the destination gets publicity, even negative.

Of course, this mediacentered explanation -the media has banalised disasters and attacks- shouldn’t be easily accepted. It’s obvious something is changing in the tourism market, to the point that tourists, once reluctant to visit any minimally insecure destination, are now willing to run risks, not taking too seriously natural disasters, and visiting a greater variety of destinations. Taking risks was once a travellers patrimony. Are tourists becoming more and more travellers?

For a long time, we’ve been used to a one direction type of information. The media presented articles, we read them and, at most, we could send a letter if we had any question. Interaction didn’t go beyond that. But in blogs, which usually allow comments, the situation is quite different.

Let’s take a note about some european destination, for example. The journalist made some previous research, travelled, told what he’d seen, and period. How he got there, is not part of the note; that is, certain production conditions were erased from the final text. If he’d gone there as part of his vacations, or if he was invited by some country’s tourism office or travel agency, that’s something we don’t see printed. In a way, that became part of the backstage, part of the note’s making of process readers didn’t have to know about.

With the arrival of blogs and comments spaces, these things have begun to change. If I wrote some entries dedicated to some european destination -hopefully soon, let me dream a little- good part of my reader’s questions would be, precisely, about that backstage. How much did the ticket cost, how did I find out, what guides and Internet sites I consulted, how to prepare for the trip, how much for the lodging, where did I stay…

If my answer was “I was invited by a travel agency, and I spent my time from tour to tour, all paid, and I have no clue about how much these things cost” -since, of course, I didn’t have to pay for them or even care about organising my trip- my experience of the place will lose sense for my readers.

Since I didn’t have to plan the trip as any other person has to, I’ll be unable to answer most of the commentators questions.

And here’s an interesting distance between graphic journalism, which doesn’t allow direct interaction with readers, and blogs which allow comments. The travel experience of the travel journalist who has someone else plan the trip for him, is not too interesting for the reader who wants to know more information to plan his own trip. And this is part of the process we’ll all have to learn: we are not able to provide answers to all questions, and without our readers help we wouldn’t be able to handle everything.

In the future, the most interesting travel stories will be those produced by our equals, other Net users. Like it or not, journalists and the tourism industry will have to get used to it. Because the travel experience is not only about experiencing the place; planning the trip itself is part of our questions and doubts.

After so much going back and forth, I’ll finally join the massive fled from Buenos Aires that takes places every january. This time, the destination will finally be the south of Brazil. Not too original. Year after year, thousands of argentineans vacation in that area of the world, even when the dollar exchange rate is not in our favor. We have 15 days to walk around during the last week of january and the the first of february, and for now we know we’ll be in:

Porto Alegre (there are social reason here, I know it’s not a very touristic destination)
Rio de Janeiro
Florianopolis (we haven’t decided yet what place of the island we’ll be staying at)
Curitiba, Paranagua and Ilha do Mel

As you can see, it’s quite an ambitious tour for two weeks, considering part of the route will be done by ground.

We’ve been looking at other locations such as Praia do Rosa, Bombinhas and Camboriu, but I still don’t know if we’ll have enough time to see all of these places.

I’ve been doing some research about these destinations, I’ve even been drawing maps, as I usually do. Any kind of advice about the destinations cited above will be welcomed and appretiated, particularly about where to go, places to stay and prices, in case of people who has recently visited this area of the world.

Some of this trip’s objectives are:

To make the trip from Curitiba to Paranagua by train. I have different information about this issue. On one side, I have a brochure from last year of this train and it says that it works everyday during high season. But the train’s website says it only works during weekends. Has anyone taken this train on january or february?

To see Rio de Janeiro. Yes, it was about time. And the tour would include a visit to Petropolis. Has anyone been there? Is it worth visiting?

To see Ilha do Mel. In this case, the doubt is about lodging, since it seems quite complicated during high season. Does anyone have any info about this island?

To walk around Florianopolis island. I’m not fond of laying on the beach for too long; if I don’t move around a little, I get bored easily.

Surely during the following weeks I’ll tell more things about the 2006 tour, as I find out more info. Feel free to use the comments area to share any useful information or advice about these destinations -including Praia do Rosa and Bombinhas, as possibilities.

One of the most common destinations of travellers that arrive to Argentina is Tigre, a location close to the capital Buenos Aires. In fact, you can get there in a reasonable time, thanks to the trains system service. And the most visited area at Tigre is the riverside port, which has ship departures to other sites of the local Delta (a large number of interesting islands) and Uruguay; and also the Puerto de Frutos, a big number of small businesses that sell all kinds of goods, specially crafts made of cane and wicker.

There are two ways to arrive to Tigre, both by train. On one side, you can use the traditional service, provided by Mitre trains, branch Tigre, departing from Retiro station, a few blocks away from the center of Buenos Aires. With a low cost of 0.90 pesos (US$ 0.30), the best maintained public service trains in Argentina will take you there in less than an hour. These ride through the north zone of the city and Gran Buenos Aires, the area with the country’s highest incomes. On the other side, you can combine the Mitre train, Bartolome Mitre branch, and take the Train de la Costa, a touristic service that costs, on weekends, 4 pesos for locals and 6 (US$ 2) for outsiders. The tickets allows you to get off and on the train any time you want along the way. Some interesting stops are Anchorena station, where we can access the Rio de la Plata, and Barrancas de San Isidro, with an antiques fair where you’ll find many interesting items, similar to those you find in Defensa street at San Telmo.

The TBA train schedule among Retiro and Tigre stations can be found here. The Train de la Costa has its own website.

The touristic interest on Tigre becomes clear if you consider that the local government has invested for years in the positioning of the location, through infrastructure and landscapes improvements. In the begginings of the XX century, Tigre was the destination of the wealthiest class in Argentina, who moved from their expensive homes in San Isidro. You can still find excellent examples of the architecture of those times in the Rowing Club (in front of the river terminal) and the so called Tigre Club, a huge old house with a big explanade that goes through the street and heads right into the river, a location I was lucky to visit during the times I worked as a journalist in the northern zone. More about historical houses in the Municipalidad de Tigre website.

Of course, not everything at Tigre has been “touristified”. We refer only to the area of the location’s center, around the river port, and the river’s margins. Anyways, there’s a growing private investment in the area, now that the touristic interest is increasing on the side of foreign tourists, who didn’t use to get there so frequently.

The Puerto de Frutos is an interesting locations to shop if you’re looking for handcrafts made of cane and wicker. There’s a huge variety, although with the touristification of the area, the prices have rised and the supply is becoming more complete and sofisticated. The weekends the place is completely packed with visitors and it’s a quite interesting visit that can take a few hours. Particularly, every time I went there I’ve come back home with some wood or wicker craft, cheese -I particularly like the spicy ones- and Otto Tipp red beer, now among my favorites (Otto Tipp is from the locality of El Bolson, in the argentinean Patagonia, but the truth is I don’t know any other place in Buenos Aires that carries this beer; if anyone knows, let me know in the comments). Anyways, every time it’s easier to find diverse products, even wicker baskets … made in China. Of course, the artisan spirit of the first years is slowly being lost, in the same way the fruits -particularly oranges, harvested in the Delta islands- are limited to a small part of the place.

There are good references to the destinations you can visit in this area at the Municipalidad de Tigre website. It’s an alternative to spend the day, basically, unless you’re interested in spending the night at some hotel in the Delta islands, which is not a bad option.

Monte (or San Miguel del Monte, as shown in maps) has two interesting points to its favor: it has a nice lagoon, where you can fish and relax, and its situated only 110 kms. away from Buenos Aires. Despite these facts, this location has had much less touristic development than destinations such as Chascomus, which with a bigger lagoon is located almost twice further from the argentinean capital city.

Until now, Monte used to be a weekend-home location, something we can still notice at places like Los Pinos. But currently, and for a while now, the interest in tourism development is increasing and new hostel and lodge accomodations are being built, usually around the lagoon. There’s also a greater interest from the authorities to preserve the fishing environment to attract more tourists. By the way, you need a permit to fish in the lagoon.

Tourism at Monte is almost exclusively targeted to those who arrive by driving their cars from nearby locations. Why? The city, which has a population of 17 thousand people (spanish), doesn’t count with a transportation service -people ride around in bikes or cars. This is not an impediment to visit Monte, but it can be a problem if what you want is to border the lagoon. And there’s a second point: the bus service from Monte to Buenos Aires (Retiro bus terminal) is frankly bad. The companies won’t sell round trip tickets, so you have to sit at the bus station one hour before the bus -which is coming from other locations- arrives and pray for an available seat. I wonder: is it so difficult for companies like La Estrella or Rio Parana to sell round trip tickets? Is the reservations system so complicated that they can’t work it out, in the Internet age? While I understand that their main target at Monte is the car owner tourist, of higher incomes, I’m not so sure that resolving how uncomfortable it is to travel by bus to a place that is only two hours away from Buenos Aires is totally not worth it.

By the way, the company Microomnibus Brandsen also provides a transportation service, but in this case I couldn’t get their schedule. Because of this, I took the info provided at the official website of San Miguel, although in the case of Rio Parana and La Estrella some information differ (the ones I state are from this last week end and were provided by the companies themselves). All the schedules I collected are available at WikiNomade (spanish only).

In the case of not finding bus tickets to Retiro, there are other ways to leave Monte, for example, Rio Parana has bus services that departs Monte to other destinations such as Moron, Ciudadela, Cañuelas and La Plata. In the case of the last two locations, you can take there the Roca train service that goes to Constitucion train station in Buenos Aires.

The line that departs from Constitucion to Bahia Blanca stops at Monte. The service is available 5 days a week.

One of the key issues in the backpacker’s trip is the topic of expenses control. To be able to visit places with the least money possible is what distinguishes this type of tourism, and for this matter many destinations usually create a specific supply of hostel and camping accomodations, generally by part of the private sector. But the decision to spend less sometimes generates the appearing of a specific group of backpackers: the extreme backpackers. These ones are not looking to spend less; they, simply, don’t want to spend anything at all. They’re trying all the time to access services without paying a dime; they’d rather sleep on the street or anywhere as long as they don’t have to pay a few bucks for a camping tent or a hotel bed; they don’t use a single bus and are capable of staying on the route for days as they wait for an opportunity to hithchhike. There’s a certain pride in these kind of actions. It’s not strange, when we travel in an environment characterized for the presence of backpackers, that conversations tend to focus on who spent less; sometimes, a few cents define the discussion, and the resulting feeling is that who spend less can travel better.

In many cases, the strict in expenses backpacker trip is not a choice; there’s the willingness to travel and very little money. So, one has to be very disciplined and not spend too much if we want to keep on moving. This implies looking for the cheapest places, where we can cook, if possible; trying to save as much as we can in transportation; and usually looking for economic ways to have fun.

The problem is when many of these backpackers get together, in determined seasons, in rather small destinations, with a small population. Let’s get real: few locals would look friendly at people who want to visit their town but are not willing to spend a dime in it and who have set a goal of getting everything they can for free, when possible. One case: it’s quite common in the north of Argentina to charge for the use of public bathrooms -something usual in Bolivia and the south of Peru, but not so much in many areas of Argentina, particularly in the biggest cities, such as Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Rosario, where most of the argentinean backpackers come from. The result: long discussions between the backpackers that don’t want to pay 25 - 50 cents (US$ 0.08 - 0.16) to use the bathroom and the local people who live from the business exploitation of their town. And this is just one case. I suppose there are similar situations taking place in some other countries, but with other types of services.

When I talk about “realism”, I try to be practical: it’s hard to ask a local population to receive tourists in the best manner, if these don’t bring any benefits or if they just provoke damages. There are, of course, some limits: in many destinations, people want to charge you even just to look at the landscape, and these kind of abuse are not rare. But on the traveller’s side, excess is not unusual either. Travelling cheap does not mean, simply, to consider paying for something a sin. It’s about, above all, economizing in expenses by restricting only to the basics and indispensable. But it’s not realistic to demand the local people to watch the occupation of their public spaces in exchange of nothing.

Part of the ideas of this note came up from the comment Victor left on the article Los otros mochileros (spanish only), about the impact on Iruya, a wonderful location on the north of Salta in Argentina, of the massive arrival of backpackers, particularly during the argentinean summer time. That I disagree with some of Victor’s statements shouldn’t make us lose sight of the fact that there’s a problem to be solved in what he’s pointing. Backpacker travelling is a beautiful experience that has to include respect for local populations; getting to know their ways and habits is a form to observe the huge diversity of Argentina, many times lost under the stories that presents it as a “white and european” country. If local populations start to perceive backpackers more as a disturb than as a pleasant visit, in the long run they’ll do what many destinations that want to take advantage from tourism have done: to close free public spaces, raising the cost of hotel and other services, and delegating the task of removing “unwanted visitors” from the location to the police. The idea: to point only at “profitable tourists”. Let’s not pull the rope: authoritarian solutions are always an option in the minds of many people.

Gadling publish a list of resources about the world’s navel: Cuzco. Of course, here in Zirma I published some months ago an article about this beatiful (and expensive) city.