10 best exotic places to take an extended holiday

1. Algarve, Portugal

The Algarve on the south coast of Portugal is and has been one of the top exotic extended holiday spots for many United Kingdom and European residents for years. Many Canadian tour operators offer packages. The region offers temperate and mild warm weather, large resort areas surrounded by small villages and four championship golf courses. Besides its 150 beaches, be sure to visit some of the "Pueblos Blancos" or traditional villages such as Monchique, for great views and authentic Portuguese arts and crafts.

2. Southern Spain: Costa del Sol

There's nothing like the Mediterranean beaches of the Spanish Coast to call on all sunbathers, the stylish rich and famous, and party people. In Costa del Sol, you'll find exotic beaches, golf, luxury resorts and Puerto Banus, one of TripAtlas.com's Top 10 Portside Cities of the Western Mediterranean, the most luxurious marina in the world. Honourable mention on the coast also includes Costa Blanca and Costa de Almeria.

3. Morocco

From the magical streets and markets of Marrakech to the little-known beaches of Essaouira, Morocco is no longer a haven just for indulgent artists and poets. As one of the best expressions of North Africa, there's something about Morocco that exudes an alluring and exotic culture that takes an extended holiday or long stay to really appreciate. Visit Morocco before it expands into a resort-overloaded destination.

4. Goa, India

Goa is a hot holiday spot for Indian and South Asian vacationers and is best known for its beaches, festivals and ancient temples. It was once a Portuguese colony and thus offers an eclectic mix of both east and west. Calangute and Candolim are the most popular beach towns, but Goa's capital Panaji (also Panjim) is worth a visit, as is Ponda, a sacred site of Goan temples.

5. Florida

While Florida may not be the most exotic destination on the list, Florida is home to hundreds of thousands Canadian snowbirds each year. Stay in the Florida Panhandle area, which is less crowded, or the attraction-filled Orlando. Perfect your "Captiva Crouch" on Captiva Island or your golf game at the hundreds of golf courses throughout the Sunshine State. Many condo rentals, airlines and tour operators offer great deals.

6. Canary Islands, Grand Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura

Off the northwest coast of Africa between Morocco and Western Sahara, the Canary Islands are a set of volcanic islands that are the perfect hideout for Europeans and other visitors looking to stay away from snow and chilly winds. Destinations include the bigger islands of Grand Canaria and Tenerife, while Fuerteventura is known for its windsurfing and La Gomera is best for its rainforest and walking trails.

7. Bali, Indonesia

Stay for a month in Bali to get the best of enchanting Indonesian culture, cuisine, and beautiful beaches. Popular spots in Bali include Benoa Beach, Legian and Sanur Beach. This region is known for water sports enthusiasts including honeymooners, scuba divers and surfers.

8. Phuket and Pattaya, Thailand
White shores and the most stunning aqua blue waters you'll ever see, Thailand and other coast-side spots in Southeast Asia such as Penang, Malaysia, are popular holiday destinations. They bring together cultural heritage, mountain views, elephant camps, ancient temples and palaces, stunning beaches, water sports, resorts, restaurants and nightclubs -- all in one place. Popular Phuket destinations include Karon, Patong and Kata Beaches. Hotels, resorts, B&Bs, or half/full board accommodation are all available.

9. Mazatlan, Mexico

For fresh seafood and for sports fishing fans, Mazatlan offers exactly what you need for your extended holiday getaway. While it's a great resort area with warm beaches that you could laze on for weeks, Mazatlan also gives its visitors a taste of Mexico from the past as well as today. It's such a nice place, many Canadians, Americans and Europeans now move to Mazatlan to retire.

10. St. Martin, Caribbean

Among the many paradisiacal islands in the Caribbean, TripAtlas picked St. Martin because of its great mix of relaxation, culture and a refined sense of exotic French and European flavours. An extended holiday on St. Martin also allows time for you to explore the Dutch side as well, or island hop to and from other nearby islands such as Anguilla, St. Barts and Saba.

Cheap Travel Packages - An Inexpensive Holiday

Going on holiday is what everyone looks forward to and so many of us prefer to venture out in search of cost-effective travel. With the emergence of online booking services and great discount travel websites, booking travel has become relatively easy. You can easily find cheap travel package to exotic destinations all over the world. Today, all you need to do is log on to the Internet and perform a quick search for various travel options online.

Most of these discounted travel sites offer you all the resources you need to plan your trip. These sites also allow you to compare prices, choose your most preferred airline and get the best travel deal on holiday packages. You can also customise a cheap travel package by choosing from the various individual travel components available. These are a convenient way to make your dream holiday a reality. These travel packages may include flights, cruises, additional car hire, hotel booking, travel insurance and several other exciting travel services. Apart from the regular holiday packages, you may also come across last minute packages online. These special packages are fantastic bargains for the spontaneous traveller and perfect for weekend getaways.

Many of the online travel services specialize in offering the best airfares on the web whether traveling within Australia or to overseas destinations. Be it for a weekend gateway, business trio or a long vacation, every travel can enjoy the best updated deals and make their dream trip come true

See the world — in California's Long Beach

A recently published survey showed hat, even in these precarious economic times, a vacation is a luxury that many people are unwilling to give up. Hard-earned and well-deserved, those sacred two weeks serve as a wellspring of rejuvenation for the next grueling 50 ahead.

Still, the dilemma remains - with so little time and ever-shrinking disposable income, where will your dream vacation take you: Spain, Italy, England, Latin America or the Pacific Rim? With so much of the world offering appealing alternatives, how does one choose?

Here's an idea: Go to Long Beach. You can experience all of the above destinations much more economically, and you won't need a passport.

Long considered Los Angeles' less glamorous younger sister, Long Beach has spent much of the past two decades refurbishing, refashioning and revitalizing itself. The result is one of Southern California's most surprising vacation destinations. Part of that surprise stems from the realization of just how cosmopolitan the city is.

In Long Beach, you can take a trip around the world in 80 blocks.

Day 1: Spain

The history of Rancho Los Alamitos is, in essence, the history of Southern California: the mix of the Native American and Spanish cultures and of the mission and rancho systems. Situated atop Bixby Hill behind the gates of an exclusive residential community, the 1800s adobe ranch house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a living history museum. The ranch house and the beautiful gardens surrounding it are all that remain of what was once a 300,000-acre Spanish land grant given by the crown in 1790 to a Spanish foot soldier named Manuel Nieto as a reward for a job well done.

Standing here today, it is difficult to imagine that when Nieto took ownership, the land grant encompassed much of present-day Long Beach and neighboring Orange County, stretching all the way to the Palos Verdes Peninsula. After his death, his heirs petitioned the crown to split the vast holdings into five ranchos, with the eldest son getting the 28,500-acre Rancho Los Alamitos ("little cottonwoods"), which, though considerably diminished, was still the largest cattle ranch in the United States after California joined the Union in 1850.

Visitors can tour the house and gardens, one of which, the Secret Garden, was designed by the firm of the famous Olmsted brothers, who designed, among other notable projects, Woodland Park and the Ashland Park neighborhood in Lexington.

After your visit to Rancho Los Alamitos, continue the Spanish motif with dinner at Cafe Sevilla Restaurant and Tapas Bar on multicultural Pine Avenue. The restaurant features original Spanish fare such as grilled chorizo, paella, green mussels and jamon (ham) Iberico, along with a flamenco show every Saturday night.

Day 2: Latin America

Long Beach is home to the only museum west of the Mississippi River dedicated exclusively to Latin American art. The Museum of Latin American Art is a gem that focuses intensely on artists who have lived and worked in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean since World War II.

Located in the developing East Village Arts District, the building is spare and lean, with vaulted ceilings, polished wooden floors and a sculpture garden. Like many Southern California structures, MOLAA occupies what was once a film studio - Balboa Producing Co., which was a major distributor of silent films from 1913 to 1918. After the studio closed, the building was reincarnated as the Hippodrome, a popular roller rink for four decades.

Thanks to its extensive collection, its future as a museum seems secure. I was drawn to the work of one artist in particular, Belkis Ayon of Cuba, who was interested in the myths of the Abakua, the island's all-male secret society that adheres to the arcane rituals of an Afro-Caribbean religion. Ayon's black-and-white collage-type prints feature a recurring theme: a woman, Sikan, who penetrates the society and is then sacrificed by the men to safeguard their secrets. The pieces are mesmerizing and eerily reflective of the artist's all too brief life. The official cause of her 1999 death at age 32 is suicide, although rumors circulate that this was indeed a case of life imitating art - that she, like her definitive character, got too close to a forbidden society and paid the ultimate price.

Day 3: The Pacific Rim

The Aquarium of the Pacific offers a comprehensive journey across the world's largest ocean, from the California coast itself to the icy waters of the North Pacific to the colorful reefs of Mexico's Baja Peninsula and the tropical South Pacific. The aquarium has 19 major habitats with 32 focus exhibits.

Among them are the tropical Pacific gallery, which evokes the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, with their coral reefs and shockingly hued fish, and the North Pacific gallery, home to translucent sea jellies, diving birds, a reclusive giant octopus and crowd-pleasing sea otters.

My favorite exhibit was the Southern California/Baja gallery, the entrance to which is the three-story, 142,000- gallon Blue Cavern. The cavern is a colorful montage of shimmering kelp forests, giant-spined sea stars and colorful garibaldi, the official marine fish of California. A companion gallery is home to the 211,000-gallon seal and sea lion exhibit.

You can plan to spend a full day here, especially if you have kids, or if you want to pair an aquarium visit with a whale-watching cruise or a harbor tour.

Day 4: Italy

It's called Naples Island, but the area is more evocative of Venice, ringed as it is by a system of canals that flow into Alamitos Bay.

There are few better ways to experience a Southern California sunset than to rent a gondola and gondolier, who might come equipped with wine and cheese but who definitely comes with a voice worthy of the Italian arias. The hour-long gondola ride will take you around the island, with its colorful cottages in a variety of architectural styles and often dripping with bougainvillea and jasmine. There's even a "Bridge of Sighs" where your gondolier will stop for the requisite serenade.

Afterward, continue the experience with dinner in one of the city's excellent Italian restaurants. L'Opera on Pine Avenue has a decor of vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers and marble columns, and a menu of such dishes as carpaccio classico, ravioli stuffed with black truffles and scallopine with forest mushrooms and mascarpone cheese. La Traviata is a stunning restaurant, designed to mimic a 19th-century opera house. The cuisine is described as nouveau Italian with a California twist, and opera singers and pianists perform every weekend.

Day 5: England

There's nothing more quintessentially English than afternoon tea, and Forbes Traveler Magazine has called Long Beach's Vintage Tea Leaf one of the best tearooms in the country. Visitors can select a vintage hat (bowlers for gents and flowery creations for the ladies) and an antique china cup for enjoying one of the 120 custom-blended teas from the personal recipe file of Beverly, the tea mistress.

Then it's on to one of Long Beach's premier tourist attractions: the Queen Mary. Permanently docked here since 1967, the luxury ocean liner sailed between Southhampton, England, and New York for the Cunard Line from 1936 to 1967, although it was pressed into service during World War II to transport troops. Its list of famous passengers includes Winston Churchill and William Randolph Hearst. Greta Garbo always ate early in the Verandah Grill so she could sneak back to her stateroom, while more sociable types like Marlene Dietrich and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor danced the night away in the Starlight Lounge.

Today, both venues are remnants of the Queen's fabled past, but guests can enjoy a cocktail in the Art Deco Observation Bar and dinner in Sir Winston's. They can even choose to spend the night in one of the 314 original staterooms.

If you do nothing else, take one of the daily tours, which give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of the world's great ocean liners

Getting Best Mexico Vacation Packages For Holidays

If you are thinking about your next vacation, but are still not able to decide on the location then you must definitely consider Mexico. Mexico is culturally very rich and a great destination to visit. It has a moderate climate all year long, Mexico is very rich in flora and fauna and the food is fabulous. Once you have decided to go to Mexico, you need to decide on a Mexico City vacation package, this is not an easy job as there are plenty of Mexico packages available, the simple reason being - Mexico is one of the most sought after tourist destinations in the world.

Choosing the right Mexico packages is of prime importance because these packages will provide you with all the luxuries making your holiday memorable. Packages offer great deals and thus help reduce the expense of your Mexico vacation to a large extent. Travel agencies and various websites are devoted to helping you find the best Mexico package within your budget

There are many Mexico vacation packages that are suitable for different types of travel. For example if you plan a romantic getaway or a trip with your family, there are Mexico City vacation packages; similarly there are packages for every occasion.

There are many travel agencies that offer Mexico vacation packages but what you need to keep in mind is the experience that a travel agency has, because the company providing you Mexico vacation must understand your needs, your budget and your expectations. You can buy simple Mexico packages that include the basic and the most essential aspects for a comfortable Mexico vacation or if your pocket allows then you can always select a custom Mexico vacation package where you need to tell the travel agencies the places you want to visit during your Mexico vacation and they will arrange your trip accordingly. This will allow you to visit the places that you always wanted to visit.

Whenever you plan your Mexico vacation make sure that you have a professional to help you out with it, because if you don't, then you will be totally confused, because there are so many options available. The website of mexico-vacation-retreat is one of such professional websites; it has a host of information to make your Mexico vacation unforgettable

Around the World with Bill Pfeffer: China Tales

If you haven’t yet heard about Bill Pfeffer’s around-the-world trip, you’re in for a treat. The traveler and his wife took a year to go from Indonesia to the US—no flying allowed—and now he’s sharing the overland trip in gripping installments.

His three latest are from China, beginning with the couple’s arrival in Guilin, where they realize, “China will be a challenging segment of our adventure but we’re ready for the unexpected pleasures along with the missteps and expect to get far with patience and a smiling attitude.” It’s this admirable perspective that keeps them—and us—laughing through the adventures and misadventures of Yangshuo and Guangzhou. A gifted storyteller, Bill Pfeffer injects his writing with humor—and with plenty of references to the songs of his favorite band, U2.

Don’t stop at these China tales, though; his observations from a transatlantic freighter, a trans-Mongolian train, and “everyone’s favorite town in Vietnam” are just as spectacular. We may already know where he started and where he ended up, but filling in the rest is going to make for some fantastic armchair travel.