Spendthrift Shoestring

Update: London moving dates & (budget) travel

Well hello there, old friends. It's been a while. 

The main bit of news is that our departure for London has been delayed. We'd been working with the assumption that we'd be taking off in early December. Now it appears that we will in fact be departing in late January. Fingers crossed.

Over the last few weeks we've begun the moving process, with uneven progress. On the home front, we had Thanksgiving visitors and our dear renter moved all her things into our apartment. On the travel front, I made a super exciting West Coast run to visit family and friends, spending time in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Napa. The only really vacationy component of the jaunt was the time in Napa, where highlights included meals at Ad Hoc and Bistro Jeanty and a blissful overnight at Harbin Hot Springs.

I also made a trip this past week, first to Panama City, where I got thoroughly drenched, and then on to Bogotá. The buzzy stories circulating about Bogotá are all on the money. I'll write about both destinations in upcoming Gadling posts.

On the subject of Gadling, I've been publishing more budget travel-themed posts there. So, right, what are you waiting for? Go on and check out Gadlng's beefed up budget travel section.

Panama's Captivating Campaign

There's a huge buzz around Panama these days. This fact is owed in no small part to the current ad campaign, which is captivating and quirky. In the past week I scheduled some overdue catch-up time with a few travel writers and Panama came up in almost every conversation.

Then yesterday at the New York Times Travel Show I was introduced to Rubén Blades, legendary salsa musician and Panama's Minister of Tourism. We spoke for about ten minutes. I got to tell him about the quote of his I had taped to my wall in high school, an aphorism that ended with "even intellectuals need to dance." Our short conversation touched on a range of subjects. In addition to Panama, we discussed American foreign policy, the election of Obama, and political rigidity. It was the coolest handful of minutes around, and it made me think about the role of tourism minister. Countries benefit extraordinarily from tourism ministers who are not stuffy politicos but rather well-versed cultural figures with energy, creativity, and internationalist orientation to spare. Panama has lucked out.