Travel

Central America Sees Boom in European Visitors

In Honduras, there was a five per cent increase in the total number of visitors, 1,753,441 from January to October 2011, compared to 1,670,109 the previous year.

Breaking Travel News
Central America received a total of 9,577,114 foreign visitors during the first ten months of 2011, according to preliminary data provided by the ministries of tourism of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. While this figure is similar to the one registered in the same period in 2010, there is a remarkable increase in the number of European visitors (from 637,879 in 2010 to 675,471 in 2011, January to October), with British visitors up by seven per cent, from 79,995 in 2010 to 85,305 in 2011, January to October.

Honduras' North Coast, A Jewel

The landscape with its jungles, rivers, and waterfalls is breathtaking; the beaches are endless and devoid of sun worshipping crowds; the history is fascinating; and the numerous Garifuna villages that dot the shoreline remain some of the most authentic and picturesque places in the country.

By Kimberley Player
"I’m leaving Roatán to explore the north coast of the mainland.” This statement caused a bit of a stir amongst my island acquaintances. “You’re leaving Roatán? Why? For the mainland? Don’t you know it’s not nearly as nice or safe over there?” Maybe this was true; maybe it wasn’t, but I needed a change of scenery. I needed to get away from the concentrated tourist environment of Roatán, from the hordes of cruise shippers and expat residents and the feeling that I’d been dropped into a Canadian province, albeit one that more resembled Margaritaville than my home country’s more stereotypical snowy vistas. The bottom line was that my current surroundings, while unquestionably gorgeous and fun, were nothing like the Honduras that I had originally come to Central America to see.

Housing Market in Honduras Recovering

Roatán’s real-estate development started in 1991 with a road extension opening up West End beach. In 1995, land on a beach was three thousand dollars per acre. Now it exceeds three hundred thousand dollars per acre, with much of the property appreciation occurring after 2001.

Global Property Guide
Honduras' house prices started picking up at the beginning of 2010 from a low base, following the traumatic military coup of 2009, which ousted the leftist former president Manuel Zelaya. Soldiers took Mr. Zelaya in his pajamas early on June 28 2009 to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane that carried him to Costa Rica. The Honduran Congress voted for Zelaya's ouster later that day, replacing him with Congress president Roberto Micheletti. The main cause behind Zelaya's ouster was a dispute over rewriting the 1982 Constitution, which Zelaya believed had helped worsen the country's widening poverty gap. However the Supreme Court, as well as the National Congress and all other democratic institutions in Honduras opposed Zelaya's plans, arguing that the attempt to eliminate presidential term limits could initiate one-man rule like that of his friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Honduras Among World's Top Retirement Havens

Take Daphne Newman, who lives in Caribbean Honduras. She’s spending just US$1,400 a month to live yards from a white-sand beach on the island of Roatán. Only a three-hour flight from the US, English-speaking Roatán with its world-class reef just offshore, is an easy place to make friends and fit in.

International Living
IIn the United States today, the discussion about retirement orbits around how much less of it we’re all going to have. While the cost of everything from healthcare to food swells… incomes, pensions and nest eggs erode, leaving baby boomers fewer and fewer options for retirement at home. But look at the right places beyond our borders today, and you’ll find you have more good choices than ever for a comfortable -- even a pampered -- retirement. In any one of our top 19 havens for 2012, a lifestyle well beyond your reach in the States could be yours for pennies on the dollar. In this, our annual Global Retirement Index, we bring you the top choices available on the planet today. From beachfront hideaways to arts-rich colonial cities, from cosmopolitan capitals to small highland villages, there’s an overseas haven to fit your fantasy… and your budget. For our Retirement Index, we only measure the very best havens against one other. So the country last on our list is still the 19th best in the world.

Flights to Copán Ruinas Authorized

Honduras Weekly
The president of the National Tourism Board of Honduras (Canaturh), Epaminondas Marinakys, yesterday announced that the country's Civil Aeronautics agency has authorized airline flights to Copán Ruinas in northwestern Honduras. "We can now fly to Copán from Roatán and Tegucigalpa," said Mr. Marinakys. Aircraft can land on the runway in the community of Tablones located in Guatemala just across the border with Honduras. Tablones is approximately 9 kilometers away from Copán and its Maya archaeological ruins. According to Mr. Marinakys, "Both the civil aeronautics authorities of Honduras and Guatemala permit the use the Tablones runway. The aircraft are now ready to begin flights. We only need to repair the road [from Guatemala to Honduras]."

The Value of Social Tourism in Honduras

There is a tendency in Honduras to look at "social tourists" as do-gooders who are nice to have around. Somebody's got to help the poor, and these cheerful foreigners in their colorful T-shirts are clearly good at what they do. But the fact is that these visitors contribute a substantial amount of hard currency to the country as well.

By Marco Cáceres
I have been tracking volunteer mission teams traveling to Honduras since 1998. I estimate that there are more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that sponsor these type of teams each year or every few years. These NGOs are mostly medical brigade groups, churches, universities, high schools, hospitals, clinics, civic clubs (such as Rotary), and individual missionaries. I estimate that an average of 7 to 10 mission teams enter Honduras daily aboard airline flights –- mainly from Miami, Atlanta, and Houston. Teams vary in size from 1 to 5 individuals to as many as 100. Most of the teams consist of 15-25 members. Based on these figures, I estimate that 2,500 to 3,600 teams travel to Honduras annually. This represents 50,000 to 72,000 individual volunteers (mainly from the United States and Canada) who visit Honduras each year.

Hanging in Honduras, Central America's Unsung Hero

Perhaps we were lucky, but the country we found didn't match the statistics. None of the foreign tourists we talked to -- a fairly small number, since we were traveling during low season -- had been the targets of any crimes, and would instead point out examples of locals being incredibly friendly and helpful.

By Karin Palmquist
We were bad tourists today: After four weeks of insisting on only local dishes, we had Wendy's for lunch. Then we skipped Tegucigalpa's Museo para la Identidad Nacional and watched a movie we had downloaded on iTunes while the rain -- the whiplash of the tropical storm that was wrecking havoc on the Pacific beaches of Honduras' neighbors -- pounded against the metal roof above us. Every trip has that point, when you've had your fill of cultural experiences and the familiar, even Wendy's, sounds appealing. In a place like Honduras, that point might arrive a little sooner than in other places. Over the past month, we had quadrupled our life consumption from birth to present of fried chicken.

EasySky Will Fly from Fort Lauderdale to Roatán

By Jeff Stratton
A new budget airline called EasySky is poised to do battle with Spirit Airlines, the Miramar-based ultra-low-cost carrier -- at least on one of its routes. Spirit currently operates a red-eye flight between Fort Lauderdale and San Pedro Sula, Honduras' bustling industrial center, often with advertised fares as low as US$30 (before Spirit's assorted notorious fees are tacked on). But travelers trying to get from South Florida to Roatán -- the main tourist destination, with famous reefs and beaches -- still had to contend with 1:00 am arrival times and finding another flight (or bus/boat combination) to reach the island. If flying on major carriers like Delta or Continental, passengers have to go through Atlanta or Houston, and the total round-trip can cost around US$1,000.

Rattan; Ruatan; Gujam; Isle de Leyn

By Jorge Agurcia Fasquelle
Having lived there for a couple of summers, while on breaks from college, I became acquainted with a few of the many wonderful things that make life in the Island of Roatán, Honduras, a waking dream of magical dimensions. Although the days were filled with sunlit beauty and much underwater excitement, I will never forget the nights. The distant sound of dominoes being slapped down onto a table in synchrony with the tumbling of a bass guitar leading a reggae riff was my customary lullaby. Also, a faint trace of coconut oil -- my laundress probably used it to soften her skin -- was always present in the linen, mixing sweetly with the scent of hibiscus carried into the room by the briny night air. These impressions, the ones that would almost always complete my days’ events in Roatan, will be with me forever.

I Found Roatán

On Roatán time stands still, while things change so fast. Five years ago the Roatán Vortex© pulled me in, I had no idea what laid ahead for me, and I thank the Universe every day for the gifts bestowed on me.

By Genevieve Ross
Where I live, on Roatán, when I open the door to the bedroom there is an ancient termite trail etched into the floor -- it’s only a couple of months old, but will be there for evermore. Perhaps scrubbing with a wire brush and a harsh chemical concoction will remove traces of it, but for me, in my minds-eye I will always see it -- and that makes me happy. There was a time that I had no idea what a termite trail was, or how it may look. More than seven years ago I heard the word Roatán, I had no idea what that was, but I was intrigued. Why? I don’t know. I just was. Thanks to modern technology, I was able to Google it, which was a challenge in itself since I had no idea how to spell it. When sites started popping up describing an Island, off the coast of Honduras, nestled in the Caribbean Sea... I had found Roatán.

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