Are you a travel fanatic? If the answer is yes, then here are the top 10 travel destinations you should consider visiting this year and a few reasons why.

Colombia: a place you just have to visit, with its plenty of momentum, friendly people, Colombia has a natural beauty and a country that is fun and safe to explore.

The coastal Caribbean city of Cartagena has great tourist infrastructure mixed with its colonial architecture and history. All the major cities here have fairly large International airports, and flights are often easier and cheaper.

Panama:  when you mention Panama, what comes in the mind is canal. While you may not hear much about it, this country has lots of tourists’ attraction sites than canals only. Panama has a little bit of everything to offer travelers from the lush jungle highlands to excellent surf ad beaches on the pacific side. Add the mix friendly people with diverse and rich culture and you have yourself an equation for a perfect destination.

Cambodia: Siem Reap is just a bit south of Bangkok and it offers a far more authentic and less slick look into the culture while still having well developed infrastructure. One of the benefits here is Angkor Wat temple complex, most visitors use it as a staging area for their time.

Argentina:  Bariloche in Argentina is a city jammed with winter and summer activities. Its stunning scenery in almost all directions makes it popular among those touring different places in the region.

Australia: the island of Tasmania in Australia though it’s a small state is enough to keep most travelers occupied for the entire trip, with its incredible landscapes, national parks, nature reserves and world heritage sites are just but a few great options to fill your days in Australia.

Bangladesh:  This is definitely a place worth to look for when travelling to Asia. The capital city Dakar is the obvious place to start with, the people here are welcoming and friendly. The port city of Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar the worlds longest beach are some of the must go places in Bangladesh.

Italy:  travelers need not to be told to go to Italy, but many people need to be told about the many big Italian Island besides Sicily. Sardinia is one of them; it has long been a vacation destination for Italians. It’s a haven for anyone who loves the outdoors.
Senegal- If you are looking to explore the real Africa you should consider visiting Senegal as your entry point. Its fascinating and easily accessible culture makes it a safe place to be.

Germany:  fun loving?  Berlin in Germany is fairly filled with interesting and amazing new tourist attraction. It has plenty going for including a feel that is somewhat exotic compared to some other countries.

Syria:  Damascus in Syria is one place where you can feel like you are truly stepping back in time. It is the oldest city in the world but this part of the city looks, smells and sounds like it did long ago. It’s full of history and credibly affordable.

So every one, 2009 is the year of travelling to your destination go for it!

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www.MedellinTraveler.com — Medellin, Colombia Travel Guide. Medellin, Colombia video by Matt Stabile. Discover Medellin, the capital of the Colombian state of Antioquia. The city of Medellin is Colombia’s second largest city and said to be one of the most beautiful cities in all of South America. There is plenty to do and see in this wonderful and vibrant city in Colombia.

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During the 1980s and 1990s, Bogota had a dismal reputation in the international media, due in large part to its murder rate, which was one of the highest in the region. Thanks to new government policies and massive policing efforts, Bogota’s crime rate has dropped 70 percent and the city is today considered safer than Washington, D.C., Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City.

Bogota offers an eclectic blend of modernity and history, with gleaming skyscrapers set amidst colonial buildings. Spanish and French colonial influences are seen throughout the city, which also has also been widely impacted by American-style architecture. The city is home to diverse cultural and artistic offerings, as well as an eclectic shopping scene and numerous gourmet food shops and restaurants.

Bogota’s modern transportation system is a well-planning and highly organized, making travel to and within Colombia’s capital city easy and efficient. If you are traveling to Colombia by airplane, you will arrive at Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport, South America’s largest airport, and able to handle more than 16 million travelers a year. Traveling from within Colombia is also convenient, since Bogota is a hub for national bus routes and has the largest bus station in the country. The station also offers international routes, including to Ecuador and Venezuela.

Once you have landed or arrived in Bogota, you will likely do most of your getting around by bus, which is the city’s primary and most prolific form of mass transportation. The city has two bus systems: the traditional system and the TransMilenio. The traditional system utilizes a combination of large city buses, mini-buses and mini-vans to transport passengers via city streets. The TransMilenio is a rapid transit system, which networks modern articulated buses operating on bus-only roads with smaller feeder buses bringing passengers from residential areas to the main grid. The TransMilenio, which is still being expanded, is expected to cover the entire city by 2030, at which point it will completely replace the traditional bus system.

Although the TransMilenio is Bogota’s most efficient transportation system, it is also the city’s most expensive one (other than private taxis), since the buses run on diesel and are subject to fare increases in accordance with rising oil prices.

For a less expensive and more environmentally friendly mode of transportation, consider renting a bike. Bogota has a city-wide network of bike paths (called ciclorutas), totaling more than 300 kilometers. Since construction of the ciclorutas began in 1995, bicycle use in Bogota has increased 5 times. Today, an estimated 400,000 bike trips are made daily in the city.

While Bogota does not have a commuter train, its so-called tourist train is popular both with visitors and the local population. On weekends, the tourist train rides from Bogota to the outlying neighborhoods of Nemocon and Zipaquira, which is famous for its salt cathedral. The route is 53 kilometers long and takes several hours (for the roundtrip experience).

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The Rosario Island Coral Reef System is one of many marine National Parks in the Caribbean sea, and one of 46 in Colombia. The park covers an area of about 20 hectares of coral reef and 43 different islands.

The reef was formed hundreds of years ago. Volcanic activity deep below the earths surface pushed the seabed up over time, allowing coral beds to form and marine life to flourish. Today the area is home to more than 1,300 species of plants and animals and is a fantastic location for diving, snorkeling and other recreational water activities.

In 1977 the area was declared a National Park by the State Ecological Authority, for the purpose of protection, preservation and study of this fragile eco system of marine life. But declaring the site a National Park has not been enough to protect the reefs from damage, and today the area still remains under threat.

After two years of research and data gathering, a report was published in 2002 on the Status of Coral Reefs in Southern Tropical America. The project was a joint initiative of authorities from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela.

The report stated that ‘The coral reefs, have changed radically in the last 35 years, in particular during the 1980′s, due mostly to anthropogenic stresses compounded by natural disturbances.’ Research shows an alarming decline in the coverage of the reef by live coral in the area. Warmer sea temperatures contribute to the damage by killing off live coral and exposing the dead, calcified coral underneath. This is known as coral bleaching. Other threats include lower fish populations and high incidence of coral disease and large populations of sea urchins, who feed on live coral.

The report blames sewage pollution, tourism impact, resource extraction, over fishing and coastal development as the main causes of damage to the area, compounded by natural problems such as shifting weather patterns (El Nino), hurricanes and runoff from rivers in the region.

Whilst the larger rivers such as the Amazon, Orinoco and Magdalena deliver nutrients to the sea, they also deposit sediment and pollution which can slow coral growth or kill off existing corals. Fish and other organisms in the water require coral as a food source or to provide protective habitats from their predators, without it, the species could suffer population loss, and ultimately, extinction.

The report warns that ‘the rate of coral reef decline will not be reversed until there is more effective government intervention and recognition that policies and laws need to be implemented and enforced.’

It recommended further study and mapping of the region, ongoing long term monitoring, funding for conservation efforts, and laws to prevent damage by tourism and resource extraction. Since then, international and local efforts have been made to manage and protect the marine park through these recommendations.

In the mid 1980s, the Rosario Islands Oceanarium was established. A research and education centre that hosts international events in marine life research, regularly collects data from within the National Park and presents information to members of the public about the state of the marine environments in Colombia.

As well as the Museum of Marine Life, the Oceanarium features many open water pens to display and provide protection for marine animals such as fish, dolphins and sharks. The animals are free to come and go as they please, but when at the oceanarium, they are provided with food and medical attention. The scientists at the centre have been able to collect valuable information about the state of the animals health as well as closely monitor their natural environment as a result.

Visitors to the centre not only have the chance to enjoy an encounter with the diverse range of animal and plant species that live in the National Park, but also the chance to learn about the the threat to the park and what efforts are being made to protect it.

Unfortunately, despite being one of the top five countries in the world with the most natural diversity, Colombia’s efforts to clear international debts and the fight to eradicate armed conflict have taken funding priority over helping conservation efforts for this and other National Parks in the country.

Research, park management and conservation projects are largely funded by international conservation aid, private organisations and their sponsors and private donations. A small portion also comes from eco-tourism projects.

Conservation groups are hopeful that as Cartagena’s popularity as a great tourist destination strengthens, the government will provide more support for the protection of this valuable natural wonder. In the meantime, education seems to be the park’s best chance of survival. Its up to visitors, local tour operators and residents to take responsibility and care for the area, to protect it so that future generations can enjoy its beauty.

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I’ll never forget the look on the face of that Colombian campesino man. My wife just explained to him in Spanish that what I am holding under my arm is indeed a surfboard, despite the fact that we were standing in a Colombian village that was located somewhere in the middle of the Andes Mountains, hundreds of miles away from any ocean. After hearing this news the man made a joke about us getting bad directions. He then flashed a smile that revealed a mouth full of rotten teeth. Soon after that he shook his head, tucked his hands into the front pockets of his hand-woven Inca style poncho, turned, and moved on down the only street in his town. When the man reached the center of town a gust of wind swept down the street and blew the black fedora hat off his head. As I was watching him chase after it through a cloud of dust, I thought to myself; “I gotta’ get to the ocean.”

I was beginning to feel like a fish out of water. Surfers cannot stay away from the ocean for too long, or they start to “dry out”. As I was standing on that dirt street in that dusty little town, I realized that I had not seen the ocean in over a month. More importantly, I had not surfed in it. Halfway through a two month excursion across the country of Colombia, in South America, we were on our way to a small Caribbean beach resort on the northeastern edge of the country for a much needed break from the madness we had experienced so far on that trip. We had spent the holidays traveling from Bogotá to Medellín, and then back to Bogotá again to meet and visit with various different members of my wife’s family. There had been some mishaps along the way involving pick-pockets and miscreants. Up to that point it was not fun, and we will leave it at that.

Traveling on a tight budget in a foreign country is the best way to experience the true culture of that country, but it can be quite taxing on your soul. We could not afford plane tickets to fly all over the country, so we had to take busses and taxis instead. Some of those bus rides took over two days to reach our destination. We traveled through some of the most remote areas of Colombia, changing busses and hailing taxis the whole way. Along the way we saw some of the most beautiful scenery on earth, and experienced some very interesting, intense, and strange things. Black magic and evil curses are practiced in many areas of Colombia, and I cannot say any more on that subject, for fear that you would think of me as crazy. There are things that cannot be explained in this world, and a lot of them happen in Colombia.

There were other things that happened to us that were even more terrifying than black magic. Let’s just say it’s never a good thing to have your bus stopped in the middle of the night by rough looking men with machine guns on a winding, dark, mountainous road. That is whole other story for another time.

Back to our main story; we were about four hours North of Bucaramanga, and waiting to board yet another one of those colorful busses. All I could think about at that moment was surfing and relaxing at this place called Tayrona. I was told you can sit in your own thatched-hut “choza” and watch the waves from your front porch. For those who are not familiar with the sport of surfing, that sounds about as good as it gets for a surfer.

It had not been easy carrying that surfboard all over Colombia. We landed in Bogotá in the middle of the country a month before, and I had been schlepping it around with our other luggage from one bus or taxi to the other ever since. It was like I was living my own little version of the movie
Fitzcaraldo, and my surfboard was the ship that was being carried for many miles across dry land. I was determined to make the effort pay off.

While we were waiting for our bus in that little mountain village we were inundated by the usual local people trying to sell us stuff. My wife, being a Colombian native did most of the talking for those negotiations. These little villages along the main roads of Colombia survive on money from people who are just passing through, or waiting for a bus. The local indigenous people sell everything from bags of purified water, to homemade “empanadas” (a meat and potato filled turnover made with corn-meal dough). My wife and I had been surviving on food and water provided by those people for most of our trip. Amazingly, neither of us had been sick yet. Albeit, most of this food had been delicious, you have to wonder about the cooking and cleaning practices in a town that has no running water. Something tells me that if the cook had a choice between using their last bucket of water to wash their hands before cooking, or having water to drink the next day, they’d forego the cleanliness. I tried not to think about stuff like that on that trip. I only thought about how much flavor those homemade items had with their homegrown ingredients.

People sure know how to cook in Colombia. Wow! The food in that country just seemed to have a lot more flavor than the food I was used to in the United States. We really experienced the authentic food of Colombia; “buñuelos, “pandebonos”, “arepas”, you name it and we tried it along
the way. We were on a budget, yet eating very good food. The people who made this food were as poor as one could be, but they could make food like no-one else on earth. The freshness, lack of pesticides, and the nutrient-rich soils also have a lot to do with why the food tastes so good in Colombia.

After we ate our share of “empanadas” that we purchased from a little old village woman carrying a hand-woven basket, we were ready for a freshly blended fruit smoothie. There were always several of these little smoothie stands in every town that we stopped at along the way, and we always made sure that we sampled at least one. No matter how small of a stand, the vender always had electricity to run their blender, ice box, and boom-box. I immediately ordered a couple of “tomate de árbol “smoothies at a nearby stand, and then we sat down on an old wooden bench provided by the smoothie vendor.

We were told by the driver of the last bus that our next bus should be along in “no time at all”. It had been my experience up to that point that this bus driver may, or may not be right. Sometimes the bus came right away and the transfer went smoothly. Other times we ended up waiting long periods of time between transfers. Those ones did not go so smoothly.

The mountain roads and leftist guerilla laden areas that these busses travel through can cause long delays, to say the least. Hanging out in that small town in the middle of nowhere in the foothills of the Andes Mountains waiting for a bus was quite nerve-racking. The local people of those types of towns were always very suspicious of anyone that stayed behind after a bus came through. Most people just passed right through. They were especially suspicious of a Gringo with a surfboard and a Colombian wife. There was a war going on in that country. Everywhere we went everyone wanted to know whose side we were on. As we were sitting in that dusty, one-horse town in a remote area of Colombia, I knew we were in for a long, harrowing wait.

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www.colombiaflights.net Finca Party near Armenia with typical Colombian Music. Colombia Music and Colombian Dancing is usually Salsa or Merengue. Colombian Families and International Tourists often enjoy a Colombian Finca Vacation. Many Fincas are For Rent near Armenia. Colombia Travel and Colombia Flights.

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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Deep Inside Colombia- Crossing The Andes with a Surfboard

If you are interested in adding new intriguing and exciting destinations to your travel itinerary, don’t miss the opportunity to spend your holiday in South America. By choosing to travel to this magnificent continent, you will have the chance to discover remarkable cultures and civilizations with a great history behind them, driven by the temperamental but also very welcoming Latin spirit. Some of the most prominent and important countries in South America, representing true symbols for the South American continent, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Panama have a very well-developed potential for tourism, attracting overwhelmingly large numbers of tourists each year.

These magnificent countries have known great progress and development in the last few decades, despite their struggled historical past, dominated by political conflicts and interests. Nowadays, these splendid countries on the South American continent are among the most requested holiday destinations, enchanting visitors with a wide variety of tourist sites and resorts, both old and modern remarkable architectonic structures, large and imposing metropolitan areas, all revealing the ingenious, innovative and hard-working character of their inhabitants.

The remarkable economic achievements of these major countries in South America are direct proportional with their high potential for tourism. Thanks to their great history, culture, music, as well as the amazing beauty of their urban and rural establishments, and not to mention their accomplishments regarding the much-treasured Latin passion – football, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama have become extremely popular worldwide. Their continuously increasing popularity has determined a pronounced development of their tourism, drawing millions of tourists towards their borders.

If you decide to travel to Brazil, you will be amazed by the staggering beauty of this great South American country. Among the most requested Brazil travel destinations are its capital, Brasilia, and major cities such as Sao Paulo, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. Famous for its majestic carnivals, magnificent natural resorts, tropical climate and the exuberance of its inhabitants, Brazil is a highly requested holiday destination. Renowned as an important center for tourism of the South American continent, Brazil attracts overwhelmingly large numbers of visitors each year. Brazil has a well-developed and extended network of airports, air travel facilitating the visiting tourists’ access to major cities and various other locations between or beyond the borders of the country. Thanks to modern infrastructure and the variety of airports present here, flights to Brazil are the quick and comfortable way of traveling to this intriguing region of South America.

Similar to Brazil, Argentina is also a major center for tourism in South America. The most popular Argentina travel destinations are its capital – Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata – the main tourist resort situated on the Atlantic Coast, La Plata, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Cordoba, Mendoza and San Juan. Combining the Latin mentality with European cultural influences, Argentina is a welcoming country for anyone who wishes to discover new interesting locations. Thanks to the well developed network of airports present here, the best way to travel around the country is by air. Apart from being very comfortable, Argentina flights have the benefit of being inexpensive as well. Travel to Argentina and you are guaranteed to have the time of your life!

Although they are much smaller in size than Brazil and Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama are also important tourist centers of the South American continent. Vacations in Colombia, Venezuela and Panama are exciting and intriguing experiences for both regular travelers and occasional visitors. The most requested Colombia travel destinations are Bogotá, Cartagena, Cali, Villa de Leiva, San Augustin and San Andres. Among the most desired Venezuela travel destinations are Caracas, Puerto la Cruz, Isla Margarita, Isla El Grand Roque, Isla La Tortuga, Merida and Puerto Ayacucho. Popular Panama travel destinations are Panama City, Bocas del Toro, Boquete, Isla Contadora, Guadalupe, Isla Bastimentos, Isla Taboga and Almirante.

Whether you decide to visit these countries for the beauty of their tropical landscapes, shores and beaches, for their ancient cultural resorts and the variety of historical tourist sites or simply to interact with the exuberating, welcoming locals, spending your vacations on the Latin American continent is definitely a remarkable and unforgettable experience!

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www.TheExpeditioner.com Cartagena is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world and one of Colombia’s most popular cities to visit. In this video I wander the city’s picturesque “Old Town,” visit a museum dedicated to the city’s history of inquisition and torture, and explore the underground tunnels beneath the massive fort, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.

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So, if you want to find out more information about colombia flights or about colombia vacation you can click these links. Also you’ll find valuable advices about venezuela travel.