If you search online for “Puerto Escondido,” a beach town of 45,000 on México’s lower Pacific coast, you’ll find plenty of pics of its 25-kilometre (15-mile) string of golden sands and turquoise waters. As it so happens, they attract not just beach-lovers and divers/snorkellers but...
Imagine for a moment you find yourself in an unfamiliar landscape, surrounded only by thick, massive bamboo stands stretching to the sky and allowing just a few rays of sunlight to reach the ground around you, the only sounds the bubbling of nearby brooks. You...
Tucked halfway between Lisbon and Porto is one of the loveliest gems of Portugal’s entire Atlantic seaboard: Figueira da Foz, a city of just over 62,000 with broad, breezy (read: surfing and windsurfing), and laid back beaches appealing enough to entice anyone to stay all...
When most foreigners think of “the south of Spain,” what comes to mind is the history, culture, beaches, and nature of Andalusia, from Almería in the east to Huelva on the Atlantic coast. But just east of Almería lies Murcia, which is lesser known but...
A lovely region just under two hours down the coast and inland from provincial capital Tarragona, and just under three from Barcelona, Terra Alta is known for its wines. But if you love nature as well as wine, there’s also plenty of dramatic, rugged landscape...
Out in Spain’s far west, the autonomous community bordering central Portugal is made up of the country’s two largest provinces, Badajoz and Cáceres, and is home to some amazing sights both historical and natural, along with some very tasty cuisine, indeed. Extremadura’s capital Mérida is...
Spain’s northwesternmost region of Galicia is packed with gorgeous countryside, delightful small towns, and fascinating cities both large and small. These last include stars like A Coruña, Ourense, capital Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra, and Vigo, but also smaller ones such as O Carballiño. Less than...
When most people think of Málaga, the central province of Spain’s most famous holiday coast, its beautiful beaches and swinging resort towns come first to mind. But if you want to add a little depth beyond a typical “turn-and-burn” holiday, you might be interested to...
Up in this long, narrow country’s north, this 1,600-kilometre-long (990-mile) strip of plateau along the Pacific Ocean is one of the world’s most remote and implacable places, with a bleak, otherworldly beauty all its own. The Atacama is also the world’s driest desert, with about...
Among other things, Spain’s verdant northern Principality of Asturias is known for its spectacular inland mountains, such as the Picos de Europa. But there are other ranges up here, as well, such as the Sierra de Aramo, just a half hour’s drive south of the...
