Americas

Holiday Inn is reinvented for 21st century

Holiday Inn, the hotel chain that defined modern standards – and epitomised standardisation – is undergoing the biggest makeover in hospitality history

Inside Americas

Inside Travel: Journey Latin America - still pioneering after all these years

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Thirty years ago, Chris Parrott co-founded the travel specialist Journey Latin America. At the time, the region was in turmoil, from Mexico and Guatemala to Argentina and Chile. Today Latin America is largely calm, peaceful and accessible (except, temporarily, Machu Picchu in Peru). But there is still plenty of virgin territory. In September, Chris will lead a prospecting trip to the territory that Evelyn Waugh described as "gobs of Empire": the Guianas. He tells Simon Calder about the trip.

Trail of the unexpected: Pachacamac

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Machu Picchu may be off limits, but there are other ancient treasures in Peru

City slicker: Vancouver

Sunday, 7 February 2010

The world will be watching this Canadian city when the Winter Olympics open here on Friday. Cori Howard reveals the sights to see away from the ski slopes

Best for soul sensations: Barbados

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Despite what resorts in Barbados would have you think, steel drums, or more mystifyingly, steel drums played over Eighties and Nineties soft-rock muzak, are not the most popular music on the island. That honour, it seems, goes to R'n'B and soul. It rolls out of my taxi from Grantley Adams Airport and there's no let-up at the Fisherman bar in ramshackle Speightstown, where the tuneless trill of Ne-Yo accompanies my flying fish and cou cou – a sort-of fruit version of mashed potato – doused with the local Banks beer and rum.

Best for Harley heaven: California

Saturday, 6 February 2010

There comes a time in life, normally when hair starts thinning and waistbands begin to stretch, when a man's thoughts turn towards a motorbike. Specifically, they turn towards a Harley Davidson, those roaring kings of the open road upon which we can deludedly dream of being transported back to free-spirited days of our youth.

Best for Latin passion: Uruguay

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Font size isn't everything, but Uruguay's self-esteem may be challenged by the succession of travel guidebooks that shout "ARGENTINA" and follow up almost apologetically with "& Uruguay" in much smaller type. The nation (which, since you ask, is nine times the size of Wales, and 90th biggest in the world) seems destined to be merely an appendix to a trip to mighty, beautiful Argentina.

Best for urban encounters: Vancouver

Saturday, 6 February 2010

I was in Vancouver twice last year. Both times, the day I left, it rained; thick, obdurate, rain falling out of a black sky. My hotel room windows looked as if they might dissolve. Gone were the superb vistas – mountains, the ocean, glass city. The deluge made it easier to say goodbye and was a reminder too that Vancouver is a very wet place most of the year.