Park City, Utah

Park City, Utah was originally settled by a Mormon apostle, Parley Pratt, in 1860. The pioneer set out to discover new parts of Salt Lake City and embarked on a wondrous new town, Park city. The town immediately flourished due to its large amount of gold and silver located underneath its mountains. The silver mine of Park City opened in 1870 and is still available for tours today. I personally have had the opportunity to visit Park City and took the tour of the silver mine. We took an elevator hundreds of feet underground and were told ghost stories about past miners who have died while working in the mine. In recent years Park City has become known for other things more touristy than mining. One main attraction is the Sundance Film Festival. Every year, for two weeks in January, celebrities gather in Park City to enjoy a film festival put on by non-profit organizations. All films selected for the festival are independent films. I had the opportunity to visit Park City during the festival and enjoyed every moment of it. Festival activities include celebrity watching, movie watching, and nightlife beyond imaginable. Sundance Film Festival only happens for two weeks a year and the celebrities all leave the town after the festival is over. For anyone who wishes to visit Park City during less crowded weekends, I recommend going to the world famous Ski Resorts, Park City Mountain Resort. Park City Mountain Resort is open year round and offers skiing or snowboarding in the winter and hiking or mountain biking in the summer. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to visit Park City twice already and I cannot wait for a chance to go back again.

Seville, Spain

Seville, the cultural and financial capital of Spain is situated in the south by the Guadalquivir River. It is more than 2000 years old. It was known as Hipalis during Roman times. It was conquered by Arabs during the VIII century. That is why it counts with different monuments like La Giralda, an 800 year old tower, built as the minaret (slender tower, usually build by Muslims, with a balcony to go and pray) of the cathedral. Now days it is considered to have the best view of Seville.

Other monuments that most tourists go to are the Alcazar which took 500 years to be built, the Torre del Oro and the Town Hall. The Town Hall was built in the 16^th century. Other places to visit in Seville are The Museum of Fine Arts of Seville, the Palace of the Countess of Lebrija, the Parque de Maria Luisa and the Alcazar Gardens.

Seville has two main festivals Semana Santa (Holly Week) and La Feria de Sevilla (Seville Fair). The first one is recognized internationally because of the beautiful procession and the second one is a week of dancing, drinking and socializing. During the fair women wear the traditional flamenco dresses.

One thing you don’t wanna miss if you visit Seville is to watch the flamenco dancers and the gypsy street performers and to try the tapas, small dishes usually eat as appetizers.

Panama

Panama is situated between Colombia and Costa Rica, is the southernmost country in Central America. It was part of Colombia and in the early XIX with the help of the United States it seceded from Colombia. Afterwards the US army corps of Engineers built the Panama Channel and in 1977 the Panama Channel was given back to Panama.

When I went to Panama a year and a half ago I was really amazed by the Panama Channel and by how pretty the city is, but what really called my attention was to see the mix of two different cultures. In one hand you see grocery stores, small towns and people that are pretty similar to how they are in Colombia. In the other hand you see the downtown with high rise buildings; you see the channel with all of the visitor’s attractions and tours to go around, and the roads that are similar to the ones in the US. So I was really amazed by this contrast of cultures is like they built their own culture taking a little bit of both. Definitely what I liked the most was to visit the Panama Canal, I was amazed by the how it works and the fact that its been working for almost a century its pretty amazing to me.

I liked Panama a lot, the beaches are beautiful, the city is very fun and shopping is super cheap!

Orlando

I had been in Orlando about five times in my life and I love it. It is a very fun city, the thing I like the most about going to Orlando are the different parks. Disney world is awesome, they have 5 different parks and each one has a lot of different attractions. My favorite one is Epcot Center this park has a road around the most recognized cultures of the world, they have a little Eiffel tower for France and they have a pagoda for Japan. The park icon is the Spaceship Earth, looking like a giant golf ball it is an attraction that takes you through human history. When I was a little kid I used to love Magic Kingdom, they have all kind of attractions for little kids and they also have attractions for adults like the Splash Mountain, the Space Mountain and big thunder mountain railroad.

Other park that I like a lot is Sea World, even though all the controversy about how bad this kind of parks are for wild animals, I enjoy watching the shows and I think this kind of parks could help people to get concerned about the life of the marine animals. I love the whale show it is pretty cool to see the interaction between humans and this giant animals.

I also had been in Island of Adventure and Universal Studios, they are both very fun parks, they are more about exiting things, the first one has a lot of roller coasters, and the second one is all about attractions based on movies, pretty similar to Universal Studios here in California.  

New York

I remember last year when I got out of the train station and look up to the sky and I found myself in a jungle, a jungle of buildings; I was in New York. I got there early in the morning, and even though it was spring, it was very cold. For the first time in my life I took a subway and it was quite an experience. I and my best friend went to New York for spring break last year, we stayed for a week and we had an amazing time. When we got there we first took the subway to the hotel. When we got out of the train the first thing we noticed was that the hotel was two blocks away from the Empire State, it was awesome. The first day we went to Times Square and we walked around Central Park, both of them are very cool places in different ways. The next couple of days it was raining so we went to the NBC tour at the Rockefeller center, to MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art), to the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, to The Metropolitan Museum of art, to the Guggenheim Museum and to Madame Tussauds. We were trying to avoid the rain so we really used our time in going to as many places as we could and even though it could sound like we went to every place we missed a lot of tours and museums in NY. Every day we ate at different places we would walk around the streets and pick a place and every single one of them had good food, it was awesome, you can find all types of different cuisines that go from Indian food to French food.

When the weather was finally good we went to the Statue of Liberty and the last floor of the Empire State .We also walked around little Italy, Soho and China town. We went to The Top of the Rock which is the last floor at the Rockefeller Center, it has the most amazing view, in one side you can see the central park and on the other side you can see the Empire State and all of the other buildings in Manhattan.

New York is a beautiful city, I think it kind of has like three different environments; you can go underground in the subway, on the ground and walk through its buildings watching the New Yorkers running from place to place, or you can enjoy the peace that the high rise buildings give. It is really an amazing city; I don’t have enough words to describe how awesome it is!!

Russia

The Maslenitsa, a Russian festival that begins at the end of the winter, also known as the Butter week, is a traditional celebration that has pagan origins and in Soviet times was celebrated almost secretly, but after the fall of communism in 1991 it received official endorsement. There are different events during the Butter week, the big parties are held on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate work schedules, Thursday is Cleansing Day, Sunday is Forgiveness Day and Monday morning is teeth-cleaning. This is just one of the reasons to visit Russia.

Moscow, Russia’s capital contains a great variety of impressive soviet era buildings along with modern scycrapers at the Moscow business center. There are different important place in Russia like the Tretyakiv gallery established in 1856 and The Trinity Lavra of St Serguis a monastery founded in 1345 and home of over 300 monks.

Saint Petersburg, Russia’s former capital is the second biggest city in the country and is the most norther city in the world with over a million people. The historic center of Saint Petersburg and related groups of monument are considered world heritage.

Besides its important cities, other popular destinations include Kamchatka with its volcanoes and geysers, Karelia with its lakes and rocks and Dombay an amazing sky resort.

Ica, Peru

Ica is located in the southwest of Peru. It is the region that covers most of Peru’s coast desert and it was also the home of regional cultures from the Antique Peru. From Lima (Peru’s capital) is a five hour journey by car to get to Ica. A few minutes away from the main road is the Pacific Ocean, the blue side of the desert.

From the port in Pisco you can go by boat to Ballestas Island, a group of small islands that are the habitat for different marine animals. Another attraction of the area is Tambo Colorado, an Inca settlement considered one of the best preserved archaeological sites in Peru.

Nearby, from the airport in Ica, planes can be taken for a 45 minutes away stop to admire the Nazca Lines. The Nazca Lines are unique in the world; they are geoglyphs that scholars believed were made by the Nazca culture. There are hundreds of individual figures which complexity goes from lines to stylized monkeys, spiders, fish, lizards, hummingbird and sharks.

La Huacachina, a lagoon surrounded by palms located 3 miles away from Ica is considered an oasis in the desert, where extreme sports can be practiced.

If you want to find out more about Ica go to http://www.perutravels.net/