As a part of what we do at VoyageTV we get to some pretty compelling places. I mean we go where tourist are drawn to and we try to find the stories that make those places special. (Pictured: Dive boat out from Red Hook Dive Center)

First things first was the business presentation, which went well. Great. We want to put great video of the destination on the VoyageTV platform so anyone thinking about getting to the destination knows what to expect from both the property they’re staying with as well as the destination overall. That’s what we do. That’s work and it’s generally pretty cool when one considers all the things that work might be.

And when work is over it’s time to not work. St. Thomas is ideal for not working. There are great beaches, great food, great wine, great diving, great hosts and beautiful vistas. Reality check moment — now in almost every destination, when you step out of a Caribbean resort it’s going to be pretty apparent how blessed we are in the States and how much we usually take that for granted.

That said, I honestly can’t always wrestle those issues and headed for what was described as one of the best restaurant for locals:

RESTAURANTS

Craig and Sally’s — I would go here every week if I lived in St. Thomas. It’s an upscale, gourmet version of Cheer’s where everyone will know your name, and beer is replaced with vino. Nice. Maybe not the place for local locals, peas and rice local, but locals like the lawyers and professionals who work to keep the St. Thomas train on its tracks. Fantastic spot nestled in a neighborhood called Frenchtown.

And yes, I went to Grand Cru restaurant in Yacht Haven Grand, and even had a ginger ale at Fat Turtle. Back in Frenchtown, I stopped in at Oceana which is amazingly gorgeous, but I was here on business and flying solo could skip the gorgeous sunset. Highly recommended even if solo.

HOTELS

Ok, in two days we stopped at every major hotel on the island. It’s hard to rank hotels in that everyone has a particular style and that can change depending on whether you’re looking to party or relax. Anyway, I stayed at the Windward Passage hotel which is ideal for business. Great staff, centrally located, walking distance to my favorite restaurant Craig & Sally’s, delivered on the best driver in the destination (Henry, email me for his number), that said, it’s not on the beach, though provides comp transport to the beach — perfect for me, but here’s the general list without elaboration (from what I saw):

Ritz Carlton

Marriott Frenchman’s Reef

Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort

Bolongo Bay Beach Resort (special mention here — if you’re looking for that Jimmy Buffet, kick back on the beach, don’t need marble dining room type-of-spot then this is great. Pre-marriage this would likely be first choice, but that’s just me — and not to say that you, your wife and kids wouldn’t enjoy this — all I’m saying is MY wife might not)

Secret Harbor (stopped in — looked great — didn’t see the whole property and wow website looks fantastic)

Sapphire Beach Resort – hmmm…

DIVING

So this was a business trip that I extended by a day to squeeze in a dive. Red Hook Dive Center gets a five star rating — or check them on Facebook. Just wonderful staff on the boat — really professional and funny and just good dive pro’s.

So that’s it. Go. Hear St. Johns and St. Croix are great in their respective ways. Lots of sailing options and they’re all part of the United States. They’re our spot in the Caribbean.

Excuse the picture, but this was a fairly common view getting from one appointment to the next in Mexico City. Arrived Monday night to make a Tuesday morning meeting and left Friday. If you don’t want to read the entire post I can describe selling ads in Mexico with one word: hard.

I mean selling ads in always hard. I started my first magazine 20 years ago – as a recent Facebook post reminds me – almost 20 years ago I was publisher/founder of Intrigue Magazine and we shot this outside of Houston:

In any case, Mexico City is massive. The City has traffic like nowhere I’ve been to. While I personally saw no real security issues it stays top of mind. Having lived in Houston for many years I think my perception of Mexico might be different than many New Yorkers. I know there is a energetic nightlife, lots of creativity and generally lots going on, but finding a path to that scene as a visitor requires a guide. I didn’t have one, nor was this trip for that.

Top Five Suggestions if Your Are Selling Ads in Mexico

1. Learn the language and be prepared to speak fluently.

2. If #1 is out of the question, do what we do and hire competent and trusted reps who can deliver relationships. Business here is highly relationship driven.

3. Patience. Be patient in getting to your appointment (traffic) and expect that there will be significant follow-up.

4. Value proposition needs to be crystal clear — while one could argue that this should always be the case, think again, simplify and clarify.

5. Leave the “American” in America, successful business in Mexico are doing well because they’re smart and the team running them know how to operate within their frame. Understand what their frame, they get America, and in our business (travel) do lots of business, but they do business in a way that is different than here; often more courteous, or more according to protocol; and more about developing relationships.

Understand that this is a fairly PC list, but trip was fairly straight up and down. Lots of presentations introducing a somewhat new way to speak to travel consumers (long-form video content on the Web and Cable) and lots more follow-up. Little sleep, good food, and thankfully a rep (Towmar) with 30 years of experience and relationships. Stayed at the Hotel Marquis Reforma right by Chapultepec Park — a solid business-trip type of hotel — bad wine list, but good looking property, decent rooms, good food, pool and great service. Be back there soon.

I went to Atlantis. Squeezed in a quick weekend with coconut trees. Man I miss coconut trees when I don’t see them for a while.

This is not the best picture of the property as I relied on my Blackberry Curve with a camera considerably less than stellar. But give me a beach and a book and I’m happy.

The property overall is amazing for its scale and sheer spectacle with shark tanks and pools and stingrays and rides. My 3 year-old was wowed and I got off-property to go diving with Bahamas Divers who I would recommend, as they did count everyone on the boat several times and seemed genuinely concerned about getting everyone back in one piece. There were about 20 people on the boat, so as any diver knows, that experience can vary greatly.

Also made it to Graycliff. A legendary boutique hotel with one of the largest wine cellars in the world and a house brand of cigars that is also world-class. I got the tour of both the cellar and the cigar shop (they roll and age their own on the premises) and definitely want to go back just to sample the encyclopedic offering of wines and maybe light up a cigar.

I did drink the house wine at Graycliff and was surprised that it was Kaiken (2007 Cabernet Sauvignon) and after tasting it now plan on keeping a few bottles in the house. Graycliff has over 250,000 bottles of wine from more than 400 vintners. Getting there was about a $12 cab ride from Atlantis.

Atlantis overall is great for kids. If you get there you won’t run out of activities. And as importantly, you can keep yourself more than entertained.

I’m not sure that there is a more scenic road than US Highway 1 in the country. I had to venture out over the Golden Gate bridge on a recent trip for the TV of Tomorrow conference in California and stopped at Muir Beach for a break from business.

Sure the conference was great, and as we take Voyage.tv to more and more cable outlets its great to meet some of our current business partners and meet new ones. We’ve been working hard to get our content out on the Web beyond our site with some success

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/VoyageChannel

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gourmet-regionale/id361388469

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nirvana/id361210549

5min: http://www.5min.com/VoyageTV

Twitter: http://twitter.com/voyagetv/

Islands Magazine: http://www.islands.com/

Daily Motion: http://www.dailymotion.com/voyagetv

Pretty happy as a start-up, and as a start-up always more to do. Takes effort to keep some perspective on business and the beach has always been a good place for that…quick moment of reflection better than none at all…for me.

Looking forward to getting back out there…on the water.

With both my parents from the Caribbean (Trinidad and Jamaica) I’ve probably spent more time there than many. But Turks is different and great. For me. Small and manageable with beautiful water and great diving (DIDN’T make it this trip). So this was one for the family — no diving or sailing or anything that required more than flip flops.

And if you want to slow down, Turks is perfect — we got there the week before Labor Day so the height of both the off season and  hurricane season as well. Sure there were a couple of suspicious systems that could have developed, but the family was oblivious as I checked NOAA daily. I would def recommend the island and the hotel — Gansevoort. Great service and beautiful property. Rented a car for a couple of days just to see the place, and my minimal left-hand side driving skills were sufficient.

The island sports the 3rd largest barrier reef in the world so I will be back. Do want to hop on a boat as it’s pretty close to lots of interesting places. I posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr, and they tell just a part of the story. Consider the destination and the property highly recommended.

So hiking, running and climbing are off the menu for a bit. Though we did “hike” Central Park today to the Victorian Gardens, a family amusement park at Wollman Rink. The whole episode has been a curious pause…walking much slower in Manhattan…making eye contact with the anyone else who has stepped out of the fast lane. I must admit I didn’t really notice the cadre of the afflicted until I joined the club. Walking slow isn’t that bad. There really is more to see on any given street. Will enjoy the pause while it lasts…created new playlist just for the purpose…

And there is just so much to know, and Tayana Captain (friend) is a fantastic sailor. There’s so much to know on a boat and any time with someone who’s sailed probably 35,000+ miles is really like Gold.

INavx worked well — hard to keep an iPhone on deck in wet environment though Aquapack can help. Still need a bigger electronic chart on the computer and ideally the same as what’s on the iPhone. Again ideally you’d want to plot waypoints on the bigger screen of laptop and upload them to iPhone, but can do on phone with patience. In any case, good to have another chart on board (and GPS). Just took ASA 105 which is kind of a throwback Navigation class — lots of pencils and erasers….but it all helps…especially blue water…harbors too.

Trip was 400 miles — did 10 knots with the help of the Gulf Stream and was back at desk on Wednesday.

Will post more later. Even with all the grim economic news the world does not stop spinning. There are still beach hippies who couldn’t begin to tell you what the market has done or will do…good to see them. Diving later. Be at my desk on Monday. @ Esencia.

Nothing like heading somewhere tropical to drive home the point that you’ve been working hard. And I’ve been working in the travel business. That business, like the economy as a whole, is still stuck in reverse. That’s frightening, but the economy is well beyond my control so time to focus on what’s within reach.

Usually I am that person making sure all the t’s are crossed for the crews we have scouring the Caribbean for good stories to add to the growing video library of Voyages, but I managed to head down to the Caribbean for the Caribbean Hotel Association conference and once I landed in St Lucia it was pretty evident that the business, travel, still has a pretty positive pulse.

We’ve been looking at reams of research on the landscape, and one of the curious side-effects of the downturn is that traffic, web traffic, is actually up on many travel sites as customers search, and search and search for the best travel bargains. And they are out there. And all that searching means that for some, ad revenue’s are up.

So, while there is every reason to stay home and watch CNBC or Bloomberg as we step back from the edge (hopefully), there’s little that you can do about the market and less about the economy. I’ve postponed many, many trips over the years, but I can’t say that I’ve ever had any regret about any of the trips I’ve managed to actually take. So, even in tough times it feels good to be ungrounded. As for all the rest, all we can do is hope.

Reading the Telegraph’s story, Slumdog Millionaire: Mumbai’s real slumdogs, I’m thinking no, there can’t really be tours of the slums of Mumbai. Why?

Reality Tours believes, “that Dharavi, the biggest slum in Asia, is one of the most interesting places to see in Mumbai.” The tour offers to, “break down the negative image of Dharavi (and India’s slums) and its residents,” and to “bring people of different countries, races, religions and social classes together to increase understanding and empathy.” Hmm. The tour is ten bucks per person for the “short tour” or twenty for the “long tour” or you can opt for the “private long tour” for $80 bucks if you’d rather not have the company.

So there’s two sides to this (at least). Certainly the issues we never see never get addressed, so perhaps some good could come of it. And then, the fact that we’re so disconnected from one another that we need to take a tour to shock us into action is probably just the state of the state currently. Perhaps the US election will bear out that we hit compassion’s low point with the Bush Administration and my HOPE is that a new cloud-clearing era has arrived. Hope.

I don’t think the tour should be on the itinerary though. Volunteering seems a step in the right direction. I know there are a host of issues surrounding even that: “Gap-year ‘voluntourists’ told not to bother” outlines many of the hurdles there. But still, helping has to be better than watching.

I support Kiva where I can help people to help themselves with loans (micro) that have an amazing track record for repayment, and I choose the person with whom I want to ‘invest”. For the cost of a slum tour I have the chance instead to help someone start a sustainable business.