Published: January 06, 2009 01:15 pm      

Hawaii, Italy among this year's hot spots

Many traveling overseas this year

With the glow of the holidays now dim and the prospect of two solid months of winter rolling people into a rut, it’s time to find something to look forward to. And that means skipping town.

Local travel agent Kathy Stansberry, owner of Traveltime, said people are still traveling, despite economic woes, and are not necessarily staying close to home.

She reported many of her customers are traveling overseas this year, specifically to London and Paris.

“People like to go to London and spend a few days there because of the great history,” she explained. “And it’s always beautiful touring Paris. People just want to see the world.”

Joyce Hamm, owner of Adventure Tour Travels in Somerset, said she also is seeing customers flying to Ireland and Italy.

“They’re going to Tuscany and that area,” she said.

Hawaii has also proven popular.

“Since everyone has to have a passport by June 1, even for cruising, people are thinking Hawaii because you don’t have to have a passport,” Stansberry said.

Stansberry recommends that people going to Hawaii for the first time should visit two islands in a one-week period. She said she usually sends people to Oahu, which boasts both the bustling city of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor.

“Oahu is a big city-type atmosphere,” she said. “Then we suggest for a beach atmosphere they go to Maui. It’s more laid-back, the hotels are more spread out.”

As per usual, both Hamm and Stansberry reported Florida, Las Vegas and Alaska in the summer are popular destinations, as is Mexico, with Cancun and the Mayan Riviera the go-to spots.

Up-and-coming haunts this year include Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

“They have built new highways, they have built new properties, nice, nice properties,” Hamm explained. “I went on a (familiarization) tour a couple of years ago and I could see the potential of the new highways. That’s a really hot place.”

Hamm also mentioned train travel, specifically through the Rockies, as a newly popular method of seeing new places.

“You can fly to that area and pick up the train,” she said.

Regardless of where they go, people are looking for a good deal.

“I think it’s dropped off a little bit,” Stansberry said of business. “But people are looking for value.”

Stansberry said Traveltime’s lay-away plan — or play-away plan, as it’s affectionately called — has proven popular. Stansberry explained people have been making monthly deposits on trips up to a year before the scheduled vacation so that the financial hit doesn’t come all at once.

“A lot of people will use their income tax refund on that,” she said.

Stansberry said she’s noticed fewer people wanting to pay for their vacations using a credit card.

“People are more conscious of that,” she said.

Hamm added people are saving money by going the cruise route.

“I just this moment finished and completed three cruises,” she said. “It seems to me we are having fantastic, I mean cheap-o, rates.”

Hamm said people are cruising through the Caribbean, and, more than ever this year, in the Mediterranean.

“The prices are very reasonable compared to getting on a plane and flying and going to all these places,” she said.

Staff writer Tara Kaprowy can be reached by e-mail at tkaprowy@sentinel-echo.com.