American Deli, Caracas, Venezuela

Advantages: Good night life
Disadvantages: Dangerous

...The Caraqueños like to think that Caracas IS Venezuela and to a certain extent, if one is seeking the trappings of modern days living, they may be right. However, if you are seeking to touch base with Latin American culture, you should avoid the capital completely. The city has grown hugely in what would have been a delightful position, high in a valley and enjoys a good all year round climate, but it's heavily congested, highly polluted and in recent years extremely dangerous. Foreigners tend to stick out like the proverbial 'sore thumb' so you'd do well to travel in groups avoiding any ostentation of wealth. As the city is very modern, there are loads of restaurants and cafes, but little else in terms of culture.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: cheap, beautiful, diverse
Disadvantages: can be dangerous, english is not widely spoken

...Venezuela has to be the most amazingly diverse country i have ever been to, and worry not, it is not the only place i have been. It ranges from the Andes in the West to the Gran Sabana and then onto the dense Jungle in the east. It has the world's tallest waterfall: Angel Falls, (discovered by Jimmy Angel), beautiful Carribean Coast, unique tribal communities and bustling oil rich cities. As i did with my trip lets start where most people do -Caracas. This is a city of to halves, extreme poverty and extreme wealth due to the oil, but the first thing that hit me was the incredible prices. I mean a 3 course meal for £2.50 and people were ripping you off if they were selling fags for 90p. This meant that a daily budget was tiny and in fact hotel rooms in other towns were less than £4.00 a night, so a budget of less than £15 is fine... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lack of tourists, amazing scenery and wildlife, friendly people, and good transport.
Disadvantages: You have to be prepared to organise everything yourself, in Spanish! Not for people looking for glitz, glamour or an easy life.

...with ESP. I didn’t pay particular attention to the timing of the flight, but I think it was about 12 hours in total from Birmingham to Caracas. Venezuela’s main international airport is as bland and uninteresting as most others I have visited (Amsterdam’s Schipol, by contrast, is possibly the hugest, brightest and most diverting place to waste an hour or so between changing planes) but the customs and immigration officials were nice enough, and soon we were through into the main concourse ready to be bombarded with offers of taxis, accommodation, money changing and the like. The touts, refreshingly enough, were not terribly persistent, and after a brief stop at an ATM - it isn’t possible to buy Venezuelan bolívars outside of Venezuela - we were on the bus to central Caracas. We weren’t initially sure quite how... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful