Hosteria Las Balsas, Patagonia

Advantages: An out of this world experience.
Disadvantages: It's a bit far but most certainly worth it.

...The Torres del Paine National Park lies to the extreme south of Chile, in the Chilean Patagonia. To be precise, in the XII Región of Magellan and Chilean Antarctica (Chile is divided into 12 regions). The province is known as "Ultima Esperanza" (Last Hope). Hope is not a word I would use. Reality is more like it. Hopeful Reality. Or perhaps Realistic Hope. I am afraid Patagonia has stolen my senses, and senses I did not have a lot. So do forgive me if I seem to lose my mind. I left it somewhere there, wandering the Patagonian plains, lakes, forests and mountains. It is an area roughly 242,242 hectares large and was officially declared a National Park in 1975, and from this date to today, has been administrated by the National Forestry Service of Chile (Conaf). On the 28th of April 1978, the United Nations recognised... Read review

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Advantages: Totally out of this world experience, so much to see and do, great hotels and casinos
Disadvantages: Sleazy in places, a few days isn't long enough to see it all

...Las Vegas is often compared to Blackpool but on a far greater scale - yes there are bright lights and hotels in both resorts the comparison really does stop there. So is Las Vegas all it is cracked up to be? In my opinion nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in my 6 days in Las Vegas - I'd seen all the television programmes raving about it and I'd spoken to many friends and relatives who had been - all spoke very highly of Vegas but all warned us that we wouldn't want more than a couple of days there - I was sure that a fortnight wouldn't be long enough and in my opinion I was right - Las Vegas is so vast that it is impossible to cram everything into a few days - although I did my damned hardest to try!!! We went to America for my brothers wedding which took place in a hotel in the mountains, about a half an hour drive from... Read review

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Advantages: Amazing hotels, gambling, city that never sleeps
Disadvantages: Gambling

...This travelogue was written during my stay in Las Vegas in November 1996. I went there with some colleagues to attend the annual COMDEX exhibition and these are the thoughts that I had during the stay there. The journey begins Our journey didn't exactly start the way I wanted it to start. When we came to Sola airport (the airport here in Stavanger), we found out that our plane to Amsterdam had been canceled. Because of the cancellation we had to go to Oslo first, then Amsterdam, New York and then to Las Vegas. We ended up traveling for about 24 hours and we arrived in Las Vegas at 3 am in the morning. I sat down a bit at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to watch the people go by. It so funny to see all the different characters that walk around. You got your old Japanese male who looks a bit worried while he is smoking his... Read review

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