We rarely think about staying hydrated while we go about our daily routines but once we board a plane for a long flight, if we haven’t been hydrating we could begin feeling uncomfortable, or worse, almost right away. That’s because the air in the cabin is a lot dryer than outside and that dry air causes our bodies to lose water. Dehydration can cause dry nose, dry skin, and scratchy...

James Bond, the British super agent with a licence to kill, was introduced to the world, in 1962, in the now classic thriller, Dr. No. Bond, the brainchild of the British author, Ian Fleming, was ‘born’ in Jamaica. Fleming had visited Jamaica and fallen in love with the island. In 1946, he purchased a property and built Goldeneye, his Jamaica home. It is here that he escaped, every January and...

Traveling down a river on a bamboo raft is possibly one of the coolest experiences I can imagine. I have to imagine it as I arrived too late to make the trip. What I got instead was a mini demonstration of raft making and a lesson from a raft captain on what they have to do to maintain their crafts. First, a little background. Rafting started with the Rio Grande...

Negril’s legendary 7-mile white sand beach and its laid-back attitude draw thousands of visitors annually. Most are content with relaxing on the beach that straddles two parishes, Westmoreland and Hanover, but there are several reasons to get out and explore what lies beyond the sand on the Westmoreland side. The eighth largest of Jamaica’s 14 parishes, Westmoreland takes up the south western end of Jamaica. It was first settled by...

Pick a weekend between now and 26 July, book a few days leave and a room at any of the Manchester hotels – Screenfields is back for 2012. Begin a spring/summer weekend in Manchester with an open aired film screening in the heart of Manchester’s Spinningfields square. Shown every Thursday night from now until the final screening, Notting Hill on 26 July, films change every week and are just 2...

There is nowhere else in the United States that captures the imagination of holidaymakers from the UK quite like Florida, in the country’s south-eastern corner. The pan-handle state has a reputation as being one of the most amazing places in the world for tourist to visit and check out the attractions. Families tend to be particularly won over by the quite wondrous array of theme parks and purpose-built centres of...

Though Judy Mowatt is best known as a member of the I-Threes, Bob Marley’s back up vocalists (Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths were the other two), she is also an accomplished songwriter who enjoyed a separate career as a solo recording artist. Born Judith Veronica Mowatt in Kingston around 1952, Mowatt sang in a church choir and as a teen, was part of a dance group that toured the Caribbean....

Following the recently concluded Caribbean Tourism Summit in Montego Bay, the Jamaican government announced that it had revised its proposed tax on the tourism sector. Under the tax plan announced on May 24th by Finance Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, hotels would be charged an accommodation tax from US$2 to US$12, depending on the number of rooms they had, while starting August 1, arriving passengers would be charged US$20. The proposed...

There’s nothing quite like summer in New York City. School’s out, buses and subways are less crowded, restaurants spill out onto sidewalks, beaches are open, and there are free concerts and movies in the parks. Although I won’t be in New York City the entire summer, I’ll be there next month. Just thinking about it makes me feel giddy with excitement. I’m really looking forward to doing a few things...

Appleton Estate is the oldest sugar factory and rum distillery in Jamaica, the second oldest in the Caribbean. The sprawling 11,000-acre estate dates back to 1655, however, it did not start producing rum until 1749. Appleton Estate’s location in St. Elizabeth‘s Nassau Valley provides the perfect combination of characteristics — a special soil composed of a limestone formation, known as Cockpit Karst,  and favorable climate, sunny mornings and tropical afternoon shower...