I foolishly thought the major tourist spots would be empty. But hotels were packed with Mexican fami

I really mean Go where the local tourists are. Plan your trip around domestic holidays or popular weekend-getaway spots, and enjoy. The most fun I've had in recent memory was in Chiapas in August 2009, the year swine flu scared off foreigners from Mexico.
I foolishly thought the major tourist spots would be empty. But hotels were packed with Mexican families cheap paris hotels enjoying the tail end of summer vacation. The ruins at Palenque were swarming with people. In San Cristobal de las Casas, kids were running around in souvenir cheap paris hotels Zapatista ski masks. cheap paris hotels It was great.
As travelers, we spend so much time avoiding (sniff) common tourists , but in the long run, you have to admit this can be a little cheap paris hotels wearing. When you re the only foreigner in some village, everyone s staring at you all the time, and you start getting antsy. Or if you re trying to blend in in some European capital, cheap paris hotels you re constantly worrying cheap paris hotels whether you just flubbed your coffee order and revealed your out-of-townness.
During that Chiapas trip, I went to the amazing church at San Juan Chamula. If I d gone in a quieter time, I would ve felt like a terrible interloper it s such a private-seeming place. cheap paris hotels ( Er, should I really be stomping around this church while people are in the middle of intense healing rituals? ) Walking into the church on the heels of a busload of Mexican tourists made me feel a little better. ( Oh well—all cheap paris hotels the Mexicans are! ) In fact, another Mexican tourist saw me hesitating and waved me in with a smile, like a good ambassador.
Ignore the traveler/tourist cheap paris hotels rivalry. Frankly, most tourists are fun (especially Mexican tourists!). They're out to have a good time. So if you go where the domestic tourists are, it's a little like crashing a party—but it's still counts as a travel experience, because you're with another culture.
This week in RG history 2011 Shopping the British Way 2010 (Must've been a slow week...) 2009 File under Signs of the Apocalypse 2008 Black man! Thanks, Robert Rodriguez! cheap paris hotels Guidebooks--Good or Evil? 2007 Jesus Is Tasty Ode to the Green Angels cheap paris hotels Food Observations 2006 Why haven't I been blogging? Me in Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel More reasons why I haven't been blogging 2005 Not Livin' the Life unicorn flower's Journal 2004 Driving I've almost cleared the 1000-kilometre mark, and about 300km of that I did today, driving UP and DOWN and all over the central and northern coast, so that after the eighth cute plaza with a little (or big) old church and pretty painted arcades, I was a little dazed. Ha. Funny: a lobby full of clowns in a hotel I passed earlier today here in Merida--clowns at rest, chatting, smoking cigarettes, puffing up their orange Afros. Merida I saw two more clowns. One was just waiting for the bus, with little rainbow tears on his cheeks.