Our Eat 'n Sleep feature profiles a restaurant in a random city and a hotel nearby. It's kinda like that old show "Dinner and a Movie" but you know, with restaurants and hotels. And better jokes.

Hostels, bungalows, and cafés line Front Street on Caye Caulker, the tiny island off the coast of Belize. Amor y Café is the perfect place to drink morning coffee and watch "downtown" wake up. The narrow dirt path serves as the one-mile island's main drag. While over-the-top Italian restaurants along the strip indicate the locals are catering to what they think travelers want, Amor adheres to the island's backpacker tradition. The new owners pay attention to details, from the still-warm homemade breads to the still-tacky homemade granola.]]> ced138 2007-09-05T12:35:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/6/18/04538/4656

When we traveled to Belize in March, our use of the Tourism Board website usurped our need for a tree killing travel guide book.

Like any tourism board site, it has go-to information on travel, accommodations, events, and tours. But the information has less useless PR-speak and more Orbitz-esque tools like a search engine to select hotels by price and amenities.

Second, the country (or the people who make its tourism decisions at least) acknowledges and embraces its status as a backpackers' destination, and offers a portal exclusively for the budget traveler. The Toucan Trail is a tourism board-backed marketing effort of over 100 small hotels that offer rooms for U.S. $60 per night or less.

Another linked site attempts to lure retirees to take a permanent vacation to Belize. It requires anyone making the move to prove their pension pays them at least $2,000 per month, though. Oddly enough, most of the permanent expat travelers we met, especially of the older, non-working set, didn't take to the bourgeois idea of working a nine to five for 30 years. Exhibit A: Lonny.

]]> ced138 2007-06-21T10:34:42-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/