In Four Christmases, Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon want to take a relaxing tropical vacation for Christmas. But, to get out of dinner with their families, they have to come up with the perfect lie. Like Vince says in the move, "you can't spell families without lies." So they decide to tell everyone they're doing charity work, like building houses in third world countries or teaching English as a second language in Puerto Rico, when they're actually about to board a plane to Fiji.

If you've been looking for an "out" this holiday season, we've got the perfect volunteer vacation to use as your cover and a romantic tropical destination where you can actually spend your time off. We just hope your plan works out better than Vince and Reese's. Needless to say, a canceled flight and a nosy reporter land them right where they didn't' want to be—at home with their families for Christmas. ]]> cmb 2009-12-02T12:19:37-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/28/144019/25

Normally when you see negative travel advertising about a city or state, it's one locale trying to play itself up as an alternative to another and occasionally you run into a campaign that's more or less being done to punish a place. An example of this is food companies' punitive response to New York's ongoing war against smoking/alcohol/transfats/fun, but it's very unusual to have a campaign that's just pure "don't go to this place" spite. What's been happening in Honduras, where the exiled Tourism Minister is screening negative ads about his own country, is indeed very unusual.

The politics down in Honduras are obviously a mess. Manuel Zelaya was ousted from the presidency with various degrees of legitimacy and justification, the answer to that varying with where you fall on the political spectrum. The US government, along with Honduras' neighbors, insist it was a coup. The Honduran Supreme Court, legislature, and army mostly beg to disagree. None of that matters for our purposes. Instead we enter the story where Ricardo Martinez, Zelaya's former Tourism minister, is invited to act as the country's legitimate representative at the Central American Travel Market.

He was, all things considered, not the best imaginable spokesman for the Honduran tourism industry...]]> Omri 2009-10-29T08:39:18-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/6/91344/84776

Central America's most serious political crisis in years has Honduras sliding further into instability, and tourists are not surprisingly second-guessing trips to the tiny nation.

Exiled President Manuel Zelaya played at a return to Honduras on Sunday, borrowing a plane from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and attempting to fly back into Toncontin International Airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa. But as clashes broke out between Zelaya supporters and police, soldiers blocked the runway and the ousted leader decided not to risk a crash landing—perhaps he was aware that even without the demonstrators, TGU is already one of the world's most dangerous airports. ]]> BS 2009-07-06T14:14:17-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/1/231457/4070

We bet that there a more than a few of you out there clutching tickets to Honduras, while shaking in your boots over the current military coup situation and wondering whether or not to cancel your vacation. This is why god invented trip insurance, and we recommend that if you have it, now would be the time to cash in on it.

We know that the Honduran Bay Islands are famous for scuba diving with whale sharks, but there's a friggin' military coup playing out back in the capital Tegucigalpa, and we paid enough attention back in junior high history class to know that it means potentially violent demonstrations, soldiers with guns in the streets, and a generally confused and upset populace. These elements, unlike malibu rum and pina colada mix, do not combine to form a perfectly relaxing vacation away. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-07-02T09:32:21-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/