Ikkyu Sojun, Zen Buddhist Verse, 15th Century, ink on paper. Heinz Gotze Collection, Heidelberg, Germany

Americans are not shy about spending on travel: In 1998, they laid out $54.4 on travel abroad (as well as $497 billion within their own borders). The $551 billion they spent is almost equal to the gross domestic product of Canada!

Increasingly, the money Americans spend on travel no longer goes for generic, let’s-rush-from-site-to-site trips. As they have become more affluent and educated – 24% of all Americans over the age of 18 have a college degree – Americans’ interest has turned to travel that offers them opportunities for education, contemplation, self-expression, adventure and artistry.

That desire for more substance has married very nicely with the Internet. As more people log on to the Worldwide Web, they’re using it to seek out opportunities that older methods of research make awfully hard to find: Have you ever tried to quickly track down information on Costa Rican eco-tours? You can’t do it.  You have to pore through books, magazines and newspapers to build your own database of information.

You can ask travel agents, but they’re not going to do extensive research for you – they don’t have the time. That’s why there are so many travel-oriented sites on the Internet. Doing research on the Internet is quick and easy.

Or is it?

If you go looking for specialty tour operators – people who offer unique trips that can range from fishing with Alaskan grizzly bears to retracing the steps of Romeo and Juliet in Verona – here’s what you often run into:

• Travel sites that have so much information, divided among so many categories, that just looking at all of them makes you tired.

• Travel sites that expect you to know in minute detail what kind of trip you want, thus closing you off to the fun of browsing and shopping around among other possibilities.

• Travel sites that are too specialized, that deal only in adventure, or only in literary tours.

The Cultural Travels Difference

That’s how Cultural Travels came to be. Despite the dozens of travel sites that are now on the Web, none of them offers the combination of depth and convenience that we do:

We have almost 1,000 listings of specialty tour operators. No other site on the Internet, even the ones set up by very big companies, has more.

We join that depth with convenience. We offer a "two-click" access to our database that gets you started immediately on your research into interesting tours. While you can quickly "drill down" to very specific types of yours, our format also lets you see other possibilities.

We are constantly updating and expanding our listings. We keep our web site current and dynamic so that you will make it a habit to check with us first when you are making travel plans.

We don’t charge to pass your requests for information on to tour operators or travel agents. Once we have your name in our database, we don’t "spam" you with ads, offers and come-ons.

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