Photo by Fauxen

There’s something appealing—especially to Matador readers—about the narrative of someone who has it all—the coveted job, a nice house that’s been paid for, a satisfying social life—chucking it to explore a completely different path.

Most of Matador’s editorial team has done just that, as have a number of our community members and MatadorU students, including JoAnna Haugen and Amiee Maxwell.

So we tend to like books like Lucinda Fleeson’s Waking Up in Eden, a memoir of her transition from a respected big city reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer to her time as a cottage-dwelling employee of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii who wasn’t welcomed warmly or easily by her peers.

The best part of this book isn’t Fleeson’s own story, though — even the part where she gives herself over to a brief but passionate sexual fling with a local surfer.

Instead, it’s the parts where she takes a journalistic approach to the other subject of the book, the Eden referred to in the title. Hawaii’s plant life—its story of invasion, resistance, and near extinction—is a metaphor for Hawaii’s social and cultural history, over which Fleeson demonstrates a knowledgeable command.

She’s able to choose some of the best anecdotes about the islands’ people and plants to help make this history real to readers and, importantly, to make Hawaii matter to a country that has often allowed the geographic distance of the islands translate into a distance of identity and relationship as well.

It seems particularly appropriate that Fleeson’s book was published this year, the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s incorporation into the U.S. as the country’s 50th state. Perhaps her gentle insistence that Hawaii is worth our attention as more than a vacation destination will encourage readers to nurture a deeper interest in the islands.

And that would be the very best part of her book.

Photo courtesy of Rick Steves

I’ve never thumbed through one of his guidebooks. My introduction to Steves–who’s been in the travel business for the past 30 years–was through his latest book, Travel as a Political Act, published in April by Nation Books.

The title appealed to me, suggesting that Steves shares many of the beliefs the Matador community is built upon.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The book opens with the author’s vivid recollections of powerful moments from a lifetime’s worth of travel, reaffirming how profound a journey is for both the person taking it and the people being visited. These stories draw the reader in and lead to Steves’ direct statement of the book’s premise: “that thoughtful travel comes with powerful lessons.” By sharing some of his lessons, he hopes to “inspire others to travel more purposefully.”

Over the course of nine chapters, Steves takes his reader to his favorite European countries, as well as El Salvador, Turkey, Morocco, and Iran, and shows what traveling more purposefully means. In each country, Steves compares what works, what doesn’t, and what we can learn about our home countries as a result. He is honest about the experiences that confuse or frustrate him but is always motivated by the desire to understand others and himself more fully.

By sharing all of his experiences candidly, he helps the reader to be more thoughtful about his or her own travel.

Steves describes the common thread binding all of his business ventures–the TV and radio shows, the guidebooks, the tours his company hosts–as his desire to teach people how to travel. And he’s good at doing that: what’s so engaging about this book is Steves teaches through example.

When he talks about “letting an impression breathe,” to open ourselves up to experiences that stretch us and challenge us and to be willing to revise our conclusions about what we see, the reader understands what he means because all of his stories show exactly how to do that.

And what about the “political act” part of the book?

Steves views travel as a way to go out into the world and learn and then to come home and live more purposefully. He provides lots of tangible examples about how his travels have shaped his activities back home in the U.S.: his advocacy of drug policy reform, his voting habits, his commitment to remain in a church that’s not particularly progressive rather than move to a congregation more aligned with his politics.

He doesn’t tell you how travel should become a political act in your own life– that’s not his style. Consistent with his teaching method throughout the book, he just shows you what he’s done, what works for him, and motivates you to make decisions that resonate with your own values. And he doesn’t leave you hanging at the end of the book; you can continue on to the Travel as a Political Act blog he’s set up on his website.

Travel as a Political Act would be an especially good read for someone who’s new to travel, but it’s just as likely to be enjoyed by experienced travelers because Steves’ lessons–while familiar, maybe–will invite you to reflect upon your own travel memories and the ways they’ve shaped your life.

Photo by René Ehrhardt

“Damn sex tourists,” I thought, spinning out my own narratives about the two sleazebags… and the women they’d ultimately take up to their hotel rooms.

Their motives seemed clear enough to me: these comparatively wealthy men were in Cuba for a sex holiday, looking for the most exotic Cuban beauties they could find and willing to spend whatever they were asked to fulfill their fantasies.

Mother-daughter writing team Annika and Annabella Ardin took a more objective approach after observing similar scenes in Thailand’s girl bars.

Having spent a good bit of time in the country, the Ardins noticed that scores of Western men seemed to fall—and hard—for Thai women. So hard, in fact, that men would often upend their entire lives in order to see or be with these women time and again.

The Ardins saw the phenomenon as something more complex than a form of prostitution.

They also considered the phenomenon to be sufficiently different from other forms of sex tourism around the world, and so they set out to answer a few questions:

What makes Thai women so alluring to Western men? Should the Western world consider these women victims?

And, as they ask early in the book, “Could it be that we Western women have lost our ability to communicate with the opposite sex, and is it…us [sic] who are driving our men to our Asian sisters?”

To find out, the Ardins spent lots of time talking to Western men in girl bars.

This is one of the shortcomings of the book, as the Ardins themselves concede: their methodology involves talking mostly to men, not women, resulting in conclusions that are rather one-sided.

While their observations are often interesting, they also become redundant the farther one wades into the book.

And their entire chapter devoted to developing a typology of the kinds of Western men who go to Thailand looking for love is tempting to adopt (after all, I was doing the same categorizing on that hotel patio in Havana), but it’s also terribly stereotypical and seems to undermine the very purpose the women set out to achieve in writing this book.

Still, the book—a quick read—is an interesting attempt to understand the dynamics of Western-Thai “love.”

The final explanations offered by the Ardins, which you’ll have to read for yourself, failed to convince me that the kinds of situations the authors describe are significantly different from your garden variety sex tourism anywhere else in the world, which is always characterized by the desire to experience “the exotic.”

That being said, though, the book is an honest attempt to reflect critically on one’s observations by trying to look beyond superficial scenes rather than assuming we understand what we see and making up stories about it.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

Overview

The driving assumption of Travel Therapy is that you–a stressed out female reader–need a break. You’ve got relationship, work, or health problems (or worse, all three) and you just need to get away– “change your attitude by changing your environment,” as the author says.

Realizing this, the author has put together a quiz-based approach to help you decide what type of vacation you need, and then offers a menu of options about destinations and activities that would fulfill your specific needs.

It’s an approach that isn’t likely to appeal to most Matador readers– check out our community members’ profiles and you’ll see that most don’t have any lack of ideas about where they want to go or what they want to do– but perhaps it works for some women.

Verdict

Travel Therapy is a pretty book, with glossy pages and enticing photos.

But it’s loaded with exclamation marks and cliches that might turn off the seasoned traveler.

If you’re really stymied about where to go on your next trip or what kind of getaway you need, then this book might be a useful place to start.

But you could get even more varied ideas just by hanging around Matador for a while.

Contest Giveaway

Where’s the most therapeutic place you’ve ever been? What place helped you wash your blues away?

Post a link to a photo of the place that blissed you out and a short description of its therapeutic qualities by midnight on Thursday, June 11 PST.

We’ll pick our favorite and give away a copy of Travel Therapy. We’ll also feature the photos on Matador Trips.

Community Connection

Want to know more about travel therapy? Head over to Brave New Traveler for our interview with author Karen Schaler.

Other frequent travelers probably feel the same. A good book and a good bag can get you through a bad situation.

The Cruising Caddy is my latest bag, a small tote that’s ideal for filling with essentials for short walks.

Though it would be perfect to stick inside a larger bag and pull out at Immigration and Customs, all documents organized comfortably inside, I like this bag because I don’t have to store it under the bed between trips.

It’s got a dozen day-to-day uses, from a walk around the neighborhood with my dog to an afternoon rollerblading on the Hudson River.

It would also be the perfect size bag for sporting events or concerts where backpacks aren’t permitted, city tours, short hikes, and visits to the beach or pool

It comes in three colors—black, khaki, or red—and is made of microfiber and nylon. It holds up well and doesn’t get dirty easily, but you can hand wash it if needed. In addition to two exterior pouches, the Cruising Caddy also comes with a small carabiner for your keys.

My only gripe about the Cruising Caddy is its name. When I first read about it, I envisioned cruise boat tourists with cameras hanging round their necks, their Cruising Caddies strapped across one shoulder.

But once I tried the bag out, I got over it.

Price: $24.98 | BVT Products Cruising Caddy – Black

Unless you’re talking with Jamie Abish, self-described “adventure capitalist” and owner of Tent and Trails, an outdoor outfitter store in Manhattan. “We can outfit an entire expedition from the store,” Abish says. Taking a glance at the gear hanging from the ceiling to the floor, I believe it.

Photo by Francisco Collazo

Manhattan isn’t the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of outdoor experts—Portland and Seattle likely vie for that title—but Abish’s staff know what they’re talking about… and what they’re selling.

Photo by Francisco Collazo

“Five men who were sherpas in Nepal work here,” she says.

And Craig– the employee who’s about to show me the essential gear for a Patagonia trip– he’s been just about everywhere.

So when he talks about temperature ranges of sleeping bags, it’s not some well-memorized sales pitch.

The man had to keep warm while camping out in frigid Arctic Sweden.

Abish and her staff estimate that a Patagonia trip for the first time trekker who wants a full gear-up will cost about $800-$1,000.

The gear list Tent and Trails provides here totals $1,128.00 in the store (before taxes) but some of the items listed are more for comfort than necessity.

You can gear up with Abish and her staff in person or online at www.tenttrails.com.

You can also order most of the gear through Amazon.

• Teko Women’s EcoMerino Midweight Hiking Socks – Lightweight, organic. What more could you want from a sock?

• Wigwam CoolMax Liner Socks – These liner socks wick away moisture, keeping your feet dry.

• Body Glide Anti-Chafing Skin Protectant – “It’s like deodorant for your whole body.”

• Adventure Medical Heatsheets Emergency Blanket – You never know when you may need some extra heat in Patagonia.

• Medica Quickclot Sport Silver 25 – Clotting Sponges that come in handy in case of an emergency.

• MSR Packtowl Personal Towels – Most travelers know about quick-drying towels, but in Patagonia, they’re essential.

Photo by Francisco Collazo

• 9″ SAM Splint – You don’t want to need this, but you don’t want to be without it if you do.

• Smart Travel Adventure Medical Kits – Your basic first aid kit—don’t leave home without it.

• Snow Peak Trek 900 Titanium Cook Set – “Incredibly lightweight.”

• Pocket Rocket – A highly effective one-burner stove for all kinds of weather conditions.

• Ultrathon Insect Repellent 0.3 Oz Packet – Abish prefers this DEET repellent….

• Natrapel Plus 4 Oz – …but if you’re DEET averse, recommends this natural repellent.

• Coghlan’s Travellers Mosquito Net DW Green – Because sometimes repellent just isn’t enough.

• Polar Pure Water Disinfectant- Though Abish likes the Steri-Pen, she notes that it’s always good to carry two or more different water treatment devices in case one fails, which is especially important in extreme weather conditions.

• Adventure Medical Kits Oral Rehydration Salts – When you’re feeling dehydrated, these salts offer a quick fix.

• Therm-a-Rest ProLite 4 Fast & Light Mattress – This lightweight mat rolls up and stows on your pack and provides a good night’s rest.

• Osprey Packs Aether 60 Backpack – 3500-3900cu in – The only big pack you’ll need.

• Millet Prolight 24 Backpack – 1465cu in – If you’re headed out on a day hike, leave the Osprey behind and use this bag instead—it’s a smaller, water resistant wicking pack.

• Western Mountaineer Alpinlite Sleeping Bag – Rated 20-85 degrees F. Down fill.

Contact Information

Tent and Trails
21 Park Place
New York, New York 10007
212-227-1760
www.tenttrails.com

“New York will never be yours; you will always be hers. She’s got you p***y-whipped and you f**king know it.”

Photo by Paraflyer

I realized Stuart and I weren’t likely to get along.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

I’m all for writers carving their own literary niches, speaking in their own authentic voices, but a vocabulary largely dependent upon a rotating showcase of four letter words—especially in a 450 page book—is likely to carve a niche that’s very tiny indeed.

Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide might have been salvageable despite all that because the interest in snagging a deal in New York will never wane, but the places the author includes in his cheap guide to New York City aren’t even all that novel.

The TKTS booth and fake bags on Canal Street? Both have been in Fodor’s and Frommer’s for years.

And what happened to New York’s other three boroughs? Stuart includes Manhattan and Brooklyn, but the The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island don’t even merit a sidebar.

All guidebooks are limited in long-term value, especially in a place like New York City, where a business that opens today is likely to be shuttered six months from now. That’s the nature of the genre.

But Broke-Ass Stuart is likely to be of little value of all, except to the limited audience who enjoys reading profanity-laden prose.

As more than one reviewer has already noted, the very idea of trying to squeeze an “intimate portrait” of Mexico City between the covers of a 336 page book is an ambitious task, one that almost borders on the absurd.

Photo by kainet

First of all, Mexico City is one of the world’s largest cities, with a population of almost 20 million people spread out across 600 square miles. It’s also an old city, dating back several centuries. And then, there are the facts of the city that are just as true but are much harder to nail down: its paradoxes, contradictions, and its chaos.

Yet in his book, First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, The Capital of the 21st Century, American expat turned Mexican citizen David Lida not only manages to capture the Mexican capital’s complexity; he also manages to convey it in an organized, coherent, and engaging narrative.

Price: $17.13 | BUY

There aren’t many books about Mexico City, and those that exist often treat the city and its people like curios in a shop cabinet. Lida avoids the trap, not only because he unabashedly loves the city, but because he gets out on its streets, talks with people, and lets them tell their own stories.

He talks with taxi drivers and white collar executives, prostitutes and the pious (not necessarily mutually exclusive groups, to be sure), and politicians, who fall somewhere in between.

At moments, I found myself wishing I’d read this book before I moved to Mexico City. It’s better and more useful than any conventional guidebook.

Lida covers a lot of physical ground here—from the rough-around-the-edges Tepito neighborhood, notorious for being the world capital of pirated goods, to the tony neighborhood of Polanco, where the main avenue is lined with luxury flagship stores, including Chanel, Tiffany, and Hermes.

Photo by Nicholas Babaian

He talks about history, he acknowledges modern day problems, including crime, and puts them into context, and he envisions the Mexico City of the future.

You could read it straight through or pick and choose chapters at your leisure; either way, First Stop in the New World is engaging.

Lida says in the beginning of the book that he hopes First Stop in the New World reads as a love letter to his adopted city. It does. It’s not always a romantic love letter—it’s a real one. But in the end, that’s the very best kind… the one where the lover sees the beloved as fantastic yet flawed, and still, wakes up every day and chooses to love her.

Photo by Paul Keller

A few that immediately come to mind? Rosemary Mahoney’s Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.

The trick with these types of narratives is for the author to work his or her way out of the funk while writing a tale that’s both more accessible and more meaningful to the reader than a painfully self-conscious diary.

Price; $27.00 | BUY

In his first book, Walking to Guantanamo, author Richard Fleming only partly succeeds in executing the trick artfully.

Fleming, who says goodbye to his girlfriend, sublets his Brooklyn apartment, and sets off for a four month walk across Cuba, admits that his only motive is to try to overcome a nagging feeling of personal and professional stagnation by responding to some inexplicable internal call to explore Cuba by foot.

By the end of the book, he confesses that “since I never knew what I was looking for, I can scarcely claim to have found it.”

The reader feels as unresolved about the tale as Fleming does, and wonders along with the writer whether his “experience was too mundane even to bother writing down.”

The answer is “Yes” in the Havana chapters of the book, which include all the characters and objects familiar to anyone who has been there: Telenovelas, rum, long lines, crowded buses, Santeria, and the “time capsule” quality that tourists so frequently see in Cuba’s capital.

These chapters would be more enjoyable for someone who hasn’t traveled to Cuba, but for regular visitors, the scenes are predictable and even tiresome.

Photo by Sami Keinänen

But then there are the chapters in which Fleming narrates his experiences tromping in tropical swamps and backwoods with birders and taking in a decima competition in the town of Las Tunas.

It’s in these places where both Fleming and his reader are at their best, learning new things together, and suddenly the tedious moments of the trip—like any good journey—seem worth having suffered.

Like Fleming, I went through ups and downs with this book. Ultimately, though, I appreciated that in his quest to grapple with a particular kind of ennui many Cubans would find curious. He took the time to get deep into Cuba and to share stories that were anything but mundane.

Stories that no one else has told.

More than one admiring writer has gushed that Potts is a “guru,” and I tend to shy away from gurus.

And besides, he looks way too cool in his author photo.

And people who look way too cool….well, they just annoy me.

*

If you’re not guru or cool-person-averse, you’ve probably already heard about Potts’s most recent book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer.

There’s been no shortage of press for this book: by the time Marco Polo hit the shelves, Potts was already making rounds on a virtual and physical book tour, stopping here at Matador, World Hum, and Intelligent Travel, among other sites.

Meanwhile, I cracked the spine on my review copy.

Potts is adept at telling an engaging story. Like anyone on the road long enough, he’s accumulated a catalog of travel tales.

The majority Potts shares in Marco Polo are standard traveler fare—getting mugged, making crazy decisions we’d never consider at home in similar situations (like hitching a ride with a carful of strangers), feeling tugged between our conflicting desires to “see the sites,” on the one hand, and to totally avoid them, on the other.

What makes Marco Polo stand out, though, is the way in which Potts tells his stories.

While there are spots that are tiresome—“I’m starting in on my second day on Phi Phi Don island, but… I didn’t write anything yesterday”—Potts gives almost all of his stories depth by enriching his firsthand experiences with research.

Potts is clearly well read.

He references writers as diverse as Walker Percy, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Gustave Flaubert, and he goes home to search for historical details about a place when its local dynamics elude him.

And he’s transparent about his own writing process; perhaps the most interesting part of Marco Polo is the “special commentary track” in which Potts talks about how he constructed his stories and why he made the narrative choices he did.

There are other reasons to like Marco Polo. Potts clearly likes adventure, but fortunately, he’s no Thomas Kohnstamm. Potts respects the people he meets on his travels–never more evident than in “Death of an Adventure Traveler”—and he’s refreshingly free of the macho bluster of so many other travel writers in his age cohort.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

It’s not that Potts is an abstinent, ascetic traveler (he confesses to nurturing a boyish crush on every single one of the bikini clad girls on a ship in the Mediterranean); it’s just that he’s able to keep it in his pants… or to have the discretion not to tell us when he doesn’t.

Marco Polo is a travelogue equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking. I’ll send my review copy to the first reader who leaves his or her Matador profile URL and the reason you’d like this book in the comments section below.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

Price: $24.75 | BUY

10. AIA Guide to New York City

Some of the best guidebooks are those that focus exclusively on a specific aspect of a place, and that’s why I like this guide.

Put together by the American Institute of Architects, this guide takes you to the most and least known architectural achievements in NYC.

It’s not a small book and at more than 1,000 pages, it’s not something you’ll carry around.

But even if you never make it to my city, you’ll enjoy a virtual trip; the book has more than 2,000 photos.

Price: $11.53 | BUY

9. Off the Beaten (Subway) Track

New York City’s Best Unusual Attractions – If you’re a “real” New Yorker, it’s likely you’ll know–at least by name–many of the places listed in this guide.

But these are precisely the kinds of places that are a little bit too small or too specialized to make it onto the pages of traditional guides.

One of my favorite places listed in this guide is the Steinway & Sons Piano Factory.

Price: $16.47 | BUY

8. Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City

If you’re one of the people who thinks wildlife in NYC refers to people, do yourself a favor and pick up this guide.

While it covers predictable sites like Central Park, the Field Guide also helps you discover places you didn’t know exist.

Seeing a photo of wild turkeys in a Bronx park may make you do a double take… or it may just send you out on a totally unexpected adventure.

Price: $11.96 | BUY

7. Bloom’s Literary Guide to New York

The ideal guide for book lovers, this guide provides a historical overview of NYC’s literary history.

It then brings the reader fully into the 21st century with interviews and listings for bookstores, museums, and other sites of particular interest for enthusiastic readers.

Price: $16.00 | BUY

6. The Slow Food Guide to New York City

Restaurants, Markets, Bars – “Slow” and “New York City” don’t often share space in the same phrase, so you might be surprised by this guide.

Beyond being a guide to slow food, this is a guide to GOOD food.

And since New York has no shortage of that, this guide will be of use even to those who don’t know what the Slow Food movement is.

Price: $4.75 | BUY

5. New York Neighborhoods

The subtitle of this book is “A Food Lover’s Walking, Eating, and Shopping Guide to Ethnic Enclaves Throughout New York City,” and that just about covers every interest, right?

What I like about this book is that it encourages tourists to get beyond Manhattan’s Little Italy and Chinatown and explore the outer boroughs’ equally fascinating immigrant communities.

My own favorites are my former stomping grounds, the Arthur Avenue in the Bronx (be sure to stop for a cappuccino in the Arthur Ave. Market), and Flushing’s Chinese and Korean communities.

While this book has left out lots of places worth discovering, you won’t go wrong with the ones it includes.

Price: $14.95 | BUY

4. Museums of New York City

A Guide for Residents and Visitors: This guide includes all the major league museums on Fifth Avenue, but doesn’t overlook some truly obscure collections.

Who knew that NYC was home to the museum that houses the largest toy boat collection in the world?

Price: $12.76 | BUY

3. Jazz Guide New York City

True, the good ole’ days of New York jazz are gone, but you can still get your fix and this guide lets you know how.

What’s especially appealing about this guide is the author’s inclusion of cafes, cabarets, record stores (yep, there is still such a thing), and other sites where 20th century jazz history was made.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

2. The Cheap Bastard’s Guide to New York City

Couchsurfing. Craigslist. You’ve got cheap digs covered, but this is an expensive city.

If you’re a real cheapskate, borrow a copy, but by all means, be sure to scan through this book’s tips for NYC on a budget.

1. Not For Tourists:

Price: $10.85 | BUY

No self-respecting New Yorker would be caught dead with any of the preceding guidebooks, no matter how much fascinating content they contain.

But NFT is no ordinary guidebook.

This little black book is small enough to tuck into your bag and discreet enough to pull out in the street without seeming like a guidebook dweeb.

It also has the kind of practical information that any traveler–especially one planning to settle in for awhile– will find handy:

• ATM locations by neighborhood.
• The places where you can find the Sunday New York Times on Saturday.

The NFT guide is updated yearly by New Yorkers, so you can be sure the information is both current and accurate.

I own two of these and rarely leave home without one.

Let’s get a few details and disclaimers out of the way:

(1) I am not the kind of person who rushes out to acquire the latest cell phone.

(2) I disabled text messaging on my own cell phone because I don’t know how to text and because I never remember to use the key lock before tossing my phone in my bag…thereby resulting in charges for messages I’ve never sent.

(3) I have had Cingular—now AT&T—for at least five years… and have never been particularly impressed by the company’s service.

Still, I seized the opportunity to use the Samsung BlackJack with AT&T service free for 30 days.

Having seen advertisements boasting that it permits users to call to and from “more than 200 countries,” I was interested in testing the company’s claim during a trip that would take me from New York City to Mexico City and from Mexico City to rural Colombia.

How many people could I call in 30 days and in how many countries?

And more importantly: How would the call quality stack up against my own basic, no frills cell? My husband, friends, and I all put the Samsung-AT&T partnership to the test in three countries.

PC World reviewed the same phone in the test area of San Francisco and surrounding suburbs and reported that “Signal strength and data performance varied quite a bit.” The same held true in my experiences testing the phone and its service in Mexico City.

Calling New York on multiple occasions, the call would fail to connect, would disconnect, or—on more than one occasion—would connect me to someone whose number I’d never dialed. When calls did connect, the quality was highly variable, pleasantly crisp and completely audible at times, while robotically electronic and cryptic at other times.

Considering that the phone’s key selling point is its intercontinental usability, I was dubious about its ability to perform any better once I arrived in Colombia. Curiously, though, call connectivity and quality seemed to improve. Calls from Colombia to the United States and Germany were passable, particularly in light of the fact that we were far from a major city.

A perk of the phone—and one which was particularly appreciated in rural Colombia—is its high speed Internet access. For the most part, the ability to access websites and to interact with them as I would on my laptop was pretty impressive. While the phone’s keyboard could be more navigable, AT&T’s service excels with respect to the Internet capabilities on this phone.

The Bottom Line

This phone is a crap shoot. At upwards of $300 (for the phone; the service plan is another matter entirely), I’m not convinced this phone is worth the considerable investment, particularly since its performance is so uneven.

Still, the idea of a phone which offers service to call to and from most of the countries in the world while on the road is a promising enticement for frequent and long-term travelers. I’m definitely willing to revise my judgment on this BlackJack-AT&T partnership as it enters its next generation.

Price: $439.99 | BUY (SIM Unlocked)