About a month ago I hand-delivered a postcard I had carried a very long way. From a dot of an island in the southern Pacific Ocean to a small city in Virginia. From Post Office Bay to a parent back home.

You see Post Office Bay, on Floreana Island in the Galapagos, was set up in the sailing ship days. Back then crews were away from home for years, with no way to contact loved ones at home except by mail. Getting that mail home relied on other ships, however, so sailors would pick up mail headed to where they were going and take it there themselves.

The tradition continues today, ironically now working better and faster than the real Ecuadorian postal service, which charges an amazing $2 and up to send a postcard or letter internationally. The cards we stuck in the mailbox at post office bay got to their recipients in a couple weeks.

I took longer delivering mine as I waited until I was driving through Virginia for the holiday break. I spent the night in Lynchburg (at the wonderful Craddock Terry Hotel) and hand-delivered my postcard to its surprised recipients—pictured here. Their son and his family had toured the Galapagos right before I was there and said, “This was an amazing trip. It’ll be even more amazing if this card makes it.”

It did, and I was almost as satisfied as a swashbuckling sailor.

If you’re heading out on a Galapagos cruise, don’t forget your address book!

When I was at the Luxury Travel Expo last month I had the pleasure of hearing a short presentation from Kim MacQuarrie, a Peru travel expert and author of the book Last Days of the Incas. A few lucky souls will get to spend far more time with him this year actually traveling through Peru: he is leading a tour with Geographic Expeditions that is centered on this history of the Incas.

We now have a lively and informative interview with Kim MacQuarrie posted in our interviews section. He talks about the research that went into his book, the upcoming tours, Incan architecture, and his favorite hotel in the country. As someone who lived with a recently-contacted tribe of indigenous Amazonians and has since covered many parts of Peru that few people ever visit, he knows this fascinating country inside-out.

“One tends to think of Peru in terms of Cuzco, the Incas, and Machu Picchu. But of course, there is much, much more. Around 60% of Peru is tropical rainforest, and large portions of that are virtually unexplored regions. In fact, there are still a handful of uncontacted tribes that roam there.

The long strip of desert on the coast is as dry as the surface of the Moon, with virtually no rainfall whatsoever. The ruins of thousands of years of ancient civilizations are buried there—pyramids, monuments, fortresses, tombs. Pretty incredible, really. In fact, so many pyramids and tombs have been discovered in Peru in the last 20-30 years that people more and more are referring to Peru as the “Egypt of the Americas.” One ancient city that was discovered as recently as 2001 is nearly five thousand years old—the oldest city in the Americas. As old as the Step Pyramids in Egypt.”

See our full Last Days of the Incas interview here.

You can read all kinds of predictions on where the travel market is headed this year, but just as economists and weather forecasters can keep their job while still being wrong half the time, most of these writers have just a smidgen more forecasting ability than you do. With everyone waiting later to book and the prime spring break vacation season not upon us yet, it’s hard for anyone to know how this year will go in the luxury travel world.

I like this post from the blog of an upscale travel PR agency I’ve met with before, KWE Group: 2010’s Upside-Down Pyramid: All Hail King Consumer. Among the big themes are a marketing message that’s easy to understand, authenticity, customization, and quality that’s worth paying for—at the right price.

It’s geared to those serving you rather than you the traveler, but I think you’ll probably recognize some factors that are driving your travel decisions and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how the industry is doing. Forget airlines, we know most of them are lost causes. But have the high-end hotels you’ve stayed with or the tour companies you’ve hired been making the right adjustments in these turbulent times?

This is a time of year when it’s especially important to unwind, unplug, and enjoy time with your family. Nobody has to tell them this in Latin America, which is one of the things I love.

Happy holidays to you and yours, until we post again…

Photo above is from Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, Peru.

Up the road from Los Cabos, some new golf resort communities are springing up. We’ve got the lowdown on them in this new Mexican real estate article we just posted: Golf Communities Sprout in La Paz, Mexico.

This probably sounded like a better idea when there was a flood of California real estate bubble money flowing south, so the developers spared no expense in designing the golf courses and working out the water issues with desalinization and specialized turf. Homes are going up in phases, with the developers targeting those retirees and vacation home owners who find themselves priced out of Los Cabos—or just wanting to get more for their money.

If you’re interested in buying real estate on the Baja Peninsula but your eyes bulged out when you saw the prices in Cabo, read our article and follow the links on golf real estate in La Paz.