Viator Travel Blog

While white sand beaches with azure waters and billowing palms are nice, they’re far from unusual. For those looking for a truly unique coastal experience, the following beaches provide just that. Barking sand, star-shaped fossils and natural underground hot springs are just a few of the strange experiences you can have on the following weird beaches.

If you’ve ever wanted to swim with the fishes but felt nervous about your skill level and knowledge of the underwater world, the Oahu submarine scooter adventure is a great way to explore under the sea without any dive experience. I got the chance to go on a two hour adventure out in the beautiful Maunalua Bay, just off of Hawaii Kai, motoring around on an underwater submarine scooter in 30 feet of clear blue water.

Did you know that Vatican City is about the size of a golf course? Or that Pope Francis is the first pope from South America? Here’s your infographic introduction to Vatican City and its new pope.

What’s the best thing about Niagara Falls, which attract more than 10 million visitors a year? With its quirky mix of stunning natural beauty, historic and cultural sites, and honky-tonk tourist attractions, Niagara is a destination you can visit at any time of year.

More than two years have passed since Egypt’s 2011 Revolution, and the country is still feeling the effects. Images shown around the world of the violence in Cairo’s Tahrir Square both during the uprising and after have had a profoundly negative impact on the country’s reputation, causing people worldwide to believe that the entire country is dangerous now. This is not true. Egypt is approximately 385,000 square miles in size. The majority of the violence which still sporadically occurs is in an approximately one-square-mile area in downtown Cairo. The rest of Cairo remains perfectly safe as does the rest of the country, from the Mediterranean city of Alexandria to the tombs and temples of Luxor and Aswan, from the Red Sea beaches of the Sinai to the pyramids which give the country its signature skyline.

Most of us are familiar with some of the most famous Carnival celebrations in the world – Rio, Venice, and New Orleans among them. But Carnival is celebrated all over the world in nearly any place that has a strong Catholic background, so there are plenty of places where you can enjoy Carnival festivities even if you’re not in Brazil or Louisiana this year.

With nearly the entire world – almost 200 countries, hundreds of thousands of cities and towns, and countless rivers, mountains, beaches and deserts to explore – trying to narrow down a list of possible destinations to even a “Top 50” is tough. We know we won’t likely get to explore them all in a year, and it’s so hard to choose some places over other; it all depends on your particular travel style and interests. In the end, for this year’s Top 50 Travel Destinations we tried to offer Viator travelers a mix of popular destinations with compelling reasons to visit in 2013 plus some places you might not think of at first.

Welcome to the 2012 Viator Travel Awards: Africa and Middle East Edition! Rather than make this a list of specific tours, as we’ve done in the past, we decided this year to make a list of 25 of the most fun and interesting things to do in Africa and the Middle East – with a few specific tours as options in each destination.

Welcome to the 2012-2013 Viator Travel Awards, our annual rundown where we – along with our readers, travelers, and fans – select the top things to do and see in each of the major regions we serve, the top things to do in our most popular tour categories, and more.

The London 2012 Olympics doesn’t start until July 27, but we’ve already given out our medals for the Travel Olympics.