New Tourist Taxes/regional Drinking Preferences/top Travel Backpack

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

Rundown of Tourist Taxes

So many destinations are adding some kind of tourist tax, especially for cruise passengers, that it’s getting hard to keep track. This article runs down the new ones, ranging from 4 euros (Lisbon) to $25 (Los Cabos) to more than $200 for the Galapagos Islands. Note that you’re likely already paying a tourist tax on vacation if you stay in a hotel, rent a car, arrive at/depart an airport, or rent through Airbnb. But these are an extra pocket lining crowd suppression tactic on top of all that.

Regions’ Alcohol Preferences Mapped

What will you be toasting if you drink local? Beer in the USA, beer or wine in Europe, spirits in Southeast Asia. Beer has at least a 30% share in every region of the world except Southeast Asia (including India), but 9 of the top-10 countries for per capita beer consumption are in Europe. The Czechs are the champs, with an average of 184 liters per person annually. See the details here.

A Reliable Travel Backpack

A year ago I ran down the most popular travel backpacks on Amazon and I’ve recently been traveling with one of the top full-capacity ones: the Farpoint 70 by Osprey. The “70” is the liters capacity and it has two sections, one being a daypack you can detach or attach as needed. It also zips up to cover the straps when you’re checking it at the airport. There’s a women’s version too. Here’s a YouTube video I put together showing what you get and note that it has a lifetime guarantee if anything fails.

Islands on the Olympic Map

If you’re headed to the Caribbean islands of St. Lucia or Dominica in the future, you may want to memorize the names Julien Alfred and Thea LaFond, respectively. Those two women won the very first Olympic medals for their country this year, both gold. Julien Alfred from St. Lucia won the 100-meter sprint, making her the fastest woman in the world, while Thea LaFond won the gold in the triple jump for Dominica. See the full story here.