Contents
What is Quaint Planet?
Quaint Planet is a predominantly Latin America-oriented travel, life and culture portal for independent travellers and other inquisitive beings. Its goal is to provide some informal reading material about various locations, ranging from the practical/guide travel pieces up to articles describing history as well as different ways of life in various regions.
In other words, this site is pretty much for curious travellers, who are keen on discovering various local cultural or historical nuances, legends and other peculiar facts about the locations they’re considering visiting. Be aware that due to the inclusion of such information, the posts might therefore be sometimes a bit longer. So if you’re not so keen on the local culture, history and other possible local curiosities that might await you in your next destination, you might find this site a bit wordy.
Anyway. Expect mostly informative texts with an occasional pinch of irony but please note that some articles could also venture into rather serious subjects. Additionally, the site could also partially serve as a sort of alternative travel guide. In other words, the goal here is to create and gather a variety of interesting, helpful as well as funny articles for travellers or people that like reading about travel.
Who is this site for?
This site is suitable for every being but it is primarily aimed at 30+ years of age-independent travellers, adventurers or just readers, who like to read about the destinations in the context of local culture and history.
Why such an age group?
It’s simple. IMHO, many travel sites appear to be addressing either much younger or much older audiences and both of these often mean rather different preferences, while the 30+ is a sort of middle ground, although it lies much closer to the first group. Age is however just a number and within the concept of this site, the 30+ number implies, for example, preferring “basic+” private accommodation instead of sleeping in dorms, respectively in a 5-star hotel.
Furthermore, my 30+ traveller would also mostly eat in a restaurant with the locals as opposed to cooking in the hostel kitchen, respectively checking out the Michelin star-rated restaurants in the area. And the 30+ I’m on about would also pick his or her wine from the middle part of the wine list and drink one bottle as opposed to 2 cheapest bottles for the 19yrs old or 1 glass from the $200 bottle of Volturno for the 60odd years-old 😉
A flashpacker?
Please do not mistake what I’m trying to describe for what some call a “flashpacker” style. There are some significant differences between my travelling style/standards and flashpacking because I’m just not “roughing it in luxury”, as someone described the meaning of the term, which I btw find rather annoying and wrong. What the hell does it really mean “roughing it in luxury” anyway?
I’m hoping that such a description is not meant to look down on the standards of the millions of people who live in worse conditions, right? Otherwise, it would be a horribly arrogant and callous way of looking at the world around us. “Roughing it”. Anyway, whatever it is, I guess it’s a good PR slogan your marketing boss would be thrilled to hear on the Monday morning meeting. But this site doesn’t have a boss. And it doesn’t even have Monday mornings 😉
Why have I started this travel blog?
The trigger for this site’s existence was the fact that just a few years ago I headed to Latin America for an extended trip and I couldn’t really find a blog or site I’d happily re-visit to read the new materials or when researching the locations I wanted to experience.
Don’t get me wrong please, there are plenty of decent and location-inspiring sites offering useful information, there are. It’s just I haven’t felt like I was the target audience for any of them, as I’ve mentioned above. For that reason I felt like I had to dig a bit deeper for information, gathering it from multiple sources to fit my needs and/or to answer questions I had.
Well, and once I’ve done all that work that btw proved very useful, I’ve decided to share it with everyone, just in case there were people out there who would ask the same set of questions as me.
What kind of travelling does Quaint Planet describe?
Well, here’s where people’s tastes differ quite a lot. Some people enjoy the fully organised all-inclusive resort holidays and others prefer more independent travelling when getting to know the local culture plays a significant role.
This site is obviously all about the latter option. You won’t find much about resort sort of holidays here then. The way of travelling this site is based upon could be partially described as budget travel, but I would prefer to call it “an efficient but comfortable learning experience on the road” or something along that line…
Anyway. When travelling, except for the general battery recharge, I also seek to learn something new. When it comes to budget, in my case it means not unnecessary overspending but that is without compromising on the actual quality of experience as well as on what I can learn from the thing.
Why come back to Quaint Planet?
No further than one click away from all the information, you need
First of all, Quaint Planet is dedicated to providing honest and truthful information. Quaint Planet is also not shy of uploading links to other travel websites if they provide additional useful info about the particular post topic – whether those are official location-based sites or reliable travel blogs.
For you, it means that you should never be further than one click away from getting all information you need about a specific location this site covers, that’s unless you’re looking for information about a specific restaurant or a hotel though because I’ve got no resources to cover the such broad topic as well. What I can do is to follow the trends and various travel forums as well as news in order to do our best to update any info provided on this site.
Reliability of information provided by Quaint Planet
FYI, I normally conduct the research and double-check any facts with at least one other reliable or official source. Then I travel to those places myself to test the results of my research 😉 Such triple-distilled information is then transformed into a text that’s here available for you. All checked in the real world.
Honesty vs soulless hunt for traffic
One of the main pillars this site is built on is being honest and pro-reader, rather than pro-traffic. In other words, this site is not some sort of pre-calculated click-bite/keyword-orientated machine to attract readers. All the opposite, it’s just about the love of travelling and honest writing. So there are no marketing hookups, no pop-up windows and stuff like that. I don’t really like it when it happens to me so why do it to others?
Travel with some knowledge
I always read a lot about the destination prior to my visit. It is not only about respecting the local culture, but also about learning something new. So if you like to travel with some knowledge and explore distant locations from a somewhat unique perspective, as opposed to the limits of various travel agencies as well as from certain restraints of the profit-based media, you might have just found yourself a useful site to point you the right directions 😉 I hope that you’ll find this site suitable as well as (I hope) an interesting source of information.
Local vs hostel experience
This site will be moving on the fringes of a classic backpacker “party hostel” scene because I believe that one doesn’t have to cross 1/2 of the planet to end up having their “local pub” kind of fun, which is what those international hostel bars are somewhat reminiscent of. I mean that it means socialising with other Westerners, with familiar conversation subjects, cultural references and so on.
Although the hostel bars are certainly worth checking out from time to time because they could be good fun and one can meet a lot of lovely like-minded souls, I also like to interact with the locals, AKA getting to know the local culture and other things instead 😉 In other words, I prefer a healthy mix of socialising with both groups, rather than just sticking with fellow Westerners only.
Site’s Menu
🌎 – Destinations
This section will be summing up all the location-based research I had to do for what I was up to in combination with experiencing its results in the actual destinations. Each location-based post on this site now lists pretty much everything you need to know about the particular location. In practical terms, we’re talking about things to see and/or do, history, safety, get in, when to visit, where and how long to stay, interesting as well as useful links and many other sections of informative character.
Furthermore, I’ve included Google Map links to all places of interest listed on this site. This feature could potentially help you to determine your itinerary if you use the locations in the “want to go” section, once you log in to your Google account. I hope that someone will find this section useful for their travels, mainly a first-timer could use some info from those texts. I will be happy to provide any additional information about places I’ve been to if you will have any questions.
🗺️ – Practical Tips
Is rather a self-explanatory category. It will obviously offer various tips when it comes to things like accommodation, transport, and budget as well as various warnings and tricks regarding dos and don’ts, where to buy things you might find hard to find, what to watch out for and so on…
❤ & 🎬 – Life & Culture
This category could be spicier and funnier as well as more personal. You know, we all occasionally suffer from observations, interesting ideas and the ‘right here right now things in general. From the journalistic point of view, this section is divided into History and Humanity; Opinions AKA thoughts; Travel Life; Culture; and articles that include or are based on local legends. The last but not least subcategory is Travel Soundtrack AKA various travel-related playlists, whether it’s for driving, falling asleep during a long flight, driving at night, chilling in a beach bar and so on 🎧
🎯 – Featured Articles
This is a cross-section category that lists articles that could be characterised as defining when it comes to the values this site stands for. Generally speaking, I’m talking about special-interest articles with an added dimension of humanity. In other words, those articles are more than a collection of bare facts.
👉🏻 – Services Plus
Please note that I also offer a service to create/design your own custom itinerary for your upcoming trip, in case you were a bit of an adventurous person/people without having much time to do it yourself. Furthermore, there are various media services I could help you with, in case you were interested.
FAQ
Values and ethical standards
Quaint Planet’s major principles are truthfulness; accuracy; objectivity; impartiality; fairness and public accountability. QP furthermore stands for transparency and providing verified information. Prejudice, slur or any form of hate and intolerance have no place on this site.
Guest writing
Quaint Planet accepts guest posts, in case they have met the above-mentioned standards as well as the site’s informal writing style.
Guest writer’s fees
QP regrets to announce that it is currently unable to pay any guest writer for submitting their pieces. I could however produce an article in return for your work if a mutual agreement took place. In case you were interested to write a piece or two for this site, you can find more details here 🙂
Suggestions and comments
Quaint Planet is open to any suggestions or comments unless they are showing any signs of hate speech that encourages negative views towards a person or group based on things such as race, religion, nationality, sex, beliefs or sexual orientation.
Promotions, SEO and Web Design offers
Under certain circumstances, Quaint Planet might be open to promotional offers regarding its design or SEO improvements, if the offer is suitable and made for this website only. However, we will not respond to mass impersonal emails sent out only to reach potential customers.
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Latin American locations covered on Quaint Planet
Santiago de Chile ► Valparaíso ► Santiago de Chile ►Punta Arenas – Ushuaia – Punta Arenas ► Puerto Natales – Torres del Paine – Puerto Natales ► El Calafate (Perito Moreno Glacier, Arg) ► El Chaltén (Los Glaciares National Park) ► Chile Chico (Ch) – Puerto Rio Tranquillo (Marble Caves) ► Coyhaique – Puyuhuapi – (Carretera Austral) ► Puerto Chacabuco – Quellón/Castro ► Puerto Varas – San Carlos de Bariloche (Arg) ► Buenos Aires ► Colonia (Ur) ► Montevideo ► Punta del Diablo – Cabo Polonio ► Montevideo ► Salto ► Concordia (Arg) ► Puerto Iguazú (Iguazú Falls) ► Salta ► San Salvador de Jujuy ► Tilcara ► San Pedro de Atacama (Ch) ► Uyuni Salt Flats Tour (Bol) ► Uyuni ► Sucre – La Paz (Death Road Tour) ► Copacabana (Lake Titicaca) – Isla del Sol – Copacabana ► Cusco (Per) ► Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu) ► Cusco ► Lima ► Máncora – Montañita (Ecu) ► Puerto López ► Quito ► Ipiales (Col) – Pasto ► Tatacoa Desert ► Bogotá ► Medellín ► Villa de Lleyva ► Santa Marta – Cartagena – Rincón del Mar Necoclí ► Capurganá ► Puerto Obaldía (Pan) ► Panama City ► Las Lajas ► Cerro Punta ► David ► Bocas del Torro ► San José (Costa Rica) ► San Juan del Sur (Nic) – Ometepe ► Granada ► Managua – El Rama – Bluefields – Corn Islans ► Léon ► El Tunco (El Salvador) ► La Antigua Guatemala – Lake Atitlán ► Lanquín (Semuc Champey) – Flores (Tikal) ► Belize City ► Bacalar – Tulum – Playa del Carmen – Mérida – Valladolid – Cancún ✈️ .
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