It’s time for another collection of the best travel stories on the web, from the award-winning webzine Perceptive Travel.

One of the features is mine this time, a piece on getting to the roots of good coffee by visiting farms where the beans are grown. Come along for the ride to Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia in Alert in the Americas.

On Ontario’s remote Moose Factory Island, where the Cree First Nation is cautiously courting tourism, Carolyn Heller learns that there’s more to see than the “sights.” See Going Where No Roads Go in Ontario.

Lea Aschkenas heads into the Amazon jungle of Ecuador and fights discomfort and insects to appreciate the teeming life around her.

Graham Reid checks out some new and noteworthy world music. Afro-soul, Indo-jazz, desert blues, and “Autotune goes to Africa.”

Travel book reviews from William Caverlee include Encounters from a Kayak, Food Lover’s Guide to the World, and On This Earth, A Shadow Falls.

As usual, we’re giving away some cool travel gear as well. Last month someone scored a new pair of hiking shoes from Wolverine. This month we’re giving away a whole Travelling Light package from Sea to Summit. The winner will take home a daypack that compresses down into a tiny pouch, a mesh laundry bag, Travelling Light See Pouches, and a travel wallet. If you’re on our newsletter list already, check your inbox or bulk folder. If not, sign up here to get in on the action next time. You can also follow Perceptive Travel on Facebook and watch for the contest questions.

I’m currently in Santa Catalina, Panama, a surfer magnet on the Pacific Coast. I’ve got Panama listed as an “honorable mention” in my book because some things are a bargain, especially outside the capital, but this is a country with a booming economy—as in 10.5 percent growth last year. Most people aren’t rich here, especially outside the capital business district, but the middle class is large and getting bigger each year. Plus half the wealth of pre-Chavez Venezuela has seemingly landed in Panama City.

You could come to Panama and do nothing but kick back and party on the cheap. This is, after all, one of the cheapest places in the world to knock down some drinks. Almost nothing is taxed heavily here, including booze. But if you want to do the things most leisure travelers come here to do, you have to splurge a little now and then.

Back to Santa Catalina, where you can get a hostel bunk for $10 or less a block from the beach or get a private room for $15-$25. The thing is, if you want to get out to Coiba Island, where all these photos were taken, you’ll pay $50 a person for a boat of six people. It’s not that they’re ripping you off: it’s 37 miles to the island and gasoline is a tad more here than it is in the U.S. You need a few guys along as well, including at least one who can speak English. Plus park permits.

So if you want to get the full experience, you need to pay more than the proverbial $50 a day that Nomadic Matt lays out in his book I reviewed a while back. As he admits, sometimes you’ll go over for a good reason, so you need to make up for it later (or, I would add, have a splurge budget in addition to start with).

Being here brought me back to an experience I had as a round-the-world backpacker in the late 1990s. My wife and I had spent nearly six disappointing, sometimes grueling weeks in the Philippines, with only flashes of good memories to show for it. Overall, we were dejected and ready to high-tail it out of there to somewhere more attractive. When we finally got to El Nido in Palawan though, our moods brightened considerably. Beauty, better food, a decent cheap hotel. But the price for a boat tour of the islands and lagoons—$40 each in late 90′s dollars—was really going to thrash our budget for the week.

We debated, we hesitated, but in the end we threw down the cash and went out on our boat tour. It was by far the highlight of our last month in the country. A day of unsurpassed beauty and one postcard-perfect stop after another. Thankfully we had the sense to step up and go.

You won’t remember what you did with the $40 or $50 you saved once by skipping something when you’re 80 and looking back on your life. Or probably even what you spent for the splurge. You will remember the great times you had.

Take a hit of the April issue of Perceptive Travel and you might reach enlightenment. Or at least be entertained.

We’ve got weirdness all around this time, starting with a story about an archaeological site in Panama where the caretakers believes it’s really a place the aliens visited way back when. See What to Do About Barriles?

James Dorsey is back with another tale of stumbling into a village in Africa and finding himself the instant elder. He wants to buy a souvenir pipe. They just want him to smoke khat with them. So it’s time for Passing the Pipe in Ethiopia.

Anja Mutic makes her debut with a tale about her first trip to India—and therefore her first impressions—being part of a luxury travel press trip designed to only show the edited version of the country. See India of Light and Darkness.

Naturally we’ve got the scoop on new books and music worth checking out, so see the April travel book reviews from Susan Griffith and the April world music reviews from Laurence Mitchell.

Win some travel gear!

Each month we give away something cool to someone who follows the webzine via the monthly e-mail newsletter or the Facebook page. See links for both on the home page and enter. Last month two readers won a nice new Armitron watch and this month we’re giving away some $100+ hiking shoes from Wolverine. What are you waiting for?

The December 2012 issue of Perceptive Travel is an Americas issue on the features, with a few trips to Europe and elsewhere in the books and music.

Niall McCrae makes his debut doing what not many British visitors have probably done: visiting the faded rust belt town of Gary, Indiana. He ponders the future of manufacturing centers built for automobiles in What’s Wrong Gary?

Chris Epting knows a thing or two about obscure landmarks and claims to fame. This time he takes us on a road trip across America, visiting the world capitals of items like fire hydrants, bedding plants, and cow chips. See We’re the Greatest! World Capitals of…

We’re happy to see the return of former contributor Darrin DuFord, with a piece about the opening of Panama’s top observatory to tourists. See The Astrotourists of Panama.

Susan Griffith returns to highlight new and noteworthy travel books on obscure islands, voluntourism, and Naples. Laurence Mitchell is back to spin some new world music albums from South America, Europe, and yoga studios of the world.

One lucky reader who enters our monthly contest will score a new $200 GPS unit for their car from Magellan. This RoadMate 5265T-LMB GPS will ship out to someone before Christmas, maybe to you if you sign up for the monthly newsletter or join Perceptive Travel on Facebook.

Time to check in with the travel news and blogosphere to bring home some timely news and tips for travelers on a budget.

I’m quoted in this article from Kiplinger Personal Finance: Your guide to bargain travel in 2012. (If you prefer, here’s just the airfare part of it at the Chicago Tribune instead.)

If you’re irked by resort fees tacked onto the room rate at hotels, here’s a piece on who has resort fees and who doesn’t in Las Vegas.

About.com’s Budget Travel site has a nice 10-part post on Travel Myths for Latin America.

And it’s always good for me to post another myth-busting article about crime in Mexico. As in you’re ten times more likely to be murdered in a drug-related crime in our nation’s capital than you are in Mexico City. The Yucatan is safer than Canada. And let’s not even bring up New Orleans…

Will Panama become a hot travel destination? The New York Times thinks so. I’m not so sure. I like Panama a lot, but their tourism promotion efforts are stuck in the past (“The interwhat?”) and they have a habit of spending their money on silly ad slogans. But the pieces are all there if they can get the word out.

How much does it cost to travel in Thailand? As Nomadic Matt found out when his vacationing friends joined up with him, that depends a whole lot on whether you’re a long-term traveler or you’re on vacation. When time is short, double your budget.

Want to take a trip to New York City on the cheap? How about free? No, it’s not a contest. Just pull up this Earthcam website and you can see the Statue of Liberty from its “torchcam” or see the lower Manhattan skyline from the island with the “harbor cam.”