Thanks for a great article. I saw much of the Honduran mainland in 1988 while a preventive medicine specialist there. The Copán site was a real highlight out of all of my travels (fewer than the author's to be sure). I also remember a small river which was actually the runoff of a geothermal hot spring and remarkable for its volume of very hot water (as compared to the one I saw in the Colorado Rockies). My boss called me foolish for even checking but I surprised us both when I discovered that mosquito larvae (wigglers) could still live in the very hot and not perfectly still waters defying what we had been taught about them. I was later disappointed when my request to visit Roatán was denied (by my military boss) and I have been wanting to visit ever since.

Recently I viewed the itineraries of every cruise ship with a port call in Roatán and I nearly did book on one. I have only gone on one cruise ever, to Antarctica in 2005, on an eco-tour with Zodiac shore excursions from a luxury 120 passenger ship with PhD biologists for guides and evening lectures on the ecosystems that we visited. We left only our footprints behind and even then we were very careful about where we left those on the rocks and snow fields by only following in our guide's foot steps.

I am glad that I skipped Roatán this year. I would be saddened to be a part of the current degradation of it's environment. More than ever now I wish that I could have seen it 20 years ago while it was still pristine.

There you go. You want to be the only person to see the sights, just like everyone else wants to be that one person. Funny how that works - so many people think that they are different from the mob.Those people who haved caused the degradation are you - look in the mirror.

How terrible that wmccomninel must suffer the psychic anguish of the poor, chronically underfed unwashed masses tromping amongst the playground of the 1st world's educated elite. How wise of her/him to skip Roatan on her/his annual globetrotting trip this year. We can only hope that world leaders choose to set aside beautiful, unspoiled wilderness for the rich to visit, safe from the "degradation" inflicted by the poor natives. If not, the pristine places of the world might not be attractive enough to host "luxury 120 passenger" ships with PhD biologist tour guides. Oh, the humanity!

Sorry to disappoint you but I am not a well-to-do elite globetrotter. Over my three adult decades I did just barely manage to visit all of the continents. My lifelong travel budget was far less than you have spent on the things which you take for granted and which I have never owned myself (new cars, a house, annual vacations, etc.). I am actually very poor and according to the Social Security statement which you get every year over the course of my life I have had an average income of just $11,843 per year to do everything with. Some years I lived in Army barracks and some I lived at my parent's house but that is still not much cash. When I left the Army 2 1/2 years ago I lost the last of my family (my Father) and my parent's house which was the only home which I ever had. I have been unemployed and homeless ever since, not much better off than the unwashed masses who you mentioned.

You seem to miss that when I was in Honduras in 1988 I was working as a preventive medicine specialist and helped to bring one day long health care clinics to remote mountain villages. I deloused the local people (gently by hand and not using some horrendous compressed air machine) and applied insecticide to their livestock to prevent Botflies from infecting them (that did require a horrendous machine to spray them).

Doctors gave out packets with vitamins, aspirin and antibiotics when indicated. Dentists pulled about three teeth per patient on average. That was the only health care those remote village people ever had. Despite the language barrier I got to know some of the Hondurans while there. When I later tried to continue such work by volunteering for the Peace Corps after college I was not accepted. I have done more good with less in my life than anyone who you personally know.

When I went on the luxury cruise (the only cruise I have been on) I was still a Sergeant in the Army and had just returned from a not so luxurious year in Iraq (not in the Green Zone either). It was supposed to be a trip with my girlfriend but she had already dumped me while I was still away at war so I had to go alone.

I picked the best ship for her not for me. She was a dentist and was used to nice accommodations whereas I had been a soldier in the field for years and would stay wherever (it was still better than much of the Army life which I got accustomed to while in the field artillery). It was more misery than luxury for me to go on that cruise without my girlfriend if that makes you feel any better to know.