Now and then we’ll get e-mails from readers asking why we don’t review rental villas in Latin America since we cover hotels. Their point being, for groups or families, renting a villa or a condo makes a lot more sense than staying in a hotel since there’s more space, a kitchen, and maybe a private cook.

They’re right of course, but for us it’s a matter of that being more than we can manage. If we just covered Los Cabos or the west coast of Costa Rica, it might be doable. We’re Luxury Latin America though, bringing you the best of the best from the Rio Grande down to the tip of Patagonia. Getting a handle on the constantly shifting villa rental scene on two continents would be impossible to do in a thorough way.

That doesn’t mean we’ll ignore rental homes completely though. Our new luxury tour feature this week is on a villa vacation in Costa Rica, on the Pacific Coast near Jaco.

Our correspondent set up a short villa stay with activities through Mead Brown, an agency that specializes in high-end rental property in Costa Rica. You simply tell the agency what you’re looking to do and they’ll take care of all the arrangements. In this case, it was golf, ziplining, horseback riding, and getting up close and personal with huge crocodiles.

Michael Steinberger runs Latin Tour Dimensions, a company that is known for its custom tours in Central America and South America, trips that are “complex, in-depth, and expensive.”  I interviewed him to find out what kinds of travel trends he is seeing. We talked about the changing face of tourism, what destinations are hot, and how a travel agent is like a doctor making a diagnosis. A short version of the interview is here, with the rest of it continued after the jump.

What kinds of trends are you seeing in Latin America? What has changed?
On the destination side, Argentina has been crazy–it’s off the map. Whereas every second request used to be Costa Rica, now every second request is Argentina. Plus people are staying longer and doing more. It used to just be Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, Bariloche, and then over to Chile. Now people are doing long custom tours of just Argentina and going to Mendoza for wine tours. They’re going beyond Bariloche to Calafate. In Chile, travelers are branching out beyond the well-worn path.

We are also getting a lot more upscale family tour requests now, with soft adventure activities and requests for a different kind of hotel style, one with a real sense of place. It’s a bonding experience.

There has also been a clear shift in what people want to experience when they travel. Before, people went to cities in Europe to see buildings, to Africa to see animals, to Asia to see monuments. But then the baby boomers really got hooked on experiential vacations. They decided they wanted to go to Tikal, Machu Picchu, and remote jungles, to see ancient civilizations. That’s what put Latin America on the map because we have it all. We saw that early on and embraced it. People who travel to Central and South America are well-versed travelers who are looking for more.

Give me some examples of some unusual requests you’ve been able to fulfill.
We do all kinds of adventure activities, but the toughest one to get together was a wine and gourmet tour across Chile and Argentina. We got the request from four couples in New York that had various wine and restaurant connections in their jobs. They knew their stuff and wanted a true gourmet experience. So we called in chefs to take them to market and cook for them, got them into the best restaurants, and had them meet with top winemakers. The challenge was that there wasn’t a structure already set up for this by anyone else. We had to find the right small local suppliers in each place to make it seamless, with the same high level of service throughout.

We also had one family from London that was very involved in polo and horses, so we needed to line up estancias around Argentina that would satisfy them, going beyond the surface level offerings to put them together with real horse people. We welcome challenges like these though. We really enjoy doing them because it shows we’re better equipped than the paint-by-number tour groups offering very similar programs.

See the rest of the interview with Latin Tour Dimension’s Michael Steinberger.

Flying on Copa Airlines feels suspiciously the same as flying on Continental Airlines. The interior looks the same, the seat pitch is the same (cramped 32-inch pitch in coach, decent with leather seats in business class), and the logos are similar. None of this is coincidental: Continental had a 51% stake in the airline at one point. They sold off shares a bit at a time until May of this year, when they sold the remainder for a tidy profit. Copa Air passengers still earn Continental OnePass miles on all flights, with the same (recently hacked down) bonus levels for elite members.

There’s a big difference in one key area though: service. The gate agents are noticeably less harried, the flight attendants are more pleasant, and you don’t have to pay for a cocktail or glass of wine in coach.

Here’s what happened to me though on my last trip to Panama though that really showed me what a great airline this is. Through my own fault, I had said “go ahead” to an agent who sent me an itinerary, not noticing that my flight back was returning to Miami, not my connecting airport of Orlando. A well-tipped concierge at the Bristol Hotel worked it all out for me with Copa on the phone so I could switch the flight with no charge.

At the gate, however, the system wasn’t letting the switch happen without a fee, despite gate agent Cecilia’s attempts to make it right. She spent ten minutes trying to work it out, another ten with her supervisor, then headed to a back room. Another ten minutes went by, but she returned with a smile, handing me my boarding pass, and said, “Please enjoy your flight.” All set, and upgraded to business class on my Y-up fare.

That Cecilia was dedicated! Somehow I can’t imagine any U.S. carrier’s gate agent working that hard to help a customer avoid an extra fee. Even more rare, there were plenty of agents on hand, so there weren’t people behind me in line ready to throw their suitcase at my head.

Don’t expect to get blown away by lie-flat beds, seatback entertainment consoles, or amazing cuisine, but considering that Copa’s fares usually deliver better service at a lower price than others competing on the same route, check them out when comparing options. Business fares and Y class fares are a downright bargain sometimes. Copa flies from five U.S. airports to destinations in Panama (their hub), as well as Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile.

Copa has been named Best Airline in Central America and the Caribbean for the five consecutive years by the aviation-industry research company Skytrax.

Oddly, this is one of the few airlines that hasn’t released its data to SeatGuru.com, so you’ll have to rely on the sites own seating chart when booking online.

Related info:

A Luxury Yacht Cruise in Panama

The best luxury hotels in Panama

Finding worthwhile, well-researched travel destination information on the web can be a frustrating and time-sucking endeavor. In most cases you’ll spend half the time and learn twice as much by just buying a good guidebook. There are exceptions now and then, however, which brings me to this great series of posts on Mendoza from the Global Nomad blog at Planeteye: Dining at the wineries of Mendoza.

If you’ve landed on my post here after September ‘08, just go to the September archives of that blog and scroll back from September 17. There are great roundups of the restaurant scene and meals you can have at local wineries. At someone who has dined at a few of them myself, I’d say it’s an accurate and comprehensive view of the Mendoza, Argentina wine and dine scene. Our own article, Touring the best of Mendoza wine country hits a few of the same highlights, including an impressive meal at the Club Tapiz restaurant and a tasting at Nieto Senetiner.

If you’d like to do more than just pass through the region, check out our interview with David English, who helps clients make good choices when searching for Mendoza real estate and Argentina vineyards.

At long last, we have reviews up of five of the top hotels in Mexico City. Frankly we weren’t in a huge hurry since the city gets far more business travelers than people on a vacation, but if nothing else a lot of travelers end up needing to overnight there at some point or another.

A correspondent of ours who lives there was able to give us some insight on the current scene and review the best hotels in Mexico City with an eye on local perceptions. We will likely be adding more reviews later as time permits, but here are the ones we have posted now:

Four Seasons Mexico

Casa Vieja (pictured here)

Condesa df

Habita Hotel

W Mexico City

We have our eye on a few others, but if you’ve experienced an over-the-top luxury experience in Mexico’s capital, leave a note for us in the comments here.