The Best Precious Metals Themed Vacation Destinations

It’s always prescient to get away. If you’re in the gold industry, or are a gold bug, maybe you can combine work with play and go see the world’s most visited gold tourist sites.

Although the gold tourism industry is burgeoning, one can enjoy vacations shopping world class artisanal products in the Middle East and Africa or panning for the yellow metal in beautiful rivers of California for gold.

Dubai

Dubai is one of the best known gold shopping destinations in the world, and it’s actively marketed as such.

According to The National, Indian tourists increase the price of precious metal in the UAE by 22 percent. The World Gold Council posits individuals bought 77 tonnes of jewelry, gold bars and coins there.

The increasing price of the metal, however, drives down such tourism, according to businesses in the country.

The gold tourism has been caused by high premiums in India, according to Tarek ElMdaka, the co-chief executive of Kaloti, a Dubai-based jeweller.

“People are visiting Dubai, paying for their travel expenses and hotel accommodation. They travel, shop, meet friends and family,” he said. Then they go back to India with gold.

“There are always people who play the risk game on the commercial side, and who use illegal channels to bring gold into India,” said Mr Elmdaka. “It can be done through many routes in Pakistan and Bangladesh.”

Silversmithing became popular in Taxco thanks to American William Spratling, who came to the town in the 1920s. He created silver design workshops and exported items for shipment back home. Tourism thereafter became a major economic force in Taxco.

Bay Area, California

The California Gold Rush has meant a continued tradition of gold tourism to the region. In Jamestown, California one can enjoy gold prospecting adventures and potentially find flakes of gold.

California gold rush tourism is popular in the state’s capital, Sacramento. Rush for gold along The American River or visit subterranean cavern.

Cape Town, South Africa

The Gold Africa Museum in Cape Town, for instance, seeks to “preserve the art of African wrought gold.”  A boutique shop there sells 18 karat to 22 karat gold. Many of the museums artefacts stem from 350 West African from the Barbier-Muller museum in Geneva. Gold mining once produced two-thirds of the world’s gold.

Lebanon

Celuk offers shopping for jewelries. Here, in this village, the jewelry making process becomes is an attraction. Check out jewelry by local artists on display in store’s along the village’s main street. Gold and silver jewelries in Balinese traditional design run aplenty here.