travellers tales

[Queen Firey-Bou]

rather than drag the nanny thread up...heeeereees another one !

me , i like travel, i fantasise about it a lot, now ive got an income & my juves are older/saner.. i'm defo taking steps into the big old world. Some of you done loads of travel & its no biggie, some of you live in exotic places..

ooo its sooo exiting.

last month a week in portugal.

now i think ive found silly cheap flights to stockholm sweden for mini-bous birthday w/e after this.

any of yous been ?
planning silly cheap jaunts abroad?
croatia? i really fancy that this autumn, any inside info?
whats estonia like ?

regale me with tales !

[ming]

Yo Bou.  I went to Stockholm a while back, very nice.  Lots to see in the city itself, and if you get chance, there are gazillions of islands nearby which make for a really nice day trip if the weather's nice (maybe not this time of year, though).

Not planning any getaways for a bit - just surviving the winter, then heading west (BC, Alberta) this summer.  Then maybe back to Norway in the Autumn...

I was on Svalbard this summer and it was fan-bloody-tastic!  Even went swimming in the Arctic Ocean (briefly; it was -1.8C) way up at 82 degrees north.  Polar bears, walrus, beluga, etc. - and this was work, so it really doesn't get much better.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

wowee that sounds mad ! i'd love to smell the air & see the skies that far north.

i once got a whiff of an art project with the sami deer herders up above the artic circle, that would be a dream & a half... ahhhh

[Generally Contrary]

I've never been to Scandanavia, but I am off to Barcelona on Sunday - picked up some flights from a colleague who couldn't use them.

[Endjinn]

Before going off to university I spent a summer travelling across Southern Africa, and it was possibly the best, and certainly craziest summer ever. At one point we (there was about ten of us) drank the town of Rorke's Drift (where Zulu happened) dry.

I feel shame and pride in equal measures.

Hopefully going to Japan for a month this summer, if I can scrape the pennies together. Got some friends teaching English there so I'm planning to save money by not paying for places to sleep.

[Floyd-the-k]

Endjinn, give me a yell, maybe we could meet up!


On my last holiday I spent a day in Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand. Only one day because I wasn't at all interested in the place; just wanted to catch up with my great friend Pat who teaches there.
   It's a glorious and surreal place. The city looks like an English city circa 1730 or thereabouts....the whole place was put up in the 1800s but with an eye on England as it was in days of yore. the city is surrounded by far too many snow capped mountain peaks stretching far off into the distance. Imagine the cutest town in the UK (maybe Lincoln?) only cleaner and in better condition, surrounded on all sides by about twenty sets of Swiss Alps.  
  The people were very friendly; imagine friendly customs staff at an airport! although a kid in a cafe sneered at me for being Australian (I'd asked for a pretend-cappuchino for my son, called a "babychino". He said "we call them "fluffies" where do they say "babychinos"
"in Australia"
"huh, Australia"
  also they have pictures of Liv Tyler on their planes.
  Pat took me to the Catholic Basilica, which is surprisingly huge and beautiful and looks as if it got lost on its' way to renaissance Italy.  
       We had a walk around the town and a brief ride up a nearbye mountain
  I want to go back there and ride around on a motorbike.  

[Devons Daddy]

luckily for me my localation,with the just launched budget airlines, i can offer the WOW places in south east asia.

not to rub it in there BOU, but yesterday i went to INDONSESIA Bintan, to play golf,just to give you a picture, the course is carved out of the jungle, with the 9th hole ending at the beach. which is a golden colour with palm trees, in fact they have notices about being aware of falling cocoanuts.
 
i spent the weekend before christmas in Kaula Lumpur shopping we stayed in a hotel in the shadow of the petronas towers,

i like to scuba dive also, which is pretty handy around here,Tioman is easily done in an overnight trip. thats the island they used for the hollywood movie South Pacific.

we are off to Mallaca next month the final stop on the silk road,before europe that we all learnt about at school.sight seeing and cultural sort of visit.

likely to go to CHINA this year,as we wish to see the great wall.
easy when such places are only between 40 minutes and 4 hours away.
and cheap of course.
singapore to Bangkok by budget airline is about $120 or 40 sterling.

i miss the UK though to be honest.

[Capt.Zeep]

Haven't been abroad in ages - too skint or too busy - but I'm determined to do so this year -haven't decided where yet.  Pauline realy fancies Alaska.  I don't mind, anywhere really as long as it's AWAY!

[Tanky]

As most of you are fed up of me going on about, last year i had a little stop in Singapore (I'm still trying to re-create the noodles) then on to Melbourne. I spent a month travelling up the east coast of oz, flew from Brisbane (never again!) to Auckland on a plane with Viggo thingy on the side and James Brown in 1st class. Faffed about on the North Island for a bit, spent far too much cash on doing crazy things, flew to LA, pootled about in California, got a job in a hostel in San Diego for a while and flew home totally skint.

Anyways, i've got itchy feet too, and two ideas. The first is another long jaunt around SE Asia, possibly volunteering for lots of aid work along the way.
The second is yet another long jaunt through the whole of the Carribean. Thing is, you don't tend to hear of backpackers doing that very often, does anyone know why?
Help me out and i shall regale (?) you with tales of befriending leopards, why koalas are evil, how to go to a hangi for free and how to get thrown out of the viper room.
I thank you
tanky x

[Devons Daddy]

carribean ?

lots of islands not so easy to get between,they are quite spaced out, mainly five star resorts ran by big american companies, worked in by locals or cheap overseas labour on 10 month contracts, the place is filled with criuse ships,but after 6pm the towns are empty.
90% of jobs are in the tourism style industry.
bars die at night as there are no tourists wandering around. they go back to the ships or the resort hotels.

not much cheap accomadation. the local wages are very very low, and to be honest its not shall we say crime free after dark?

its not easy to get too and from these areas, no budget travel options. unless you work on the yachts which ply the routes.

[Tanky]

Thanks DD, yeah i thought it may be a price thing. The idea of working on the yachts sounds good, i shall continue the research...




*Koalas are evil because: Under the pretence of giving you a big photogenic hug, they will actually try to tear your head and arms off. Personally I would rather hug a crocodile. :)

[House of Usher]

Not being that enamoured of hot places, I've enjoyed visits to Denmark, Sweden and Finland. It's not that exotic; it's a bit like going somewhere even more comfortable than home, and probably with better plumbing.

[WoD]

If anyone is going to Stockholm try and see the Vasa Museum (a bloody big boat with a museum built around it)...I only managed an hour in there because of a shortage of time, but I could have spent a day there.

However, don't expect to get drunk...unless you want to really stretch the overdraft.

Link: http://www.photoguide.to/stockholm/vasamuseum.html" target="_blank">Vasa Museum

http://photoguide.myqth.com/film42/Thumb/Dscn5742.jpg">

[Martin Jameson]

Best place I have been to is the Grand Canyon a couple of years ago. Hope to go back this year - if you want a peacefull place to relax this is it.

Glendaloch in ireland is really nice too.

[ming]

lightsurfer - if you liked the Grand Canyon, you'd love other bits of the south west.  Zion, Arches, Capitol Reef are all really great national parks and nicer places than the GC (which, admittedly is rather grand and canyony).  Best of the lot is Canyonlands - sees much less traffic due to being less developed than most others (basic campsites and more walking involved to see stuff puts a lot of people off).

Get yourself in the mood by picking up some of Edward Abbey's stuff - The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire are great!