Travel Tips
What generic advice can you give to improve another's experience of a destination?
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Best and worst form of transportation?
Trains, planes or automobiles? Or be more specific...a certain railway line, or a particular type of plane or boat/ship?
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markbroadhead If time or money wasn't a factor I'd travel by ship most of the time. My first baby steps were on a ship in gale, but since my childhood planes and buses have dominated my modes of transport. Unfortunately, these two come equal last in my preference. But the economies of time/money means they usually win over ships and trains.
2 months ago · report -
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madtuktukchallenge Well traveersing in a tuk tuk is by n means comfortable but it's always such a laugh. Every time I hop in one with a group the journey is complete with laughter, fright and a few curses and numb bums along the way. So now I'm taking it to the next level and competing in the MaD Tuk Tuk Challenge Cambodia 2010. 10 days across remote Cambodia in a tuk tuk. It's insane - I don't know why we choose to do these things but the more I travel the more adrenalin and discomfort required - and this is for charity. Check it out online I'm keen to have a few more fellow travelers participate - www.madtuktukchallenge.com
about 1 month ago · report -
imogenb trains, esp in eastern europe, where they are cheap, frequent and comfy. just take your own food. you can read, flop around with the sway of the carriage, sleep, chat to locals, admire the scenery, walk up and down the platforms at stops, zone out listening to the clatter of the wheels on the tracks...idyllic
17 days ago · report
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Top Travel Experiences
What experiences would you recommend to other travellers?
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markbroadhead Get lost in a city, any city. Obviously, don't get lost in a sketchy neighbourhood.
about 1 month ago · report -
madtuktukchallenge A local bus ride in remote Laos - its bound to bring adventure
about 1 month ago · report
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Where will you never go?
Never say never, but is there a country/region/city you can't imagine going to?
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markbroadhead Disneyland, Disney World, etc., pretty much cities or realities unto themselves. I didn't go Disneyland when I was in L.A. I don't see the appeal? The happiest place to queue in the world? No one has convinced me yet to change my mind.
3 months ago · report -
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What have learned about yourself on your travels?
Travelling can lead to just as much inward discovery as outward discovery.
The encounter with a different culture will often make you question how you think or what you do at home.
So what have you learned about yourself while roaming the globe?-
markbroadhead I've learned that I don't like flying. I'm scared of flying, it's just that I find it incredibly tedious, noisy, and a lot like a nursing home. In short, I am not a patient person, in both senses of the word. I prefer to be my own boss, and not rely on someone else. This reaches extremes when I get to a destination because I will sometimes walk for hours rather than catch a taxi or some other transport system. The upside, of course, is that I see more by walking, and this also why I do it, but the independence of walking is my primary reason for doing it.
3 months ago · report -
markbroadhead That should've been "I'm not scared of flying.."
3 months ago · report
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Travel Commandments
What are your Travel Commandments? Those typically unwritten laws that you have travelled by.
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markbroadhead Thou shall come home needing a holiday to get over your holiday.
Thou shalt not visit McDonalds or any other international fast food chain unless it is used their restrooms.
Thou shalt not enter an Irish pub in any country other than Ireland.
Thou shall respect the local laws and customs.3 months ago · report -
drifting_adam Thou shalt learn to say "Please" "Thank you" and "2 beers thanks" in the local language
Thou shalt not horde stupid trinkets (although we all fail that one)
Thou shalt travel with no more than 2 pairs of shoes3 months ago · report
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Best and Worst Value for Money Destination?
A destination that was worth every penny and more? And a destination that wasn't worth as much as you spent?
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straitty Laos - everything still at local prices cause they´re too laid back to hammer the tourists for every penny they have. A very pleasent surprise after the rip-off merchants and inflated prices of Thailand and Vietnam, where you thought it was good value for money, but it´s still at least 2x what locals pay.
Worst value? any taxi, anywhere in the world, always, for ever.3 months ago · report -
markbroadhead Vietnam is the best I've been to for value for money. From catching a scooter taxi to eating pho, you would have to be mean spirited to complain. Fiji was a big disappointment for me. I suppose an Australian shouldn't go overseas for a beach holiday (I was actually coming back from 3 months in the US, and needed to decompress), but it ain't cheap and most of the culture was in decline.
3 months ago · report
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Taste, Smell, Sound or Feel
The idea is to give the first sensation of a destination that is mentioned by the last respondent in this thread. Your response may include the sight/s that were part of the sensation, but this is more about the other senses that are tied to your visit. It could be a meal that is inextricably linked to the character of the place or a smell that lingers in your memory, or whatever. After answering the previous respondent's destination, offer a new destination for the next person to answer. It could be a city, region, country, etc.
I'll have to give myself a destination to start things off: Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
I ate pho (rice noodle soup) every day I was in Saigon. It is one of those meals that can be eaten at any time of the day. Its smell and taste is overwhelmingly from the Vietnamese mint that you add after it is served. That is my over-riding sense of Saigon.
For the next person: Morocco.
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webtrends2 The feel of sand in the desert in southern Morocco. Fine fine sand that can be stopped by nothing.
3 months ago · report -
webtrends2 Brazil
3 months ago · report
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Seven Wonders of the World
What are your seven wonders, natural or human-made (that you've seen)?
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markbroadhead In no particular order...1. the Pantheon in Rome 2. the traffic in Cairo 3. Manhattan (I walk around constantly amazed) 4. Flying fish http://bit.ly/8KrLD 5. the lakes on Fraser Island 6. the stare of an Argentine women 7. a fresh baguette in France
4 months ago · report -
chrisboden Unordered: 1. Victoria Falls, 2. the Warriors at Xian, 3. Barrier Reef, 4. Great Wall, 5. Michelangelo's David, 6. Sistine Chapel roof, 7. Swan Lake at the Bolshoi
3 months ago · report
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Happy returns
Odysseus wanders the known world, returning to Ithaca so changed that only his dog recognises him. I want to invert the scenario...which travel destinations have you returned to? Which had changed more...you or the destination? How?
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errol But Mark, he wasn't changed by travel - he was changed by Athena's magic spell. Travel didn't change Odysseus one little bit. He was a short, rude little 'ranga when he left Troy (backstabbing his mates and stealing other men's girlfriends) and he was a short, rude little 'ranga on the road (poking sticks in the locals' eyes and sleeping with inappropriate witches).
I returned to Samoa a few years' ago after an absence of about eight years. It hadn't changed much (except they have mobile phones now). That said, I hadn't changed much either. (Except I have a mobile phone now.)3 months ago · report -
sirenitaviajera I have lived outside my own country (Denmark) for 8 years... When I return now I often get a feeling of sadness that things are not the way I remember them (e.g. why suddenly so much talk about racism and so many votes for a right-wing party when Denmark was supposed to be the very essence of openmindedness???) but I sometimes have to ask myself whether it's not my point of view that has changed... Maybe I'm more critical and have a wider perspective that doesn´t allow me to blindly believe in the idealized image I had when I left as a protected 19-year-old?
3 months ago · report
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Travel indulgences?
I heard that Bill Bryson admitted that one of his travel pleasures is in being able to wear his shoes when resting on a hotel bed. What do you do while travelling which you wouldn't do/get away with at home?
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ziggymello My travel indulgence is buying art books...too many art books. And food...way too much food.
4 months ago · report -
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markbroadhead Drinking beer in the morning and not feeling guilty about it because I can blame jet lag.
3 months ago · report -
sirenitaviajera Eating anything I want and trying local specialties without a guilty conscience no matter how many calories they have!
3 months ago · report -
brianbatchelor Eating as often as I like, having more than 2 coffees a day
3 months ago · report -
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What is your earliest travel memory?
It could be your earliest domestic or international trip memory (give both if you have the time).
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katija One of my earliest international travel memories is wonder and amazement at the arrival of a room service meal at the Mandarin Hotel in Singapore. (I was six years old at the time.) I can also remember my brother and I thinking that one of the best things about traveling were the single-serve cereal packs at hotel breakfast buffets.
4 months ago · report -
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markbroadhead Katija has reminded me of a long lost memory of staying at motels in Australia. Motels used to have large letterbox-like slits at the bottom of the door to your room. In the morning the staff would slide our breakfast through the slit that my parents had ordered the previous night. I think the motels from my memory were in Queensland. All my other memories from that trip are fake -- stolen from family photos -- as I was only four or five years old.
4 months ago · report -
docbrown I think the first trip I can recall is camping in Yosemite Valley at Lower Pines. I'm sure it was just as crowded as it is today, but all I remember was the enormous scale of everything: huge trees, big open meadows, unbelievably tall cliffs. Oh, and I think rainbow sherbet was somehow involved.
4 months ago · report -
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sirenitaviajera My only real memories from my first trip to Greece with my parents are the playground outside the hotel, and the fact that they had pancakes at the breakfast buffet! To me pancakes were a dessert and the idea of having them for breakfast was like a fantasy in the style of "when I grow up I'll have cake for dinner and noone can tell me to eat my vegetables instead" so I was completely fascinated!
3 months ago · report
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Perfect Travel Day?
Tell us what would occur in your perfect travel day.
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trent_at_lp A map, a mode of transport (any), some countryside and no itinerary
4 months ago · report -
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markbroadhead Walking the streets, taking photos, eating food I've never had before, talking with a local, discovering history, and a cool beer.
4 months ago · report -
chrisboden Up at 5am and into the land rover for an early morning game drive, a bloody mary in hand, binoculars round the neck. Scoff down a bush breakfast with friend banana while watching the sun rise over a busy waterhole. A meandering drive back to camp, a spot of birdwatching over lunch, an hours rest to recharge the batteries and a beer-cooled afternoon searching out that elusive leopard to get that prize-winning snap. Top it all off with a bbq under the stars and few bottles of fine red wine.
3 months ago · report -
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brianbatchelor getting uo to a clear sky, have agood breakfast and then soak up the culture of whatever country I'm in,tasting the food, talking to and observing the locals, later in the day the local beers and wines and local food to complete the day
3 months ago · report
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Travel Injuries?
Your worst ailment while travelling...blisters, broken bones, infections...the more gruesome the better.
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drifting_adam Ah.. foreign hospitals. Aren't they fun? Nothing better than trying to communicate your injury to a doctor via mime. 10 years back I managed to crack my skull when visiting Milan and earn myself a few days bed rest. More serious was in Japan (but no lasting damage all round), where I was unfortunate enough to be the passenger of a crazy Japanese driver who managed to flip his van on a suburban street. Hospital all round for everyone involved (everyone pulled through fine). When the docs finally got around to having a look at me they pointed a bit and made some rather unpleasantly painful looking hand signals, which I finally worked out meant they wanted to extract shattered glass that had embedded itself deep in my arm. Scalpel..check. Steriliser...check. Anaesthetic.. nah - they assumed we foreigners are tougher than that.
4 months ago · report -
katija The thrill of summer holidays by the seaside (Australia's Sapphire Coast or South Coast) were always tempered by the car sickness experienced around the hairpin turns of Brown Mountain. A well-meaning family friend suggested lavender as a homeopathic remedy. To this day the smell of lavender nauseates me.
4 months ago · report -
snorlax I got stupidly, stupidly sick from drinking contaminated fountain water in central Spain, while walking the Camino de Santiago. Woke up expecting to walk 30km and instead spent 2 days in a medieval monastery on a narrow bunk swimming in and out of consciousness and vomiting uncontrollably. The showers were cold and dirty so trying to stay clean was a joy! Luckily, I was ministered to by the beautiful hospitalera Laura (LOWra) who fed me saline solution from a bag and kept popping her head round the door to ask me if I was angry - "are you ANGRY, Ruth?" I was of course, bloody angry and told her so, but all she did was bring me food. Which I thought quite odd until I realised days later that she was actually asking me if I was hungry. Ah, dehydration-induced confusion, bring it.
4 months ago · report -
straitty a mountain biking accident in London, meaning I used my knee as a break on a gravel path in Hackney Marshes and when through to the bone. SE Asia in July was the worst place to discover I had an infection on the bone. By he time we got to Cambodia it was throbbing and I ended up on a drip in a Chinese Herb Hospital in Phenom Pen (sp) paying $20 a day to get pumped with something the doctor lacked english to explain. Dark times.
3 months ago · report -
markbroadhead Don't have many scars to show for a few turns around the globe. Troppo cuts are a recurring ailment. And crotch rot in Broken Hill was annoying as I thought (I was 19 remember) that yogurt could get rid of it. As you can imagine, the week of 40c days I spent in B.H. were lactose intolerant. But when visiting Auckland when I was 7 I whacked the back of my head on a step and went to hospital. I can still remember counting backwards for the anaesthetist as he fed me laughing gas.
3 months ago · report -
enjay6 Travelling through Turkey I managed to contract dysentery (I suspect from a chicken burger I ate in a brand new Wimpy's restaurant in Ankara. First time in a few weeks I had eaten western style food, and didn't I regret that?) I spent 3 days in excruciating pain in a pension in Goreme, until the owner whisked me off on the back of his motorbike to a somewhat no-frills style hospital in Nevsehir. Concrete floors, squat toilets, supply your own medication, needles, IV bag etc with smoking nurses gathered around my bed pointing and laughing at the poor sick foreign girl. I was hooked up to an IV and prescribed coke & boiled rice. At one stage blood started to build up in the IV so a nurse pulled it out, squirted the blood onto the floor and reinserted it. The blood was still there when I left 3 days later.
3 months ago · report
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The Most Tourist Infected Place You've Been To?
Country, Region/Island, City, District, Street...whatever it is...
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lou_wurm Brussels was surprisingly FULL of tourists.
actually London in the summer time is heaving with map reading, backpack wearing round the wrong way, bad fashion sense tourists. don't venture into central London in the summer (Leicester Sq, Covent Gdn etc) stay in the local places.
but then London is heaving most of the time!
4 months ago · report -
markbroadhead I've lived in Bath, UK, for 12 years. It was difficult to spot a local sometimes. I blame Emperor Claudius, the first three king Georges, Jane Austen, and other animals.
4 months ago · report -
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markbroadhead That would have to be the Spanish Steps in Rome. Occasionally the spectacle of spectators is more interesting than the established spectacle they are gathered to see. The Spanish Steps themselves were boring compared to the tourists wandering aimlessly up and down the steps, and the Roman couples snogging each other blatantly for the cameras.
4 months ago · report -
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enjay6 Ufizi Gallery, Florence. Stood in the queue for about 3 hours. Was brilliant once inside though.
Angkor Wat sunset from Bakheng Hill. Hundreds of tourists scrambling up a hill to claim a spot on the temple to watch a fairly mediocre sunset for a total of 2 & ½ mins before sprinting back down to the bottom. Though I did overhear an American tourist on the way up asking his guide “So did they build the temple before they built the mountain?” which subsqequently became my # 1 stupidest quote from a tourist of all time.3 months ago · report -
markbroadhead Hilarious quote. I was in Sydney in 1988 when the Sydney Morning Herald published a letter from someone who had overheard a tourist ask a guide if St Mary's Cathedral was built in medieval times. 1988 was, of course, the bicentenary of the arrival of the first European colonial fleet.
3 months ago · report -
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About this group
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Answer questions, ask questions. It is all about learning about other travellers, and expressing the what, where, how, and why of your travel history.
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markbroadhead Before you go or while you are there, read literature about the destination. Travel literature, preferably, or a novel.
markbroadhead Get up early in the morning. You'll see different things, and less tourists.
markbroadhead Try to talk to locals (other than the ones you're guaranteed to talk to in the service industry).
markbroadhead Learn at least a few phrases of the local language.
markbroadhead Use the public transport. Don't get taxis everywhere.
markbroadhead Get lost (in a safe area of town, obviously)
markbroadhead Travel as light as possible. You can always buy more clothes at the destination -- which will help you fit in as well.
markbroadhead Variety is good, but deeper contact can be made by being a regular. For example, instead of having your breakfast in a different place each day, go to the same place and get to know the staff and clientele.
markbroadhead Take your hobbies with you. If you're interested in architecture, go on a tour run by an expert in the field; if you're into kite flying, see if there is a local group and attend their meeting.
markbroadhead Eat the local food. You don't have to eat fried insects and the like, but do try a variety of the national or regional dishes.
markbroadhead Change your travel behaviour during the trip...If you are travelling solo then tag along with another traveller for a day or so. If you are travelling with another person, split up for a couple of days and experience the destination on your own.
markbroadhead Respect the local culture and customs and you'll see the locals wanting to talk to you or help you more.
markbroadhead Where possible stay at family run accommodation, rather than international chain hotels. You'll help the local economy, and get a more intimate relationship with the destination.
imogenb don't plan activities all day, every day. the best days are the days you spend sitting on a park bench chatting to someone, even thought you don't have a common language.
petercaddy Try to speak the local language and start conversations with strangers - you only need some basic phrases to make new friends.
lcfranks If you like jogging, take a jog around town on your first morning to get your orientation and sneak a peak at some of the top tourist attractions before they get crowded.
markbroadhead Similarly, if you're not in Bangkok or some other crazy traffic town, hire a bicycle and ride around the lesser visited neighbourhoods.
markbroadhead Take compass. Walking around a city becomes easier when you can orientate yourself.
markbroadhead If you get talking to a local (say a gregarious waiter) ask them what are their favourite things to see/do and if anything is on that week that may be worth seeing/doing.
markbroadhead Think outside the normal touristy things. For instance, go to a house auction. You'll get to see inside a local's house, etc.
markbroadhead Learn to do something while you're there that is relevant to the local culture... A cooking class, a surfing course, etc.
markbroadhead Another atypical sight is to go to a court case.
markbroadhead Make travel an experiment. John Steinbeck, for example, used to try to buy something in a city that he thought it couldn't possibly have. When one shop owner didn't have it he'd ask where else may. A wild goose chase will make you see a destination differently from a planned series of sights.
markbroadhead Vary your budget. Splurge on the finest restaurant if you're travelling economically or limit yourself to the bare minimum if you've been living in luxury.
markbroadhead Test your normal limits. For example, try something adventurous like white water rafting. Challenge your taste buds by eating a questionable local delicacy.
markbroadhead To avoid leaving things behind, develop an automatic "look back" when getting up from sitting down (at a cafe, etc.).
markbroadhead Slow down at museums and galleries. Sure, it's hard not to try to see it all because you may not return ever again. But getting know a few pieces well will stay with you longer than browsing the entire exhibition.
markbroadhead Locals like to see how/where you live. Bring a photo of your house and your family and you'll be surprised how much easier it is to be accepted in some countries.
markbroadhead Obviously take a guidebook, specifically one that helps you get around (many guidebooks are only arrival guides not travel guides). But remember that they are only guides, not the ten commandments. There are no set ways to see/feel/engage, etc., with a destination.
markbroadhead Vary your focus to get the full picture. If you're walking down a street, for example, look up at rooftops then look at the names on the door-bells to an apartment block. Experienced hikers do this instinctively in the wild: considering both the vista and the proverbial lily to get immersed at all levels.
markbroadhead Always remember that people rarely equate to their government (or, rather, your media's representation of their government). A good rule of thumb is never bring up politics or religion in a conversation with a local unless they do. And even then avoid bringing your point of view. You're there to learn, not preach.