Archive for the Travel News category
Just a quick heads up as our friends over at Rough Guides have a new series of their ‘The Rough Guide to…’ TV show returning to British screens this coming Monday (it’ll be on Channel 5 at 19:30).
The series offers an insider’s take on travel destinations, eschewing the traditional ‘wish-you-were-here, god-how-I-love-the-Maldives/Marbella/Madagascar/wherever-it-is-that-I’ve-been-sent-to-by-my-production-team’ format, for a more sincere look at genuine backpacking destinations (like Koh Phi Phi, Berlin, Reykjavik and Fez).
It’s probably not all for backpackers, mind, but it’s just about as close as you’ll get at the mo to a serious travel show in tune with backpacking sentiments (we’re still waiting for the first made-for-backpackers TV show in the UK).
Clips from the last series can be found here.
JC
UFO sightings, HostelBloggers thought to ourselves this morning, are rather like London buses: you wait for ages for one and then a couple come along at the same time.
Cliched similes aside, UFO sightings are back. And in a big way, too. This week saw a spate of sightings from Cheshunt, England to the wilds of the Northern Territory, Australia.
The latter incident, which HostelBloggers read about in the Herald Sun, is the more interesting. Let’s break it down: “Ray Aylett, Normie Hooker and Alan “Doc” McIntosh were sitting on their pergola at Muckaty Station with three European backpackers when a bright light appeared.” (It’s a gripping start, we felt.)
The light, naturally, was unidentifiable (other than the fact it was a light, of course). But, reading on, HostelBloggers felt sure that the truth would be out there somewhere. And so it proved.
While elaborating a little on the mysterious events, our friend Mr Aylett explained how “there was no way their judgement could have been affected by alcohol“. He then, slightly mystifyingly, went on: “Me and Doc had had a couple of beers…”
Ah, beer. It’s almost inevitable that it had a part to play (doesn’t it always when UFOs are involved?) After all: European Backpackers. On a road trip down the Stuart Highway. Late at night. (On a pergola…?) Without a tinnie or two? Now that really would be unexplained.
We’re willing to admit that Venice, so steeped in history and intrigue, has always been a bit of a favorite of ours. And this week it’s managed to grab our attention yet again!
The city has been cropping up in the travel news thanks to a recent (and significant) nearby archeological discovery. As is so often the case in Italy, it seems that the city we see today is just part of a much larger settlement on the Venetian Lagoon that dates back to Roman times.
By using satellite imaging, archeologists have been able to find the extensive remains of a wealthy town (complete with temples, theaters and palaces) about three feet beneath the ground in the countryside at Altino, near to Venice’s Marco Polo Airport.
Full excavations are expected to begin on this fascinating discovery in the near future. And when they’re uncovered, the ruins are sure to be yet another reason - if more reasons could possibly be needed! - to go to Venice.
Ever on the lookout for interesting offers, travel deals and ways to save a bit of money traveling, HostelBloggers got wind of this rather interesting travel writing competition over at British newspaper, The Independent.
Basically, they’re offering some lucky wordsmith the chance to travel round Europe for free, honing their travel writing skills by blogging for a national newspaper as they do so.
Destinations on the itinerary include the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and all you’ve got to do to be in the running is say in a measly 200 words which city in Europe tickles your fancy and why. (You can either read more about the competition details here or just email competitions@independent.co.uk with ‘SABMiller’ in the email subject line.)
This is the only slight hitch, really - that you might have to sell just a little of your dignity rights to the brewers, SABMiller, who are sponsoring the initiative… But when the prize is a minimum of four weeks’ free travel in Europe, we’re sure that whoever wins will be a more than enthusiastic beer ambassador!
The Oktoberfest: if there’s one thing the beerily-inclined backpacker needed like a dead rat in a stein, it was for it to get more expensive. Which, of course, is unfortunate, because that’s precisely what’s happened!
According to Jaunted.com, the price of your average oversized tankard of beer is to rise by about 5% as a result of higher production costs. Their article on the devastating news from Munich includes the distressing fact that the average cost of a stein of beer will come in at a budget-derailing €8.13.
Not that a little thing like a famously expensive beer festival getting a little more expensive should put off the merry piss artist. As long as you follow a few simple tips for the Oktoberfest, which can be found all over the web, you should be alright.
Alternatively, if it really does stymie plans to go to Munich on September 20 (or for the 16 days - count them! - of dutiful drunken debauchery that ensues thereafter), there’s always the Cannstatter Beer Festival in Stuttgart (Sept 27-Oct 12), where much the same effect can be had for just a little less…
Airports in Paris will be laying on free dance lessons for travelers throughout the summer, Yahoo News tells HostelBloggers.
The lessons are set up according to where travelers are flying off to - salsa for Cuba, hip-hop for New York etc. Which begs the question: what dance do they learn if they’re flying to England - Morris dancing?
Anyway, if it takes away from the sheer unmitigated horror of airports - and air travel, generally - then it’s alright by us.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the birth of the first computer.
Lovingly christened ‘The Baby’, it was developed at the University of Manchester, weighed in at well over a ton and took up a whole lab.
Obviously you don’t have to look too hard to find what the computer’s done for budget travel. These days the computer – and its offshoot the internet – isn’t just important to budget travel, it is budget travel.
Ok, so the Competitive Traveler (see ‘Annoying Hostel Types’ post) will swear blind that the internet was the death of the genuinely footloose globetrotter.
But the truth is that travel has been opened up in a way that would have been beyond the wildest dreams of the grand tourists, the hippy trailers and even their much more recent descendents. And not just to some, but to many.
From booking a hostel in Ulaanbaatar or a rail pass in Europe, to finding out the local exchange rate or reading detailed up-to-the-minute blogs, what the internet allowed you to do for the first time was really plan your trip and prepare an accurate budget.
Which in turn, of course, brought it increasingly into the realms of possibility.
So there might be just a little less spontaneity to traveling as a side effect of all that planning, but the modern traveler is a whole lot better informed about where they’re going, what to see and do and how to behave…
And for that, we have the birth of the computer to thank.
Happy birthday.
Ok, so there have been a few changes to HostelBloggers recently. A late spring-clean if you like. And as well as its nice new look, we’re going to be moving in strange and exciting new directions.There are going to be posts about hostels and HostelBookers, naturally. But it’s not going to stop there; the new HostelBloggers is going to be something of a budget travel miscellany, a catch-all site for news, views and assorted flotsam and jetsam from the world of independent travel.
We’re going to be scouring the internet night and day for the latest cool sites, cool videos, cool deals and cool gear. And when we find something we like, we’re going to stick it up here, for everyone else to check out, too.
We’re a London-based lot, so there’s going to be a fair bit of posting on what we’ve been up to in this dirty, noisy, ancient, modern, and most of all, gloriously unpredictable city we call home.
Watch out for our thoughts on where to go – and where not to go - for cheap drinks, great music, buzzing markets, unusual shopping or for just lounging around in the park on a summer’s day… It’ll all wash up here in a series of posts, articles, podcasts and videos eventually.
But we also travel. That’s what we do. We travel for work and we travel for pleasure. And wherever we go, and whatever we get up to on our travels, we’ll tell you all about it here on HostelBloggers.
So… the mantra? Keep it independent. Keep it budget. Keep it travel.
Here’s to the new, revamped HostelBloggers!
