Blog
Experience a Middle Earth Safety Demonstration with Air New Zealand
As part of an ongoing marketing tie up with the soon to be released 'The Hobbit' movie; Air New Zealand has released a unique in-flight safety video enlisting a curious collection of passengers to demonstrate everything from seat-belt fastening to crash-positions. The video features some interesting cameos from the likes of Peter Jackson as well as Mike and Royd Tolkein - great grand-sons of The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkein. ... Full story
How Travel Inspires Art
Many an artist has been inspired by colourful landscapes and passionate people as they travelled the globe. From the earliest cave paintings, artists have recorded their vision of ever changing horizons, encompassing broad landscapes and visions within their often limited canvass. From simple replication art has evolved into complex reflections of our modern world, which pushes limits and challenges taste. ... Full story
Home Swapping With a Social Touch
With economies around the world struggling to recover from financial crisis; many consumers are looking at ways to ‘tighten their belt’ particularly when it comes to paying for their annual holiday. A growing trend seems to be ‘home-swapping’ – which offers roomy self-catering accommodation in potentially interesting and exotic locations using your own home as ‘holiday collateral’. ... Full story
Five Top Tips to Enjoy a Walking Tour
There is no “proper” way to go about enjoying a walking tour. You’re on vacation after all, so definitely don’t go over-thinking it. There are, however, a few things we’ve learned that we’d like to share to encourage you to get the most out of a walking tour. Here are the top 5: ... Full story
Travel for free! But what about the 'extras'?
New travel website ‘MissTravel’ promotes free travel to ‘attractive’ women who are happy to become the paid travelling companions of wealthy men. So is this just ‘friends with benefits’ or a new kind of escorted tour and what sort of travel extras will be expected or on offer? ... Full story
Emotions and Art from Two Continents
I have learned not to underestimate the power of social media to introduce me to new and exciting developments in the world of travel which is my special area of interest; but my eyes have been opened on a number of occasions to other fields recently, in particular to a wide variety of different art forms. Being a traditionalist I have always leaned towards portrait work and through the vague and often murky world of twitter I recently stumbled on the work of a talented artist who spreads her time between the glamorous worlds of Monaco and Brazil. Keen to explore further I set up a question and answer session via direct messaging on twitter. ... Full story
50 of the Best Travel Quotes
I love the power that words have to inspire, motivate and engage the reader, words that are immortalised, words of wit, pain and truth; to the writer, if not always the reader. Many a writer, intellectual, artist or traveller has made comment on the virtue of travel, a subject of which most of our readers are obviously passionate. I have collated below a selection of fifty of my favourite travel quotes, some may strike a chord, but please add your own favourites in the comments box below the article; who can come up with a modern version of a classic quote, or even better their own inspirational original. These quotes are not arranged in a particular order of favouritism: ... Full story
Do You Want a Nanny in the Sky?
Avoid the tantrums on your next flight? A website has launched a service to pair up nannies with parents on airline flights for a small fee ($10). Parents and prospective nannies register with the site and add details of future flights they are booked on. The site then makes the match and put the two parties together to negotiate a fee for the service provided by the nanny. ... Full story
Is this the end for long-haul coach travel?
With the tragic events of the weekend foremost in our thoughts; an investigation will take some time to reveal what happened to cause the coach accident in Northern France. At times like this the finger immediately points at the driver - but shouldn't we be looking a little closer at the overall safety of long-haul coach travel, particularly in a time when air travel is so affordable? ... Full story
Divorce at the heartbreak hotel
With many hotels and destinations around the world actively promoting weddings and honeymoon services, it was only a matter of time before divorce was added to the short break agenda. One enterprising operator based in the Netherlands is offering a full quickie-divorce service for couples who do not want the stress of a long winded acrimonious separation. ... Full story
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Huntsville - a touch of southern comfort.
The city of Huntsville, nestled amongst the hills of north Alabama, is certainly not the backwater southern town that I perhaps expected. It manages to combine a delightful historical old-town with a state of the art high-tech modern city built around the U.S. space programme. ... Full story