There are many crazy things I like to do in life. One is walking long distances! I have walked several long distance tracks in Australia, the UK and New Zealand now including the famed NZ Milford track. One of my goals was to walk the width of England from the Irish Sea to the North Sea following the path of Hadrian’s wall. 84 miles (140km) long. And I did it! It took seven days walking West to East. To back track, Hadrian’s Wall was built in the 2nd Century AD by the order of the Roman Emperor…
Considering JetBlue’s Etiquette Tips
JetBlue have launched a series of Flight Etiquette tips for passengers. They are in the indomitable Jetblue style quite fun. But which of the miscreants of the air will actually watch them though? Episode one deals with Mr Sprawler. This episode I understand! (Although why the woman trapped in the middle could not move to the window seat, I do not know?) Episode Two deals with needing to go to the lavatory from the window seat. I found that one less useful. It starts with the woman drinking lots of fluids (which every airline recommends)…
93 Free Travel Tips
One of the things I most enjoy doing is sharing my travel tips for better, less stressful travel. Over the last four years I have shared almost 100 tips for better travel. Here are 93 of my travel tips grouped into eight categories: Planning Booking Travel Accommodation & Food Trip Preparation Packing Travelling Travel Problems In Location Any suggestions or requests welcomed. 1. Planning Stop Wishing and Do it- Life’s Bucket List Greener Travel Tips 20 Top Travel Tools My Essential Travel Apps for 2014 Woofound Explore Where is this? Cool Tool Medical Tourism How far is it from?…
An appeal to civility in 2015
Some people collect stamps, some build and race model cars and others garden. Me? I travel. And I blog. That is my hobby and that is how I see it. I enjoy sharing my world with my friends – and others. Over the last year, I have become concerned, disappointed and distressed at what feels like an erosion of civility in social media. Just as we see teens bullying each other, so I see adults behaving disappointingly. I welcome your comments. I want to know where I go wrong, what I can learn and what…
The airlines that failed in 2014
Overall, fewer carriers seemed to fail in 2014. For many airlines, it was a much more profitable year. Of concern was how many of the carriers that collapsed were only flying for months. I am tempted to call 2014 “the Year of the shortlived airline”. Air One Italy: 23 November, 1995 to 30 October, 2014 Fleet: 10 Alitalia’s low cost subsidiary never quite made sense. Following the takeover of Alitalia by Etihad, Air One was shut down. AirTran USA: 26 October, 1993 to 28 December, 2014 Fleet: 138 Destinations: 72 (at peak) On 28…
Cool Copenhagen
In 2014, I was lucky enough to visit my sixtieth country Denmark. Copenhagen is the 183rd city with a population of over 100,000 I have visited in my 50 years! Flew into Copenhagen with Finnair (see Tuesday’s post), zipped through the very easy arrival procedures as were already in the Schengen zone, found the metro, bought a pass and were heading into the downtown in minutes. Oh, if arrival at so many cities was this easy. Asthetics: 9/10 How many cities in the world, have a harbour that is clean enough to swim in?…
Etihad delayed flights end with passenger death
One does not associate fog with the desert kingdom of Abu Dhabi. Last weekend, chaos hit the capital when fog blanketed it for hours. There was a 19-car pile-up on on Saturday morning which left three people injured. The airport saw 20 flights cancelled and thousands of passengers stranded. One flight EY183 to San Francisco sat on the tarmac for 12 hours before its 16 hour journey! In other words, passengers sat inside that metal tube for 28 hours.Another, EY023 to Dusseldorf, Germany was kept on the tarmac for 13 hours. It was then forced…
Flying Finnair Four Times
I have never booked a flight to HEL before! Re-assuredly, I was also able to book flights out of HELsinki, the capital of Finland quite easily. I was bemused that one of my flights was AY 666 (Biblical number of evil) from Copenhangen to HEL. None of the crew or passengers were sprouting horns and the only non human creatures we encountered were popular Finnish Comic Moomin family products which the airline was selling on board. Of the 15 One World member airlines, I have now flown 11 of them (and two ex members!) for…
My Top Travel Tips of 2014
I love sharing things that I find make my travel faster, easier, more enjoyable, safer and cheaper. My ultimate aim is to let my travel serve me not the other way around! In 2014, readers liked the following Travel Tips posts the most: Travel insurance Rocks! The Man in Seat 61 – the best guide to riding trains across the globe -ever Seven Things not to pack – which generated some controversy with heaps of comments! What to do with left over foreign coins? Some very helpful comments here Don’t carry a Money Belt-my other controversial…
Reviewing 2014-How do you measure your travel?
As I reflect on 2014, I pondered how do I measure my travel? 1. By Kilometres, miles or points? In 2014 I covered: 3000km (2000 miles) by train 4000km (2500 miles) by bus 12000km by rental car (7000 miles) 124,754 (77.5k) by air to or from 22 airports. I flew four new airlines bringing my total number of air carriers to 91 airlines! The new ones were: Burma’s Air KBZ, Bangkok Airways Finnair (review coming Tuesday) and Germania 2. The Goals I achieved? In 2014, I completed my first (and last) marathon in Berlin, Germany hiked across…
Recent Comments