As I turned the corner toward Ben Thanh Market, the Central Market in Saigon, Vietnam last Friday, I was stunned to see two European backpackers sitting by the side of the road with a sign written on cardboard. One was singing a song while the other was playing a small set of drums. The sign invited people to give them money to finance their further travel. They call these people beg packers and I have now seen them in Auckland, New Zealand; Berlin, Germany; Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia; Bangkok, Thailand; Pnom Penh and Siam Reap…
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My 2019 Travel Plans -What are yours?
What are your travel plans for 2019? At this stage I plan to visit 15 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Pacific. . I plan to visit two new countries this year- probably the two will be in Eastern Europe. In Asia, I have plans to go to Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.There will be at least two diversions to Europe, one of which will involve Christmas markets! The Pacific will see me travel around Australia and New Zealand and across to the Americas. I have now flown 105 airlines. I…
Air Malta, CityJet, LEVEL, Qantas , Wizz CEO and WOW win 2018 Excellence Awards
The CAPA – Centre for Aviation was launched in 1990, to build aviation knowledge. I find them a great go to site for good deep air research. Since 2003, their annual Awards for Excellence have been intended to showcase success and industry leadership. Their 2018 winners were announced this week in Berlin at the 2018 CAPA World Aviation Outlook Summit. I wish I had been there for the buzz, the award announcements and the wonderful city that is Berlin. Being in two places is hard to do! And the winners this year were: Airline of…
4,000 hours of flying: 71 times around the earth
Stepping off my Malaysia airlines flight yesterday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, I discovered that I have hit a milestone. I have flown just over 4,000 hours in my life. According to Flightmemory, this is five and a half months I have sat inside tubes of metal. To be extra nerdy, I have flown the equivalent of 71 times around the earth or seven times the distance to the moon. Coincidentally, in the next month, I will celebrate a half century of flying. My first flight was, as a very young child from Kirkwall, Orkney…
Priceline ditches Name Your Own Price Hire Cars
I was an early adopter of the Priceline Name Your Own Price (NYOP) for hotels. The deals that i got made me a huge fan for many years. For example, a Five star e suite in downtown San Francisco for $US99, a Saturday night Chicago stay for $79 on a baseball game night and a beautiful Conrad Singapore four star stay during the Marathon, 500 metres from the start line for at least 66% off any rate I could find! Sure I did not get loyalty points for those stays but the price difference was…
Using User Reviews
User-review sites are a staple of my travel diet. I love Tripadvisor, for hotels! Here is the link to my profile. Yelp is my go to for city services and restaurants. Airbnb, of course, builds in reviews into its system. Skytrax provides reviews from air travellers about their flight experiences. I have several rules of thumb with reviews: The more reviews the better. For example, an apartment on Airbnb with 3 reviews is usually skipped by me for one with 20+ I take away the number of worst reviews from the number of best reviews.…
Laughing through the new British Airways Safety Video -for a good cause
Just watched the new British Airways safety video which will be rolled out onto their aircraft on September 1st, 2017. This safety video was produced in collaboration with Comic Relief, who are a major charity based in the UK, with a vision of a just world, free from poverty. Ten British celebrities are depicted auditioning for a coveted part in the new BA safety video in front of comedian Asim Chaudhry character Chabuddy G. There are eight sketches advertising the safety features and procedures on the aircraft. It starts with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was nominated for…
All about Embassies, Consulates and High Commissions
Thank you for the comments and feedback on last weeks’ post on how to prepare for a potential disaster when you are travelling (terror related or natural disaster). One of the things I encouraged you to do was to “Know the contact number(s) for the Embassy, High Commission or Consular office in the city you are visiting“. A few people indicated confusion over what an embassy is and what it can do. Like most people. I rarely encounter embassies, except for where I have friends working for one or I go to a Festival or…
162nd Blog in Top 1000+ Travel Bloggers
The Top 1000+ Travel bloggers started in April 2014 with 1000 travel bloggers and 700 additional bloggers have since joined the community. The main objective of this success tracking program is to give each blogger a regular personal score that reflects as accurately as possible their success in their activity – in this case, blogging about travel. The #travel1k score has been designed to measure digital & online influence. The scoring algorithm is not perfect but it is an interesting measure. For a numbers nerd like me, it is fascinating! My ranking is 162nd…
We travellers must reduce trash
I was walking along this Thailand beach recently and was distressed at how much litter I gathered up in one short 20-minute walk. Beautiful sand was covered with the detritus of broken bottles, glass, plastic bags and more. I found a plastic bag and had soon filled it with crap. It made me reflect on how much trash we travellers create. In the Maldives, Bluepeace estimates that each traveller produces 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds) of rubbish a day. Globally, eight million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans. That is the same as five grocery…
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