My 6am alarm hadn’t yet sounded, though I woke quite abruptly. I could have sworn I was woken by the intense sound of a lion roar. Though that was surely a ridiculous concept. I wasn’t in Africa – I was in a luxury four poster canopy bed in Australia’s national capitol. It must have been a vivid dream.
Though as I began to doze off again I suddenly had the feeling we were being watched. And as I pulled back the curtains I was stunned by what I saw. We were in fact being watched. There was a Giraffe peering in from outside our room.
If you’ve ever dreamed of an intimate experience with African animals, Australia has the lodge for you. While there are a number of zoos that offer overnight sleepovers, Jamala Wildlife Lodge takes the concept to a completely different level.
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To those looking in, Craig and I are living the dream. Partying a SXSW music festival in Austin, trekking to Machu Picchu (Peru), discovering Colombia’s street art scene, diving in Cuba; at almost 30, we packed up our past lives as teacher and tradesman to backpack the Americas and Europe for 18 months, and our first five months on the road have produced incredible memories.
Though we’re often asked why we get to do it while many others have to settle for sitting at home dreaming about it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to settle for living vicariously.
We hope the following helps explain how to take a career break to travel. We imagine young ‘ins are as excited about spring break as we are about our career break!
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The world can be broken down into three different types of people. The first are those people who make things happen. These are the “go-getters” of the world. They know exactly what they want, have a very clear goal, and do everything in their power to make it happen. The second category of people are those who watch things happen. The third wonder ‘what the hell just happened?’
Danny Flood is one of those people who make things happen. A serial online entrepreneur who works from his laptop and travels the world at leisure, he discovered early on that huge lifelong dreams can be practical and achievable with the right plan.
His dream was to support himself without a boss and have the freedom to travel and go and do whatever he wanted. He poured his heart and soul into creating location-independent businesses to give himself the freedom he sought. And he succeeded. Over the last five years he has traveled and lived in over 30 countries, and done everything from exploring the world’s oldest rain forests, to fighting bouts as a boxer in Thailand, exploring the Amazon on a raft, island-hopping via sailboat across the South China Sea, and living in jungle camps in Borneo.
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What comes to mind when you think of the perfect wedding proposal? For many couples a romantic wedding proposal includes dinner with a view, a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and a classic engagement ring from Vashi. But that’s not for everyone!
Some couples prefer to live on the edge, so if you and your significant other are adrenaline seekers, here are 5 alternative adventurous proposal destinations.
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I’ve been quite lucky that in over 10 years of extensive travel I have never once been mugged, held up, arrested in a foreign country, or found myself in any kind of trouble which requires an embassy to assist. Knock on wood.
I have, however, made my fair share of stupid decisions and mistakes while traveling abroad, and hopefully you can make note so that you don’t have to learn the hard way too.
The following are my biggest mistakes while traveling abroad. Leave me a comment at the end of the post if you’ve had any epic fails too!
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Gold Coast Australia, or Surfers Paradise, is bigger, brighter, and more epic than you could possibly imagine. An iconic Australian coastal destination famous for sun, sand and surf, this is where travelers head for a truly good time.
With so much to see and do, this guide is your ultimate resource to the Gold Coast’s best beaches. These are some of the best in Australia.
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We were on a spectacular scenic flight over Australia’s South East Coast, with breathtaking views over the Blue Mountains, Wollongong beach, and Sydney’s iconic skyline which stretched out in the distance. Though it was difficult to enjoy the view with a stomach full of nerves. Difficult to fully appreciate the scenery outside when we knew we were about to become part of it.
Because this wasn’t your average scenic flight. 7 of us were seated on top of each other in a tiny prop plane, each strapped to a beautiful stranger, and as soon as the plane hit 14,000 feet we would be taking the quickest route back down to the ground. Free falling at 200 kph after having jumped from a perfectly good plane.
The air rushes into your face and your heart starts racing. As the adrenalin rush kicks in, you feel like you’re floating on a cushion of air. The silence is amazing, the view is sensational, and as the initial shock of the free fall quickly wears off your fear disappears, replaced with an intense and exhilarating thrill of soaring through the air. This is sky diving.
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Women are becoming more and more financially and intellectually independent. They spend more on experiences and travel than ever before, and there are an increasing number of women who travel solo and/or move to foreign countries for work as well as leisure, though often find themselves with no connections besides perhaps some work colleagues.
And while solo female travel is increasing by +30% year after year, sometimes it just comes down to the fact that you don’t want to travel alone. So the Pinktrotters network was born; a social network which allows women to build relationships with other like- minded women, head out on group trips, join events, and find out where the best hairdresser/spa/bar/restaurant in any given town is.
Most other social networks are mixed gender and are sometimes used as a dating platform by men, often looking for something more than just a friendship. Though a women only network ensures a platform which offers a fun and entertaining way for women to get together and enjoy their time out of the office wherever they are, sharing their passions in fashion, wellness, food, travel and arts!
I this week spoke to Eliana Salvi, the founder of Pinktrotters, about her fantastic network.
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There’s nothing I hate more than having to hand-wash while traveling. The skin on my knuckles gets rubbed raw, my nails get bent out of shape, and it’s usually done in the dirty sink of a shared hostel bathroom. Or a questionable looking lake. Though hand-washing is a necessarily evil when on a long trip/trek where you have to pack light and can only travel with a couple of pairs of clothes. And hundreds of travelers put up with it. Not any more.
In 2010, one Aussie traveler came up with a brilliant idea. A concept which would allow travelers to do their laundry on the road for free, and be able to wash clothes while traveling without having to use a dirty sink.
Weighing less than an apple, the Scrubba Wash Bag is a pocket-size device that allows you to wash your clothes and travel clean, light and free. Designed for travelers, trekkers and campers, the secret to its ingenuity is the hundreds of resilient nobules that act like a flexible washboard, a fusion of old and new technology, that allows you to wash your clothes in minutes. Though unlike a traditional washboard, you can easily slip it into your backpack.
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France is a popular destination in the summer, and floods of tourists travel here to enjoy the beaches of Cannes, sip wine in Bordeaux, and picnic on the banks of the Seine while admiring the Eiffel Tower. Tourists usually then clear out before the first sign of snow- having missed the opportunity to experience a truly magical time of the year.
Because France takes on a different dimension during winter; imagine iconic landmarks like the Champs Elysees and Grand Palais transformed by a sea of dazzling fairy lights, and public ice-skating rinks which stay open well into the night. Or outdoor Christmas markets which take over main city squares. You can snack on roasted chestnuts, sip local mulled wine, or shop for traditional gifts. Winter in France is a celebration. And it is something you should absolutely not miss.
Not only is this the best time of the year for grabbing cheap deals on flights and accommodation, but being off season means you can head to famous attractions like the Louvre and skip what in summer months is a long hour and a half queue. Once the summer tourists depart, France feels like it’s your own. Here are some of the things you can do:
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This year has been a frightening year for those who travel – terrorism appears to be on the rise, governments have been issuing overblown safety advice, and travelers are becoming more and more paranoid about whether or not it is safe to travel (it is).
Realistically, cities like London, Prague and New York have some of the highest crime rates in the world, though no government agency advises against travel here. And you have just as much chance of being caught up in an attack on your own country as you do while traveling abroad, yet no-one lives permanently in a bunker underneath their home for fear of coming out.
So many New Yorkers are cancelling their plans to go to Paris, but look what occurred right in their own backyard on 9/11. You can’t let it stop you from traveling and you can’t live in fear.
Because the truth of the matter is that it’s not travel which is dangerous – it’s LIFE. And we should never let the fear of extremists activities stop us from doing what we do. If you stop traveling, the terrorists win.
So don’t stop traveling, just travel smart. Here’s how to travel safely in the face of terrorism.
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As the holidays approach, destinations around the world are gearing up for the busiest time of the year, and prices on everything from flights to accommodation and food are getting ready to soar. It’s all well and good to advise that traveling during off season is the best way to score a cheaper vacation, though many travelers don’t actually have a choice, and especially for families with children, it’s impossible to avoid planning your travel over school holidays or during the Christmas and New Years break.
Though there are still a number of ways you can ensure a fabulous and affordable vacation even when traveling during peak season, and there are always ways to make your holiday dollars go further by thinking outside the box.
When it comes to travel, accommodation can easily make up the majority of your holiday costs, and your accommodation can make or break an entire holiday. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning on staying in a bungalow, a villa, a B&B or even a yurt; it’s important to make good decisions when it comes to planning your stay. To this end, use the following tips when booking holiday accommodation to guarantee a successful break.
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Action camera’s are fantastic, though let’s be honest, they’re not made for easy sharing. If you’re an adventure seeker you wait until the end of the day to see your footage and you spend hours editing it before being able to create a sharable clip. I would love to post videos more frequently from our adventures, but they often take days to complete. That is, until now.
The TomTom Bandit isn’t the first action camera to hit the market, though I’ve found it’s certainly one of the most unique. Breaking into the market of action camera’s and releasing a product consumers will remember is a fairly difficult task – the market is already cornered by established name brands, and many companies who have attempted to break into action camera’s simply haven’t managed to last against brands like GoPro.
Though after reviewing the Bandit I do believe TomTom are up to the task – and not because the specs on the Bandit match some of the best cameras out there, but because it has very obviously been created with us in mind – they’ve really put thought into what users today want from an action camera, identified the pain points of current cameras, and created the TomTom Bandit action camera to be the easiest way to edit and share movies.
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Following a few unsuccessful attempts to visit the cave of Lascaux, I am at last getting my 40 minutes of Ice Age glory. After all, Lascaux is to art what La Scala is to opera, or Glastonbury to summer music festivals.
Our group of five is met at an ordinary looking gate on the edge of a hill-side car-park, just outside the town of Montignac in the south west of France. We are led in silence to what seems like a top security portal to some underground WW2 bunker. A couple is holding hands, they look at each other and exchange an excited giggle.
Otherwise, the aura of reverence that surrounds our group is so obviously at odds with the decidedly unremarkable entrance we are looking at. I try to imagine the thousands of visitors that once flocked to this very spot since the cave was discovered in September 1940. The same people who came to marvel were the ones who inadvertently were responsible for the destruction of the prehistoric images. And so in 1963 access to the cave was restricted to only a handful of visitors each week, with only a short time inside the cave itself.
Today we are that handful, this is our week.
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This itinerary will see you fly into Hobart and rent a car, ready to indulge in the ultimate Tasmanian escape. Your first day will see you experience Hobart, discovering the oldest and most historic parts of the city. Having strategically chosen to fly in for the Saturday markets, you will browse local arts, crafts and handiworks, and will treat yourself to fresh, gourmet produce for lunch.
You are in the vicinity of one of Australia’s leading whiskey distilleries, which offers affordable tastings and 45 minute tours. The afternoon will see you drive to the top of what locals call “the mountain” for spectacular views over the city of Hobart and the wilderness forest to the west of the city. Have dinner on the waterfront and take a leisurely stroll before heading in for the night.
On your second day you will discover Tasmania’s rich natural beauty, driving a stunning coastal route to spend your final two days in a pristine National Park. You will stay in a spectacular waterfront location, in a secluded bushland setting – the ultimate romantic retreat.
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International medical coverage is such an important issue for those who travel abroad, and since becoming brand ambassadors for Individual Health and GeoBlue, we have written a whopping 22 articles on the many different reasons why comprehensive health coverage is something you never want to find yourself stuck overseas without.
Because you don’t have to be on an adventurous trip for something to go terribly wrong, and you could be in the very best of health, however the fact is that environmental factors are beyond your control. All it takes is one major health incident to bankrupt you for life, or worse, see you refused emergency medical care because you don’t have the insurance and can’t afford to pay. Traveling without health insurance in this instance could very well cost you your life.
So why do so many travelers still travel without it? You wouldn’t go away without your tickets or your passport, so why risk going away without a proper health insurance plan?
I’ve been phrasing that as a rhetorical question across my 22 posts to date, however hadn’t stopped to actually address why. Why do travelers risk everything to travel without insurance which could ultimately save their life?
The following are a list of reasons why travelers head overseas without health insurance, and if you happen to be one of them, hopefully we can make you realize the critical importance of changing your mind.
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When I flew home to spend Christmas in Australia last year I ended up having to travel with two bags. Knowing that we would be moving to Australia permanently 6 months down the track, we had originally thought this Christmas visit would be the perfect opportunity to ferry as much of our stuff home as possible, to lighten the cost of shipping associated with our future move.
Though as with all best laid plans, we ended up not having the room. Upon announcing a Christmas visit to Australia from the States, the shopping orders started flying in. My phone went crazy with notifications from what seemed like everyone I knew.
Lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. Perfume that they won’t ship internationally. Pandora charms exclusive to the States. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked to pick something up while traveling, it probably could have paid for our entire move!
My second suitcase ended up being a dedicated “goods” bag for items we had picked up at other people’s request. We joked at the time that we should start charging a commission to shop for people overseas.
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Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice, where turbulent volcanic forces meet the icy touch of the Arctic to shape an island that is as desolate as it is beautiful. Blasted tundra, glistening glaciers and pounding waterfalls are among the many wonders vying for space in the Icelandic wilderness, and the best way to explore the extremes of this spellbinding country is to take a long walk into its heart, on the famous Laugavegur trail.
Stretching 55km from Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk, the Laugavegur trail is the country’s most well-known hiking route. The four-day trek takes you past colourful mountains, warming hot-springs and steep ravines as you wind your way through the landscape of South-East Iceland.
If you are looking to test yourself physically, as well as rewarding yourself with moments of wonder, then Iceland’s Laugavegur is the trek for you.
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It’s the online shopping time of the year, and if you’re stuck for gift ideas for the adventurer or outdoor enthusiast in your family you’re in luck. These people are incredibly easy to buy for!
You don’t have to spend hours at the mall nowadays either, as anything you can buy in a store can generally always found cheaper online.
We were recently contacted by CrazySales.com.au to review their 2 Piece Hard Shell Luggage Trolley Set (Review below), however when you visit their site it’s difficult not to get distracted by all of the other cool products they have as well! Everything from holiday deals in the lead up to Christmas to an extensive outdoor and camping range too.
So if you’re in Australia and looking for something for someone who loves the outdoors…or even looking for something sweet for yourself, the following are cool outdoor adventure and camping products from CrazySales.com.au. You can save anywhere from 30%-80% off retail price.
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Earlier in the year we reviewed “Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago”; a 90 minute documentary which provides up-close look at the ancient spiritual pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James.
The documentary itself was fantastic, and you can read our full review, though while watching the journey of each pilgrim unfold, I found myself equally as fascinated with the process of making the film.
How did they cast the travelers who took center stage? What was the budget for this kind of a film? How did the camera crew cope with completing this same trek but with all of their heavy equipment?
Determined to find out what goes into the making of a travel documentary, I decided to consult an authority on the matter. This week’s interview is with Lydia B. Smith, the director and producer of Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago, on what it takes to make a travel film. She takes us behind the scenes.
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Travelers love to eat, and one of the most unique aspects of travel is the luxury to sample great restaurants and exotic cuisine from all around the globe. The excitement is in experiencing new tastes that broaden your culinary horizon, and new flavors that calibrate your taste buds.
There are many, many, reasons to travel the world, though for a growing number of travelers, food is one of the biggest ones. And whether you’re interested in hitting up the best markets, dessert spots, cafes, fine dining or even street stands, the joy for many people is returning home with new recipes in place of souvenirs!
The following are the world’s premiere food destinations. If you’re a foodie and you love to travel, you should consider the following destinations for your next trip.
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It was 110 degrees when we left Los Angeles earlier in June this year (43 degrees Celsius). We were Australia bound after having finished a 3 month road trip from the bottom of the States to the very top. The Californian sun was spectacular, so I boarded my flight in my tank top, shorts and thongs (flip flops…always feel the need to translate there).
In my carry on was a spare change of clothes, clean underwear and a light overthrow. 20 hours of flying later and I realized I had made the first rookie error of flight. I wasn’t wearing suitable clothing for the weather of my final destination, and I didn’t have an appropriate change of clothes.
I disembarked in Sydney to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or as we in Australia call that…0 degrees. I had forgotten the implications of traveling to Australia in June.
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Most people avoid traveling — not because they don’t want to see the world, but because they seem to think all travel must be expensive, and they fear they simply can’t afford it. So they take their trips close to home to cut down costs, and they miss out on some truly great cities around the world that are just waiting to be explored.
Of course there are some obvious areas where you can focus in order to save money while traveling, like hunting for cheap plane tickets and traveling in the off season, though some of the best money-saving tips may not be the ones you immediately think of when planning a trip.
Dublin is one of the most beautiful and culturally-rich cities in the world, and while it can be an expensive place to visit if you let it, there are a few ways you can cut some corners and save some cash.
Following these simple tips will have you exploring the best this Irish city has to offer with enough cash left over for a round of pints at the pub.
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Phang Nga Bay, off the east coast of Phuket Island is definitely one of the most beautiful parts of Thailand. That means there are plenty of tour operators and options for departure points.
We boarded our ship in the village of Ao Por at the far north east of Phuket Island. It was a pretty little village in its own right, complete with traditional fishing boats, and that gorgeous aquamarine water.
The trip out to our canoeing destination was about an hour by boat, but what a trip! Glorious scenery, stunning rock formations and that pretty sea. I wasn’t really sure how canoeing could improve our experience. But I was willing to give it a try!
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When an emergency happens and you’re in a foreign land what do you do? Do you speak the local language? Do you know which medical facilities are qualified to treat your medical needs? Do you have the financial means to satisfy the local providers?
What if you are in a rural land, or even worse, one which doesn’t have medical providers that meet western standards of care? These are all very real problems for a person traveling abroad. Not knowing what to do or where to go could cost you your life.
So why do so many travelers still travel without insurance? You wouldn’t go away without your tickets or your passport, so why risk going away without a proper health insurance plan?
The following are 10 reasons why traveling without international health insurance is a stupid idea. Because if you can’t afford to travel with health insurance you shouldn’t be traveling at all.
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