I have lost count of the number of times I have put my back out carrying heavy luggage through an airport, either because there weren’t enough airport trolleys available or because I was in a hurry.
A travel luggage trolley offers a great way to avoid a nasty back tweak.
This one is retailing for £19.99 ($36.98) at Go Planet Go and described as follows:
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New Zealand is the perfect place in which to travel in the backpacking style. A compact country with dramatically different scenery between the main towns and cities. Getting around is easy, and better still, your choice of routes, activities and accommodation is limitless.
If you’re a keen cyclist New Zealand’s South Island is a great place, with excellent roads and stunning scenery throughout the island.
Other forms of transportation are as flexible as you like. Roads in New Zealand are excellently maintained, it’s hard to get lost, traffic between cities/towns is virtually non existent and there are limitless places to picnic or stop for a break. So travelling by campervan or rental car is probably one of the best ways to get up close to the fantastic New Zealand landscapes. Campervans are great fun and a cost effective option for groups of people travelling together. There are a huge range of excellently maintained caravan parks in truly spectacular locations. Many people pick up a hire vehicle in the North Island and drop it off in the South Island, or vice versa. Don’t forget to book up the ferry between the islands nice and early - it gets very busy during peak periods. Also pack some sea sickness pills as it can get very choppy on the way over.
If you want to skip around the country quickly, hop on a plane - New Zealand has a comprehensive domestic flight service. Domestic air travel is very reasonably priced and booking online makes it even cheaper.
Buses are the traditional backpacker mode of transportation whereby you can use Flexi Passes to buy travel by the hour on the nationwide network of Intercity buses. Or you could try the convenience of a Travelpass to go directly from one location to another.
According to NewZealand.com:
“Magic Travellers Network and Kiwi Experience buses take you off the main routes and also allow you to get on and off as you choose (even taking you to the door of local hostels). With Magic Bus you can even tag on a train journey such as the spectacular TranzAlpine or TranzCoastal. Then there are the smaller bus operators like Bottom Bus in the lower South Island that let you get into some of the wildest scenery in the country.”
Posted by Peter Brady on Thu 17th August 2006 at 07:00 AM, Filed in Travel Tips
In light of all the recent turmoil at UK airports I thought it might be useful to impart some tips on the best way to pack a suitcase. In particular, now that it looks like carrying any form of liquid or gel in hand luggage is to become a permanent no no. Here are some quick and easy tips that just might save you a lot of hassle - and yes most of the tips are common sense!
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Going somewhere truly unusual is becoming increasingly difficult as more and more destinations are opening their doors for business. But I think it’s safe to say that the Antarctic will probably never emerge as a mainstream holiday spot!
However, according to igougo the French Antarctic islands allow a small dribble of tourists each year and might be your best opportunity of getting a flavour of Antarctic life.
Officially owned by several countries the islands have no airports and are arrived at by voyage on a scientific ship, which departs from Reunion Island four times a year. The ship only accepts 14 visitors on each trip with the rest of the ships passengers made up of scientists, support personnel and relatives of those who have family members living on the islands. It’s safe to say that you’re not going to get a luxury cruise but what you do get is the opportunity to see locations rarely visited by human beings and which harbour a rich diversity of wildlife that includes various species of penguin, seals, whales, orca, albatross and breathtaking scenery to boot.
From beginning to end the round trip totals 29 days and is broken up by hops from Reunion to Crozet onto Kerguelen, Saint Paul (which is uninhabited), Amsterdam and then back to Reunion.
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Posted by Peter Brady on Tue 15th August 2006 at 07:00 AM, Filed in Travel Gadgets
If you’re not a great linguist then you might want to consider this little gadget. It’s called an Electronic Travel Translator and cross-translates 11 international languages, which include: English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch Russian, Swedish, Italian, Chinese Mandarin , Portuguese and Japanese.
There are 705 commonly used travel related sentences per language. Insert voice card to enable Voice Mate to speak required language. There are 8 major categories to help locate the required sentence, for example: general speech, emergency and medicine and sightseeing. There are also 16 data files to store important notes and this travel mate displays 15 cities world time.
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