If you’ve been to Europe and have a crazy story to tell about it, enter this contest:
You’ll thank me later,
Lisa
Culture Shock Rail Europe and Win
Reply
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Sail Sydney Harbour to the Island Bar
If you’re in Sydney sometime before the end of January, hop on a ferry from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island for a drink at sunset.
Cockatoo Island is home to the Island Bar, an outdoor venue built using recycled shipping containers that serves food and cocktails. Prices are a bit higher than you’ll get in a backpacker bar, but cheap places with sticky floors don’t have this kind of view.
I suggest you go for one drink and some evening air, then take the ferry back to Circular Quay to continue your night out. Drinks will be cheaper closer to the backpacker venues on Pitt Street, and you won’t have to worry about whether you can stomach a boat ride while drunk.
What are your recommended hangouts for Sydney?
Have 10 Friends? Get a Free Reading Week Trip
Play tour director and get ten of your friends to sign up for a Reading Week trip with Travel CUTS and you could go for free.
(Or, do the math and split the discount across your friends so you’ll all have a little more to spend while you’re away.)
Eligible trips include:
- A week at the beach in Puerto Plata
- Adrenaline-fueled travel around Costa Rica with G Adventures
- Topdeck tours of Europe, Africa, Australia or New Zealand
- Skiing in Quebec (just $561 for 5 nights hotel *and* and 4-day lift pass)
See details for all the trips.
If you don’t have 10 friends who want to travel then start advertising around campus to make some new ones. As soon as you’re ready, talk to Travel CUTS to book your trip.
And don’t forget to mention your trip to the relatives over the holidays. They might just find a little extra spending money for you before you go.
Get friendly!
Lisa
Around the World in Four Minutes With Time Lapse Travel
It’s really cold outside, so how about seeing Paris, New York City, Tuscany and Australia without leaving your cozy bed?
Have a look at filmmaker David Coiffier’s time lapse video and see just how much all cities look alike at night, and how clouds seem to be boiling over when viewed in fast forward.
Watch more of the world fly by in Wired’s 10 Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Videos.
A G Adventures Contest You’ll Never Forget
I love G Adventures’ new “You’ll Never Forget It” travel campaign. They’ve declared “Tourist Season Is Over” and posted videos of travellers on every continent to show what satisfying, substantial travel is all about.
Wouldn't you like to feel as joyful as she looks? Travel can do that for you.
If ever 90 seconds of your time could motivate you to get off your butt, start saving some money to go on the trip of your dreams, and eventually change your life, these little films will do it.
And if you want to skip the saving money part of that process, enter their contest that opens on November 21st. Share one of your unforgettable travel moments and you could win a chance to make a lot more of them.
Read the contest details or start by watching the videos.
Sail Croatia: The Yacht Week 2012
I like to ask people who’ve just come back from a vacation what their next trip will be because they’re usually still on a travel high and are ready to plan big.
So I asked my boot camp instructor, who just spent two weeks going around Italy and Spain, what was next for him. His answer: Yacht Week in Croatia.
I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up. Turns out, you can get a bunch of friends together, or hook up with other groups of travellers via message boards, and rent a yacht for a week. Then a whole bunch of yachts travel the same route together and everyone enjoys sailing by day and nightclubs and parties by night.
I haven’t done much sailing, but I think I’d enjoy being on a yacht. And I’ve never thought much about Croatia, but it looks beautiful.
Anybody done this before? Let me know, I’d love some more details.
See the Sculptures By the Sea in Sydney
It’s that time of year again where a walk from Sydney’s Bondi Beach to Tamarama has more to offer than just beautiful coastal views. Sculpture by the Sea has been a yearly event since 1997 and this year it runs from November 3 to November 20, so you have a little more time to get there.
Steve Croquett, heads up, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2011. Photo Samantha Burns.
More than 100 works of art, most of them very large and very fun to look at, have been installed on the trail joining the two towns and there’s no charge to see them. This year’s artists have come up with skeletons, zebras, a giant faucet and things that I don’t really know how to describe, but I like anyway.
It’s a beautiful walk even without the extra artistic scenery, so plan to spend at least a couple of hours winding and wandering your way around and then spend the rest of the day enjoying the beach.
Jane Gillings, provenance (a gilt frame), Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2011. Photo Helen Liu.
If you can’t make it to Sydney you can still enjoy an afternoon by the beach by going through the Sculpture by the Sea online gallery.
The 50 Best Bars in the World
Harry's American Bar in Paris made the top 10.
A group called Drinks International polled bartenders and other “bar professionals” and came up with a list of the 50 Best Bars in the World.
The list seems to heavily favor London and New York, but Tokyo, Dubai, Wellington and other cities are also represented. (No Canadian bars made the list, but then no Vegas bars did either. Go figure.)
I was a little embarrassed to see that I hadn’t been to a single bar on the list, although I have heard of a few. Although for my money, I think I had a much better time drinking under the stars at hostel bars in the middle of the Australian Outback than I would in a swanky Parisian place.
Still, just to be a well rounded traveller, I may have to print this list out and make sure that I hit at least one of these places on my next trip. Any recommendations on where I should start?
The Top 10:
1. PDT, New York
2. Connaught, London
3. Artesian, London
4. Death & Co, New York
5. Milk & Honey, London
6. American Bar at the Savoy, London
7. 69 Colebrooke Row, London
8. Drink, Boston US
9. Harry’s New York Bar, Paris
10. Black Pearl, Melbourne, Australia
Eat Like a Caveman in Berlin
Usually people look forward to sampling the local delicacies of the places they visit. But there’s a restaurant in Berlin that wants to feed you the foods of your ancestors.
At Sauvage you’ll eat eggs, nuts, meat and other unprocessed foods that could have been found by hunters and gatherers.
If you really want to get into the Paleo spirit of things, you could try giving up shoes for a few days, although good luck getting into other restaurants that way.
What do you think? Fun dining idea or an expensive way to eat trail mix?
Purposeful Travel With travel2change
If you’ve ever travelled to a less developed country you may have left with the feeling that you’d like to do something for the people you met.
Maybe they don’t have clean drinking water or enough schools. Maybe they need help preserving their historical sites.
Well travel2change is a group that helps travellers put together projects that help communities around the world. Individuals and organizations submit project ideas and the travel2change community (anyone who joins the site) chooses who to support.
Four projects are then chosen to turn into a reality and travel2change helps plan and pay for them.
Visit www.travel2change.org to learn more or to get inspired with ways you can help the communities you visit.