A new Cultural Venue for a Midland's city - Curve, Leicester, UK

Leicester's eagerly anticipated performance venue, threw open its doors yesterday to give locals a sneak preview behind its signature curved glass facade.

Pensioners and parents with young children alike braved a cold, grey November Saturday afternoon to inspect the £65-million Curve venue that replaces the much-loved Haymarket Theatre.

Supporting Curve’s theatre-for-all-ethos, the day’s events were completely free and 25 people at a time took turns to tour behind the scenes of architect Rafael Viñoly’s state-of the-art venue. Those waiting patiently in queues that stretched along the curved glass-panelled window were entertained by a steel band and stilt-walking courtesans. Purple branded balloons and paper flags were also handed out to create the ‘family gala’ atmosphere that organisers had hoped for.

Groups were led through the Studio Theatre and then headed up to an airy mezzanine level that one middle-aged Leicester man described as feeling just like a modern football stadium. The mezzanine overlooks Orton Square, which was inaugurated earlier that day. Next, young and old threaded a path along backstage corridors, not yet full-fitted and decorated, below stage and into the orchestra pit. A full stage-sized rehearsal room and a two-storey high dance studio later, and each tour grouped came to the main auditorium to sit down in brand-new seats for a question and answer session.

Fireworks closed the day, before visitors ebbed away from what is the centre-piece of Leicester’s new Cultural Quarter in the Rutland Street area of the city. A local dance teacher commented that, “the facilities are amazing, but I hope that studio hire rates aren’t too expensive for dance schools to afford.” Others craned their necks to look up again at the great glass wall before heading into the city centre. Curve’s first show, Lift off, opens on 11th November. Read more!

Worldwide Weddings - Globetrotting Brides wanted

Visit Written Road for details of how to share your knowledge of weddings around the world. Be honest girls, don't we all commit to memory every whitewashed, sun-drenched church by the sea or on a tranquil lake that we come across? Or is that just me..?

Just for future reference.... this is St Mary's Church, Lake Bled
Pic © Thomson Lakes

Read more!

Too spooked to stay in the hotel that inspired Steven King's The Shining?

Wheeeere's Johnny? At The Fairmont Algonquin, New Brunswick, Canada.

If you like your bed to go bump in the night and prefer to get your exercise ghostbusting around hotel libraries, this press release from Fairmont Hotels & Resorts might be of interest. Click here for “Spooktacular” Tales and Travel Getaways to Celebrate Halloween. Read more!

World Travel Market - did 2007's Travel Trends Come True?

Predicting travel trends must be a fun occupation. So, Lord of the Rings is being filmed in New Zealand...that's definitely going to encourage visitors to by-pass Oz or push the boat out on a Downunder twin-centre holiday.

Or, now that everyone is a budding Jamie Oliver in the kitchen, surely we'll all want to take as authentic a cookery class as possible; demand for pizza masterclasses in Naples and curry courses in Kerala must be through the roof?

2007 was going to be the year that pets would see more of the world and Halal tourism would really take off. This press release, introducing a session on travel trends that's taking place at the forthcoming World Travel Market, makes really interesting reading. Click here to see if travel predictions made in 2007 have been lived out in the year's travelling antics. Read more!

About SandWagon

In June 2007, SandWagon set off on its bumpy journey with this as its Mission Statement.

Rather than taking the predictable bandwagon route, SandWagon is committed to providing as wide a spectrum of travel news, reviews and inspiration as possible. It won't downgrade readers' worldwide exploration to a list of names to tally up and brandish competitively, nor will it won't plod with the crowds to just the must-see places.

I accept that travel trends exist and from time to time they'll influence the articles you find here, but the SandWagon’s route around the world is fundamentally laissez-faire. There's no fixed plan and SandWagon's travel articles aren’t tethered to market forces, fads, fashions or the locations of the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

I'm committed to writing from the the back of the SandWagon - barefoot and free of preconception, curiosity-giddy with the wind in my hair and my eyes fixed on the horizon - and I hope that you'll come along for the journey.

Subjects covered
Subject matter on SandWagon is diverse and the possibilities for posts is intentionally open ended. We do like to cover emerging destinations; responsible tourism; the natural world; travel literature; travel publishing; guidebooks; news and reviews; resources for travellers and travel writers.

Contribute
SandWagon is keen to hear from contributors across the globe who want to help us push the travel bandwagon into the nearest ditch.
Contact me at sandwagon@googlemail.com
Read more!

Written Road - my latest post goes live

Having worked in the travel industry since the year 2000, and now having become a blogging addict, a certain event in California was certain to grab my attention. Read more about the travel industry Bloggers' Summit at Written Road Read more!

Class not crass – Australia's 'where the bloody hell are you?' binned for Baz

Sandwagon bids farewell to Australia's, 'So where the bloody hell are you?,' tourism campaign, which was at best arrogant and at worst considered offensive. And it's fair to say that whilst it succeeded in getting potential visitors' attention, it didn't really lay claims to their hearts.



So, the Aussie's have called upon their talented son Baz Luhrman to deliver some epically themed adverts befitting his epic homeland. The ads and the entire tourism campaign feature themes and straplines, all with undeniably awe-inspiring backdrops, that have been crafted to stoke the 'finding yourself' fire that demands regular rekindling in the souls of travel addicts...

Admittedly 'Come walkabout' does make me think of sticky floors and cheap beer, in those green and yellow Aussie-styled bars that are scattered across the UK. But only for a few seconds... until the advert's string music kicks in and the camera pans out on a dreamy, romantic scene. Take the billabong ad above; its far too familiar human theme, set in the country's Kimberley region, really did make me shiver. It reminded me of past travels that gave me the chance to find myself again. And it set me dreaming of trips to come; before I let life and relationships degrade into a blur of deadlines and working and doing and ticking off to-dos.

Yep, I'm probably being a little too soft about the ads, but aren't all travellers perpetually on the hunt for the next destinationally-inspired chill along their spine that makes them feel alive?

Australia may well be on the Sandwagon travel agenda for early next year!

The ads air in the UK tonight and are tied in with Baz Luhrman's new movie Australia, starring Nicole Kidman. Read more!

Travel TV Show Alert - World's Greatest Cities on ITV Tonight

Griff Rhys Jones gets under the skin of three of the greatest cities on earth for a new three part documentary series. Tonight showcases New York, New York. Catch the show at 9pm on ITV1

For Griff, New York, London and Paris are the cities closest to his heart...


“I love a lot of cities that are not included in this series, like Rome and Edinburgh, but I love the three we are covering most of all. New York for its style and warmth, Paris for its taste and chic, and London for its grubby soul.”

So what makes a city ‘great’?

“A great city is inexhaustible, it keeps throwing new sights, new people, new tastes and new sounds at you, but I’m drawn to places which have many, many layers of history. Anything which is huge scale and uniform tends to ultimately be dull. So London is a good example of a city which is made up of dozens of different parts and experiences as you walk through it. Ultimately it’s people and their pride in their environment that make a great city work. If there’s no place where people can express themselves, either by trimming the hedges or building extraordinary skyscrapers then the city has no soul.”

A few things took Griff by suprise.

“I was surprised at how quickly New York changes its character. People now live on Wall Street because so many banks left it after 9/11. The printing area is now a fashion area and the West Side is changing its spots daily. I was surprised by how funny and helpful the Parisians were once you stop being a tourist. We had the best laughs with French people and I wasn’t expecting that.

The one thing that made me laugh the most in Paris was when I drove a 2 CV around the Arc de Triomphe where all the rules of driving are temporarily abandoned!”

He had a few hairy moments as well. .

“When I was working as a window cleaner at a 30 storey building in New York, I did get moderately scared when the guy who was teaching me didn’t seem to know how the safety equipment worked!

However, the most terrifying thing I did was to take part in an inline skating event in Paris. They do it every Friday and the streets are closed to traffic to enable the people to skate around the central streets in safety. We did it on a Wednesday for some reason, into the rush hour traffic. I had never inline skated before and feared at every moment that my skates would clip one of the many drains and potholes and that I would fall under the wheels of a Parisian bus!” Read more!

Frommer’s Travel Guides New for Apple iPhone® and iPod® Touch

A perfect pairing of America's best? Next time you're hitting the streets of New York, San Francisco, London and Paris, you can couple the sleek and simple design of Apple's latest gagdets with the latest in essential travel information.

Storing the city guides directly to your device gives you access to info on the move, without having to connect to the net and trawl through ad-ridden content. Frommer’s for iPhone also features local travel tips, restaurant and hotel reviews, and bonus features such as location-based services, interactive maps, and web and phone links. Turning the pages of a printed guide is now replaced by instantly accessible information at the flick of a finger, using the unique touchscreen interface.

“Frommer’s [an imprint of Wiley Publishing, Inc] is the go-to resource for millions of travelers every year,” said Larry Olson, Vice President and Marketing Director, Professional/Trade, Wiley. “There’s no doubt technology is changing the way we travel, and by partnering with Modiality [a market leader in transforming premium, branded learning and lifestyle content for personal handheld media players] to bring Frommer’s to the iPhone, we are positioning our content to appeal to the most savvy pleasure and adventure seekers in the marketplace.”

Click here to view a demo of the digital travel guide

The digital ediions of the 2008 Frommer’s New York, San Francisco, London and Paris guides are available for purchase and download on Apple.com via the new Apple App Store and on iTunes for $9.99. Additional Frommer’s guides are scheduled for release in late 2008.

Image ©Frommers/Wiley Publishing, Inc

Read more!

Sandwagon's Spruced Up Design

Sandwagon has been live, traversing the bumpy terrain of travel news and reviews, since June 2007. The old style site did us proud, but as it was definitely due for a revamp we've gone for a much snappier layout.

Those lengthy, entire posts that hogged the whole page have now been replaced by taster paragraphs that showcase the latest stories at a glance.

And we've also applied a cleaner design for a wind-in-the-hair look and feel that suits the Sandwagon travel philosophy perfectly.

Here's a glimpse of the the old style site, just for old time's sake. "So long," to the sand dunes where I set off on this journey. Read more!