Leave the hanger today! NEW Travel jobs feature

This weekly feature showcases top travel jobs, as selected by the Sandwagon. Read more!

Dubai Literature Festival - get bookish by the beach

The Market Focus of this year’s London Book Fair (at Earls Court) was The Arab World. So, as far as book trade exhibition stands go, the Middle Eastern publishers and representatives raised the bar, bringing along enough 7-star star showing off to distract passersby from even HarperCollins and Faber & Faber displays. Vast opulent stands with sexy silvery reception desks and seating with handy nibbles bore close resemblance to executive airport lounges: minimal, metallic, set off by soft hues and Arabic script in crisp typography. It proved that even a rented space in an exhibition hall could become a thing of beauty. Then again, throw money at most things and they assume a certain - if generic - sense of class.

Slightly less classy was 'my office' in the Arabic Deli, where I was handed a ticket to the launch of the new Dubai Literature Festival. Running from 25 Feb - 1 March 2009, Dubai hosts the inaugural Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL) .

Authors confirmed to speak at the festival include;
Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Paolo Coelho, Lynne Truss, Anne Fine, Jeremy Strong and Lauren Child. Other authors will be household names in genres such as fiction, children’s, lifestyle and sport.

I've yet to hear whether the festival will remain in Dubai or move around the Middle East, showcasing authors and destinations as it passes through. This said, even if Dubai plays host for one year only, it's a high profile cultural event that could - with the correct treatment - soften the city state's materialistic edges. But given the red carpet treatment, it could become just another show without substance.

Is Dubai trying to right its image as a culturally devoid playground for the rich and quasi-famous? Sure, it has culture - all the culture that money can buy in the form of visiting theatre groups, musicians et al. But all that we usually see from afar are the competitive hotels with gilded suites or snobby restaurants' gluttonous brunches.

This festival is a great addition to the scene and I’m sure that Dubai will profit richly from it. Read more!

Travel.alltop.com - the best blogs right before your eyes

A while back on SandWagon, I was singing the praises of netvibes: a feedburner that displays all of the posts from travel blogs, the second that their authors hit PUBLISH. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that by keeping me up to speed with latest news across a myriad blogs (my daily doses range from the broadsheets online to the British Antarctic Survey's 'Penguin of the Day' posts) netvibes completely changed my professional life. I just added the URLs of my trusted blogs or news feeds, and the headlines magically appeared on my homepage. No more sieving sites for gems, no more did I rely on 'feelings' about the next emerging destination, and no longer was I oblivious to Ryanair's latest landing strip, in yet another corner of another foreign field.

But just as I thought netvibes made life in the travel media as easy as it could get, there came along a bunch of people from alltop.com. They've only gone and collected the top (in their opinion) travel blogs for you on one easy to view page (RSS feeds already set up and running). Bloody brill: a ready-made travel trends analysis tool at the click of an URL.

Enjoy! Click here for alltops ....

As a quick aside...I'm also very happy to say that the SandWagon has made it onto the top 60 sites that inform the travel.alltop.com page! Read more!

Bradt Guides/Independent on Sunday Travel Writing Competition 2008

If - and I don't pretend to understand this - travel writing for the sheer joy of it doesn't come easily, I urge you to investigate this year's Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel Writing Competition. The prizes and the prestige of winning this competition should prove motivation enough for you to swallow any doubts and show your worth. Go on...let your mind wander, employ the setting sun as your muse and, balancing laptop on a wobbly bench overlooking the ocean or leaning your scrap paper on the coffee-stained drop down tray on the commuter train home, let your own brand of atmospheric prose flow.

I truly believe that the less intimidated you are by the established travel media the better. Become a counterfeit Bill Bryson or plastic Michael Palin and readers will skip your piece, finding more life in the tv listings.

Respect established travel writers, of course. They've spent lifelong careers inspiring and informing their readers; flying, sailing, walking and writing it all up. What's not to respect? But fresh travel writing talent is conceived of passion and a unique voice that challenges cliches, taking readers with them to the heaving or serene heart of a far flung field, festival or falaffel stall. No fluff or bubbles; this is travel writing and not holiday brochure copy writing.

Next thing you know, Hilary Bradt will be congratulating you on a fine piece of writing and the Independent is heralding you the new Louis Thereoux ... you'll soon be over run with commissions for articles and guidebooks. Enjoy your new life and buy me a beer when we're on that dream research trip to Fiji together!


Who's it for? Published and unpublished writers

Theme: 'The heart of the city'

Word count is 800 words max.

First prize: a commission (a 1,200-word article for The Independent on Sunday) and a research trip (for two) to Kyrgyzstan

Prize for unpublished writers: a travel-writing course in the Spanish city of Granada, with Travellers' Tales

Deadline (get going!) noon, Friday 16 May 2008

Visit Bradt's website for the ins and outs

Read last year's winning article here Read more!

Top Travel Article - Sandwagon Inspired

This piece on river rafting in Sweden by Nick Thorpe caught my eye... something for the back-to-basic travellers amongst us.

Read the article here

To play Huck Finn for yourself contact Simply Sweden Simply Sweden's Raft Adventures Read more!

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

...but I wouldn't flog your back too much for ever being or still being a 'tourist'. All travellers were first tourist. I don't consider the appreciation of the planet and others' lifestyles that tourism opened my eyes to as loathsome.

Although to agree with Wallace, the thought of mass-market tourist cruise ships surging towards virgin Antarctica or around the Galapagos Islands leaves a distasteful, seasickness taste in my mouth.

Consider the Lobster (2005) is a collection of essays by novelist David Foster Wallace. It is also the title of one of the essays, which was published in Gourmet Magazine in 2004. Read more!

Stanfords' Travel Bookshop, London

If wandering around the travel section of your local Waterstones gives you nearly as much of a rush as ordering that first cold beer in a new country, Stanfords' flagship store - 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden - will feel like a round-the-world trip for your itchy-footed soul.

The shop's three floors are stacked high with travel guides, maps old and new, globes inflatable, illuminated or traditional, travel lit, pictorial coffee-table hardbacks and geographical miscellany . It's the only bookstore I've visited that attracts backpackers like moths to flames or like mosquitoes to ... well, backpackers sleeping in beach bunks.

Mixed in amongst travellers of the armchair or imminently departing varieties might be commissioning editors from the capital's travel publishing houses. They've just stopped in to handle the competitors' latest editions and sniff out a few ideas for next year's publishing programme. I particularly like sitting on the window ledges up on the first floor when I'm there 'researching'.

The secret to the store's success has to be its decor and range of stock: let's call it the ambiance of sun-crinkled, well-travelled great uncle's study. The buyers here seem to have filled their shelves with books on destinations and subjects that fascinate them and not just those that will sell 100 copies every week. For example, you'll find that hardback copies of Graffiti World are displayed as prominently as Lonely Planet's ubiquitous Blue List.

Stanfords' website is just as diligent in its offering of diverse travel inspiration and features in-store events listings , interviews with the likes of Simon Calder , Bill Bryson and Michael Palin , and articles written by its staff.

Stanfords is the UK's leading specialist retailer of maps, travel books and other travel accessories, having been established in 1853 by Edward Stanford... read more of the store's history here. Read more!

101 Weekends In Europe by Robin Barton

This travel blog is no travel bandwagon. The Sandwagon prefers to follow the potholed back roads over speedy autobahns, picking the less-traversed tracks over those obvious travel trends. From the back of the Sandwagon, wind in my hair, I'll always report on as diverse a range of travel-related stimuli as possible.

That said, I work full-time for a travel publisher and have 25 days annual leave to play with. Obviously I can't set off on a 60 day horse trek across Mongolia or dedicate months of my time to paddling the length of the River Amazon in a one-woman coracle. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to flee the office and explore the world that I write about far more thoroughly, but for the foreseeable it's simply not viable.

So, I'm sorry that I can't blog from Everest Base Camp this week but I can give you insider tip offs and reviews from the travel publishing industry. New Holland's latest offering, 101 Weekends in Europe is one for travellers who, like me, shoehorn their passion for travel in alongside their passion for the dream day job. An anthology of ideas for weekend breaks, Barton's book is perfect inspiration for anyone that's short on time but brimming with curiosity for different places and lifestyles. This weekend Wenceslas Square, next Naples... April to Amsterdam, then Madrid in May. That's good enough for me.

101 Weekends in Europe written by Robin Barton and published by New Holland
Published September 2008. Paperback @ £16.99

Click here to buy it Read more!

Opera Seaon: Milan, La Scala @ Leicester Phoenix

Sandwagon's support and admiration goes to Leicester's Phoenix Arts theatre for showing recordings from La Scala (Milan) Opera season. I hope this venture has been well supported by the city, because not only is La Scala one the world's most prized venues its season also deserves this level of mainstream Midlands exposure. Equally, we mere mortals this side of Europe deserve the chance to view world-renowned performances that only the rich, famous, fur collared and sharp suited Milanese are usually party to.

Good work Leicester Phoenix and good luck with this venture.

Sunday 20th April at 2.30pm is AIDA (which opened the 2006 season) by Giuseppe Verdi. Tickets £12.00 (much cheaper than the real thing)

Phoenix Leicester, La Scala Read more!

Destinations 2008 - Earls Court, London

It's been a cold few weeks since London's Destinations travel fair. By now I'm guessing that every visitor's 2008 holiday planning 2008 is well under way. Opening on a windy, rainy Thursday (31st Jan), the show was a timely tonic for the British winter. Battered umbrellas stashed and soggy coats were swapped for wines, cocktails, snacks and traditional dances courtesy of the assembled worldwide tourist boards. Trekking to Earls Court in this weather should have rewarded its visitors with infinite globetrotting inspiration.

Wanderlust's Travel Award ceremony took to the The World Entertainment Stage before lunch. With the likes of Singapore Airlines, Bradt Guides, Lonely Planet and the specialist tour operators hanging off Lyn Hughes’ every word, I think it's fair to say that the travel glossy put Destinations' official media sponsor in the 'too late to the pool' shaded sunlounger spot. While The Times punted its travel magazine's subscriptions from a stand modestly hidden alongside the Meet the Expert Theatres, Wanderlust monopolised centrally-located exhibition real estate. Their Travel Photographer Of The Year gallery space, basked in its usual popularity.

I've visited Destinations for the past few years and to be honest there weren't too many newbies infiltrating this somewhat staid face of the industry. There's Wanderlust; Bradt; Travellers Tales (the travel writing course providers); the Italian tourist board touting pasta; the Chilean tourist board, white wine. All doing wonderful jobs but not really pushing the imagination of the general public beyond the usual 'must-do this' of destinations. I haven't seen the Wonders Of The World or visited every continent, but I still want travel inspiration to open my eyes to something new. Perhaps travel blogs and online travel networks surpass exhibition stands.

Give me Gridskipper ; Boots ‘n’ All;
Itchy Feet Magazine and Vagablogging all in one room, so that I can see and talk to them... soon... please. Even if it has to be in Second Life!

This said, Sandwagon loved these things about Destinations, London 2008 ...

Taking a breather in the press lounge, listening in as Jonathan Scott - of Big Cat Diary fame - gave a live radio interview. And later in the day, watching him sort old-school slides for his Expert Speaker presentation.

David Shukman (BBC's Environment & Science Correspondent) and Justin Francis (responsibletravel.com) discussing the paradoxical notion of carbon-neutral travel.

Mark Davidson's presentation of his quality travel photography - an inspiring travel writer/photographer who also has celebral palsy and succeeds in this demanding field. He single-handedly renewed my faith in the Destinations fair and a travel media too often stifled and made scary by the old boys' network.

How Mike Unwin, author of Bradt's 100 Animals to See Before They Die (lucky barrrrrrstard of an author), convinced me that this was not as depressing a book commission to receive, research and write as it first seemed. The fact that the book's No 1 animal at risk of extinction - the Yangtze River Dolphin - actually became extinct in the time it took to publish a book is the saddest thing I've heard since working in publishing (the timeline from final page proof to printed book being just about two mths!). But then he would be fairly upbeat about the book, the researched having enabled him to see gorillas in their natural habitat ... I probably never will, nor my kids or theirs to come, or to come or to come.

What do you think of Destinations?

Never visited before? It moves to the Birmingham NEC on 29 Feb - 2 March.

Buy Tickets Read more!