Volcanic Ash Journeys - how epic was your journey home?

Were you grounded by volcanic ash but able and willing to travel home overland? Why not share your epic tale with Travelex and be in with the chance of winning some prize money.

Julian Neal, Director of Travelex comments,
"There have been some absolutely inspiring stories about ways in which travellers have covered thousands of miles and taken the initiative to make their way home against the odds. Travellers have also clubbed together to get home, even using Twitter and Facebook to find unique methods of transport and locate fellow travellers stranded at the same destination. Travelex wants to reward these tales of creative travel plans and sheer determination."

The foreign exchange provider is spreading the word among travellers, asking them to post their epic journeys on their official Facebook page. The winning ‘volcanic legend’ will receive a Travelex prepaid currency card, Cash Passport, loaded with £1000 to spend on their next holiday. 10 runners-up will also receive £100 loaded onto a Cash Passport.

You've got until 18th May to take part in Travelex’s ‘Volcanic Legends’ competition, then fellow Facebook fans will vote for the winning journey.

Tell your story now and bask in the glory of your adventurousness (rather than whinging about getting your expenses refunded by Ryanair) at http://www.facebook.com/volcaniclegends.

Image (Camel caravan)from m_bartosch http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=681 Read more!

'Luxuriate' no more. Forever 'Escape'.

Next time you flick through a glossy holiday brochure or search for a deal on a travel website, note the frequency with which certain verbs are crammed into the headers, captions and hotel descriptions. 'RELAX and UNWIND', 'BASK' and 'INDULGE', you'll be encouraged. These fluffy verbs may well be overused in travel copywriting, but by tapping into physical factors (stress, warmth, imbibing) they'll probably work their magic and have you heading off to the sun to do just what they suggest.

But can I ask? Am I the only traveller (and travel editor) who can't help but recoil, quickly retracting my credit card, at the sight of that most fiendish of travel-related verbs...LUXURIATE (vb: enjoy as a luxury)? Certainly, we can all 'enjoy as a luxury' a fragrant bubble bath at home on a wet Wednesday evening, or a cheeky glass of champers before catching a train from London St Pancras. But for me, the act of travel deserves more substantive verbs - those that span the breadth of the linguistic spectrum, from the majestic to the downright primal.

Travel for most of us will always be a financial ‘luxury’, but portraying it in bling, diamond encrusted terms alone does a disservice to travel and to the destinations visited. Better to use 'escape' - perhaps a primal verb that rings the truest in even the soapiest of travel copy. Escape from the city, escape from the winter, escape the kids, escape the daily grind, escape the artificially-lit hanger where you work your nine-to-five, or escape the fallout from a very messy break up.

The urge to escape is nothing short of instinctive. Running away often feels like the only available option. Travel is that escape, allowing space to regroup, pick up the pieces and let the infinite opportunities that are available out there, in the big wide world, smack us between the eyes and lift us out of the latest dark, dank pit of despair.

Feeling claustrophobic; incarcerated by your everyday life? Look out for Sandwagon's short and sweet list of classic escapes, picked for those times when getting away is less of a want and more of a need. Coming next.

Image: Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand by Federico Stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Frankfurt Book Fair goers drop the cab, buy the app - Q Mapp interactive transit map available for iPhone and iPod Touch

Back in April I was commissioned by the cartographers Communicarta to chase vintage yellow trams around and around in the rain, up and down the hilly streets of Porto - it's all in a day's work when you're helping to update one of their public transport maps. On the same weekend, I also wrote about how my experience of using a Communicarta public transport map to get around the city and out to the Atlantic coast compared to using the local transport resources I gathered at the tourist information office. Read more about that here.

Today I was excited to receive a note from Ken Chui, Communicarta's Business Development Director, announcing that their painstakingly researched and logically drawn maps are now available digitally.

Want to have an interactive version of a city's underground map on your phone and to be able to zoom in and out on the lines you need to take? Want to keep track of your most frequently used stations, or locate the closest station to where you are? Now ...(and you know what's coming)...there's an app for that. The Q Mapp Frankfurt Interactive Transit map is available for the iphone/ipod touch from the iTunes store.

With perfect timing, Ken tells me that this is, "the one and only app of its kind geared towards the Frankfurt Book Fair", which takes place next week (14th-18th October).

He goes on to say that it will give book fair visitors the confidence to go anywhere in Frankfurt using the U/ S- Bahn and will help them make full use of their travel pass rather than spending too many euros on cab fares getting to and from their hotel to Messe and back again. The Frankfurt book fair is the largest international gathering of the publishing industry, so of course this public transport application comes in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

If you're off to Frankfurt on business or pleasure it's well worth spending 59p to have this trustworthy and easy to use travel resource in the palm of your hand, that is unless like me you're more of a Hero Android girl and don't have an iPhone!

The Q Mapps Munich Interactive Transit map is also available from the iTunes store.

Q Mapps Ltd is a subsidiary of Communicarta Ltd.

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Do travel websites inspire travellers or just the 'geeks'?

There's no denying it and increasingly no escaping it. The travel industry is obsessed with harnessing the infinite possibilities afforded by ever-evolving online technologies.

Just a quick scroll through the last ten minutes' worth of #travel tweets or a brief visit to a trusted travel website (be it traditional media or off-beat blog) would illustrate that point.

Currently everyone is talking about the use of sideWikis in travel sites, and there's a new business to business website (tnooz.com) for us to devour that's dedicated to travel technology news. And I'm sure that tomorrow will send me a link to another 'experience' website that can seemingly read my mind and sell me a holiday as I navigate through their inspiration pages ...no doubt they'll be able to summon up my dream trip via the magic of algorithms and targeted marketing. Thank God for them! Without their site I'd be stranded, incapable of thinking and dreaming up my next adventure for myself.

There's certainly no denying that blogging, tweeting, Google maps mash ups, downloadable content and travel apps for smart phones have delivered a whole new source of relevant, instantly updatable information to techsavy travellers. Something that the travel genre is certainly richer for and something that I hope travel publishers in particular can increasingly invest in (if not monetarily, at least in terms of time and effort).

But my question today is - and I've Tweeted it too - can anyone point me towards uses of travel technology/online development that are truly inspirational for travellers (ie not just another way to increase sales of holidays and/or compete with other travel sites in the geek stakes)? Read more!

What in the world would your first documentary explore?

I hate to admit it, but there has been far too little blogging going on here lately. That said, in between working on freelance projects, travelling and fighting the small yet persistent battles of everyday life, I've still managed to Twitter away uproariously with travellers and the travel community. Off the back of some of these twitterings, Sandwagon's blog is back.

On Monday, inspired by the BBC's Future of Food series, I tweeted the question, 'What would you make your first documentary about?

In episode 2 of Future of Food, George Alagiah hopped from Senegal to India, and Kenya to Kent, investigating the changing nature of the global food chain and pondering the real prospect of demand for meat, fish and corn outstripping what the planet can realistically supply. This is my kind of documentary. The kind that confronts the global issues that the majority of us, struggling to juggle work and personal concerns, will let slip to the back of our minds, even though we are directly involved and implicated in the causes and consequences of that issue.

And there's no getting away from this issue. We all eat. If enough individuals chose to eat less meat and only bought locally grown veg, humans might stand a small chance of one day evening out of the world's edible resources. This documentary made me think about the small part I play in that collective choice, and as a result of it I'll be steering clear of imported fish or vegetables from now on (I've already given up meat and I also grow some of my own veg). What more can a documentary maker hope for?

So back to the question. Assuming that you are a novice too, what would you make your first documentary about?

'Agriculture and politics in Argentina,' replied @argentinatours

@alexbainbridge of TourCMS threw in, 'I would make a documentary about how companies make travel websites - so consumers can see the work required and understand. As young consumers get taught about farms, about engineering etc - but few have experienced inside of an online travel company.'

@Travelrants was thinking along the lines of, 'the life of a consumer travel blogger, but I think people would get bored quickly (my family & friends do when I talk about it) :)'

And me, at the moment it would probably have to be about diving, including the psychology of learning to dive, instructor training courses and the ins and outs of the scuba industry from a novice's perspective.

What do you think of these ideas? What would your first documentary be about?

Also worth checking out are The Future of Food (2004, a film by Deborah Koons Garcia)

8-week Documentary Making Course at the London Academy of Media, Film & TV.


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Luxor's West Bank - if travellers had all the time in the world

It's the age old travelling frustration. You only had a limited time in a city, town or country. En route to all of the unmissable attractions, that you simply must pack into one or two days, your eyes wandered off to the less tourist-ridden spaces. Perhaps you pressed your camera up against the car window (just like I did for this picture), an attempt to secure enough of a visual prompt to include these places in your plans next time you're here. But often, there isn't a next time.

This happened to me in Luxor. Obviously, I was itching to descend, Lara Croft-style, into ancient tombs in the Valley of the Kings and then stand belittled by the Colossi of Memnon, those stoney faced mega-men. But...if only there was time to stop alongside the sugar cane fields, smell the bright pink flowers (first, finding out what they are) and colourfully painted mud brick houses that the taxi whipped by.

Next time in Luxor I'll be -

Booking a room on the East Bank rather than the West. Perhaps the Marsam Hotel and/or the Beit Sabee.

Hiring a bike and cycling around the sugarcane fields that I only viewed from altitude in a hot air balloon.

Stopping to shop at those fruit and veg stalls that appeared out of nowhere.

Watching the sun set from the Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, rather than from the terrace of the Winter Palace.
The frustration of time constraints do fuel future travel plans and force return visits.

And because things spotted en route leave their mark in your mind, a curious traveller will never be done travelling.
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View from the Sandwagon - Colossi of Memnon, Luxor

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LEAVE THE HANGER! Landcare Australia

Landcare Australia are calling all travel writers and photographers to write for a reason.

They need your help to get the general public engaged with the task of saving our planet. There are prizes for winning contributions!

Landcare’s Your Planet Needs You campaign is asking individuals to register the skills they are happy to offer for a local environmental project. They need you to write a compelling argument for getting involved and registering interest in saving our planet.

Written submissions should be no more than 100 words, visual submissions should be a 30 second video or a compelling image with caption.

Five finalists will be invited to a fancy lunch in Sydney on June 5 – World Environment Day – where the winner will be announced. There is a $500 cash prize for the winner and runner up prizes for the finalists.

Submit your entry to the Your Planet Needs You Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-Planet-Needs-You/75618033819?ref=mf And here is the rest of it. Read more!

New Feature: Lost In ....

..not Space, but various locations around the globe. Here's the low down on the feature as recently pitched to a travel website. I'll run it myself on Sandwagon, so that the idea lives on.
Travel content, be it in print or online, has always showed us how not to get lost. Heaven forbid that we wandered off with just our sense of discovery guiding the way.

The big questions are:
• Are trips doomed to disaster without the aid of a travel writer’s ‘Top Ten Must-See List of Unmissable Sights To See Before You Die’?
• Do travellers disappear into black-holes if they leave their hotels unaccompanied by a guidebook’s ‘indispensable’ colour-coded, waterproof, rip-proof, detachable fold-out map?
• Without a Google maps mash-up on their Smartphone would they all stand frozen to the spot – flibberdygibbets in a foreign land?

I think not. Be gone, generic travel content overkill.

Here’s my idea
My ‘Lost in ...’ series of content will back up my call to forego the safety net that is generic travel content, if only for one day, one morning or one hour of a trip. My first hand experiences and photos will inspire travellers to indulge in the sensation of getting intrepidly and truly unforgettably lost. It will have a light tone, reflecting the cult sci-fi series Lost in Space.

Travellers will still see the obvious sights and they’ll still immerse themselves in local culture. But they’ll also give themselves the chance to stumble upon experiences that are individual to their trip. These are the experiences that travel content cannot choreograph, such as... being invited into an artist’s studio on an anonymous backstreet ...or ordering the best fillet steak that you’ve ever tasted, in the restaurant that you took a chance on just because a fat furry tabby cat guarded the door.

Related post Travel without safety nets

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Golden Blocks Shore Dive: my piece for The Independent

Yet to perfect your giant stride entry or the throwing yourself backwards off a boat method? Then the Dahab way is for you.

The laid back Egyptian village set on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, around an hour north of Sharm El Sheikh, has enough shore diving sites to keep divers busy for at least a week or so.

In fact shore diving seems to satisfy visitors' demands so much that none of the local dive schools have yet invested in a Zodiac boat for off-shore diving.

Read about my shore dive at Dahab's 'Golden Blocks' as featured by On The Road at The Independent:Travel.






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