Archives for November 2007

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Laptop Travel

Posted on November 23, 2007 ·

Kevin Allgood wrote an interesting article for Brave New Traveler asking readers to consider why they need to carry a laptop on their travels. I stopped carrying a laptop when I bought my Archos 604 WiFi, it fulfills the three main functions the much heavier laptop used to do for us:

1. Stores movies to keep us entertained.

2. Back up our digital media (photos, video etc).

3. Web browsing.

Email and blogging still requires a trip to the Internet Cafe because there is no keyboard but I can accept that small inconvenience for the two kilogram weight saving.

Filed Under: technology ·
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Make the Great Escape

Posted on November 15, 2007 ·

I’ve written recently about Frugal Travel – Vacationing at Home and Five Reasons to Travel Home this Holiday Season, and along those same pennywise lines a new blog emerged called Make the Great Escape. Sam, Jeff and Steph decided to stop existing and start living by escaping their surrounds for short trips on meagre budgets ($50/person), a moment of sheer inspiration for us all:

Sitting at Hard Times, nursing a beer and waiting for their chili mac, Stephanie and Jeff pondered what to do for the night. That was the downside to living in a place where you had been for most of your life, everything is so overdone and played out. They threw out some bar names, but then inspiration struck.

“Jeff, we should goto Virginia beach!” Stephanie said.

Where could you go this weekend with your mates?

Filed Under: travel experience ·
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Eurostar-High Speed Rail London to Paris

Posted on November 14, 2007 ·

The Eurostar rail service between London and Paris (or Brussels) is finally a truly high speed service with the opening of the high speed rail line in England.

The London home of Eurostar has moved from Waterloo Station to St Pancreas providing better connections to other British destinations once you alight from your Eurostar train and cuts the journey time by at least 20 minutes. That means 2 hours and 15 minutes between London and Paris. I’ve spent that much time getting to the gate at Heathrow so it’s a no brainer for me, rail all the way.

Filed Under: transportation · Tagged: ,
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Make Food Central to your Trip

Posted on November 13, 2007 ·

Has food been an important part of your travel experiences?, asked Beth at This Just In…

Food is often a central theme to our travel plans, and a good restaurant can provide you:

1. Cultural experiences,

2. Opportunities to meet locals or fellow travellers and share travel tips,

3. Entertainment (professional acts or just the locals at play), and

4. Naturally, great food.

We seek out great restaurants everywhere, and I’ll post a list of our Top Five Dining Experiences latter this week.

Filed Under: food and drink, travel experience ·
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Find Your Perfect Destination with Tripbase

Posted on November 12, 2007 ·

Determining your next vacation destination can be hit or miss but Tripbase hopes to help travellers find the perfect spot. The website is still under development but there is enough functionality to give users a taste of the future.

Tripbase

Travellers set five sliders to indicate their preferences for nightlife, dining, shopping, nature and attractions then Tripbase provides you all the options that meet your criteria. You can further refine the selection by choosing the type of trip, budget and weather amongst a wider list of criteria. I found some settings like budget are not yet useful as no matter how much I entered there were no results but this is still developmental.

When I set the sliders to my preferences, it threw up a list that matched my favourite destinations and few options I had not considered, so I look forward to using the fully featured site.

Check it out, and share your opinion with us.

Filed Under: planning · Tagged: ,
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