Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?
Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?
Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!!
PRÓXIMA VIAGEM want to hear from you! Próxima Viagem is a Brazilian travel magazine that sells around 70 000 copies a month. For the special birthday issue of their magazine they want to publish a poll of the top travellers in the world, people who have been to more than 100 countries and are members of some travellers club. The poll is to ask travellers about their favourite small-charming cities in the world. It is a “travel is peace” kind of article.
Please send Denise your top 10 small cities that are very special for you and a brief biography of yourself, focused on travelling and the number of places you visited.
contact Denise by e-mail
Dr Livingstone is walking through the jungle and comes across a clearing with a huge hippopotamus lying stone dead in the middle of it. On top of the hippo is a pygmy. Dr Livingstone approaches him and asks: “Did you kill that?” The pygmy replies: “Howrya. Yes, I did.” Dr Livingstone is surprised by this and continues by asking: “How did you kill it?” “With my club,” replies the pygmy. Dr Livingstone asks: “How big is your club?” “Oh, there's about twenty of us at the moment,” says the pygmy.
US Airways, the sixth biggest airline in the United States, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Under the so-called Chapter 11 procedure, the company will continue to operate while it attempts to restructure its business and return to financial health, estimated to be the first quarter of 2003.
Last month US Airways pilots agreed to pay cuts amounting to $465m a year, in an effort to keep the company afloat and the company is also attempting to save $1.3bn in annual expenses from labour, suppliers, lenders and creditors.
All of the US airlines have experienced a downturn in air travel since 9-11, but this is the first carrier to file for bankruptcy. Part of the reason is that whilst US Airways did not lose any planes on 11 September, its main hub, Reagan National Airport, near Washington DC, was shut down for three weeks and reopened with only a limited schedule.
United Airlines, the second-ranking US carrier, has warned it may follow rival US Airways in filing for bankruptcy protection. They say that unless it succeeds in cutting its costs, it will also be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. Interestingly, UA is 55% owned by employees. The firm has given itself 30 days to conclude talks with staff on rebuilding the carrier around a new business plan. Watch this space!
Blaming the problem on a slump in passengers, Chairman and Chief Executive Jack Creighton said: “The world has changed, revenue isn't coming back the way the industry expected. Demand isn't returning, fares remain low, and the industry is grappling with how to respond.”
Michael is looking for a cheap guesthouse, pension or hostel near Villefrance (halfway b/w Nice and Monaco) in France. He arrives in Nice on September 3rd and leaves on the 28th September and is looking for a cheap place to stay in both Italy and Villefrance. If you can help Michael, please e-mail him.
Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country – want to share something with us – why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid
If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites
· The airport handles more international passengers than any other airport in the world and offers flights to many international destinations including 33 flights to Paris and 23 flights to New York each day.
· The most popular country for flights from Heathrow is the United States of America.
· The busiest routes are New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin.
· The busiest day at Heathrow recorded this year was Sunday 29 July 2001 when 213,000 passengers passed through the airport.
· The airport covers approximately 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres).
OK, it's silly season! Earlier in the year, we saw Prince Charles (but not Camilla!) spend a night in a £25-a-night B&B called Yew Tree Farm, an 18th century farmhouse in the Lake District village of Rosthwaite in Borrowdale. Pre-divorce, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise also used to stay in the Lake District, at Samling, a rambling Lakeland estate of stone cottages dotted across a fell overlooking Lake Windermere.
Michael Winner stays at Sandy Lane, Barbados. Kylie is known to holiday in Ibiza, staying at a £10,000 a week three-bed art deco house on top of a mountain, according to celebrity travel agent Earth. Julien MacDonald of Givenchy fame is alleged to prefer the Puri Ganesha villas on the beach at Pemuteran, a fishing village in the relatively undiscovered north-west of Bali, costing around £300 a night. Talking of fashion designers, Jean Paul Gaultier can be found at Dar Zellije, a four-suite riad said to have no frills other than its 17th century architecture where not all the bathrooms are en suite.
And last but not least, lets think about Brighton, that genteel (?), happening place and erstwhile Victorian resort on the UK's southern shore. Not only does Norman Cook, AKA Fat Boy Slim hold rather dubious free concerts on the beach, but Liam Gallagher was spotted staying on the seafront at Blanche House, described as a themed B&B costing around £100 a night.
If you are thinking of going to Santiago or Tahiti, did you know, you could take a flight to Easter Island? It's included in the famous Oneworld Explorer air pass. In addition, if you do plan a trip to Easter Island, David Stanley's piece on Easter Island is a good source of information to help you plan your trip. David's notes on Easter Island are taken from the Moon Handbook on the South Pacific.
Visit southpacific.org for full information on how to get there, what there is to see, how to get around, a brief history and other activities such as surfing and diving. David Stanley has earned his living from guidebook writing since 1979, producing guides to the South Pacific, Micronesia, Alaska-Yukon, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. His latest book, Lonely Planet Canada's Maritime Provinces, was released in July.
You may want to reschedule your visit to Madagascar: according to news sources, an outbreak of flu has killed at least 374 people with another 5,000 and more infected. Health experts from the WHO are due to arrive to investigate the cause. The outbreaks are mostly blamed on poverty and have occurred in the southern highlands, Fianarantsoa and in the western port of Tulear, a place used by travellers to visit the national parks close by.
Add this to the last 7 months of civil unrest, this does not make Madagascar a very attractive place to visit – which is a great shame, as the Beetle can attest it is a fabulously interesting country, hard to get around, but worth the effort, to see the different kinds of forests, the lemurs, practice speaking French, the old French style of architecture and boulevards etc. The diving is not bad, either!