All posts by The Ant

July meeting news from the London branch by Jacqui Trotter

For the end of the season London meeting, we had the traditional Members’ Slides to entertain us and this time around we had as many new speakers as returning favourites.  All provided the audience with a varied range of excellent journeys and adventures, illustrated with some stunning photos:-

Eric Hayman : slides and memories about the extensive steam rail network in Ireland that he travelled in the 1960’s, often by hitching a ride with the driver. A wonderful insight into times gone by and the life of those who lived nearest to the tracks.

Delia Cardnell : A colourful glimpse of Delia’s trip to Vietnam and especially her interactions with the children and families she met there.

Jacek Obloj : These fascinating portraits from a trip to Morocco showed both Jacek’s interest in the human face but also a close up and intimate look at a colourful and varied people in black & white.

Suneel Kaur : A recent trip to India to visit the Jain temples near Bundi provided the subject for this presentation. History, culture and lots and lots of steps added to the attraction of this ‘off the tourist trail’ site.

Liz Cooper : Beautiful close-up photographs of the insects, birds and animals of Thai and English islands. A timely reminder that it is not always necessary to travel a long way to see beauty in nature. 

Kevin Brackley : A trip to Sweden to practice his yoga gave Kevin a fine opportunity to explore the quirky sculpture & art that seems to litter the urban landscape of Stockholm. Who could miss the Shrek roof decoration or the stickered bin? 

Nick Preston : Katoomba and the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia, was the source of Nick’s inspiration. Waterfalls, Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Three Sisters and lots of leafy bush spoke of sun and warmth and Nick’s love of travel.

Neil Harris : the Crimea. Florence Nightingale, the charge of the Light Brigade, Yalta, Soviet architecture,  beaches and the Russian naval base whose lease is almost up, all came up for a mention. Once a favourite vacation spot for the elite of the USSR, the Crimea is now the summer escape for Ukrainians, with package tourism starting to discover that the beauty & history of the region i.e. a real selling point.

Details of the forth coming meetings at the London branch, September to December 2009, can be found at http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/meetings/lon09it1.html

The London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend. There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh in September. For more information, contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk.

Meeting news from Ontario

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

The Ontario branch meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

Write in (1) 15% off Footprint books for eNewsletter readers by Hannah Bonnell

Fellow travel enthusiasts Footprint books have generously offered eNewsletter readers a summer surprise to help us all with our travels, whether we’re planning or actually setting off…if you read the following instructions, it should all be fairly self explanatory.  At this point I should say that you should read the fine print and for our non UK based readers, you should make sure you understand any currency & shipping costs, before you place your orders.

The Ant

     “Hello there,

      We would like to offer the readers of your monthly newsletter a discount off our guidebooks – would this be something of interest ?  Footprint would like to offer you an 15% off all their

      guides, all you have to do is:-

  • log on to footprinttravelguides.com
  • add the item [of your choice] to basket
  • proceed to checkout and enter the coupon code, globe15
  • click update [and complete the checkout process]

      Best wishes

      Hannah”

Write in (2)& Channel 4 – Family Gap Year by Naomi ElkinJones

Channel 4 (UK) are producing a new landmark documentary series about the growing number of British families putting day-to-day life on hold to see the world with their children.

Through the films we hope to highlight just how rewarding, educational and most importantly possible it is to go travelling with the kids.

Our hope is that the programmes will inspire more parents thinking about this kind of trip to actually take the plunge and get involved around the world. We also want to highlight the positives of this kind of experience has on a family unit and the educational benefit for children. Each family would be left with a unique travel-log of their journey.

We would not plan to be with the family the entire time but would provide them with a camera to record the events with us dropping in at certain key points along the way.

We hope to follow five families in the series and whilst we have already started filming with four we are still looking for one more to be involved who could be leaving anytime up to 2010.

I am trying to cast the net as wide as possible in the search for families and simply want to spread the word so that people can get in touch with me if they are interested.

It’s like a needle in a haystack trying to find people so any suggestion or help however small would be very gratefully received.

Kind regards

Naomi Elkin-Jones

Assistant Producer

Twenty Twenty Television

20 Kentish Town Road

London NW1 9NX

Tel: 0207 2842020

NaomiElkinJones@twentytwenty.tv

Write in (3)& Gostelow is off again !

Hot off the press the club has just received this email from one of its own speakers – read more and click the link to find out what Peter is up to…The Ant

Picture courtesy of http://petergostelow.com/

Dear all,

I spoke at the Globetrotters club [London branch] during the March meeting this year about my Long Ride Home – bicycle journey from Japan-UK. 

I would just like to inform you that on August 16th I am beginning my next major two-wheeled adventure. The Big Africa Cycle is a solo and unsupported expedition from England-South Africa – 15,000 miles and 25 countries, give or take.  I have a website for the trip at www.thebigafricacycle.com – it would be a pleasure to share my experiences with members again on my return [and as I travel along].

Many thanks for your help.

Kind regards, Peter Gostelow

 

Mac says…

Regular contributor Mac ruminates on the world of travel & some of his adventures along the way J This time round he answers some questions on his various travels and what has stuck in his mind along the way…

This time round he visits Tonga via reading – You Cant Get There From Here : A Year On The Fringes of A Shrinking World by Gayle Forman. Below are some of the highlights that caught his attention…

    According to the larger world Tonga is always mid eighties and partly cloudy even when the rain is hammering the palm trees and the waves are pushing twenty feet. Tonga tags itself as “The Land Where Time Begins” being the first nation falling west of the international dateline. A more appropriate moniker would be “The Land That Time Forgot”

    English is widely spoken in Tonga but many Tongans openly dislike Westerners When Nick and I had taken an exploratory bike ride around the island a few days earlier every other person we passed had yelled Falangi, a derogatory term meaning “white person. A few kids had even thrown rocks.

    Quite a few Tongans I had met treated me with cool disdain or even outright aggression an anti Westernism I might have expected but actually would not experience in places like Cambodia or Tanzania. In those countries there was ample reason to hate Westerners – war, colonization, silly tourists with corn rowed hair. But Tong had none of that. It is the only South Pacific nation never to have been colonized and is one of the few Polynesian islands that is rarely visited by tourists

    Ikale beer in Tonga – I turned right at the expat hangout of choice the Billfish Bar cutting through the suburbs full of wood houses each with a pig or two rooting in the yard. Tongans keep pigs like Americans keep dogs except they eat them.

    Enuff, Enuff. Mac

Write for the eNewsletter

If you enjoy writing and travelling, why not write for the free Globetrotters eNewsletter! The Ant would love to hear from you: your travel stories, anecdotes, jokes, questions, hints and tips, or your hometown or somewhere of special interest to you. Over 14,000 people currently subscribe to the Globetrotter eNewsletter.

Email The Ant at theant@globetrotters.co.uk with your travel experiences / hints & tips / questions. Your article should be approximately 1000 words, feature up to 3 or 4 jpeg photos and introduce yourself with a couple of sentences and a contact e-mail address.

GT Travel Award 2009

Update – at the June London branch meeting it was happily announced that active member Dan Bachmann was the lucky winner of the first travel award in 2009.

Congratulations Dan – I was at the meeting and saw how surprised & happy Dan was to receive the award.

As related in the club’s members’ newsletter Globe, the award helped fund his trip, The Forgotten Tribe. In his application he said: On the far corner of Uganda there awaits a group of people who, through a twist of fate, are misunderstood and despised. I now have a chance to make contact with. I can’t think of an experience that will be so memorable.”

Next award – the closing date for the next award is 31 October 2009, so get those applications in as soon as you can !

Background – A member of Globetrotters Club and interested in winning a £1,000 travel award ? Know someone who fits these criteria ? We have up to two £1,000 awards to give out this year for the best independent travel plan, as judged by the club’s Committee.

See the legacy page on the club’s web site, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent, travel trip and we’ll take a look at what your proposing !!

Web sites to muse about travel to:-

Web sites to muse about travel to:-

Welcome to eNewsletter May 2009

Hello all,

Spring us finally here for those of us in the northern hemisphere and it is more than welcome ! In the UK over the last few weeks I’m sure many of us have enjoyed the odd BBQ, walked through the blooming greenery and started to think of being more active…as there seems to be so much more energy around J Well in this edition we three very active members of Globetrotters to highlight through various activities, plus two articles from authors who I don’t think have contributed before. There are also the established regulars such as Mac giving his views on another subject, a request for help, a number of web sites’ links and an update on the club’s annual travel award.

Following on from member Charlie Egan’s book launch and my request for reviewers – I’m pleased to say I’ve had three replies and The Killing Snows has already been sent out. Hopefully I’ll be able to let you know the reader’s views over the next few months. In the meantime Charlie has been busy promoting via being involved in the first ever National Famine Memorial Day on 17 May at The London Irish Centre in Camden. This has included working with John Dunne at London Irish Theatre on programming some interesting famine-related work around his play at The Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St. John Street, London EC1V 4NJ. www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk

Member Karen Neale has been exhibiting pictures from her latest book, London in Landscape Vol II , at the Barbican Library, 2nd Floor, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS and various visitors have sung her praises yet again in capturing the essence of what London life can be about. See Karen’s web site for further details http://www.karenneale.co.uk

And hot of the press we have a letter from Jennifer Barclay, currently experiencing a Greek island lifestyle on Tilos in the Dodecanese. For those that haven’t heard of her, Jennifer spoke to the London branch about how she ended up in Korea and what she came to enjoy about that very different society.

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That’s all for now…enjoy being busy yourselves and writing in with your travels J

The Ant

theant@globetrotters.co.uk