Seniors and baby boomers over 55 planning a holiday in New Zealand or Australia, can now purchase a discount travel and shopping card – New Zealand Seniors Card. There are currently over 2,500 discounts available including hotels, tourist attractions, cruises, tours, coaches,
ferries and shops. Savings range from 10% to 50% off and the cost of the card is only $29 NZ (around £11). For more details or to join on-line at www.seniorscard.com or email: info@seniorscard.co.nz
Passed on by Globetrotter Committee member Francesca, a new company has written to us. They organise walking holidays in “4 stunning and pleasingly unusual areas of Europe… with charming accommodation in traditional, upland villages.” They are currently running a free prize draw to win a holiday for 2 for 7 nights in Italy's beautiful Majella region.. checkout the homepage on their
website: www.uplandescapes.com
The offer is open until 31 Mar 2006.
If you are planning to travel to Saudi Arabia in the coming months, then good news for getting around. Saudi Arabia's first low-cost airline Sama plans to start flights within months. Sama will begin serving Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, carrying frequent travellers and pilgrims. Another Saudi firm, National Air Services (NAS), said last year it would launch a low-cost airline and was negotiating with European plane maker Airbus to buy four A320s. NAS says it will also set up a USD$100 million luxury airline, Al Khayala, to fly between the capital Riyadh and the Red Sea city of Jeddah, but has not said when either airline will start.
A travel tip from Stanley in the US via Mac: it is a good idea to only take new dollar bills etc and then iron them (make sure iron is not too hot) so they will not be too winkled. Some countries will not take old or tattered bills. To my surprise I ran into this in Northern Thailand out in the boon docks.
Travel Facts
Source: http://www.nationmaster.com
A Brisbane woman has been killed in a shark attack at Amity Point, North Stradbroke Island near Brisbane. She was swimming about 15m (49ft) offshore when she was attacked in water which had become murky and muddy after a recent storm. Police believe that possibly three bull sharks could have attacked the young woman as they are known to be aggressive during mating season. Before you start to worry, let’s put this into perspective: there have been 10 fatal shark attacks in Australian waters in the past five years.
A Chinese HR company has announced it would like its new staff to include plenty of “dogs”. To reflect this, in its recruitment ad, they invited only people born in the Year of the Dog to apply. The reason? A personnel manager for the company said, “We believe that people born in dog years are born with some good characteristics such as loyalty and honesty. ”
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2006 is the Year of the Dog. Were you born in the Year of the Dog? Those born in 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982 and 1994 were all born to this astrological sign.
In December 2005, a drunken male passenger on a flight from northern England to the Spanish tourist island of Tenerife was dropped off at a small island off the African coast after he swore at the cabin crew. Press reported that the plane’s captain decided to leave the man at Porto Santo, just 10 miles long and four miles wide, a volcanic outcrop in the Atlantic, after he became abusive when he was refused more alcohol. (The island does have a few hotels, so he wasn’t left to sleep on the beach in case you were worried. ) Needless to say, police met the man at the airport who is due to appear in court in mainland Portugal in January.
A recent report in “Holiday Which?”, published by the British Consumers’ Association, found that the number of people who take “independent holidays” has now overtaken those booking the traditional package, predicting that 55 percent of overseas holidays in 2005 will have been arranged independently. Travellers are searching the internet and booking flights, cars and hotels on-line. In the travel industry, this is called “dynamic packaging”: travellers who build their own itineraries, or vacation packages.
Unsurprisingly, tour operators recognise this trend and have responded. For example, Flexibletrips. com, part of Thomas Cook, allows you to build exactly the sort of holiday you want by “bundling” flights, hotels, car rental and extras such as tours and transfers. British Airways plans to introduce a “shopping basket” feature on BA. com allowing travellers to book hotels, and other travel products, alongside flights.
The disadvantage to dynamic packaging is that you may not have financial protection if something goes wrong – (pay with a credit card, not a debit card) and it can be hard to compare like with like e. g. some packaged breaks may include airport transfers and a room upgrade, and of course, all this internet searching takes time.
If you are found to be a stowaway on a ship, the ship owners are obliged by law to bear the costs to send you home.
Unfortunately for seven Tanzanian stowaways who recently boarded a ship sailing to South America at Mombassa in Kenya, three Ukrainian sailors allegedly forced the seven stowaways to jump overboard. Two of the seven Tanzanian stowaways are believed to have drowned while five managed to swim to safety, say police.