Category Archives: Sidebar

What’s On When: February

Switzerland: Foulee Blanche 2 February This cross-country ski race is one of the most popular events in the Swiss Alps, open to everyone.

Japan: Bean Throwing Festival 3-4 February The Japanese dress up as devils and pelt one another with beans to drive out evil spirits.

London Dive Show 1st & 2nd March

The London International Dive Show will take place over the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of March at the ExCel exhibition halls in Docklands, London. In its 23rd year with over 250 exhibitors, the show features new equipment, holiday destinations, presentations and seminars. For more info, visit:

London Dive Show

Source: What’s On When

Mac’s Jottings

Globetrotter Mac shares with us his thoughts and experiences on his travels around the world. If you want to contact Mac, please e-mail him on:

1. In England pubs labelled “Free Houses” mean that the keepers have no tie up with a particular brewery and serve various brands (you still have to pay for the beer.)

2. Guide in India trying to get tour group to move faster: “don’t look, it will take time” Another time he said “Don’t look in a scholarly manner.”

3. Malaysia: I got diarrhoea travelling on a boat in Malaysia. I have gotten diarrhoea all over the world. Advice the Malaysian guide gave me: “for your diarrhoea eat burnt toast soaked in water”. If you get chilli (hot sauce I guess) in your eye pour water on your toe. If you burn your finger put it in your ear, who needs Walter Reed Army Hospital? Pepto Bismol sometimes helps me. I also Blackberry wine. (I drink a lot of this just to be on safe side!)

4. On Indian trains they have a hook on floor under berth where you can chain your luggage, so I carry lightweight padlock and small chain. If you check luggage at the baggage room in India train station they required the bag to be locked. Can use same padlock.

5. Bucharest. 1,2,3,4,5,6, 7. Our guide counts the empty bus seats and if she has 7 empty seats she knows we are all on the bus. I went into a pastry shop here in Bucharest and pointed to the pastry I wanted. A local came up to me and said they are very cold. Later when I ate it I realized he probably said “they are very old”. Ha!

Would you like to tell us about your travels? Contact the Beetle.

Itchy Feet Event London

Anyone got Cabin Fever?

You know the feeling, stuck inside with only electric lights to shine upon you, thinking about far off exotic places. Help is at hand in the form of our monthly meet ups, where you can:

  • plan your next trip
  • hear tall tales from others who have been travelling
  • find someone to help you out with your sticky question about round the world fares, or how to get into Cambodia from Vietnam.
  • or just have a beer and catch up.

Where: Upstairs at The Globe pub, 37 Bow St, Covent Garden W2
When: Tuesday 4th Feb from 6:30pm
Price: NOTHING
There is a map at ifworldwide.com

Mutual Aid

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

So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on airport codes. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

Which cities are served by airports with the following codes:

    1. GVA
    2. DXB
    3. MAD
    4. BKK
    5. LAS

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.

Did You Know&

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina has a population of around 3 million, (metropolitan area of 13 million) and there is a 12,000 strong Greek community. Emigration from Greece to Buenos Aires peaked between WWI and WWII. Today, the Greek community of Buenos Aires is the largest and wealthiest of its type in Latin America. Many are successful businessmen, ship owners, scholars and writers.

Buenos Aires’ most famous Greek immigrant is Aristotle Onassis, a refugee from Smyrna, who arrived in Buenos Aires on September 21st, 1923. Onassis was involved with tobacco manufacturing, before buying his first merchant ship in the early 1930s. In 1932, Onassis was appointed Honorary Deputy Consul of Greece to Buenos Aires. He later became one of the world's wealthiest men.

Key West Diver Find

A diver discovered a 40.2-carat emerald embedded in a conch shell while diving at the site of a Spanish galleon wrecked in a Florida Keys hurricane 380 years ago.

The diver, who unsurprisingly does not want his name revealed, discovered the giant raw emerald while washing shells in a classroom laboratory. “Out popped a 40.2-carat emerald,” Patrick Clyne, vice president at Key West-based wreck salvage company Mel Fisher Enterprises, said Monday. “It was one of those freak-of-nature things that somehow got swept up in the conch shell.”

The diver had gathered the shells from a dive off the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita, which sank Sept. 6,

1622, about 30 miles west of Key West. “This is an excellent indication that the Margarita had raw emeralds

smuggled aboard the ship,” Clyne said. “There were no emeralds listed on its cargo manifest.” There were no

estimates for how much the emerald might be worth. But in 1985, a 77.7-carat emerald from the vessel

Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a sister ship of the Santa Margarita, was appraised at $1.2 million. The vessels,

part of a 28-ship fleet that left Havana on Sept. 4, 1622, for Spain with treasures from Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, sank during a hurricane.

Lake Diving, 4 Miles High!

Scientists are set to explore the world’s highest fresh water lake 4 miles up in the Licancabur volcano near Antofogasta in Chile.

Their aim is to find out how the organisms that live there can survive in such a hostile environment. They will do this by taking samples and diving to the bottom of the lake.

Although the lake at Licancabur volcano is covered with almost two feet of ice during much of the year, the expedition will take place in the southern hemisphere's spring, when the lake is not completely frozen.

The information they hope to gather will help astrobiologists devise strategies and technologies to search for life on planets like Mars during future missions.

Learn English at Youth Hostels in the UK

The Youth Hostels Association (YHA) has teamed with English Out There to offer English language courses for visitors to London. Accommodation will be at one of six YHA hostels in the capital and the packages include bed and breakfast, an Underground pass and tickets to some famous attractions.

The language lessons are designed around themes or tasks, and students can choose how many they want to take from 20 modules. The students are expected to be mainly families or young people, who want to combine a holiday with improving their English.

Websites: yha.org.uk and EnglishOutThere.co.uk.

Source: britainexpress.com

Fave Websites of the Month

The Beetle likes cityguide.travel-guides.com

Here you can select from a number of cities around the world and compile your own guide, for free. There is a very diverse set of headings from which to chose, e.g. history, cost of living, getting around, shopping, excursions, major sites, tourist information, street maps, nightlife, sport, culture, special events etc.

If you are going away for the weekend and don’t want to buy a guidebook or just want to do some digging around, this is an excellent resource.