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!!
Are you passionate about photography?
Taking pictures of family, friends and places you’ve been? Maybe you’ve captured a magic moment, an unusual situation or some humorous, crazy slice of life? Whatever it is, if you have a photo you’re really proud of, you should enter the Amateur Photo of the Year contest and you could become the 2004 Panasonic Batteries Amateur Photographer of the Year and win one of their fantastic prizes!
See this link for more details: Panasonic Photo Competition
If you are in London in June/July you might want to check these events out, you can get free tickets from culturalco-operation.org, Cultural Co-operation is an independent arts charity that promotes cross-cultural contact, dialogue and understanding. Their main activity is the international summer Music Village, Europe’s longest running festival of world culture.
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!!
For a while now postage costs to the EU countries have been rising and has now reached the point where they are on a par with the costs for our other members worldwide members (USA, South America and Australia). We feel that it is unfair for one member to subsidise another and have decided to abolish the EU price band.
The new fees will be effective from the 1st June 2004 when the following fees will apply:
If you would like to renew or extend your membership or have been thinking of becoming a member then join or renew before the 1st June, to get the current rate.
From Mac: one of the users of Internet Cafes overseas suggests that you leave a list of e mail addresses with a relative or friend in your home town that has a computer and just write one e mail to that person and have that person forward to those on e mail addresses you gave them. The person who receives e-mail from you is glad that you are having a good time and this saves you time at the cybercafé.
From the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office: You should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks by terrorists in public places, including tourist sights, throughout the world. Although there is no recent history of either domestic or international terrorism in Bulgaria, we believe there is an increased general threat to visibly British institutions and organisations from global terrorism as there is in all other countries in this region.
Crime levels are roughly comparable to the UK. Organised criminal groups are active in casinos, nightclubs, prostitution and elsewhere. Much local violent crime is the result of turf battles between criminal groups. You should beware of groups of young pickpockets (often children) in city centres, especially busy shopping areas and underpasses. Thieves and pickpockets also target holidaymakers at Black Sea coastal resorts. You should leave passports and other valuables in a hotel safe or other secure place. (You are strongly advised, however, to carry a copy of the information pages of your passport as proof of identity).
Car theft is commonplace. Thieves target prestige and four-wheel drive models, but any unattended vehicle is at risk. If possible, you should use alarms and other visible security measures.
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Spotted by our webmaster, this is a really neat idea. The BBC have put together a ‘Disease map’ that lets you click on your intended destination region and then shows you a brief overview of the diseases that are present in some or all of the countries there, and the vaccinations that may be required.
This is for advisory purposes only; many countries in the same region have widely differing immunisation entry requirements – it is best to consult your travel agent or GP well before departure to ensure that you fulfil these.
Continental Airlines have announced that they plan to eliminate paper tickets by the end of 2004 in a bid to cut costs, theft and paperwork. 95 percent of its domestic customers and 88 percent system wide use electronic tickets. The move includes tickets for international travel and those that involve other carriers. Continental said it has terminated 50 interline ticketing and baggage agreements with carriers that do not have electronic ticketing capabilities. Customers will still be able to make reservations through travel agents or on the phone, as well as on the Internet, but they will not receive paper tickets. Instead, the reservations will be stored electronically. Passengers who check in either via their computers at home or at airport kiosks will still receive the paper boarding passes that allow them to board planes.
Singapore has announced that it will build a new terminal at Changi Airport to cater for low-cost airlines once the carriers agree on its design. Budget airlines are proliferating in Asia, challenging the dominance of full-service carriers such as Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines. In the meantime, low-cost airlines may use Changi Airport's two existing terminals, though charges for no-frills airlines would not be lower than those imposed on their traditional competitors.
Singapore based Valuair has become the first budget carrier to get official approval to fly from Changi Airport. Valuair, set up mostly by former Singapore Airlines plans to start flying in May to Bangkok, Jakarta and Hong Kong.
Singapore Airlines, the world's second-largest airline by market value, has teamed up with the founder of Irish discount airline Ryanair, Europe's biggest carrier by value, to launch Tiger Airways. Tiger will compete with Singapore's Valuair, set up mainly by ex-Singapore Airlines staff, and is gearing up to launch in the second quarter of 2004. Both will also be pitted against Malaysia's Air Asia, which is setting up an airline joint venture in Singapore and has applied for an airline license.
Toronto Pearson Airport opened one of the world's most expensive airport terminal. The new CAD$3.6 billion (USD$2.7 billion) Terminal 1, whose price tag has enraged the airlines around the world that will have to help pay for it is the first stage of an overall redevelopment project for Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Terminal 1 will eventually expand to take over the functions of two existing terminals, which will be bulldozed. The capacity of the airport, which is currently 25 million passengers a year, is expected to double by 2015. Pearson is Air Canada's busiest hub, with 50,000 passengers flying to, from and through Toronto on its flights everyday. The new terminal's sophisticated technology is complete with automatic check-in counters, multiple baggage claim kiosks, and even a parking guidance system that points drivers to available spaces.
According to a survey of US airline quality, three of the top four performing airlines last year were low-cost carriers. The survey measures on-time performance, customer complaints, mishandled baggage rates, denied boardings and other criteria from the Transportation Department's monthly consumer reports. JetBlue was the top-rated airline for fewest denied boardings and was second for on-time performance and fewest customer complaints. Alaska Airlines ranked second, followed by Southwest Airlines, America West and US Airways, which is struggling in the face of low-cost competition. Bankrupt United Airlines ranked ninth, while the biggest carrier, American Airlines was 11th. Delta Air Lines ranked 12th.
State-owned Air Malta is setting up a base in Manchester, north-west England, to operate charter flights to Greece, Spain and other European destinations. The first flights will start in May 2004, just days after Malta joins the European Union on Saturday, May 1. Services will also operate between Catania in Sicily to London.
Malaysian low-fare carrier AirAsia said it would offer air tickets to Macau, known for its casinos, from Bangkok for as little as USD$25 from June 15. AirAsia is an aggressive player in Asia's budding no-frills market where competition is heating up with entrants such as Singapore-based Valuair and Tiger Airways, a venture between Singapore Airlines and the founder of Irish no-frills airline Ryanair.