Travelling Guide

Did you see Donald Strachen’s terrific list of 50 great travel related tweeters in the UK’s Telegraphyesterday? Donald prefaces his list by saying “there are as many different uses as there are users, so any list of the ‘best’ tweeters is very subjective… here are 50 travel-related tweeters whose qualities I can vouch for. Each is either useful, entertaining, responsive or insightful – and the best combine all of the above.” Nicely said. Personally, I think it’s an outstanding and inspiring list. And not only because it includes me! (I had been wondering why my In Box was flooded with Twitter requests this morning – HI EVERYONE! – normally, they trickle in, which is nice, but today they teemed. Appropriately, considering the downpour we had here last night.) Donald has been writing quite a bit about Twitter and travel. Check out Twitter can help you plan your holiday and for those not yet signed up but keen to tweet, his Twitter 101 piece Twitter: How to set up your account. Yo...

ENVYING A DONKEY HIS PACE – THE FRENETIC TEMPO OF TRAVEL WRITING So how, as travel writers, do we get ourselves into the situation I described in the last post? And is it possible to be a travel writer and avoid this frenzied pace of life? To answer the second question first, I don’t think it is possible if you want to make more than a decent living out of this profession. To answer the first, the way we work now is that we go on a trip with a number of commissions up our sleeves, and then while we’re on the ground we follow up more leads for stories and pitch new ideas to editors from that destination. But that doesn’t mean that other requests for stories stop coming in. As wonderful as they are, most of the time they’re not even related to the destination we’re in, which of course complicates things. While we’re on the road, an editor might email and ask “Where are you at the moment?” which usually means he/she has a hotel they want reviewed or lead they’d like us ...

AN UPDATE FROM THE ROAD I’ve been silent for some time, I know. We’ve been on the road again in the Middle East on commissions for a few in-flight and travel magazines, and our pace has been hectic to say the least – from hiking and camping at Wadi Rum to floating and spa-ing at the Dead Sea, we’ve done it all these last 5–6 weeks. I’ve barely had time – or an internet connection – to blog or tweet, but Twitter has been far easier to update, so if you can’t find me here, you can come and check in on what we’re doing there:www.twitter.com/laradunston. We’re leaving buzzing Beirut tonight and heading back to Dubai so I’ll update you all from there. In the meantime, an image from Wadi Rum.

BEST TIME TO VISIT AUSTRALIA? IT MAY BE SUMMER, BUT DON’T HEAD DOWN UNDER How well do you research the best times of year to travel to places before you buy your tickets? I’m asking because I was astonished to see Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef listed as a place to visit now on a popular travel magazine’s site. This is in fact the worst time of year to visit northern Queensland. Indeed, anywhere in northern Australia, known as ‘the tropics’ – which gives a hint why! It’s currently the Wet season, which means it’s sweltering, it’s raining constantly, there are regular thunderstorms, high winds, strong chances of cyclones, and frequent flooding. And it’s going to stay this way until April. Although the tourism bodies and tour operators still try to encourage travellers to visit now. In tropical Queensland for instance they market the period as ‘The Green’ season rather than The Wet as they do in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The Green (like The Wet) begins in ea...

CAMPERVANNING FOR BEGINNERS Going on that great Aussie road trip and planning on doing it all? Making the wrong choice when considering which vehicle to hire can leave you missing out on some of Australia’s most spectacular scenery — or even stranded in the outback. As part of the four month road trip through four states of Australia which Terence and I recently completed while researching guidebooks, we tested out several different 4WD vehicles and in our story Campervanning for Beginners, published recently on NineMSN’s travel site, we explain the pros and cons of each vehicle and how to decide on the right one to suit your style of travel and type of journey. Essentially, there are two main vehicle choices for this kind of trip: a 4WD campervan and a motorhome. But while motorhomes are spacious and comfortable and allow you to stop anywhere and make a meal or take a nap, they’re generally 2WD, rendering many of the country’s most scenic bush tracks (especially those we wan...

ARE YOU EVER TOO OLD FOR…YOUTH HOSTELS? Australia has become a very expensive destination for foreign travellers who aren’t earning the high incomes that Aussies are currently earning. Hotels, flights, public transport, restaurant meals, and entry fees are all considerably more expensive in Australian capitals like Melbourne, Sydney and Perth than they are in cities traditionally considered high-cost destinations like London, New York and Paris. If Terence and I aren’t required to try hotels for stories we’re doing, we will always stay in an apartment rental when we have a choice and when it makes sense (i.e. if we’re in a city for more than three days), however, for the first time in many years, in Australia, I’ve actually found myself considering hostels for overnight stays. Now, don’t think I’m a snob for no longer staying in hostels. It’s not that. When I backpacked in my twenties, that’s where I mostly stayed. However, I’m 40-something now, I’m married, and Terence and I do...

BUSY IN BEIRUT, BANGKOK, BENDIGO, AND NOW BLOGGING THE GLOBE The posts I will be popping up on my poor neglected travel blog over the next few days have been a long time coming. Some I drafted back in Beirut in November, others I scribbled almost a month ago while I was recovering from bronchial pneumonia from a hotel room in Bangkok where we were working on a guidebook. That diagnosis, by the way, based on nasty symptoms like coughing up blood, came from my doctor uncle in Australia by email because I was too busy working to get to a GP. It would be an understatement to say that 2009 has been a hectic year of travel and writing for Terence and I – something I only recently appreciated glancing at all the books we’ve written which have been published this year sitting on the shelf beside my desk here at my family’s house in Bendigo, Australia: Footprint Italian Lakes, Thomas Cook Northern Italy, and Thomas Cook Travellers Calabria, plus a handful of books I updated for AA and ...

IN PRINT AND ONLINE It’s been a busy period for Terence and I, as you’ve gathered from the dearth of blog posts these last months. And we’ve got a lot of travel work being published to prove it, from a small ‘Up Next’ piece on Abu Dhabi in the September edition of National Geographic Traveler to half a dozen eco-experiences I wrote about in Rough Guide’sClean Breaks book. I saw our first edition Travellers Northern Italy guidebook for the first time in a bookshop in Dubai the other day too and got exhausted just looking at it – that was a tough trip. Although I know you don’t believe me. We’ve always written for in-flight magazines, but we’ve been doing a lot more writing for them these past few months. If you’re wondering why, it’s because it’s fun, the editors are lovely, easy to work with and respond to emails, it’s nice to submit a story and see it in print a month or two later, and they pay on time. InSeptember’s Storytelling issue of Gulf Air’s in-flight magazine Gulf...

IN PRINT AND ONLINE There’s a reason I haven’t been blogging much these last few months – or rather, lots of reasons. Terenceand I have been busy travelling, mainly through the Middle East – to Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon – on commissions for a number of magazines, and squeezing in some assignments at ‘home’ in the UAE in between. We continued to do a lot of writing for in-flight magazines, especially Gulf Air’s Gulf Life and Jazeera Airways’ J Magazine(as I told you last time I wrote one of these updates in October), mainly because the editors are so easy to work with, and the magazines are fun. In Gulf Life’s November Heritage issue, we had a piece on Doha’s stupendous Museum of Islamic Arts, and in the latest edition, December’s Food issue, we’ve got a feature on our experience behind-the-scenes with Michelin-starred chefPierre Gagnaire in his kitchen at Reflets, Dubai (which I blogged about here), and small pieces on Jordan’s cupcake king and owner of Sugar Dad...

WINE SPECTATOR AWARD FRAUD First we had the Lonely Planet author fraudwhere a writer’s tales of his unethical escapades exposed a publisher’s loopholes and led to an undermining of the travel writing profession. Now we have the Wine Spectator award fraud where the magazine’s own Wine Spectator Award of Excellence was bestowed upon a non-existent restaurant, Osteria L’Intrepido di Milano,bringing into question the ethics of the publication. This time it’s the publisher who can be blamed for the complete lack of confidence readers now have in the previously well-respected wine magazine. Whenever we’ve seen the Wine Spectator sticker on the window of a restaurant, we’ve assumed the restaurant has ‘won’ an award, not just sent off a wine list, menu, and non-refundable $250 cheque, and been given an ‘award’. The hardest part of receiving the ‘award’ would appear to be getting the little air bubbles out of the Wine Spectator sticker as you put it on the inside of the window of the res...

In a hilarious article posted on CNN’s website in association with Career Builders, there’s a list of ten ‘great’ jobs in travel and tourism. Given that we earn our collective livings from the industry, we thought it might be enlightening to deconstruct the article and perhaps set ourselves on a new career path. And so the story begins: “Vacations are one of the best things in the world. You visit new, exotic and beautiful places; you make memories with your vacation companions; you experience different cultures and best of all, you get a break from reality.” Hmmm, we’ve always looked at travel as a chance to see how other people live and experience other cultures, but a break from reality? Isn’t travel about seeing other people’s reality and comparing it with your own? “Think about it. There’s someone accountable for the mode of transportation you chose to get to your vacation spot; someone responsible for booking your tickets; someone in charge of the activities you embark o...

GRANTOURISMO – 12 MONTHS, 24 DESTINATIONS, COUNTLESS EXPERIENCES Finishing writing projects (books, stories, reviews) and planning our exciting new project calledGrantourismo, a contemporary grand tour of sorts, has kept us busy throughout December and January, and once again prevented me from updating this poor neglected little blog. Early this week we left Australia, where we went to spend Christmas and New Year with family and work at my uncle and aunt’s beautiful house in Bendigo, for the UAE, our home since 1998, and the base for the intensive globetrotting we’ve been doing these last 12 years. Today we kick off Grantourismo with a little pre-launch party at a swish villa on The Palm in Dubai, on Monday we fly to London for the official launch of the project, and a week later we head to Marrakech to properly start the project. So what is this project then, you ask? Well, essentially, we’re trading hotel rooms for holiday homes for a year (phew!) and partnering with HomeAwa...

HOW TO FIND CHEAP FLIGHTS I was recently asked by a reader for tips as to how to find cheap flights and I prefaced that advice with this post over on Grantourismo about how to decide which airline to fly because cheap flights might not always be what I’m looking for. In fact, for long-haul flights, my priority will always be safety, convenience and comfort – lots of legroom, comfy seats, an excellent entertainment system, and good food and wine. I will go out of my way to fly airlines like Emirates, Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines. Short-haul flights are a different story. If I’m only in the air for a few hours, I will be happy with a good book and can handle cramped conditions. That’s when I want to find the cheapest flight possible so I can spend my funds on more important things, like, um, good food and wine. So how do I go about finding cheap flights and what do I recommend you do? Check the Cheap Flights Sites My main strategy for finding the cheapest flights out the...

AN UPDATE FROM THE ROAD – FROM AUSTRALIA TO ASIA Wildlife spotting in Sabah on an Orion Expedition, testing out Relais and Chateaux’s luxury lodges in New Zealand, exploring Bangkok’s off the beaten track floating markets, trundling through Northern Thailand on Orient Express’ sumptuous Eastern & Oriental train, hiking to hill tribe villages in Sapa, cruising Halong Bay, and eating our way around Hanoi, are just some of the things keeping Terence and I busy since I last updated you six months ago. Here’s an update from the road to catch you up on what we’ve been up to… After leaving Australia, where we’d been working on stories while waiting for mum to have some surgery, we had a hectic four months that took us to Malaysia for four weeks – to Sabah on the Orion II, then to Kuala Lumpur and Selangor – back down viaSydney to New Zealand for 8 days, Bangkok for a month or so, Phnom Penh for another month, and back to Bangkok to do the weeklong Orient Express trip through Thail...

FIND CHEAP HOTELS WITH TRIVAGO While researching hotel prices for a story on Sydney, I discovered trivago, supposedly the world’s largest hotel comparison site. My first thought was: why had I not been using the site before. I had heard about the site previously, took a quick peek, but I have to admit I never spent any time on it. I wish I had now. But let’s face it: there are simply so many of these hotel sites appearing everyday, that I think I’ve become immune to them. What about you? Once I hear about a new site, I’ll take a scan, try to quickly determine what’s different about it, what makes it better than the rest, and if I can’t figure that out in a few minutes, if it doesn’t look particularly useful to me or my readers, then I’m off. I probably won’t return again unless a fellow travel writer friend tells me they found it especially helpful. When I’m researching hotels, after checking the hotel’s official site, I tend to go toTripAdvisor first. But I hate it. I absolu...

CONTEMPLATING CRUISE SHIP TRAVEL For the first time in my life I’m considering cruise ship travel. The other day I was wondering if I’m too old for hostels, now I’m thinking: am I too young for cruises? Or, regardless of age, is cruise travel right for me? The only cruises I’ve really contemplated doing in the past have been to Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands and Alaska. But the purpose of those would be for the superb wildlife spotting and spectacular landscapes, the ship being only a vessel to get us there. But I’ve never envisaged taking a cruise simply for the pleasure of it. I’ve never thought: “I’d love to do a cruise”. That was my nanna’s dream, and as a child, I remember seeing my Australian grandparents off on their first cruise. I remember noticing family and friends at the cruise ship terminal saying their goodbyes, throwing streamers at the ship as it pulled out. Do people still do that? I’d never imagined being part of a shore excursion, following a guide around wa...

THE ROMANCE OF VENICE Venice must be the world’s most romantic city. It’s the first place that always comes to mind when I’m asked to recommend destinations for couples keen on rekindling a romance or looking for ideas for luxury honeymoon hotels or special anniversary holidays. I was recently asked how I would craft a package of Grantourismo-style holidays focused on romance but sprinkled with some local travel, experiential travel, and slow and sustainable travel experiences, and Venice was on that list. I wanted to ponder the reasons why it’s so romantic a bit more over here… For me, Venice is spellbinding. There’s something magical about Venice that captivates visitors. It’s hard to describe and difficult to define, yet the city has a very special allure that makes it completely enchanting. If you don’t know what I mean, take a look at this mesmerizing little time-lapse of sunset on the Grand Canal. I think it’s partly to do with the water and light and colour – the way t...

FIND LUXURY HOTELS ON SMALL LUXURY HOTELS OF THE WORLD IPHONE APP I find that a lot of hotel and travel apps are not all that compelling and not very useful, but the Small Luxury Hotels of the World iPhone app makes a good case for using an app instead of the website. When searching the web I continually get notifications on my iPhone telling me that the website I’m visiting has an iPhone application that provides a better experience. Most times they are wrong. But the Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) app has a couple of features that make it work better on my iPhone than on the website. The interface is clean, with just six menu items to choose from: Find & Book, Search Hotel Types, Special Offers, Hotels Near Me, Explore, and Join The Club. Find & Book is very straightforward, taking you to a map with geographical areas as buttons. I always find it fascinating to see how organizations like SLH have penetrated different markets so I was surprised to see that Aus...

U.S. Road Trips: The West Get out of the city and into the great wide open. Pack up and hit the highway with this list of weekend road trip destinations in the western United States. Are we there yet? Jump to: Arizona | California | Colorado | Oregon | New Mexico | Texas | Wyoming ARIZONA Head to Holbrook if you're in the mood for time travel and extreme landscapes infused with extreme kitsch. Route to take: Tour Route 66 between Albuquerque and Flagstaff, the longest remaining stretch of the historic highway uninterrupted by a major interstate. The landmark Wigwam Motel is cozy and an hour away from the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. Good to know: Sneaky javelina, everywhere in the desert, are opportunistic feeders. Head to Paradise Valley if you're in the mood for a divine spa escape with endless views of the desert. Route to take: It's less than half-an-hour by car from the center of Phoenix. Good to know: Reserve a casita at Sanctuary at Camelback M...

COOL TRAVEL GUIDE TO MARRAKECH Clear skies, crisp light, sunny days, cool nights. Marrakech has long been one of my favourite winter destinations, since my first visit to the terracotta city from our home in Abu Dhabi almost fourteen years ago. Back then the appeal was partly the respite from the sweltering Arabian Gulf heat – along with the spicy lamb tajines, atmospheric medina streets, excellent souq shopping, and the endearing chaos of the city’s main square, the Djemaa al Fna. Here’s my Cool Travel Guide to Marrakech. SLEEP Countless riad hotels have opened since, but the Charles Boccara-designed former merchant’s house Dar Les Cigognes (108 rue de Berima, Medina) was one of the first of its kind and is still one of my favourites. Courtyard with trickling fountain. Elaborate stuccowork. Intricately carved wooden doors. Rooftop garden. It ticks all the boxes. I have lots of fond memories of cosy evenings in front of the fireplace in our room sipping Meknes wine, and breakfast...

COOL TRAVEL GUIDE TO LONDON Outstanding museums and art galleries, great bookstores and music shops, and brilliant eating – as long as you know where to find it – London has long been a place I’ve loved for a cultural and culinary escape, so here’s my Cool Travel Guide to London. SEE I know I’m back in London when I have blisters on my feet. It happens every time I return to the city. I hate the Tube, I don’t mind the buses, but I really just love to walk, and London is a very walkable city. One of my favourite walks is along the waterside promenade that skirts the Thames. I like to begin at Borough Market (ideally after lunch), then stroll along the river by the Millennium Bridge, the Tate Modern, the South Bank Centre, the London Eye – from where there great views of Westminster across the water – and, depending on where I’m staying, continue even farther. The views of the city skyline are stunning from the south side of the river. Once you’re done, head into the Tate Modern fo...