Travels
Travel Tips and Info
On these pages you will find practical information and tips from our travels:
where to stay, how to get around, what to do and see, etc. If there is anything
that you would like to know which is not included on these pages, please get
in touch via the contact page and we'll be happy
to answer it as best we can.
Below are our tips by country visited; further
down are answers to some general travel tips we've
been asked again and again.
Tips and info by destination
Country-specific information for the following destinations.
General travel tips
First of all, many ask us about setting up a travel website. It's a great medium
during your travels, as it enables you to keep in touch with people and share
your experiences with them, but it's perhaps even better afterwards, as an easy
escape route into your memories.
Unless you know how to set one up yourself, we would suggest using some ready-made
blog site, although we could not recommend any one in particular. Facebook is
very popular these days, but we personally have some reservations about the
security aspect, considering how much personal information peole publish on
it. However, blog sites all seem good and would take the hassle out of setting
one up oneself. For pictures, on the other hand, we really like flickr.com
because as a paying user you can store all your originals in unlimited numbers
and sizes, a good form of insurance in case they get lost or damaged during
the journey. And of course flickr also offers good commenting options, has hit
counters, links back to yahoo mail (the best, in our opinion), etc.
It's not necessary to take your laptop with you, as there are internet cafes
everywhere these days, although you may end up spending a lot of time in them.
To download pictures we used a hi-speed media reader (example here), but a lot
of the most recent camera models are plug & play, so all you need is the
USB cable that comes as standard with the camera. However, be aware that some
cameras use up battery life during the transfer, which could be a consideration.
If burning pictures on disk, it's always a good idea to double check that the
pictures actually end up on disk before deleting them from the memory card.
We remember the desperation of a couple we met in Machu Picchu who hadn't checked
and lost everything without the opportunity of re-visiting the site as they
had to catch a flight the next morning...
The biggest piece of advice has to be to check the guide book pages on health
and safety, crime and scams. We were lucky because nothing bad happened to us,
but we used basic common sense and followed specific advice such as only using
the official taxi kiosk in Bangkok airport, not flagging down taxis in South
America but ask the hotel/restaurant to call one for us, not flashing around
expensive cameras, bum bags and wallets (use hidden pockets/money belts instead),
etc. If you think about it, it's just comon sense, but you'd be amazed at what
easy targets some people are when travelling. Also, you should sort out your
inoculations as early as possible because some are more effective if you have
them 6 months before you leave, and others need to be spaced out over a number
of weeks.
Money-wise, we used a combination of cards (debit visas are a good option) and
travellers' cheques, but in hindsight the latter were unnecessary, as we found
cashpoints/banks everywhere or knew in advance (through guide books/travellers'
tips) when we'd need to draw out money in advance before going to a place where
we wouldn't find any.
Journey plan, climates and recipes
Our climate chart is limited to the countries that we intended to visit before setting out on our journey. It was meant to help us time our trip taking into account seasonal weather conditions.
Our journey plan is for those of you who like to track our journey as we go along.
Visiting so many countries means discovering many new tastes and flavours. We've tried to write down a few recipes that we particularly liked.
|
