Study Abroad and Fall in Love With the Food of Paris

Everybody knows France's reputation for fine food and nowhere is it more apparent than on the streets of Paris. Food lovers who choose to study abroad in Paris will be in a true "foodie's paradise", with the access to the great food the city offers. From shopping in markets to dining in fine restaurants your experience will whatever you make of it.

The Great Food Markets of Paris

Parisians love their food and having wonderful fresh produce on their doorsteps daily is a high priority. Many districts will have their own markets, however the better-known ones are well worth a visit for anyone who comes to study abroad in the city.

One of the biggest is the twice-weekly Marché Bastille, on the Rue Richard Lenoir. It boasts stall after stall of great fish, free-range chicken and local cheeses. Wondrous mounds of fruit, olives and charcuterie are interspersed with stalls selling jewellery, bags and arts and crafts.

Ernest Hemingway wrote about the Marche Mouffetard in his novel, A Moveable Feast, where he described it as a "wonderful, narrow crowded market street" - and it certainly lives up to this description. It's surrounded by atmospheric buildings and is a great place to buy calorie-laden patisserie, paté and seafood. Marche Mouffetard runs into another great market, Marché Monge, so you get two for the price of one! Marché Monge is at the pricier end of the scale and its setting in the leafy Place Monge with its picturesque fountain makes it a great place to shop. If you're lucky you'll get stories with your food purchases, as the beekeeper will be selling his own honey and the fishmonger may regale you with tales of how he caught his fish. Much of the fruit and vegetables are organic and the market is well known for excellent bread.

For great food from other parts of the world the historic market of Marché des Enfants Rouges is well worth a visit for anyone in Paris to study abroad. It is named after the 16th century orphanage that used to be on the site, where the children's red clothes showed that they had been donated by Christian charities. The orphanage closed before the French Revolution but the building remained and was reopened as a market in 2000. Italian, African, Lebanese and Japanese food is among the world foods available and there are many other artisan and organic food stalls. It's a great place to get a takeaway lunch.

The pedestrianized Rue Montorgueil is only half occupied by a market, but don't let that put you off, as it is indeed a foodie's heaven. The market stalls will offer you fruit, vegetables and shellfish but alongside them you will find Charles Chocolatier, where you should sample a hot chocolate. Why not accompany it with a pastry from Stohrer, which is said to be the oldest pastry shop in Paris. Along with the cheese shops, rotisseries and wonderful bakers, this street is a must visit for any budding gourmand on an adventure to study abroad in Paris.

Paris will definitely leave you spoilt for choice for places to indulge your passion for food. Its markets are amongst the best in the world the city is a great place to spend time simply wandering and indulging your senses.

Angela Bowden works for EST (Equity School Travel), the UK's largest educational travel company, providing opportunities to study abroad. EST encompasses a wide range of learning opportunities in worldwide destinations.

How an Educational Tour to Greece Is More Than a Holiday

When the frost builds on the windowsill, the Mediterranean and, in particular, Greece calls. A land of sunshine and glorious islands, it is a haven for holidaymakers seeking a respite from the Northern cold.

But for those with learning on their mind, Greece has broader horizons. It is a land that traces its lineage back to days still admired the world over for their contribution to the education of humanity. Students who visit will find they enjoy Greece as more than just a sunny holiday destination.

Crucible of Classics

Homer, Aristotle, and Plato: even the least erudite of souls will come across these names at least once in their lives. An educational tour of Greece will no doubt focus on helping students live and breathe the stories surrounding the classic authors and figures who can seem to be but fictitious characters in history books and primary sources. The significance of bringing the classics alive by visiting the ruins and museums of Greece lies in the sheer value of wrestling with the ideas and stories created by these men and women.

Home of History

The events that transpired in this small nation during antiquity and beyond were so pivotal, cultures as far away as the Middle East, England and Latin America still study them today. An educational tour of the Parthenon, Corinth or Thessaloniki will hush students with the awe of walking in the footsteps of people who won wars, wrote books, and crafted ideas that form the foundation of their society. To bring this history alive will help impress on them all the more how the history of Greece still lives through its modern influence.

Dreamland for Design

Students on an educational tour of Greece may be primarily interested in the design of caldera beaches and the art of a vermilion sunset, but a visit to the Athens Museum, the site of Delphi, or Nestor's Palace may change their minds. They will be able to appreciate how people who lived and worked without modern day conveniences could craft edifices and artworks of such beauty. In this way, a visit to Greece will no doubt inspire many students to hatch their own designs, as it has inspired many great artists who have visited over the centuries.

Garden of Geography

There is of course a place for relaxing on the Greek islands during any educational tour. In fact, a visit to the small towns, fishing villages and multitude of islands will educate students in the field of geography. The particular volcanic construction of many of the islands and the diversity of sands, stones and geological formations make for a special focus of study. Students can learn about the ecology of the area and the formation of the island chains, while enjoying a lifestyle that will make them forget the existence of frost on windowsills.

Why One Should Visit the Exquisite Costa Rica Beaches

Millions of tourists flock to Costa Rica each year. Beaches in Cost Rica attract visitors from each and every part of the world. Costa Rica is situated the coastlines of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The spectacular beaches are considered as some of the best in world. There are numerous beaches in Costa Rica each one of which boasts its unique features that suit different kinds of vacationers.

The Playa Dominical is considered by surfers as among the best beaches in Costa Rica. It is situated around more than forty km from the Manuel Antonio Park. From here, one can view the great landscape of the Dominical. The landscape contains mangroves, marshes and plantations.

The Manuel Antonio beaches are famous for their horseshoe bays. The stunning views here comprise of exquisite waterfalls and breathtaking hilltops. In addition to the view, one can also indulge in several other activities like diving, snorkeling and surfing. There are other sports available for the adventurous ones.

The Playa Conchal one of those beaches that have very small crushed shells all over the coast which rustle beneath the feet of the visitors as they walk through the coast. Many tourists simply love the feeling of these shells tickling their feet. The beach also offers snorkeling, swimming and fishing.

The Playa Grande Guanacaste is one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica which is often visited by tourists with a passion for natural beauty. Another name for this exquisite beach is Playa Grande. One of the distinct features of Playa Grande is that it is a nesting place of the Leatherback turtles. These turtles bury their eggs on the beach and roam the coast in plain sight of the visitors.

If you are seeking one of those beaches that are not crowded with tourists then you should visit the Playa Hermosa. Tourists from Europe and America come here to relax and get a handsome tan.

If you are one of those people who like a well developed beach then you should visit the Playa Tamarindo. It is an expensive laid back beach with luxury hotels and restaurants that serve local as well as international cuisines. One can also indulge in shopping or roam the clean beaches.

Tortuguero is a Costa Rica beach that is flanked by palm trees and canals. The canals are not safe since their current is unpredictable. However, the beauty of this site is uncontested.

A few tourists prefer comparatively under developed beaches like the Manzanillo beach. It is actually a tiny village that is frequented by surfers. One can also indulge in reading under the soothing shade of the almond trees, or simply the tranquil waters.

Organisation - The Key to a Successful School Trip

Organisers of school trips have a huge amount of responsibility, and in today's world where health and safety and risk assessments are imperative there is a lot of paperwork to deal with. Help is at hand from local education authorities and schools themselves, and by booking with a reputable travel company you are making the organisation much easier.

School trips are considered a fundamental part of pupils' learning and should be encouraged and actively promoted. The travel market today boasts some excellent companies that specialise in organising trips for school groups. Appropriate itineraries are designed, suitable accommodation chosen, and travel arrangements made with large groups of young people in mind. These companies draw on years of experience to create tours that can be organised as seamlessly as possible and come to fruition with great success. The main advantage of booking with a company like this is that the risk assessment, health and safety and insurance issues have all be researched and dealt with according to the activities included and the risks involved.

Risk Assessment

The organisers of school trips must follow the guidelines set out by their local education authority, but this process is more simply adhered to if the tour is booked with a specialised company. The tour operator then assumes all responsibility to carry out appropriate risk assessments and reduce risks where possible. Every part of the trip needs to be considered, from the accommodation and the transport to the activities and visits included. If you, as the organiser, allow a company to do the groundwork for health and safety, you will have more time to devote to the management side of the journey, organising the students and planning the learning outcomes.

Although the company you book with will still require you to fill in the forms, they can guide you through the process, which is simple to follow and requires little time to complete.

The Safety Management System

Most companies have some form of safety management system in place to ensure their clients benefit from all their expertise and are supported throughout the process. This system covers many aspects of the tour and is inspected and monitored by independent experts. Accommodation, transport, pre-tour information, itinerary risk assessment and 24-hour emergency procedures are just some of the aspects covered by the system. The 24-hour support system is a real comfort to leaders of school trips, as it means they can rest assured they are never going to be out of contact should an incident occur where they have not got the tools to deal with it. All team members are experts in the field and well versed in dealing with emergencies all over the world.

Discover Art and Design in Berlin on an Educational Tour

Visiting Berlin on an educational tour is an unforgettable experience, and the art exhibited in the city's museums is diverse and expansive. Whether your interest is in art or design you will find plenty to interest you in this wonderful city. Everything is there to be seen from the classics to the contemporary.

Modern Art

If your educational tour has a focus on modern art, one museum that will definitely be on your itinerary is the majestic white Hamburger Bahnhof, on Invalidenstrasse. It was built as a train station in 1847 and is now a light-filled space perfectly suited to exhibit great works of art. It houses everything from work by the German performance artist Joseph Beuys to Lichtenstein and Warhol. Warhol's Mao is on permanent exhibition here.

Classic Treasures

Museum Island is the site of five of Berlin's greatest museums: The Bode, The Old National Gallery, The Altes, The Neues and The Pergamon. Around 70% of the buildings on the island were destroyed during World War II, but after a massive reconstruction and modernisation programme at the end of the 20th century, all five museums have now been restored. Today, art and design students on an educational tour of Berlin will find these five museums hold many wonderful collections.

The Bode Museum is home to a collection of Byzantium art dating from the 3rd to the 15th centuries. It also holds the extensive sculpture collection that was owned by the Prussian Royal Family, and includes many examples of Italian and German sculptures including Antonio Canova's beautiful Dancer.

The Old National Gallery exhibits a large collection of 19th century paintings and sculpture and contains work by many of Germany's greatest painters along with a number of French Impressionist works. Many works by Berlin's own Albert van Menzel are exhibited in this neo-Classical building.

The Altes Museum looks like a Greek Corinthian Temple, and within it you will find Greek and Roman artefacts. Whereas in The Neues you will find prehistoric, early history and Egyptian works of art, including a bust of Queen Nefertiti.

Finally The Pergamon, which is said to be the most visited museum in Berlin, houses a collection of Egyptian and Babylonian antiquities, which include the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Pergamon Altar after which the museum is named.

Classic Design

The Bröhan Museum will attract anyone with an interest in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods. The exhibits here include fine examples of everything from porcelain, glass and furniture through to paintings by the Berlin Secessionist painters. There is also a room dedicated to works by the Art Nouveau artist Henry van de Velde. Designers exhibited include Emile Ruhlman and Peter Behrens. Exhibits give an authentic representation of living spaces during the Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Functionalism periods.

Berlin is a city where art and design can be viewed in all their forms and is sure to be a journey of discovery for students of design on an educational tour. Everything is there from the pre-historic right through to contemporary art.

How To Secure Your Luggage

It is funny the subjects one can become interested in. I've found myself over the past couple of months more interested in luggage and while I've written other information on how to choose different types of luggage - today I'm going to talk about a part of luggage we don't like to think about - which is how to secure your luggage.

If you're like me and travel frequently - you will eventually end up in a situation where you lose your luggage. The silliest time I lost my luggage was when I was flying on a regional airline and as we pulled out from the gate we could see our luggage left on the tarmac. The airplane was too heavy to carry the luggage! You might also find out luggage is broken because of accident or damaged during airline transfer.

However, there are tips that you can use when choosing your luggage as well as when you are traveling with your luggage. These are probably better to actually help you on your trip than determining whether to pick a bag with stripes or not.

The most basic knowledge to have is to not to overpack your luggage in the first place. By only packing what your baggage can hold you will reduce the chances of the bags breaking. This is because the number one reason why bags break is because people overpack their luggage. There are smarter ways to travel such as not carrying toiletries that you can buy cheaply at your destination, proper packing technique and leveraging clothing that has extra pockets instead of over-stuffing your bag. You can further strengthen the bag and make it easier to find in the baggage pickup by using a strap around the bag.

The other cause of losing luggage is when they are actually stolen. In most cases this is because people packed valuables such as jewelry or cash in their checked luggage. While you can use locks to protect your luggage these are not a very strong protection - in particular not post 9/11 where the locks must be designed to be unlocked by the TSA. While we like to think that criminals don't have access to the master keys, I think that's being naive. Plus the locks don't prevent someone from using a knife or saw or drill to go through the luggage to rip it open. Instead of carrying valuable jewelry in the luggage - carry it with you in as plain of package as possible. Nobody suspects a plain brown envelope contains valuables - which is why gemstones are often transported that way between stores. So you can use the same trick with your own valuables.

Books to Take for a Holiday in Hotels in Side Turkey

If you're the kind of traveller who lets someone else do all the pre-holiday work, and you just show up at the airport with a toothbrush and your passport, then the concept of research may seem a little foreign to you. But those in the know, know: an adventure abroad can be all the better for a little insider knowledge. For example, if your partner tells you they're looking up hotels in Side Turkey on the Internet, imagine being able to say, "Ah yes, I read about that in the Lets' Go, darling - er, let's go!" Even if you only read fiction, there are plenty of opportunities to glean at least a little information on your proposed destination. Here are a few books on Turkey that will help make you an armchair expert.

The Blue Guide to Turkey

If you're planning on a sun holiday in Turkey, just lazing by the pool at one of the luxurious Belek hotels, then you're probably not going to want to give your brain too much of a workout either. No book that deals with the Ottoman or Byzantine eras is going to be a walk in the park, so for some lighter reading, and the opportunity to learn about the history in plain English, the Blue Guide to Turkey is easy to handle and packed full of information. The Blue Guide franchise is known for its no-nonsense yet comprehensive approach to research and accuracy of detail. Often delving into the lesser-known parts of Turkey, the Blue Guide won't give you a review on the best Gumbet hotels, but it will give you a fascinating insight into the country's rich past - and it makes great shade too!

The Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak

Yes, we were surprised there were only forty too! While the title of this book has overtones of a self-help book for lovelorn twenty-somethings, it is, in fact, a fictional tale of self-discovery - but not as you have ever known it before. Set mainly in the 13th century, the tale is about a contemporary American housewife who is transformed when she reads an unpublished manuscript about a Sufi poet, Rumi, and the parallels she draws to her own life and loves. Elif Shafak is one of Turkey's most celebrated young authors, winning the Rumi prize for mystical literature. The Forty Rules of Love has sold over half a million copies and is one of the most intriguing and thought provoking cultural novels to come out of Turkey.

Bright Sun, Strong Tea - Tom Brosnahan

You won't find this on any of the best-seller lists, but Tom Brosnahan's amusing and witty memoir is an insightful slant on a foreigner's view of the sometimes closed and confusing world of Turkish culture. Arriving in Turkey in the 1960s as part of the Peace Corps, Brosnahan's easy style and humorous prose take you through his personal experiences in the country as well as touching on some of the history. It is a great all-round portrait of his adopted and much-loved country, but also a very funny and clever read.

Snow - Orhan Pamuk

The recommendations would not be complete without mention of the brilliant Orhan Pamuk - Turkey's most prominent living author and winner of the Nobel Prize. Snow is an extremely thought-provoking novel of modern Turkey, capturing both the political and cultural issues in a web of perfect prose and characterization. Recounted mainly through the voice of Ka, a poet, the themes of love, war and politics blend seamlessly to create a fascinating and suspenseful story.

For your first trip to Turkey, sometimes the unfamiliar names and the impossible pronunciations can make choosing a destination a little confusing. Let's say you start looking and hotels in Side Turkey come up on your screen. Wouldn't it be a little easier if you had actually heard of Side before? Or even knew a little about it? Too much pre-holiday research isn't for everybody, but it is possible to make it fun by reading up not only guidebooks and holiday brochures, but fiction as well. Here are some books with a Turkish flavour that may reveal some interesting facts, or at the very least make for a good read by the pool once you're there.

Exceptional Destinations Around the World

From the prolific keyboard of David Millett along with the photo-journalistic eye of Julia Buss, this traveling couple has compiled a delightful "Coffee Table" photo album of far-away and exotic places in their new book, Continental Drifting: Exceptional Destinations Around the World.

No moss gathers under these authors' feet; as we have first been introduced to David and Julia with their debut book, Flying the Edge of America, in which David piloted his private plane circumnavigating the USA with Julia as his intrepid companion. Now they have expanded their range to that of the entire world, traveling to each of the 7 continents and descending upon some of the most interesting and culturally diverse places on earth. One could associate each letter of the alphabet to a location described and pictured in the book, many of which I challenge anyone (besides David & Julia) to recognize without referencing: such as Aoraki, Bruges, Cradle Mtn., Fox (Glacier), Gard, Hanging Rock, Iguanzu (Falls), and so on to Kaikoura, Picton, and many more. In fact, there's literally a world of destinations, climates, animals and cultures for the arm-chair explorer to visit by simply paging this book. It opens the reader's eyes to the vast differences of our planet, with a focus on the natural beauty and ecosystem.

Each destination is written poetically in the first person, whereas the location is "speaking" about itself as if it were being its own tour guide. The use of "I" becomes subliminally anticipated, and the friendliness of this style of writing brings this book down to the comprehension of many children and young adults; enabling perhaps for their life goals to "want to go there" being formed and dreams designed. Many locations are further embellished with a thought provoking poem or essay describing itself within the colloquial vernacular or prose of the region. The pictures, along with captions, are a collection of personal photographs as well as sourced from the public media. A brief narrative and history lesson is written as a prologue which serves to set the tone of the book well, relaxing the reader to simply enjoy what is about to become revealed. As a picture is worth 1,000 words, this is a voluminous work of thought provoking travel information that will educate while entertaining all lucky readers.

If you think about the adventure of traveling; which ultimately results in mere memories and photographs, Continental Drifting is a way to traverse the world vicariously through the exploits of David Millett and Julia Buss, by reading about their mémoires and seeing their photographs. Graphically laid out in an artful fashion, this book is a wonderful gift or reference for any family library; even ideal for a waiting room whereas it can be started or stopped at any point, or flipped through quickly pausing as your attention gets focused on a "wow" photo. The feeling I had from Continental Drifting: Exceptional Destinations Around the World was how much there truly is to see, as this book can be a "bucket list" for those with the means and time to travel, like globetrotters David Millett & Julia Buss. With their adventurous, spirited and exotic thirst for travel, the authors are courageous in their quest for seeking out the essence of the diversity of the world we all call, somewhere, home.

Top 7 Books to Read Before Traveling to Turkey

I like to read several books before each trip to have a better understanding of the culture and the local life of my next destination. Of course there are the travel guides I read before leaving or even before choosing my next destination, but my favourites are fiction novels. I like to read stories that take place in that country or whose authors are from that country.

Below is a great list of non-travel books about Turkey, some from Turkish authors. If you are considering travelling to Turkey soon, create time to read at least few of them, perhaps they will make you realize your dream trip sooner than expected.

1) Yasar Kemal, The Birds Have Also Gone

A short novel from one of Turkey's internationally recognised and widely read authors who has also been a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this book, author tells the story of three boys who are struggling to survive in the constantly changing environment of the big city: Istanbul.

2) John David Tumpane, Scotch and Holy Water

Entertaining book on Turkish people and life in Turkey written by American author who lived in Turkey for 10 years. From the view of a Turkish person you may find the author arrogant and the observations exaggerated but it will surely be helpful to Americans in understanding Turkish thinking. "We arrived in Istanbul via Pan Am after midnight. On the way into the city, all the neon signs looked so strange to me: Tuzcuoglu, Haci Bekir Lokumlari, Koc. I thought, I'll never be able to learn this language. Then I saw a sign reading Is Bankasi and I was sure the word "bank" was lurking somewhere in there. Since I knew one word of Turkish already, I decided to stay"

3) Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul Memories and the City

The Nobel Prize winner recalls the Istanbul of his youth. Istanbul's melancholy enriched his childhood and continues to inspire him. "... the melancholy of this dying culture was all around us. Great as the desire to westernise and modernise may have been, the more desperate wish, it seemed, was to be rid of all the bitter memories of the fallen empire: rather as a spurned lover throws away his lost beloved's clothes, possessions and photographs"

4) Mustafa Ziyalan and Amy Spangler (editors), Istanbul Noir

Comprised of by 16 stories, all original, some of Turkey's most exciting authors; the result is an underground portrait of the city and of Turkey, told in evocative, often poetic, and powerful language.

5) Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings

Birds Without Wings is a novel by Louis de Bernières, telling the tragic love story of Philothei, a Christian girl and Ibrahim her childhood friend and Muslim. The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small fictional village; although fiction, the setting of Eskibahçe is based upon Kayaköy village near Fethiye, the ruins of which still exist today; a beautiful historic romantic novel.

6) Elif Safak, The Flea Palace

Safak is a young Turkish novelist, writer of best-sellers in Turkey, France and Bulgaria. The Flea Palace is a novel about daily routines of the inhabitants of an apartment building in Istanbul named BonBon Palace, miniature representation of the city itself, the city of contrasts and contradictions, the city where East meets West. Here is an extract from The Flea Palace: "Istanbul was under a heavy fog that morning, and as all Istanbulites knew too well, during foggy days even the city herself could not tell what her colour was. However, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova had always been pampered with great care since birth and had been subsequently led to presume that others were to blame whenever she could not obtain anything she desired..."

7) Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey

A nonfiction anthology created and edited by Anastasia M. Ashman & Jennifer Eaton Gokmen. The collection includes the life experiences of 32 expatriate women from seven nations and five continents, whose collective experience spans over the past four decades. These diverse women describe religion, culture, conflicts, traditions and customs with the perspective of foreign women living and working in Turkey. They will take you to Istanbul's narrow streets, to warm homes, and to steamy Hamams. If you are planning to visit Turkey soon this book is a great read to warm your heart to Turkish people.

A Voyage To Adrift In Africa

"Adrift In Africa" is all about Africa, its wonderful locations, diversity of indigenous people and their cultures. By reading this book you will not only find entertainment but also catch their complex life pattern. The author presents the springs of human action to convey his own perception to his readers.

The author's art and technique, his unique methods of storytelling along with the characters are all devoted to the achievement of his aim. As a successful artist his sincerity and integrity are amazing. The language, the setting, the narration and the characters of this book all together form an organic whole and contribute to the total effect. The descriptions of the whole journey to Africa are presented in such a compact and pleasurable manner that you will find yourself in Africa while reading. Nothing is superfluous here and each word and every sentence is step forward towards the desired aim of the book.

Through this book you will certainly be familiar with the struggle that the people of Africa are undergoing for their survival. Though they have enough resources, seventy five percent of the continent people survive on less than two dollars a day. Those who have long cherished dream of visiting Africa but cannot materialize their dream for lack of sufficient information about the easiest ways and means of travelling in African, may have real pleasure and helpful instructions through reading Adrift In Africa. It will create a new perspective to see the world in a different eye. The book will help you to discover in your own way, the real core of the world.

Nature, the atmosphere of Africa, is the setting of Adrift In Africa and it is colored with human emotions and moods. The narrator and his beloved Sinead are the two celebrity characters of this book. The real purpose of the author is to present the beauty and the lives of Africa to the readers. But this purpose is masterfully served through the encounter of the two live and vigorous characters. This is one of the diverse reasons for which you will feel more interested in reading this unique travel book. It will never appear to be boring.

Adrift In Africa will take you millions of years back when most of the people were uncivilized and wild. There is a chance for you to cross the boundary to see the wild life which is uncovered to you. The tropical forest lands, the enormous rivers and their wilderness, the dense sky-touching trees and their unbroken silences as well as the vast expense of the ocean are presented through the vivid descriptions of the experiences of the characters. Though the origin of Adrift In Africa is in the personal experiences and the experiences are much highlighted and colored. The story of the book has a universal element in it as much as its basis of curiosity and lust for adventure. Merlin Dickson, the author of Adrift In Africa, evokes atmosphere with such success because he has an amazing command of language, very moving, forceful and poetical.

Fresh Travel to Africa

Dipping in and out of Fresh-air Fiend, you'll be struck by what a good life Paul Theroux has had, and most of it due to his own will and energy. Raised in a large, talkative family in Massachusetts, he often left home in search of personal privacy, and one day decided never to return. His anthology may inspire you to do the same...

Fresh-air Fiend takes us through Theroux's first travel experiences - from the time he lived in Africa as part of a peace corps in his early twenties, to later adventures in America, Africa, the Pacific and China. Many of the shorter stories haven't been published in the UK before and the book also includes the full and now out-of-print text of Sailing Through China - a barking and at times bleak account of his 1980 trip up the Yangtze river with a group of American millionaires.

The anthology weaves a variety of other subjects into the travel theme: there are pieces on Theroux's own and other author's novels; on his obsession with small boats; on travel illness; bizarre customs; and fellow exiles, including his thoughts on an exasperating friend, Bruce Chatwin. Theroux has also included a curious and entertaining piece on heterosexual desire that he wrote for Vogue, though his politics can sometimes be a tad dubious. Apparently, the majority of men "would be delighted if instead of an expensive dress women simply wore a little button on their lapel that read Yes". Ah, I see!

The stories include some interesting insights into Theroux's life and thoughts. He was to travel for over a decade in Africa, Asia and Europe before he wrote his first travel book The Great Railway Bazaar, and he only wrote that because he believed his career in fiction was over. In retrospect, he found it was the best training he could have had: the feeling of disconnection caused by "being away" from home is how he had some of his best ideas for writing.

Theroux is also frank and funny, and UK readers will find a lot to amuse them in his observations. Britain taught him that hardship, far from being "the long vividly difficult road over the Tibetan plateau", is actually "the eighteen years I spent on the South Circular Road, which is almost indescribably depressing". A trip to London in 1993 made him observe "London traits: lowered voices, lateness, pessimism, pallor, a look of fatigue, rumpled clothes, bad haircuts, the stillness of tube passengers". And there's still his tales of rat-urine poisoning in the River Avon, drizzly Catford and the foibles of the BBC?

For anyone new to Theroux, Fresh-air Fiend may be a good place to start - you'll feel like you're being told the truth by one of the few men who hasn't turned dull and bitter in his later years.

Innocents in Egypt: In a Time Before Trip Advisor

I'd studied Egyptology for a quite a few years. I knew the difference between my Ra and my Bestat. I'd been looking forward to this holiday for a long time.

Our first mistake was the cheap three star hotels. These were the days before TripAdvisor (I know - I'm that old) and we had a habit of going for the bargain-basement hotels in those days (we're not much better now to be honest, but at least we have ready access to reviews by trusted members of the public in these tech- savvy times...)

The windowless room in Luxor was made more miserable by the sound of a scuttering cockroach in the bathroom. And at least the lack of light meant it was less easy to see the throbbing red sores on my legs (I believe there were around 40 of them in total), caused by those rampaging insects who found me so delectable on the night I sat outside my slightly posher hotel room in a hotel on the outskirts of Cairo. And there was even less light to see the welts by when the electricity packed in (this happened more than once.) Although out in the bright light of a Karnak morning, a lady behind me in the queue was able to see them very well, commenting on "that poor girl's legs!" I was mortified.

Don't get me wrong, the sight of the pyramids had very nearly reduced me to tears, and some of the not so well known temples that we were taken to by a lady and her taxi driver friend that we ran across completely by accident (she called herself Madame Rosa) were tremendous. Madame Rosa was in Luxor as a scientist, working on the greening of the Egyptian desert while living in the village of Kuna on the banks directly opposite Luxor. She took tourists around who were interested in seeing sights away from the madding tourist crowd as a side-line to her main job. (In fact, I'd love to hear from anyone else who has come across her.)

And Cairo museum was great - the number and quality of exhibits there was mind-blowing to this amateur Egyptologist. Even the Arthur Daley character who accosted us in the street outside and made us go and see his Papyrus showroom didn't take the shine off too much. And our trip into the desert by convoy to see Hathor's temple at Dendera as an experience and a half (this wasn't long after the bombing at Luxor in 1997). But we never did take to the bargaining for goods (we ended up finding the one shop in Luxor that had set prices) and the baksheesh issue ended up giving us nervous tics (even though we know it's a poor country - we know, we know.)

But for all that, and especially for those more travel-savvy than we were at the time, I couldn't recommend Egypt enough. And thinking about it, it's probably one of the holidays that I remember in most detail - which must mean something.

1,000 Places to See Before You Die - A Book Review From an England Perspective

I must admit to kicking off my reading of the newest edition of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz with a slightly negative attitude. "Chatsworth House, hmm? Blenheim is much better." And then five or six pages later, there's Blenheim - this author's reading my mind! A bit later I'm thinking "Chester is fine and it's got half-timber I suppose but Ludlow is so much nicer." A few pages later, there's Ludlow...

That soon endeared this book to me. So did the fact that Cambridge is the very first entry in the book. Not Harvard, not Yale, not Nalanda or Al-Aqsa or Bologna and particularly not Oxford. They got that right (what do you mean, I'm biased?). Though it's a pity that the side-trip to Ely isn't mentioned. The sight of Ely cathedral's lantern soaring above the Fens is one of the greatest expressions of English landscape and architecture.

Author Patricia Schultz would be terrible in one of those interviews so beloved by the newspapers where celebs have to choose - "Britney or Madonna?" "Tea or coffee?" She had included in her book Exmoor and Dartmoor, Bath and Wells, Salisbury and Winchester, Leeds Castle and Sissinghurst.

Any gaps? Well, I get a feeling that lowland England has been missed out. I would have to say that the great expanses of the South Downs and the chalk of the Ridgeway are among the greatest landscapes of the world, and they aren't included - but the Cotswolds are. Nothing in East Anglia is mentioned, which is a pity since this region has some of the loveliest villages: Finchingfield, Kersey, Lavenham and Framlingham - though the latter pair are small towns really. And just once, I think she's really missed a trick; Stonehenge is here, but not Avebury, an equally fascinating monument and without the nasty visitor centre and fences. No Durham cathedral! Now that is really a shame; again, similar to visiting Ely, seeing that first view of Durham's great church and castle on top of their ridge above the Wear is one of the great English landscape experiences.

Regrettably, Britain's industrial heritage does poorly as well; no canals, no Ironbridge Gorge museum, no Clifton Suspension Bridge. Finally, there is an omission that's just plain wrong in my view: no mention of my favourite town in England - Norwich!

The hotel recommendations on the other hand are surprisingly good - where the book does make them (it doesn't always); they've usually been picked with an eye to giving extra depth to the travel experience. For instance in Wells, the Swan Hotel, a former coaching inn, complements a visit to the cathedral and the Vicars' Close with its traditional feel - you almost feel like you're travelling back in time.

If you're visiting Hadrian's Wall, the Langley Castle Hotel is the recommendation - a slice of the Borders' troubled history, built under Edward III to keep back marauding Scots and a truly spectacular piece of architecture. Meanwhile the Burgh Island Hotel off the Devon Coast, offers Jazz Age nostalgia - it's a super Art Deco hotel and has entertained guests including Agatha Christie, Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII, and Noel Coward (though in the latter case it might be truer to say that Mr Coward entertained the hotel).

Overall, I think the book is an 8.5 out of 10. Not quite 100% up there but still informative enough to be a highly recommended travel book. Of course, that's just for the coverage of England and London in particular - but I've had a look through the rest and this is a well-researched, sensible and enlightening book, which I didn't necessarily expect judging by the title.

Our personal tastes are all different. I like fens, deserts, canyons, architecture and hiking. You might like tropical jungles, beaches, nightlife and snowboarding. So it's inevitably difficult to come up with 1,000 places to suit everyone. In fact, this book does a pretty good job.

And reading it has been a pleasure; sitting by the fire, with the lamps on while it's raining outside and letting my mind wander across the deserts of Rajasthan and the beaches of Barbados, or fabricating an artificial shiver while I read about the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Review of Berlitz German Phrase Book and Audio CD

Berlitz German Phase Book and Dictionary was one of the first resources I bought to learn German. I knew that it wouldn't help me with colloquial language, and that it would mostly consist of handy phrases for travelers, but I figured it would help me decide whether or not German was the language for me.

For the price of $14.95 at Borders (back when Borders was the major book store chain), I purchased this phrase book, which also included a pocket dictionary and an audio CD. The main phrase book was packed with many useful requests and conversations which, as I anticipated, were geared primarily towards travelers. As a beginner, I found a lot of useful vocabulary in the phrase book. Most textbooks and courses don't go very in depth into travel vocabulary, so this phrase book could be a very useful supplement.

Now, having studied German, I know that the formal language used in this travel guide is overly-polite and I would likely not use a good deal of it, if I were to travel to Germany today. Still though, it was a helpful resource. I also enjoyed the audio CD, although it was a little hard to follow before I had a sound basis in German basics.

I would recommend this traveler's guide anyone who needs to learn/brush up on their German before a trip purchase this book. It is certainly one of the best travel guides out there for the German language. The audio CD will help to perfect your pronunciation, and the book covers just about everything you would have to say. For serious language learners, this book could teach you some of the more formal/polite ways of making requests in German, as well as a great deal of travel vocabulary.

What I do not recommend, however, is starting out your German experience with this or any travel guide. That is how I started and I found myself very confused by the different grammatical cases, adjective agreements, and all the other fine points of the language. For that reason, I recommend learning the basics of the German language from a more informative course/class/program and then, at a later time, using this or any travel guide as a supplement for vocabulary.

Whilst this set is only useful for vocabulary when learning the German language, it is certainly one of the best travel guides that I have seen. I have quite a few pocket travel guides, for several languages, and this one has the most features and words. Most travelers, when armed with this book, should do just fine in Germany, especially considering how many people speak in English there.

Across China, Xinjiang to Tibet

Ostensibly From Heaven Lake is a travel book. The description is both apt and limiting. It is worth musing on the idea that travel may be merely a way of collecting a pool of nostalgia for future regurgitation. But this particular description of the author's journey through China - initially west-east and then north-south in the early 1980s - does not seem to have added very much potential fuel to future's recollected fires.

At the time it was hardly common for an individual to travel independently in China, let alone enter Tibet via Qinghai or - even more unlikely - exit China via Tibet into Nepal. But this is precisely what Vikram Seth did, and to add icing to the achievement cake, his preferred mode of transport was hitch-hiking. It is largely the mechanics and logistics of this journey that provide most of the content of the book.

Vikram Seth had been a student in China, so his goal was to see some of the less visited parts of the country and to exit, eventually, to India to be reunited, after years in college, with his family. He did have some language without which, given the twists and turns bureaucracy forced, he would surely not have achieved his goal.

Near the start of the book the author is already in eastern China, visiting Turfan which, on the other end of an axis that starts in Tibet, must be one of the strangest places on the planet. It bakes in summer and freezes rigid in winter, is in the middle of a massive desert but makes its living from highly successful agriculture. On a visit to the karez, the ancient underground irrigation channels that bring water from the distant mountains, the author chances an unauthorised swim against his guide's advice. The author gets into difficulty. And this seems to be very much a thread that recurs throughout the narrative of From Heaven Lake. A determined first person seems intent on asserting a rather blind individuality in the context of a society that respects only conformity and seeks to exclude anything that suggests difference. In the conflict that ensues between these fundamentally different aims, we are presented with a catalogue of travel that seems to miss much of the potential experience of the country through which it moves. Thus much of the book deals with the process of travel, rather than its experience.

Despite this, From Heaven Lake is a worthwhile read. Besides Turfan we visit Urumqi and the high altitude lake that gives the book its title. The tour moves on to Xian, Lanzhou, Dunhuang and then across Qinghai to Tibet and especially Llasa. This city occupies much of the text, revealing that visiting it was very much at the heart of the author's consideration.

We do meet some interesting people along the way, but they are largely bureaucrats, drivers or officials associated with the author's travel arrangements. Given Vikram Seth's experience in the country, there seems to be a missed opportunity here, in that more people would have embroidered the text with more interesting and enduring detail than the repeated travel problems.

In its time, From Heaven Lake might perhaps have been a unique account of a trip that few contemporary travellers would have contemplated, let alone attempted. Today it still presents in interesting account of a personal challenge, but offers too little contemporary experience to motivate the general reader to stay on board.

Europe to Asia and Back

When, some thirty years later, Paul Theroux repeated the journey that he had described in The Great Railway Bazaar, he declared travel writing to be 'the lowest form of literary self-indulgence.' His original journey in the early 1970s was a deliberate act, a ruse upon which to hang a book. The travel featured was nothing less than an occupation, whose sole product was to be collected and recorded experience. We, the readers, must thank him for his single-minded devotion to selfishness, for The Great Railway Bazaar takes us all the way there without having to leave the armchair.

The journey began and finished in London. In between Paul Theroux took the orient Express to Istanbul and then crossed Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan before doing the length of India. He even went to Sri Lanka by train. Then there was Burma and a meander through South-East Asia. His account of smoking cigarettes in Vientiane will stick in the mind. Malaysia and Singapore were taken in, the latter clearly not being to the writer's taste. Japan was clearly a curious experience, but the Trans Siberia from near Vladivostok to Moscow seemed strangely predictable, its length being its major characteristic. Eventually, the final leg across Europe hardly counted, a mere step along a much bigger way.

Any such journey can only offer mere impressions of the places en route, but such first impressions are always interesting in themselves, if not always accurate or justified. Thirty years on, some of them may even have historical significance. It would be a challenging task these days to cross the current Iran and Afghanistan by rail. And a contemporary journey would surely cross China, a route barred to the 1970s independent traveller.

But it's the people met along the way that give the book its prime characters. We never get to know these people and we encounter them largely as caricatures, but it is the experience of travel that is described, and this experience inevitably involves a multitude of these ephemeral encounters. They are always engaging. We expect to be confronted with the surprising, the unknown and the little understood. We expect the experience to be recorded, whilst the mundane is edited out of the account. And furthermore, we do try to make sense of our often confused responses to the unexpected. This is why we travel: at its base it is a challenge.

Paul Theroux does litter the trip with indulgence, however. There is a fairly constant search for alcoholic beverages, for instance. Furthermore, in several places there are encounters with and deliberate attempts to seek out the local low life. Offers of girls, boys, older women, wives, transvestites and every imaginable service are received. Sometimes, the services in question require some imagination. It is easy, of course, to sensationalise experience when it is sought at the margins of what a society dares to admit. In the case of Japan, where much of this material is located, it has to be admitted that the margins are rather wide.

Balancing this crudity is Paul Theroux's constant desire to reflect upon his love of literature. Some of the material he recollects produces some wonderful insights, surprising juxtapositions and apposite comment.

Travel writing might be pure self-indulgence, but this particular example of the vice transcends the purely personal. It feels like being taken along for the ride. Thus, like all good travel writing, The Great railway Bazaar is not merely an account of another's observations, it is nothing less than a journey to be experienced.

Hiking in Palm Springs

When was the last time you ditched the wicked winter weather and followed the snowbirds to the sunniest part of Southern California; Palm Springs. Well, if you're coming to Palm Springs you need to pack a T-shirt, some shorts, and might I recommend some hiking shoes - why you ask? Because in and around Palm Springs there are some magnificent hiking trails, and the weather is good all year round. Yes, it's very hot in the summer time, but if you can handle the heat, and take some water with you on your hikes, you are sure to lose water weight. Okay so, let's talk about this and your next vacation shall we?

First, if you are going to go hiking in the Palm Springs area, I would like to recommend a very good book to you, it is completely user friendly, and gives you the exact mileage of nearly every great hiking trail within a 50 mile radius. This is a book that I own personally, and use regularly. The name of the book is;

"140 Great Hikes In and near Palm Springs," by Philip Ferranti and Hank Koenig, published by Westcliffe publishers, 2008, 296 pages, ISBN: 1-56579-490-7.

These guys really know their stuff, and the authors are avid hikers, and even dedicated their book to their favorite hiking dog; Skitts. This book has hiking trails in Mecca Hills and Box Canyon nearly 30 of them. There also for great hiking trails listed from Coachella Valley Preserve. There are a number of desert cities surrounding Palm Springs, it is not isolated all by itself anymore, In fact there are 550,000 people in the Coachella Valley during the season, which is the wintertime when all the snowbirds come out. The rest of the time the population hovers around 300,000.

In any case all these other desert cities also have trails, and they have listed 12 extremely excellent trails, four of which I've been on myself in some of the other cities. There are 16 trails listed in the Palm Springs and Indian Canyon areas, and 30 trails in the nearby San Jacinto Mountains, with six trails in the Santa Rosa Mountains, as well as a number of trails in Joshua Tree National Park. The park is awesome, and if you've never been there, you must go.

The book also has trails in the San Bernardino Pass, and the Orocopia Mountain wilderness area. There are detailed maps of every single trail with all the distances and directions of how to get to the trailhead, and important tips along the way, along with various landmarks listed, and scenic outlooks. Anyways, this is the very best book I have ever found for those that wish to go on hiking excursions in and around the Palm Springs area. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this, and I highly recommend this book to you.

Going to Europe - How About a First Class Travel Guide?

Are you thinking of traveling to Europe? Perhaps you might want to go now before they institute the cap and trade tax for airliners, which could increase the price of your airfare. Or, maybe you wish to wait until the Euro drops in price against the US Dollar, as the slow-motion train wreck of the European economy will finally make a trip to Europe affordable again. Still, whenever you do go, there is a great book and travel guide that I highly recommend. This is a book I own myself and have used; it's the best one I've found so far. The name of the book is;

"Travel Book Europe - The Guide to Premier Destinations," (Twelfth Edition) by a Contractor for the American Automobile Club, 2011, 576 pages, ISBN: 978-159508-400-2.

This book is totally comprehensive, and relatively small and compact. Just about everything you need to know including what you need before you go and it covers the following countries; Austria, Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. There are maps of each country, all the best and safest places to go, all the museums, downtown areas, train stations, and information about history, and historical landmarks.

Best of all there are pictures, tourist information, and average climate temperatures, so you know what type of clothing to wear, and the temperatures are both in Fahrenheit and Celsius listed by season and month. This book will prevent you from getting lost, and it's small enough to throw in your backpack, if you are taking a walk or excursion down any European downtown shopping district. If you are going on a trip to Europe by way of cruise ship, this travel book has all the information outside of every port you might stop at.

The pictures are beautiful, and so is the architecture, it almost gives you a sense of being there, with plenty of trivia, history, and all the incidentals that you might need. If you get lost, need to contact the police, or perhaps even find a Hospital, everything is listed in this book. There are even phone numbers for information such as Rent-A-Cars, hotels, and some of the finest and/or most popular restaurants. There are detailed maps of airports, train stations, and just about everything you need to know. If you are traveling to Europe, you need to go pick one of these books up, and use it to help you prepare your itinerary.

Yes, I also have other books on this topic, but I would submit to you this is the best one I've found so far, because it is a practical travel guide that you can take with you, and it barely takes up any space. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Chinese Natural Tourism Resource and Folk Customs

Chinese tourism resource is mainly composed of natural landscapes, historical and human landscapes and folk customs, which is distributed in different parts of China.

On the vast Chinese territory scatter countless high mountains, lakes, valleys, waterfalls and caves, which are gorgeous and magnificent. Taishan Mountain, Hengshan Mountain (Hunan Province), Huashan Mountain, Hengshan Mountain (in Shanxi Province) and Songshan Mountain have been titled "the Five Sacred Mountains" since ancient times, of which Taishan Mountain ranks first for its tremendous momentum, while Huangshan Mountain is famous for its odd-shaped pines, bizarre rocks, cloud seas and hot springs.

In Southwest China there are Jiuzhaigou, Huangguoshu Waterfall and Guilin Mountains & Lakes, and Jiuzhaigou stretches for over 40 kilometers and covers an area of 620 square kilometers, where the lakes, waterfalls and forests scatter, and it's just like a wonderland on the earth. Composed of 18 overground waterfalls and 4 underground waterfalls, Huangguoshu Waterfall Cluster (in Guizhou Province) is very breathtaking and fantastic, whose sound can be heard from five miles away. The Li River meanders along the peaks and caves in Guangxi Province, along which the scenery is picturesque, and the Guilin-Yangshun Section (about 82 kilometers long) boasts the essence of Guilin Mountains & Rivers, attracting millions of visitors every year.

On the plateau of North China scatter numerous high mountains and calm lakes, affording a magnificent spectacle. Surrounded by mountains, Tianchi Lake in Xijiang Province is 1,980 meters high above the sea level with its deepest point of 105 meter. As the capital of China, Beijing is not only famous all over the world for its cultural and historical attractions, but also it's well known for its unique natural scenery, of which the famous ones include Jingdong Grand Canyon, Beijing Botanical Garden and Shidu.

The Three Gorges (Qutang Gorgande, Wu Gorge and Xiling Gorge) along the Yangtze River have long enjoyed a good reputation with many places of interest along the riverbanks, of which Qutang Gorge is steep and majestic, Wu Gorge is characterized by quietness, and Xiling Gorge features many shoals and rapids, where the Three Gorge Dam is located, boasting the biggest hydroelectric project of China.

There are 56 ethnic groups in China, whose culture, lifestyles and festivals vary from one to another. As the most ceremonious festival for the Tibetan ethnic people, the Sour Milk Festival is held on 30th of June every year, when the actors from the major Tibetan drama schools gather in Norbulingka of Lahsa to perform the plays. Nadam Fair is held in July every year, when the Mongolian people celebrate it in the forms of singing, dancing, wresting, shooting arrows and and horse racing.

The Bai ethnic people living in Dali of Yunnan Province hold "March Fair" on Diancang Mountain in March every year, which is a good opportunity for the people to conduct material and culture exchange.

The Dai ethnic people celebrate their Water-Splashing Festival after the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, who consider water as something that brings happiness and longevity to them, so they splash water to each other to express their best wishes during the festival, and the dragon-boating racing and the peacock dancing are also held then.

Chinese Historical and Human Landscapes

Chinese tourism resource is mainly composed of natural landscapes, historical and human landscapes and folk customs, which is distributed in different parts of China.

China is very rich in historical and human landscapes during its 5,000-year history. As the symbol of Chinese nation and the most well-known scenic spot in China, the Great Wall in Beijing was built from the Spring and Autumn Period (770 B.C.-476 B.C) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), boasting the hugest constructional project in Chinese civilization, and it's titled "One of the Top 8 World Wonders" for its majestic momentum. Now over 10 sections of the Great Wall such as Badaling Section, Laolongtou Section and Jiayuguan Section are open to the public.The Summer Palace was listed among the first batch "Key Cultural Relic Units under China's State Protection" by the State Council on 4th of March in 1961 and "the World Heritage Sites" by the UNESCO in November of 1998.

Grottoes, rock paintings and sculptures are also treasures of Chinese tourist resources, and the grottoes are mainly concentrated along the ancient Silk Road, of which the most famous one is Mogao Grottoes, boasting "the Oriental Art Treasure House" by the later generations for 492 grottoes scattering along the cliffs and over 2,100 painted sculptures. The Grotto Art of South China is represented by the Giant Stone Buddha at Leshan Mountain, whose body is huge but well proportioned with 71 meters tall and 28 meters wide, fully embodying the excellent ancient Chinese carving techniques.

The holy lands of religion spread all over China. As the cradle of Chinese Buddhism Zen, Shaolin Temple was built in 495 and it is famous all over the world for Shaolin Kung Fu, where a 300-square meter mural with the outlines of Five Hundred Arhats painted. As a famous Taoist land, Wudang Mountain Scenic Area is located in Hubei Province with 72 fantastic peaks, where the largest and the best-preserved Taoist architecture cluster is located. As one of the four famous Buddhist mountains in China, Emei Mountain is located in the west of Sichuan Province, where many Buddhist architectural remains are available.

Over 100 famous historical and cultural cities are available in China, some of which have a long history of more than 1,000 years. Hangzhou and Suzhou are titled "Paradises on the Earth" for their densely crisscrossed rivers and lakes and idyllic cottages, both of which are picturesque. Pingyao Ancient Town, initially built in the Ming dynasty, is located in the central part of Shanxi Province, where the remains of Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture in the Neolithic Age are founded by arachnologists, and it fully proves that human beings had lived in this area since 5,000 years ago. As the center of Dongba Culture of Naxi ethnic group and the joint site of the Han culture, the Tibetan culture and the Bai culture, Lijiang Ancient Town (built in the Song dynasty) in Yunnan Province is very rich in human landscapes, where many Ming and Qing-era stone bridges, memorial archways and civilian residences are available, providing valuable material for researching the history of Chinese civilian architecture.

Alternative and Anti-Travel Books

Most travel writing is rubbish. The kind of travel writing that gets published in national newspapers and magazines is usually just there to fill in the space between the glossy photos and the advertisements. Any travel related articles that are challenging, controversial, or even just interesting, are likely to be rejected if there is even the slightest chance of alienating potential advertisers. Few magazines are now willing to take the more long term view, that quality content will attract more readers over the long term, leading eventually to higher advertising revenues.

The other big problem is that travel writing - even for national publications - is so poorly paid, that it is only really viable if you were already planning to visit somewhere, or if the trip is being paid for by an advertiser. Any criticism, questioning or even irreverence, is therefore unlikely to go down particularly well. Most travel writers eventually realise that if all they are going to be doing is writing disguised advertising copy, then they might as well get a better paid job doing this elsewhere, and use the extra money to pay for their own holidays.

Most of the travel books currently being published are either written by television personalities, involve aspirational lifestyle changes, or revolve around some kind of novelty quest (an ideal travel book proposal would probably involve Katie Price bouncing to Tuscany on a space hopper). Every now and again, however, a more interesting kind of travel writing will be unleashed upon the world.

Here is a list of some of the best alternative and anti-travel writing to have ever have been published:

P.J. O'Rourke: Holidays in Hell
This is the first book that I read by P.J. O'Rourke and it's still one of his best. It's basically just a collection of articles written over several years, in which he visits some of the world's less obvious tourist attractions. I couldn't help feeling that all of these destinations seemed far more appealing than the thought of spending a fortnight by the beach at a luxury hotel. Clever, funny and different.

Daniel Kalder: The Lost Cosmonaut
According to Daniel Kalder: "The duty of the traveller, of the voyager, is to open up new zones of experience. In our over explored world these must of necessity be wastelands, black holes, and grim urban blackspots: all the places which, ordinarily, people choose to avoid. The only true voyagers, therefore, are anti-tourists". I actually liked the idea of the book more than the book itself. Nevertheless, Daniel Kalder is a writer with some good ideas who is not afraid to challenge the conventions of travel writing.

Dave Eggers: You Shall Know Our Velocity
Strictly speaking, this isn't actually a travel book, but a novel about a series of related journeys. If Douglas Coupland were to write a travelogue, then it would probably end up being something like this. Others have drawn comparison to beat writers such as Jack Kerouac but the style if far more contemporary. While not as good as his acclaimed debut 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' it is still clever, stylish and interestingly odd.

Luray Caverns

The Luray Caverns are located in the Shenandoah Valley just east of the Allegheny Mountain Range in Luray, Virginia. Discovered in 1878, the original opening was a hole that was dug just large enough for the smallest 2 of the 5 man discovery crew to squeeze through. They slid down a rope and explored by candlelight. They discovered the caverns because of a sinkhole that had cool air coming from it.

Portions of the Caverns are open to the public and well lit. The temperature inside the caverns is only 54 °F. Make sure to bring a jacket along for the visit.

Luray Caverns is home to a great many natural and man-made wonders.

    The hedge maze contains 1500 Dark American Evergreens which create a half-mile path for visitors.
    The Leaning Column, undermined and tilting like the Tower of Pisa
    The Organ, a large shield formation
    The Elfin Ramble, a vast bed of disintegrated carbonates left by the water in its retreat through the great space
    The Empress Column is a stalagmite 35 feet high, rose-colored, and elaborately draped.
    The Double Column, two fluted pillars side by side, one 25 ft the other 60 feet high
    The Pluto's Ghost, a pillar, is a ghostly white
    Brands Cascade is a particularly fine cascade. It is 40 feet high and 30 feet wide, and is a waxy white.
    Saracen's tent is considered to be one of the most well-formed draperies in the world.

Cave Hill is popular for it's pits and oval hollows. It is 927 feet above sea level. The underground cavern system at Luray has many different formations such as columns, mud flows, stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and mirrored pools.

One of the best known formations in the caverns is probably the Great Stalacpipe Organ. Formations at Luray Caverns are white if the calcium carbonate is in its pure form. Other colors are a result of  impurities in the calcite. These impurities are a result of elements being absorbed from the soil or rock layers. Reds and yellows are from iron, blacks are from manganese dioxide, blues and greens are from solutions of copper compounds. Luray Caverns is still an active cave where new formation deposits grow at about one cubic inch every 120 years.

There are different amounts of water in the cavern during different seasons. Because of this, some of the stalactite tips are under water long enough to develop crystals during the wet seasons and get coated over again in the drier season.

Drapery formations can be found in all major rooms in the cavern. They ring like bells when struck heavily by the hand. They form when carbonates, deposited by water, trickle down a sloping and corrugated surface.

In Hoveys Balcony, sixteen alabaster scarfs hang side by side. Three of the sixteen scarfs are white, thirteen are riged and seem to contain every possible shade of brown.

An interesting story about the caverns actually takes place above them. Limair Sanatorium, which was erected on the summit of Cave Hill, was billed as the first air-conditioned home in the United States.

It was 1901 when a shaft five feet in diameter was sunk down into a cavern chamber. A 42-inch fan powered by a 5 horsepower electric motor was installed and the cool, supposedly pure air of Luray Caverns was forced through the rooms. The air could be turned over throughout the entire house about every 4 minutes. The house interior was a comfortable 70 degrees even on the hottest summer day.

I Don't Really Need Travel Cover

Many people are under the impression the medical care in regions like South East Asia or South America is relatively inexpensive, some might even say cheap, and because of this travel insurance is more of a luxury than a necessity. While this may be true to a point -- care is inexpensive -- it can also be very basic and may not be up to the standards that most of us are used to.

As an example, shared rooms are the norm in many developing countries, and it is common for the family to stay with the patient should they be hospitalized. Your privacy is a secondary consideration and you may find yourself with more company than you can handle for the duration of your recuperation.

The necessity for adequate travel cover also becomes significant in the event you actually do require some serious healthcare and the only option is to evacuate or transport you to another city, or even country, that has the facilities and expertise to provide proper treatment. It is at this point that proper travel cover stops looking like a luxury and becomes a necessity. And then there is always the issue of getting you home should that be necessary. Medical transport is never cheap.

We all would like to believe that nothing will go wrong, and of course we embark upon our journeys with a sense of optimism, but the fact of the matter is that the best hospitals and world-class healthcare are expensive no matter where you are. And if world class hospitals are expensive, medical evacuation to a world class facility is even more so.

But medical cover is not the whole of it. When considering what kind of travel cover it is you require, it is important to check whether or not your policy includes personal and third-person liability, what levels of excess your provider offers as well what kind of travel cover they offer. Are lost documents covered? How about that camera and ipod you plan to bring along? And what happens if the resort has taken your money but won't give you a room?

Excesses are very important to keep your eye on, what is the point in saving 20 dollars on your travel policy only to pay an additional 200 should you require some sort of medical treatment. Insurers commonly offer low policy prices as an incentive to buy, but when you read the fine print, excess charges may well deter you from claiming altogether when you most need it.

Your New Timeshare Can Turn Excitement Into a Nightmare

Unbelievable! You're going to own a new timeshare at their special low, low price [ask them "how they came up with YOUR timeshare sales price?"]

Maybe everybody gets the same price, I don't know, my guess is it's probably more like what happens in the car sales arena with buyer beware.

Obviously, they already KNOW that you own another timeshare, right? Yes, you put a check mark on the form when you signed in today. I'm guessing you have been assigned to a specialist who can "help you" cash out your "old" timeshare at a great price.

Probably, one of their cute, open shirt, hairy gurus just happened to walk buy, greeted you warmly, told you how he was leaving tomorrow on an exotic vacation for 2 weeks.

Next, He writes down a special price, for you only to see, because they are going to offer you more than you originally paid for your current timeshare.

All this is going on while your sales director continues to write notes on his own worksheet, explaining the details, while you listen and try to take it all in and work out the details in your own mind.

[sidebar]: Don't expect to get a copy of HIS worksheet!!

Write down the price, $15,100 for your new timeshare which is nothing short of awesome, you just got the tour. Already, you're salivating at the mouth over your coming vacations and fun trips now on your latest agenda.

Now, let's look at their offer to get you out of your "old" timeshare. Remember, you paid $10K for it 12 years ago and their offer is $11K and they'll take 1/2 immediately off the new timeshare price... $15,100 - 5,500 = $9,600 net before the 2nd part, $5,500 balance arrives in your mailbox.

Awesome! $9,600 minus the 2nd $5,500 = $4,100 net price for your brand new timeshare and you're getting rid of your "OLD" timeshare at NO loss. Your excitement is rising to a new high about now.

What do you think? Let's do it! Sign here, initial here, etc. The deal is so good that you're just following directions given by your sales director. You can "see" vacations in your future all year long.

He told you to just call HIS cellphone and he would handle everything for you whenever you're ready to set up your vacations. He knows all the insider tricks, so you have nothing to worry about.

You'll only pay $300, a maintenance fee, for 7 days at the property. You can book as often as you want to during the year, RCI trading, too.

Ask... "when will I receive my "other" $5,500 for my present timeshare? In 90 days or at most 120 days, "it's in the contract", which is a bold faced lie because there is NO contract guaranteeing the sale of your "old" timeshare for any price.

Unfortunately, it's clearly spelled out in the papers you sign... NO guarantees.

The guaranteed part is in the LEGAL papers you sign which ONLY covers, spells out in detail, what YOU are going to do or what will happen if you don't live up to the new contract as owner of their timeshare.

Remember, you have 3 to 5 days to change your mind because the local or state authorities are "on your side" and trying to protect you from making a wrong decision. Procrastination is NOT an option.

Rather than "seeing" travel, vacations and leisure in your future, stop and visualize writing a check every month for $188; $350; $600 or whatever it is and write it down. Annual maintenance, vacation club, etc. $680 more.

My own experiences tell me you'll be better off buying yourself a NEW boat, a NEW car or remodeling the house Vs putting your money into a timeshare.

Don't do it!! Check the BBB [Better business Bureau] and the RIPoffReport if you need more information BEFORE making your final decision.

Discover a World of Literature in Devon

Devon's rolling countryside and sprawling beaches have always attracted the creative soul. Famous authors have credited the landscape as being their primary source of inspiration, so it's no wonder that every year holiday cottages in Devon are filled with book lovers eager to learn more. Here are a few well-known books set in this picturesque region.

Tarka the Otter

The beloved 1927 children's book, written by Henry Williamson, was based on the Taw-Torridge Rivers in North Devon. Now referred to as The Tarka Trail, the unspoiled rivers and surrounding forestry are among the region's most popular tourist attractions; some are drawn by their love of the book, while others are introduced to it after visiting the area. Those renting holidays cottages in Devon tend to follow the Tarka Trail as it chronologically appears in the book - starting at Canal Bridge near Weare Giffard.

Lorna Doone

If you're visiting Exmoor National Park, you'll have the opportunity to stop and take in the sweeping settings of Lorna Doone, the classic Victorian novel that's inspired more than feature films. Focusing on a farmer who falls in love with the queen of the notorious Doone clan, visitors staying in holiday cottages in Devon can recreate the great romance by visiting Doone Valley themselves.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

It's widely believed that Arthur Conan Doyle based his most famous Sherlock Holmes adventure on the Devonshire countryside. Many of the book's famous locations are scattered around the county, with Fox Tor Mire believed to be the inspiration for the fictional Great Grimpen Mir, and Baskerville Hall rumoured to be the still-standing Hayford Hall or Brook Manor. Luckily, the Hounds of Devon's visitors are happier than the hound of Conan Doyle's story, with many holiday cottages in Devon being dog friendly!

Sense and Sensibility

After a particularly serene holiday in the county, Jane Austen based her 1811-penned debut novel, Sense and Sensibility, in the area. Known for her sweeping romances and sharp social satire, Austen dotted scenes from the book all over the county, setting it in the village of Upton Pyne. Visitors using holiday cottages in Devon can still visit the church where beloved characters Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars were married.

Jane Austen wasn't the only great female writer to furnish her imagination here: Agatha Christie was born in Torquay and used many of its cliffs as inspiration for her literal "cliff-hangers". The Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, while born in Yorkshire, relocated here in the sixties professing to have fallen in love with the countryside, and his later works reflected this hugely. Daniel Defoe, the celebrated author of the classic Robinson Crusoe, is also rumoured to have based many of his adventure stories on his beloved Plymouth.

Sketches of Spain

Ready to experience a profoundly beautiful yet provocative journey through the old towns, taverns and villages of Spain? Sketches of Spain will take you there. Originally published in Spanish as Impresiones y Paisajes, Sketches of Spain, written by the esteemed author Federico Garcia Lorca, can now be savored by English speaking readers as well. Translated Peter Bush, a British professor of literary translation, and illustrated by noted artist Julian Bell, the book is a highly readable rendering of Garcia Lorca's early twentieth century travelogue.

First published in 1918, the fourteen short essays or "sketches" recount Federico Garcia Lorca's experiences, reactions and thoughts during four field trips around Spain taken over a two year period with his literature professor at Granada University, Martín Domínguez Berrueta. Federico, the seventeen year old son of a privileged landowner, sees churches and alleys, clerics and prostitutes, passions and poverty through the eyes of a budding humanist and poet.

Fundamentally, Sketches of Spain is as much an excursion of the soul as it is an excursion of the body: "And travel the world so that, when we reach the gateway to the 'solitary road', we can drain our cup of all existing emotions, virtue, sin, purity and darkness". In its pages, the author struggles with the relationship between the spiritual and the sensual: "We must be religious and profane, combine the mysticism of an austere Gothic cathedral with the wonder of pagan Greece." This struggle is recounted, not with the sophomoric self-consciousness one would expect of a seventeen year old, but with an elegiac beauty foreshadowing the emergence of Spain's most cherished poet.

Federico Garcia Lorca dedicates Sketches of Spain to his piano teacher:

"To the respected memory of my old music teacher whose gnarled hands so often pulsated on the piano and inscribed rhythms on the air, hands he ran through his twilight silvery hair like a smitten gallant suffering ancient passions invoked by a Beethoven sonata. A saint!"

Federico Garcia Lorca had been destined since early childhood for a musical career. After the college field trip described in Sketches of Spain, however, his own passions turned more and more towards writing. Yet it is the musical disciplines so well learned from this beloved teacher that infuse Garcia Lorca's writing with such power and rhythm and light.

In his Prologue, Federico Garcia Lorca invites those readers who dare to "walk these pages" with him. I am very glad I took the challenge. I urge you to do so as well: you will be well rewarded. Buen viaje - have a good trip.

6 Good Books to Read On Your Travels

Nothing could be more arbitrary than deciding what are the best books to read while traveling. Reading is such a subjective activity, based on personal preference, that telling anyone they should take Janna Gray's Kilingiri or Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code with them on the plane borders on nervy. On the other hand, suggesting good reading is as common as suggesting where you can get the best sandwich.

The actual physical transfer for a trip is often enhanced by a good read. It instills the journey with an extra sensory push that can make the trip that much more enjoyable and memorable. So it's not just about killing a few hours to avoid going stir crazy while waiting to reach your destination. It can be about entertaining yourself, learning and challenging your perception of the world. Whether you do that through fiction, non-fiction, historical or police procedurals, if there were a reason to reach for a good read, it's while traveling.

So, though we take the risk of being nervy, here are a few books that won't just pass the time during transit. They will remind you why you enjoy the written word so much in the first place.

The Harry Potter Series (J.K. Rowling)

Has any other collection of books provided so much entertainment and inspiration? With seven volumes in its catalog, it will more than keep you busy through the longest ride. The entire world marveled at a young, naïve boy's transformation to smart adulthood and wizardry.

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968 (Taylor Branch)

This award-winning trilogy was a life goal for the author, dutifully chronicling the history of the civil rights movement in general and the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. in specific. Non-fiction and history buffs will find these books thrilling as segments can read like a page turner. These books will definitely keep the mind spinning during even the longest trip.

Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

Already considered a classic piece of literature, this debut novel is a finely etched and detailed story set in the Gion district of Kyoto during pre-war Japan. It focuses on a young girl's journey from an impoverished fishing village to becoming a celebrated entertainer. Memoirs is a lively story of hope, courage and love that has been reminding readers that the life experience is fragile and beautiful.

Hollywood Babylon (Kenneth Ager)

Some of us like reading about sordid scandals. Peeking behind the curtain and seeing that it isn't all bright lights and champagne. There are many books like this one, but this was the first. Released in 1965, it was banned and not republished until 1975. There's nothing to learn here that will make your life better. But for us gossip mongers, it's the cat's meow!

A Painted House (John Grisham)

Actually, anything by Grisham would make a good read on a speeding train, boat or airplane diving in and out of the clouds. They are all deliberately fast paced and engaging. This one, about a young boy caught up in a brutal murder, is no slacker in the Grisham department.

Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts)

Captivating, it's loosely based on real events. A man escapes from an Australian prison and flies to India, passing himself off as a doctor. From there it's a series of adventures that take our protagonist from the tumultuous slums of Mumbai to the likes of New Zealand, Afghanistan and Germany. Don't let its size deter you. This is as fast a read as it gets.

Journey Into Cyprus

Journey Into Cyprus by Colin Thubron is nothing less than essential reading for anyone with even the slightest interest in the island. Travel writing this may be, but the book does much more than merely traverse the landscape or pass by places of interest. Crucially, Journey Into Cyprus is not just a journey 'through' Cyprus, since, by the end, the reader feels that the experience has provided more exposure than mere tourism, as if we ourselves have experienced these thoughts first hand.

Colin Thubron's journey was largely on foot. It wasn't unbroken, but it did traverse Cyprus from east to west and north to south. There are occasional trips by road, but overall the text itself communicates the slow pace of the author's progress via its attention to illuminating detail alongside observation and reflection. The text even seems to have periods of rest written in, so delightfully does it capture those moments when the author paused by the roadside to sit on a stone and muse, reflect or read, or was waylaid by local custom in a coffee shop.

Like all good travel writing, Journey Into Cyprus constantly communicates a sense of place. The landscape unfolds via succinct observations that paint the view. But, throughout, both the visitor's intrusion and the local's residence remain clear, their relative status unchallenged. These are foreigner's eyes, for sure, but they are opened at every turn by local invitation, information and hospitality.

But there is also history here. The name, Cyprus, itself derives from a word for copper, the metal whose mining formed the basis of the island's niche in the classical global economy. Colin Thubron's description of the copper mines - the relics and the still working - in the Troodos mountains are fascinating. If the island's name might have derived from economic activity, it is in the sphere of religion that Cyprus makes its biggest impression, and those religions are also here within these pages, described in detail, and referred to repeatedly since their significance is on-going.

For two thousand years Cyprus followed the cult of Aphrodite. She, like the island itself, was never satisfied with just one relationship. She regularly moved on to another, with the apparently inevitable offspring from each encounter living a life of its own either as a mortal or as a god. And so it has remained with the island itself, where a culture of ancient Greece everywhere rendered modern by the presence of the Greek language, but in a version that Cypriots seem to have made entirely their own. There was a long flirtation with Rome, which produced palaces and theatres, decorated with mosaics that still adorn the excavated sites on the Paphos shoreline. A long and on-going marriage to Byzantium spawned the continuing dominance of the Orthodox Church in the island's life. There are over five thousand churches and monasteries and they form an integral part of southern Cypriot culture and politics.

The Lusingnan period mat not be as well known, but it lasted more than three centuries and involved rule by French-speaking Knights of St John. They paused on their way home from the Holy Land after they had been kicked our after the Crusades. They ruled and taxed, but island culture and local tradition continued, almost in its own sphere and according to its own rules, in spite of their power. A short Venetian period saw the island exploited for the city state's commercial gain. Trade routes had to be secured. And then, in 1570, the Ottomans arrived and stayed for three hundred years, changing the nature of the debate by introducing their own religion and Turkish culture. A brief British period left Cyprus with a second language, English, which to this day allows Colin Thubron and others the illusion that communication and its associated illusion of participation are easy. And now, of course, there is partition, a Turkish north and a Greek south, the constant yap across the fence mediated by United Nations for nations not united.

All this and more is in Journey Into Cyprus by Colin Thubron. But alongside the wayside reflections and the appreciation of landscape, there is a real glimpse into a culture born of history but expressed in this time and place as the author's journey progresses. There are anecdotes, comical moments and occasional threats along the way. The only disappointment comes when, abruptly, the journey comes to its end as the author approaches the eastern extremity of the island's tapering peninsula in the north. But then, that's the beauty of travel. It has to be experienced for what it is and when it happens, because at its end it's the next trip that beckons. By writing it down, however, Colin Thubron allows all of us the luxury of experiencing everything for ourselves and then the possibility of repeating it.

Bitter Lemons

Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell is one of those end of Empire books that many British writers attempted in the decades that followed the Second World War. Durrell's corner of the ever-to-be-sunlit territory was Cyprus, which in the 1950s was embarking on its own bid for independence and boasted its own continuing sunlight. The book has long been acknowledged as a classic of its indefinable kind, that mix of biography, travel, politics and memoir that is obviously literary whilst not apparently aspiring to literature. It is an impressionistic but deeply serious account of the experience of a participant in the brewing trouble and change. And now, almost sixty years after its publication, Bitter Lemons still has much to say about its setting and subject.

Lawrence Durrell went to Cyprus in the 1950s. At the start of the book, it is not obvious that he will soon be an employee of HM Government, a colonial officer charged with making sense of events that were already rapidly running towards violence and insurrection. The author's arrival and initial activity as a teacher form a light but keenly observed prelude to the book's later journey. The purchase of a village house in Ballapaix is both comical and empathetic. There is much that is farcical, but throughout the author presents himself as merely another participant. Nowhere does he express anything other than respect and affection for the local foibles and nowhere does he appear to place himself either detached from or in control of events. Equally, the school in which Lawrence Durrell works displays much that is caricature, but the scenarios are never anything less than completely credible. His interpretation of teenage girls' curiosity about their foreign teacher as attraction may display just a touch of vanity, but throughout the narrative convinces the reader of its participation in events, rather than its invention of them.

Bitter Lemons is replete with the keen observations and arresting reflections of an interested traveller. Here is someone who immerses himself in local life and culture. He does not come to study this society as a detached observer, an anthropologist, self-defined, pointed towards a self-directed purpose. Neither does he come to impose his own values, assumptions or will on communities whose social interaction and culture clearly do not conform to his own values. Lawrence Durrell seems to rejoice in the differences he records and he usually stops short of judgment when confronted with experiences that contradict his expectations. And he speaks Greek.

But Bitter Lemons is also a political book. It attempts no analysis and so always stays on the journalistic, even impressionistic side of events. There is a movement to break colonial ties, to end colonial rule. ENOSIS is a concept that embodies Cypriot union with Greece. EOKA is a military campaign, a terrorist action in current terminology, designed to fight the British. And sure enough, there is Durrell, already on the island, already accepted in his community, already a Greek speaker, a ready-made listening post for local gossip, and an intelligent gatherer of intelligence. Thus he is adopted by the colonial authorities and paid for his services.

Lawrence Durrell never really tells us the nature or extent of his duties. The activities he describes within the covers of Bitter Lemons suggest that his presence was low key, perhaps inconsequential, rendering him little more than another observer, even at his most active. But surely reality was tougher than he describes and there must be at least one more book in here that might relate what he actually did.

Well before the end, the eventual direction of events seems assured. There will be struggle, death, injury, treachery and finally accommodation, however ephemeral. But the real joy of Bitter Lemons is Durrell's ability to communicate the seriousness of the conflict and aspiration through a prism of continued affection and association. There is a story of a young man who postpones his joining of the armed struggle for independence from the British because he has won a university place in England. There is also the committed anti-cleric who observes that opposition is expressed through affection. And thus, via a light, impressionistic touch, Lawrence Durrell creates a text that delves surprisingly deep into a complex but enduring relationship between nations, cultures and interests.