Marty Travel Bug

Next Step

2010-07-29T05:49:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month:
- My wife got the go-ahead from her boss
- 2 Weeks later I got the final go ahead from my boss
- TODAY we heard from other people that we can go...

...SO now its ALL system ahead! YEaaaHaaaaaa

Good Travel Site Ideas

2009-12-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

I am currently looking into nice places to go to. Looking for some online itenaries, etc. The problem with that is that I am seeing SO many sites and I don’t know where to start or stop reading.

The other problem I am having is that my computer has SO many open tabs in FireFox that it is slowing down my PC (if that is possible :) ). So I NEED to close down some of these sites I still wanted to read through at a later time. So I guess my best bet is to just blog about them and then I could always revisit them. At the same time I am freeing up some memory and getting rid of all those tabs, which might raise an eyebrow or two.

(this is a work in progress)

It seems like many people point to these travel sites:

- LonelyPlanet: Has a lot of helpful info.

- TravelFish: Seems like an interesting site.

- TripAdvisor: Nice it has some of the things you need to do in each of the countries you want to visit. This is cool. I don't want to miss out on any cool things to do in a country. It also has a before you go section, etc. It has hotel and accommodation ratings. Nice. It also has some free guides. You can even have a tripwatch added to places you want to visit. It will give you weekly updates.

- GapAdventures: They seem to have a lot of information on trip itineraries. So this could be a cool place to check out which places they prefer to go to and then go there yourself. I saw they have a top travels tweeter section which seems to be cool. I would like to ask some people some questions :)

I have also found some interesting travel tips, as in how to travel from one place to the next.
- The one site I still want to check out is The Man in Seat Sixty-One, which seems to give you lots of information on how to travel on a train in certain areas in the world. Even times. Do’s, Don’ts. I will have to read up on it or use it as a resource while travelling. It even has maps and MUCH MUCH more. Might just return to this site.
- Ruba: A very cool looking user interface online. I am still to check it out, but it seems like you can read up on some travel ideas in each country. I see they also sell tours on this site (something I dont want to do) but it is cool to read up on what people say. (Get some ideas). You can also add your own best places for others to see.
- Tripsay is a sight, well, pretty much where you can say what you think of a place and based on that other places are recommended to you. I played around with it. Cool idea. I just don’t have enough time to figure it all out (and I would like to have a “average” rating for a place.
- Weather.com is great to figure out the average weather for China for instance :) So that you know what the best time is to travel.
- TravelPod: Seems like an amazing tool to use in order to journal about your travels or to read up on other people’s travels. I’ve gotten some ideas reading people’s journals, but I especially like the layout and use the Google map to show where they did what.
- CouchSurfing: I don't know if I personally will ever do this (having a wife and all) but I think if you are sure you will be safe (or you have some kind of self-defence built into you) then this could always be a relatively cheap way to do a holiday. I will still keep this door open, but will make sure my wife would be safe before I ever do this.
- BatchGeoCode: This site is very cool if you want to do a batch search for GEO locations. (In case you need the latitude and longitude for cities). (Ok, I might be doing something wrong, but my points got all messed up – still busy trying to convert Excel info into a map with lines, etc)
- GPSVisualizer: This seems to work very well. I will still double check (with all my MANUAL labour I put in before :) but this DOES seem to be very accurate – mostly)

Some sites give good ideas about itineraries (but I might not use it at all):
- TravelDojo: Gives the TOP 10 places to see
- HimalayanTrekking: Ideas on that are (Tibet, Bhutan, Cambodia,Nepal, Inda, Indo-China, Thailand)
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World Photos: AMAZING!

2009-12-11T06:49:00.001-08:00

I came across an AMAZING looking site. Its called Panoramio.

It pretty much involves showing some of the MOST AMAZING photos taken in certain areas of the world. It overlays Google Earth, meaning you have a google earth map and as you browse around or zoom in, images related to the area will appear. It also shows the most likes images bigger.

This results in a very interesting effect where you literally SEE the world in photos :) Go check it out.

Cheaper accommodation

2009-08-20T00:53:00.001-07:00

My wife and I LOVE travelling. So whenever I stumble upon something interesting I decided to blog it – for future use :)

This site allows you to rent rooms from people rather than staying in expensive hotels. You can search for the place you want to visit and then view availability. I don’t know how safe this is… but at least you have all the person’s details. I will also not advice people to do this by themselves. Anyways. There are many sites like these – I know of coachsurfing – once again – I don’t know how safe (or clean) it will be – but if you have a STRICT budget, then I’m sure it will be ok. Just travel with someone :)

Travel Light with One Bag!

2009-08-18T01:20:00.003-07:00

There is this site which is dedicated to teaching you how to travel light :) I remember once showing a cousin of mine how to pack only one bag for a weekend away. I have always liked travelling light and just think it makes things easier.

I was once travelling thought Europe and I met this guy who was “back packing” with two HUGE suitcases… I don’t know what he was thinking :) Maybe people like him (and myself) could learn from this site.

Well, I haven’t read through a LOT of this site – so I can’t say its all 100% truth, but it does look like an interesting read.

If you want to read more about travelling light – click here.

Jet lag calculator

2009-08-18T01:20:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had Jet Lag? Hehehe, it’s really terrible. I remember returning with my wife from our honeymoon in Thailand. We would fall asleep like 7pm at night… only to wake up again at like 4am (or something silly like that). It was terrible.

I would tell my wife to FORCE herself to stay awake at least another hour, only to fall asleep myself 10 minutes after my little “lecture” :)

Well, British Airways came up with a link to help with Jet Lag. If you want some advice on the best things to do to minimize jet lag, click here.

Kerala - a place I wanna see!

2009-07-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

Got a link to this place called Kerala. View it here.
I definately want to work that into our 6 month holiday :)

Ideas for Rooms in Asia

2009-07-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

We are still very keen to travel SE Asia for 6 months. I can't wait. It's almost been a year since I started blogging about this. Ok - wait - no - its not been THAT long - but it feels like ages.

I just stumbled over this website and thought I'd keep it for a "backup" of places to stay - although it seems like the rooms are not AS cheap as I got it for in Thailand... hmmm... maybe because they are on the web. Well... lets see when we get there :) whooohooooo! Here's the link.

Update from digihitch

2009-06-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Been a while since I wrote about our plans to travel for 6 months. I really cant wait. Only problem currently is saving (which Im sure we'll be able to do) and then wait :)

I finally got an update from a forum (digihitch)

-----------------
You definately want to see India Mike website, it's brilliant, even better than Lonely Planet guides.

But first of all - don't take too much baggage with you! Take one pair of spare pants, two pairs of shorts, two tops and a jacket (moreover take just these clothes you need when starting your tralvel). Clothes in India and everywhere else in Asia are incredibely cheap (except of Japan) so your luggage get's lighter, travel easier and your fine clothes stay fine.

Obviously everything depends on what your budget is. I gave you trips for really low budget backpacker (i don't call any hotel "budget" if it costs more than 10USD per night).
-----------------

Well, we just came back from a trip to the Kruger... was amazing - I will soon add photos here!

Cheers-

Paarl, Franschoek, Hermanus

2009-03-30T00:01:00.001-07:00

For our two year wedding anniversary my wife and I went to three towns (Paarl, Franschoek and Hermanus). I really like Hermanus and Franschoek a lot. The nicest thing about this is that my wife was so cool to organize complimentary accommodation, breakfast and some complimentary lunches and dinners. (As we are on budget for our 2 year South East Asia plan).

First we went to Paarl.

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Above you can see a few pics from the place we stayed in in Paarl. (I should have added more pics of Paarl actually :-) )

Next we went for two nights in Franshoek.

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Franschoek is really a beautiful little town. It has lots of character and is definitely a place where you can kick back and relax. We stayed in two different places here. The place where we had lunch we saw one of Brittan’s Queens’ first cousin :) (Think it was Queen Elizabeth’s 1st cousin). We ate well, slept well, relaxed a LOT. I enjoyed the food, beds, scenery, company.

Next it was off to Hermanus.

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Hermanus is a very beautiful town. Not much to do but relax and take in the beauty of nature. We stayed in two nice places and ate great food. I enjoyed the walk next to the rocks and ocean the most.

Well – back to planning for what is to come…

Zanzibar Trip

2009-03-27T05:53:00.001-07:00

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Our Zanzibar trip started off with a few rocky patches, but ended up being a very nice holiday.

Once we got new flight through Kenya Airlines (after Air Tanzania got grounded) we finally made it to Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a beautiful island. I likes the Eastern and Northern coast the most, but one must definitely visit Stone Town as well.

For me this was supposed to be a budget holiday and ended up being way more expensive than we had budgeted for. Most of our friends who have been there about 3yrs ago say it was very cheap when they were there. They could pay about $4.5 for a whole platter of seafood, whereas we would have paid about $20 for a decent platter. Taxi’s are very expensive and I would suggest you taking the local transport (if you want to budget). Accommodation was good, but no budget accommodation was really found. Anyways – enough of the costs :)

We really liked it. I loved the different sceneries in Stone Town. The tortoises on Prison Island. The relaxation in the East. The palm trees. The long beaches. The boats. Walking in the shallow waters while it rained. Swimming with dolphins. Chilling with my wife and family. Kendwa Rock. Even the cramped taxi ride with the locals :)

I think my most memorial time was swimming with the dolphins!! And sitting in the shallow waters in the rain the one day.

If you have the money to go to Zanzi – I would say have fun!

Some Catching Up

2009-03-27T04:56:00.001-07:00

Wow – I haven’t written anything in this blog for ages – but I have not backed off on the idea :)

Obviously my wife and I know the possibility that we might not be able to travel in about 2 years’ time, but we trust that it will happen.

The first few months of saving didn’t go according to plan, but last month we saved more than we wanted to, so it will make up for some of the savings we lost. This month is also looking good with my wife helping a LOT with selling custom travelling in South Africa. So if things go on like this we should be able to go from a money perspective.

As a couple we are part of a very nice church and we love God’s people. One thing about being involved is that you never just want to pack up and go if it is not God’s timing, since then you can do more damage than good :) I know some people might not understand this, but we fully want to live like this. We want to look after Jesus’ bride and not harm her.

Currently we don’t feel that we will NOT be going, but we are open to the suggestion if we are not supposed to go, but until we receive any other news we will be saving up as if we are going.

Think I might send out another blog in a few minutes – just feel like writing today :)

Air Tanzania Grounded

2008-12-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

We've had numerous problems with our holiday plans to Zanzibar, but we are still being positive and looking forward to it a LOT :)

About 1 month before we were supposed to depart from SA, we got the news that out flight on the 25th Dec '08 was canceled (thanks Air Tanzania). They also told us that the only other flight we could get was on the 27th. This cut our plans short by 2 days (not even mentioning our accommodation plans). We finally got a flight (through them) on the 24th. We changed our Kulula flights from CTN to JHB for the 24th, made extra accomodation plans and paid a deposit.

Monday the 15th Dec '08 we got the breaking news that it has been confirmed - Air Tanzania has been grounded and they can't book us any other flights. Read more here. We finally got flights through Kenya Air and will now depart on the 25th of Dec again. Only thing is we will now only be returning the 7th Jan '09... thus we had to change our return flights again :)

All is fine again now - thanks God! And I trust it will all be worth it in the end for some holiday fun in the Zanzi-sun....

Zanzibar

2008-10-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I still get some interesting information on traveling.

It's really cool to see some people actually DO get back to you on forums. In the meantime - while waiting for this event (travel for 6 months in south east Asia) we decided to go to Zanzibar in December.

We will leave the 25th of December (our Christmas gifts to ourselves) and return on the 5th of January. It looks like a beautiful place. If you have any inputs about the place - lemme know. We still are looking into living in the north of Zanzibar as well - but for now we are only going to stay in the west.

Travel Forums

2008-09-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hi there

Still very excited about our trip... currently just reading up in a lot of forums. Some people actually do get back to you and you find lots of cool tips. I will post some good forums here sometime soon - as soon as I know how the response is :)

I also found some sites on Visas and Country info... will add it here

Cheers

Budgeting

2008-09-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

HI there.

Last night I started to work out the budget for our little trip of 6 months to the Far East. Once you start adding up you realize that you will have to safe up a LOT of money.

I realized that there will be:
1) Fixed once off amounts. (eg. Return flights, Visas, backpacks...)
2) Monthly expenses (eg. Life insurance, Bonds, other running costs remaining while we're gone)
3) Daily expenses (eg. Food, Accommodation, Travel... while we are there)

SO we put it all in a spreadsheet and realized it will take about 2.5 years to safe up for all the above mentioned expenses. :) Only problem - we can only start saving up next year August. Well - at least we estimate that in 3 years' time we will be able to travel the Far East for half a year.

I thought that we will need to become more travel wise - so I want to become part of some backpackers forums... any ideas?

Far East here we come

2008-09-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

My wife and I decided Saturday night to travel the Far East for six months.

We want to do this in about 3 years' time. We first need to save up some money and work in our current jobs long enough for us to ask for a 6 months holiday :) We will also need to work out how we will be travelling and where we will be staying.

The idea is to backpack through as many countries in the far east as possible. We will be doing some research though into how others before us have done it. So if you have any tips or want to give some input - please do. I will keep this site to blog how our plans are going.