An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
The little town of Hermanus has been lauded as the best spot in the world from which to do land-based whale watching. So it was with great excitement that I set my suitcase down in my room in the Windsor Hotel, looked out of my window and spotted the tell-tale blast of air right in the bay outside the hotel!...
Their official site states that Eilean Donan is one of Scotland’s most visited attractions. I find that fairly hard to believe, given its out-of-the-way location. The restored medieval castle is located on the north-western edge of Scotland, a good four to five hour drive from Edinburgh. I would think the only tourists to visit it would be those on their...
Pemba, Zanzibar I’ve jumped off the wooden dhow and am fighting to stay afloat in the rough waters of the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Pemba, Zanzibar’s main island. It’s my 30th birthday and the skipper had promised me I would be able to swim with dolphins. I look around, there are two or three other dhows in...
The museums of Europe are famous for their statues celebrating the nude form. And the French are notorious for promiscuity and their differing views of indecency (at least from what we are used to down here in the south of Africa). However, in the gardens outside the Louvre in Paris, we came upon one statue that found the antics of...
Winter is coming. The sun streaming in through my bedroom curtains no longer rouse me, and my cockatiel looks at me accusingly when I wake him up in the mornings, ruffling his feathers disgustedly as if to say: “I don’t have to get up yet, even if you do.” There is a chill breeze early in the mornings and the...
For a while now I’ve had this vision of what I want for my next holiday – I wanted mountains (snow-capped, if possible), a crystal clear lake, ancient evergreen trees so tall you have to keep yourself from falling over backwards when looking up at them, and lots of clean, fresh air. Having recently watched The Proposal, my mind immediately...
The vervet monkeys of Berg-en-Dal camp in the Kruger National Park owe us six bread rolls. Gareth had put the plastic bag containing the rolls on the table and turned to light the braai fire, while I was sitting down reading my book. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, a small bundle of grey fur was on the...
It is as if time has stood still in the little fortress town of Carcassonne in a tucked-away corner of the south-west of France. While wandering through the twisting cobblestone alleys, it is easy to imagine that I have stepped into a time paradox where donkey-driven carts and high-tech internet cafés rub shoulders, where the old lady with the wrinkled...
Having asked various people what they would consider their “dream holiday” to be, the variety of answers were equal to the number of people questioned. It stands to reason that everyone would have a different response, since we are all unique individuals, after all, and what one person would consider pure holiday bliss, another would probably find intensely unsatisfying. Take...
