An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
Tripbase has published a number of e-books containing bloggers’ secret travel tips. Here are three of mine: Try the Beaten Path for a Change Whenever I turn the TV on to the Travel Channel or browse someone else’s travel blog, I am frequently advised that the best possible way to travel is to get off the “beaten path”. They then continue to...
Everyone who knows me knows that I like to travel. Yet every time I tell someone that I’m planning my next overseas holiday I invariably get one of the following reactions: Incredulous: “You’re not going overseas again?!” in the same tone a mother would use on a delinquent child called into the principal’s office for the umpteenth time. Jealous: “You...
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...
The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, god of new beginnings and doorways, said to have two faces, one looking backwards and the other forwards. And so as 2009 draws to a close we all do as Janus did – reflect on the past year and make plans for the new year to come. Here are...
There is something special about this time of year. No matter what your religious denomination, I think most people look forward to the Christmas season. Not only because you finally get to wind down and relax and spend some much-needed quality time with loved ones, but also because there is a certain undeniable magic in the air the closer 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...