Travel Resolutions for the New Year

Well it is that time of year when people ( not all of us ) make those new years resolutions for all sorts of things.  Maybe it’s for a healthier lifestyle, spending more time with loved ones, change of career etc……..  Without actually making it a resolution I was always ‘all over’ what country I was going to visit in the coming year and my leave was already submitted and approved. 

We make resolutions for everything else. Why not travel?

People always ask me how I get to travel all the time, and my response is I just save.  I have a holiday account that a minimum $50 - $100 a week goes into.  52 weeks a year gives you a nice tidy sum of $5200 for a trip.  Even at $50 a week that’s being saved that’s still $2600 – these days you can get a pretty awesome holiday for that.  Not all my trips are not attached to ‘U beaut’ travel agent deals.

Maybe NOW is the time people, for you to start SAVING money and see some of the world you live in first hand.  It doesn’t always have to be an overseas trip to constitute as a holiday.  Staycation’s is the newest thing on the block ( not MY thing ) but visits in your own city / state / country can be just as rewarding and relaxing as travelling 5 million kilometers to a far away destination.  Something for you to think about.

So your Travel Resolution for 2011.  What will yours be?

• Go on your first cruise.
• Spend a weekend somewhere without internet access
• Drive cross country.
• Finally learn how not to over pack.
• Visit more places where I know people.
• Be in more travel pictures and get out from behind the camera.
• Take at least one guidebook-free and paperless trip.
• Take better notes. I might think I'll always remember the name of that fun-looking restaurant or weird sign I want to translate, but it's easy to forget when you're taking in so many new things.
• A place that you have always wanted to visit since you were a kid
• Catch up with friends made on previous trips from other countries
• Send a post card or write a letter. Texts, emails, and tweets are fine, but nothing beats getting something in the snail mail from an exotic destination and that you were thought of.
• Start a Bucketlist – life is too short.  Get out there and LIVE it
• Find a quest. Climb Ayers Rock.  Swim the Great Barrier Reef . Visit every country that starts with B because that’s what your name starts with. Travel great distances to find petroglyphs or animals.
• Go somewhere new
• Determine 3 Places You’ve Never Been To And Plan A Trip To One
• Keep Better Track Of Where You’ve Been
• Learn a language for your pending trip

Got you thinking…….  Well it should …………….

Google a map of the world and start to think of where you have always wanted to travel to and make it a reality in 2011.  My mum had always wanted to travel to Canada and it was the same response each time ‘next year’… well ‘next year’ never came for her and it is now in her memory that I can achieve my trip that I will be doing it in twenty eleven.

Open a holiday account, set up the automatic transfer from your pay, make an appointment to see your local travel agent and turn that ’dream’ trip of yours into a reality.  Whether it is to see a show in Sydney, sit on a beach in Fiji, play the pokies in Vegas - it is your 'dream' and only YOU can turn it into a reality.

Happy New Year to you all and cheers to new places and faces in 2011…..

My Travel Log Book

So how do you keep track of your travel escapades?

Keeping count of which countries you visited?

Where do you put those cute little entrance tickets you get from attractions?

Where can you get your new friends to sign and write comments?

If you like to keep track of miles flown – seat numbers etc……… ( yes I am that anal )

Some people collect patches, magnets, plates, spoons, stamps, stick pins, foreign money etc…….. ( yes I also do all that but NOT spoons or patches )

Well some years ago I came across a web site called the Globetrotters Logbook.

The Globetrotter’s LogBook - Countries of the World is a pocket-sized souvenir book for people who like travelling. Every one of the world’s current 193 countries (and their 58 overseas dependencies) are listed in alphabetical order, complete with flags, capital cities, information, details about their time zones, currencies, land area, population, interesting travel-websites, etc…………………

Each country has room for a small personal souvenir: the rubberstamp from the hotel where you stayed, some fun words of farewell from your ski instructor, your own personal copy of that beautiful postage stamp you loved so much, a dried petal from your favourite flower.  Whatever you want to keep to remind you of your trip. I have my travel guides from different countries sign my book – new words I learn in other languages – those special mementos of weird bag tags, concierge tickets from great hotels ( like the Burj in Dubai ) etc….

The Globetrotter's LogBook also features a Vaccination Log in which you can keep a structured and up-to-date record of the jabs you have had as you embark on your adventurous life.   There is also the detailed Flight Register with details of your seat, airline, plane type and city pairs flown.

It is a dandy little book and I won’t travel to a new country without it – it is as precious as my passport – well maybe not quite - but nearly.  I try and get a rubber stamp with the date on it, generally from a post office or depending on the laxity of the immigration staff, at airports.  Otherwise in tough countries like Latvia and Cuba where they wouldn’t stamp my book I purchase a lick lick stamp to pop into it.

If you travel heaps – this book is certainly for you.  My last entry was my from new Ukrainain friend who served me 12 days of vodka’s on my Black Sea River Cruise.  He wrote it all in Ukranian and I had to get a hostess on my Emirates flight to translate his message which was super cute.

These will be the small things that will be forgotten with the passage of time – but not me, I have my Globetrotter’s Logbook at the ready for my next new stamp and for my next new guide / friends to write something….

I ♥ showing my book to people and it is something nice to reflect on every now and then and sometimes also serves as a bragging book to people.

Check out the book at : http://www.globetrotterslogbook.com/default.htm  

One Bag One Year - Are You Kidding?

I sat last night and really thought about what I am going to take with me on my trip.

I’m going for 14 months.  One backpack, one day backpack and a travel satchel.  Doesn’t sound like much right?

The condensing of one’s life belongings has been made a little easier, as I have had to pack my whole house into a shipping container, which is now sitting somewhere in Brisbane waiting for my eventual return.  So already I had to decide what I would and wouldn’t need for my last 5 months in Oz.  Amazing how much ‘stuff’ one doesn’t really need.

I will have a day backpack that will carry the stuff that is too important to put in the BIG backpack.  You know the stuff you can’t live without – the charges for all the appliances, personal diary, memory cards, notebook the large camera that sort of thing.

My day to day bag will carry the smaller but just as important stuff.  The Ipod, the point and shoot camera’s, the phone, passport, my bloggie, more memory cards, money matters etc…….

Then the Pièce de résistance – THE BACKPACK.  This will house the clothes, the toiletries my 3 pairs of shoes and all my purchased the knick knacks until I can get to a post office to send them.  Okay when I say it all like that – how much room do I need?  Surely I could fit all that in a 55L backpack?

I have never been a backpacker as such.  I can count on one hand the amount of times that I have travelled with a backpack in my travelling life.  All but ONE I would call successful stories.

The very first time was a 28 day Contiki European tour 10 years ago.  I was a lot younger, so backpack was the obvious choice.  It was a 4 week tour with an additional 6 weeks added for good measure in Turkey, Egypt and Africa.  I borrowed the bag from my Aunty Beth, who sang it’s praises and had used it extensively on her travels stating it was the best bag in the world.  Well for the younger folk, it was one of the old fashioned backpacks which you could only load from the top.  So if you needed something you had to pull everything out to get to the bottom and repack the whole bloody thing.  NOT SUCCESSFUL.

I travelled on a Contiki tour of Scandinavia and surrounds in 2007.  It was a ‘Concept Tour’ meaning we were going to be staying in hostels and cabins.  No tents – but not really the type of tour one would take a suitcase.  So after some homework and not wanting to go without all the nessessities, I bought a 80L backpack.  Well have you ever filled an 80L backpack before?  It was MASSIVE and it was cumbersome.  Once it was on my back, I did okay – the main factor was not to fall over and look like an upside down turtle OR trying hard to not knock some-one over on my turning circle.  I  always needed some-one to help me heft the bloody thing on my back. NOT SUCCESSFUL.

Europe was also done the same year with the same said backpack.  This was an Intrepid Tour from Berlin to Venice – solely only using the public train and bus system for 3 weeks.  I thought Scandinavia was bad and we had a coach – public transport was a nightmare carrying this sucker, just ask anyone on this tour stories of me and my backpack.  I do recall ‘bag lady’ was one of my nicknames. LESSON NOT LEARNT.

2009 I travelled for 4 weeks on a Tucan trip of Central America, Cuba and Panama.  Now I had learnt my lessons from previous trips and purchased a much smaller backpack at 55L.  Now this was the way to travel.  I also trialled the packing cubes and they were brilliant!  It was a great bag – I didn’t end up taking as much and it was much more easier to handle ( shock horror ) and no help required getting that onto my back.  This trip was also solely using chicken buses and the sort and I wondered WHAT was I thinking with the 80L MONSTER all those years ago?

So now I embark on my 14 month trip with my backpack in tow.  Stay tuned for the pre-pack dramas on what I WANT to take and what I CAN actually fit.  That will be a whole entry on it's own.

Let the packing the backpack games begin???

PS: Any hot packing / travelling tips are welcome.