Posts made during December, 2009
Travel highlights of 2009.
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Another year has flown by (they really do fly the older you get) and it’s been another great year of travelling for me. I feel so blessed to have these wonderful opportunities to travel like I do and there were many ‘highlights’ in my travels this year. And often the highlights are not necessarily about a place as such, but about the people you are with, the food you ate, discovering something so new or simply a beautiful moment. So, I thought I’d put together a list of my Top Ten Travel Highlights from 2009 (in no particular order)… (read more)
World’s Best Hotel (minus the stained sheets)
Monday, December 21st, 2009
A survey released this week by travel website Travel+Leisure ranked Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve in South Africa as the world’s best hotel in 2009. The survey ranks the tops 500 places to stay across the globe, and was compiled based on the opinions of the website’s ‘experts’ and thousands of readers. A night at Bushmans Kloof (about 3 hours away from Cape Town) will set you back US$715 (A$803). Second place went to the Oberoi Vanyavilas in Rajasthan… (read more)
Christmas in Killarney.
Monday, December 14th, 2009
I’m not having Christmas in Killarney, nor have I ever had Christmas in Ireland (it’s a Bing Crosby song), but I have had quite a few Christmases overseas. Coming from balmy Australia my first white Christmas was truly magical. I was living in London (as Australians do), but I wanted my first Christmas away from home to be in the snow so a big bunch of us booked a chalet in Les Diablerets in Switzerland. On Christmas day we wrapped ourselves in tinsel and skied all day. My Christmas lunch was a frankfurter and chips. That’s because we had our Christmas lunch on Christmas eve like a lot of Europeans do. I’ve had four Christmases in Switzerland and… (read more)
Books like these.
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Although I have been a bit slack on the reading front this year, I did manage to get through a handful of travel books: some old, some new, some borrowed and one with stories from a Sue and Stu. Here’s my list of travel books for 2009:
New Europe – Michael Palin
I like Michael Palin. I like his TV travel series and this book is a very enjoyable and funny journey through the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. My only gripe is that it’s all somewhat premeditated and contrived. A research team goes out and plans the entire trip, including finding ‘wacky’ festivals to attend and ‘wacky’ locals to interview… (read more)