Showing posts with label Travel Guides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel Guides. Show all posts
backpacker-s.blogspot.com Blog Launches!
Welcome to the new look, new feel, new just-about-everything . It’s been quite some time since we’ve made a big change and this one’s definitely in the realms of ‘overhaul’. We hope you like it!
Our funky new site is centred around a Travel Blog, updated daily, with two major themes: upcoming festivals and highlighted destinations. Plus, as before, you can make online hostel bookings and air your views in our ever-popular travel forums!
Upcoming Festivals
We’ll be bringing all you party animals out there the scoop on the best upcoming festivals around the globe.
From the more famous festivals like the Running of the Bulls (San Fermin) in Spain and the beer-guzzling Oktoberfest in Germany, to the weird and the downright quirky ones like Camel Wrestling in Turkey, we’ll get you all the latest news and tips for survival.
Plus, like we’ve done before, we’ll organise ticket giveaways and festival passes for awesome dance parties like Godskitchen’s Global Gathering and Creamfields!
Destination Highlight
We’ll continue with our habit of featuring a new destination every month. But, we’re not going to try to be just another destination guide. We’ll point you in the direction of traditional destination websites, sure, because they do know their stuff, but who better to tell you about a place than someone who’s there right now, or a traveller who has visited recently and wrote about it?
Every day we hear about great sites, old and new, covering the ins and outs of each and every known destination, from first-hand experience. From now on you’ll get the story from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Plus, every backpacker loves freebies, so we’ll have loads of destination-related competitions and giveaways to help you stretch that ever-restrictive budget a little bit further!
Hostel Bookings
As before, you will be able to choose from over 10,000 hostels world-wide, at the best internet rates available (no mark-ups!). No waiting in line, no frantic phone calls, just a simple online service you can access from anywhere at any time.
Our funky new site is centred around a Travel Blog, updated daily, with two major themes: upcoming festivals and highlighted destinations. Plus, as before, you can make online hostel bookings and air your views in our ever-popular travel forums!
Upcoming Festivals
We’ll be bringing all you party animals out there the scoop on the best upcoming festivals around the globe.
From the more famous festivals like the Running of the Bulls (San Fermin) in Spain and the beer-guzzling Oktoberfest in Germany, to the weird and the downright quirky ones like Camel Wrestling in Turkey, we’ll get you all the latest news and tips for survival.
Plus, like we’ve done before, we’ll organise ticket giveaways and festival passes for awesome dance parties like Godskitchen’s Global Gathering and Creamfields!
Destination Highlight
We’ll continue with our habit of featuring a new destination every month. But, we’re not going to try to be just another destination guide. We’ll point you in the direction of traditional destination websites, sure, because they do know their stuff, but who better to tell you about a place than someone who’s there right now, or a traveller who has visited recently and wrote about it?
Every day we hear about great sites, old and new, covering the ins and outs of each and every known destination, from first-hand experience. From now on you’ll get the story from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Plus, every backpacker loves freebies, so we’ll have loads of destination-related competitions and giveaways to help you stretch that ever-restrictive budget a little bit further!
Hostel Bookings
As before, you will be able to choose from over 10,000 hostels world-wide, at the best internet rates available (no mark-ups!). No waiting in line, no frantic phone calls, just a simple online service you can access from anywhere at any time.
Travel by postcards: A Little Beijing
I receive a lot of emails offering to send me products to review... travel books, CDs, language-learning tools, you name it. I'm halfway through several books which I dip into before I drift off to sleep each night, and I'm trying to learn Italian again. And I will get around to writing those reviews soon, I promise. But there's one special product I received from Singapore yesterday which I couldn't resist placing at the top of the reviewing pile that I'm itching to tell you about - something that appeals both to my fondness for postcards and my constant search (and desire to dabble in) new forms of travel guides... The Accidental Traveler, Linzy Q, who blogs at My Impromptu Travel Journal emailed: "I came across your blog about Postcard Stories and I really like what you wrote. I'm wondering if you would be interested in something that I've published. Entitled "A Little Beijing", it is a publication that stitches together photographs, maps and descriptions of quaint destinations throughout the city in the form of 60 postcards + 1 map of the itinerary. Each day, travellers follow pre-determined routes (outlined on a color coded map) and carry with them approximately 10 corresponding postcards. Upon visiting a place, travellers scribble down their thoughts and mail them back home. Once they get back, a complete documentation of their trip should be waiting for them in the post."
Not only is 'A Little Beijing' a novel concept, but it's every bit as enchanting as it sounds! I'm sure I squealed with delight as I opened the packaging. The postcards come in a handy box, the instructions are easy to understand, the off-the-beaten-track itineraries are well thought-out (intriguing neighbourhoods, quirky points of interest, well-paced) and easy to follow, and the postcards themselves are gorgeous - fabulous photography and beautifully designed (Linzy has won awards for the design). They are the kinds of interesting, arty postcards you only wish they sold in Beijing, the kinds of postcards you would buy if you could anyway, indeed, they're the kinds of images you'd happily gaze at on the wall of an art gallery and wish they also came in postcards.
And while I adore Linzy's idea of following the itineraries on the cards and jotting down your reflections of the places you visit and sending the cards home to yourself as a keepsake, I also love the idea of sending them back to your family members or to a close group of friends who can share what you're up to with eachother while you're away, piecing together the narrative of your journey like a jigsaw puzzle. I told you in Postcards to my Mum about my mother's accident a few years ago and how when she was in hospital in Perth and I was on the road researching a book in Greece I used to send her a postcard a day. I can see 'A Little Beijing' having similar uses... how wonderful to share your journey to Beijing with an invalid grandmother or another family member or friend who can't travel but who travels precariously through you... think of the possibilities.
You can buy A Little Beijing at Linzy's blog or bookstores in Hong Kong and Singapore, which she lists on her blog. Well, if anything, isn't it just a great excuse to go to Beijing?
How 'offbeat' are Offbeat Guides?
Like the notion of offbeat travel the idea of Offbeat Guides has intrigued me. I received an invitation to test their Beta last year, but I've been on the road and haven't had time 'til now. As I've been curious about the product for a while, I'd imagined a whimsical website with quirky guides to the world's kookiest places. So I was disappointed to see a conservative design of grey and white with splashes of red. I'd envisaged something vibrant, psychedelic even - and not just because they're based in San Francisco. Started by a team that includes former Melbourne Lonely Planet staffer Marina Kosmatos as their 'Content Curator', Offbeat Guides claims to be "the first travel guides that you create online using the most current travel information available on the internet for over 30,000 travel destinations." But what makes these guides so different - and so unique, quirky and original I'm wondering - in comparison to all the other travel guides out there? They claim: "These personalized travel guides give you all of the information that traditional travel guides include, plus more. For the first time, you can personalize your guide based on your travel dates, destination, and personal travel interests." But a number of publishers and websites have been offering custom travel guides for some time now including traditional guidebook publishers DK (check out their 'Create your own travel guide') and Lonely Planet (see their Pick n Mix). As for personalised trip planning, there's Triporati (which I reviewed) and Trip Wolf, which allows travellers to customize and download their own free PDF travel guide. So I can't see anything new or original here. Yet this seems to be what Offbeat thinks sets them apart. Elsewhere on their blog someone writes: "Personalized publishing is a tremendous opportunity in the publishing business - and that printed books have a lot of value, especially if you can personalize them to each individual reader. I’m a big fan of customized product companies like Moo, Cafepress, Lulu, Spreadshirt, Threadless, and JPG Magazine. I think there’s a new sector forming around creating tangible representations of digital creations - and I like it". Like it they may (so do I), but this still leaves me wondering what makes the guides 'offbeat'... let me test them out and I'll report back to you...