Remember playing tag when you were a kid? Slapping someone on the back and yelling, “Tag, you’re it!” Well, I’ve just been been ‘virtually tagged.’ My friend and fellow travel blogger, Shannon Lane, was ‘tagged’ to participate in the meme known as My Three Best Travel Secrets (a meme, which rhymes with cream, is a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet). From what I understand, the game was started by Katie of Tripbase.com, the lovely folks who awarded me second place in the category of best North/South American blog of 2009 in their annual Travel Blog Awards.

After sharing three great secrets about her home state of Louisiana, Shannon ‘tagged’ me to be next in line to divulge my best travel secrets. My first reaction was, “Only three?” How could I possibly narrow it down to only three. Should I talk about little known secrets in Sarasota, Florida, such as the $40 annual membership to GWiz Science Museum that provides FREE admission to over 300 other science centers throughout the U.S. as well as other attractions around the State of Florida? Or about my list of little-known coffee shops around the country that let me work on my laptop all day for the price of a cup of coffee, like Sippin’ Internet Cafe in Key West, Pastry Art in Sarasota, or Rev Coffee in the Atlanta area?

In the end, I decided to reveal my secrets for booking last minute accommodations and transportation around the world without breaking the bank. Frankly, I detest being locked into definite travel plans. My preference is to book the first night at a destination (two nights at most), and then wing it from there. Fellow travelers are always eager to share secrets about spectacular, little-known towns or sites they have visited and not being locked into reservations allows me to take advantage of these tips, but it also means I am often looking for last minute bookings, which can be frustrating as well as expensive. However I do have a few tricks to help with this process, which I’ve detailed below: Read the rest of this entry »

The family farm in St. Vincent. Photo courtesy of HelpX.com

“On mountaintop. Great view. On a small Caribbean island. Pineapple and wax apple farm. Building in construction. I live with my 3 kids. 3 German Shepherds 1 Dobermann, in the unfinished building. This is a child friendly environment. St.Vincent is a lovely island, non touristic. I can offer food and lodging for your help. I appreciate your assistance. Please come and help out with farming, construction, creating greenhouse, landscaping, plumbing, carpentry, organic planting, house stay, restoring antiques, handyman, domestic work, kids homework, kids activities, decoration, home reorganization….We speak Flemish, English, French, Dutch, but all nationalities are welcome to apply.”

The family in St. Vincent. Photo courtesy of HelpX.com

The above is just one of hundreds of listings found on HelpX.net (short for HelpExchange), a website that connects host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats with volunteers who exchange short-term work for food and accommodations. This particular listing is for a property located on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, and the family has already hosted numerous volunteers, some of whom have posted reviews of their experience. Kurt wrote:

“I loved the saltfish and bread fruit. Accommodation is very nice, your own room and bathroom. There is plenty of work, maintenance of the pineapple fields and landscaping around the house and odd jobs. Trips to town are often and you will get to mingle with the locals. When taking the local bus…hold on it is a ride.” Read the rest of this entry »

Position: The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Location: Hamilton Island Employer: Tourism Queensland Compensation: A salary package of AUD $150,000 for a six-month contract (that’s $96,950.34 in U.S. dollars) Responsibilities: Through weekly blog posts, a photo journal, and a video gallery, tell the world what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The schedule could include sampling a new luxury spa treatment at qualia on Hamilton Island, trying out new snorkeling gear on Heron Island, or bushwalking on Hinchinbrook Island. Not to mention mandatory daily walks on the stunning, white sand beaches.

Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Queensland.

The position, which is being touted as “The Best Job In The World,” has been advertised in newspapers around the globe and on the following video, which Queensland Tourism posted to YouTube:

Within hours of the appearance of the video, the agency’s website crashed when thousands of curious web surfers clicked through to see if the job was for real. Read the rest of this entry »

Residents of Byron Bay, Australia see gorgeous sunsets like this almost every night:

Beautiful sunset on the beach at Byron Bay, Australia

Goodbye Australia…..

The three words that best describe Australia to me are:

1. DIVERSE: In so many ways – the country is an enticing mix of many different ethnicities; many different geologic landforms; a mix between wonderfully modern, cultured cities and remote rural locales, etc.
2. VAST: Australia is not the biggest country in the world. But it is huge in a way that I have not seen elsewhere, with incomprehensible vast open spaces in the center of the continent that are virtually unpopulated.
3. EXPENSIVE: I may have been influenced by all the time I spent in Sydney, which is the 21st most expensive city in the world, but overall I found Australia to be quite expensive.

Because there is SO much in Sydney that I haven’t had time to see, deciding what to do on my last day in this beautiful city was tough. Ultimately, the decision was made for me when my friend, Jane, with whom I’ve been staying, said that coming to Sydney and not seeing Bondi Beach was like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.

Bondi Beach is famous with surfers the world over for its waves and famous with tourists and residents for its cliff walk that leads from the wide crescent that is Bondi Beach, up and over the rocky headland to Tamarama and Bronte Beaches. We had not done the cliff walk before this because the weather in Sydney has been unusually rainy, but today the weather cooperated, providing us with a crisp, sunny day with not a cloud in sight. Afterward, since it was such a nice day we had lunch on the outdoor terrace of a North Bondi restaurant, enjoying a spectacular view of the bay (I can’t believe I dined outdoors in 55 degree weather) and then toured some of Jane’s favorite beaches that are tucked into hidden corners all over Sydney. So, here are a few photos of the things I saw today – if only I had another three weeks here!

Bondi Bay, with double overhead surf and an offshore wind:

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The Olgas (Kata Tjuta)

Despite being equally as impressive and just as beautiful as Ayers Rock (some say more beautiful), The Olgas are the less-visited geological formation at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in central Australia. Located just 27 miles from Ayers Rock, the Olgas are a series of rounded domes that poke their heads above the sand dunes covering the valley floor – thus their Anangu name of Kata Tjuta, meaning “many heads.” Determined not to miss this step-child attraction, I boarded a shuttle bus early this morning, bound for the hour and a half Olga Gorge Walk.

I stepped off the bus into the coldest temperatures yet and was immediately chilled to the bone. With my head lowered against buffeting winds, I made my way down the canyon passageway, Kata’s Tjuta’s giant red “heads” held high and and unfazed by the weather. This was a landscape reminiscent of Ayers Rock in some ways – the red rock, the desert floor, the scrub landscape, and the water catchments carved out of rock – but in other ways Kata Tjuta is a world apart. Ayers Rock is composed of iron-rich feldspar sands that were compressed by geologic forces over time into Arkose sandstone. Kata Tjuta is comprised of conglomerate, a mix of granite and basalt pebbles, cobbles and boulders that have been cemented together by mud and sand over the eons. From a distance the two formations look similar. Up close there is no comparison, yet the source of these two geologic formations is identical.

The Olgas (Kata Tjuta)

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In the very center of the Australian continent is a vast and featureless desert of red sand and scrub vegetation that stretches in all directions as far as the eye can see. Only two features relieve this otherwise monotonous landscape – the giant red sandstone monolith known as Ayers Rock and the lesser-known conglomerate hills commonly referred to as The Olgas. The indigenous Anangu Aborigines who are the stewards of this ancient land refer to these features by their traditional names – Uluru and Kata Tjuta, respectively.

Ayers Rock (Uluru) in the center of the Australian continent

Ayers Rock (Uluru) at sunset

To say that the UNESCO World Heritage Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is remote would be an understatement. Located more than 500 miles from the nearest town, the only way to reach the park is to drive for days through a harsh, unforgiving land, or to fly in with Quantas, the sole operator serving the tiny airport. Once at Uluru, the only accommodations available are at one of five hotels in the American-owned Voyages resort complex. The Voyages operation is a monopoly in every sense of the word. Not only do they own all five hotels, they also own the grocery store, the tour company, the gift stores, the restaurants, the shuttle services, etc. The result is twofold. First, because they have no competition, their prices are exorbitant. I am in the least expensive hotel room they offer – $154 per night. The salad I had for lunch yesterday set me back $20. Company-owned shuttle buses carry tourists from the resort to the National Park at a cost of $40 for the five-mile ride. The facilities are in poor condition – with winter temperatures approaching zero at night, I repeatedly heard guests complain that the heat did not work in their room and the resort’s only answer was to deliver more blankets. The employees are surly at best and in most cases downright rude, acting as if guests are an imposition on their time. The signage is poor and it is difficult to find your way around the resort. There is limited information made available about how, when and where the shuttles operate, etc., etc.

Despite all of the above, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is not to be missed. On the evening I arrived I climbed to an observation point and watched Ayers Rock change from red to purple in the rays of the setting sun. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dalai Lama speaks in Sydney, Australia

I have been trying to attend the annual teachings of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India for the past three years, but each year something got in the way. So when I discovered that His Holiness was to make a public appearance in Sydney, I scheduled my travels around Australia accordingly. Despite cold, blustery weather and intermittent spitting rain, several thousand other people also thought it important to be present this morning at the open-air amphitheater in Sydney’s Domain Park.

It is not hard to understand why the Dalai Lama commands such devotion and respect. Within seconds of taking the stage, he had everyone laughing. He began his discourse with the idea that our minds are clear in the morning, then digressed about the raucous party that was going on in the hotel where he was staying the night before. With a twinkle in his eye and a grin he conceded that the people at the party probably didn’t have very clear minds that morning. Read the rest of this entry »