Tag: travel
Islands in the Sea and Sky – Indie Travel Challenge
This Week’s prompt for the Boots’N'All Indie Travel Chellenge revolves around islands as travel destinations. I quite like islands. Actually I really like boats, but islands and boats seem to hang out together. In the past few years, I have island hopped in Greece and Croatia on cruises and spent a day on Hong Kong Island on the way to New Zealand, also islands.
One Day in Hong Kong
Flying to New Zealand involves near 24 hours in the air depending on route from Frankfurt. This is a lot. We found a flight with Cathay Pacific that landed in Hong Kong and had a late evening flight to Auckland. This gave me one day in Hong Kong and my first tiny taste of Asia. I got to spend a single day in Hong Kong and had a blast. Here are some highlights.
Traveling with Money
I remember traveling in Europe pre-euro. (It’s only been around 10 years, I’m not that old. Ok, maybe I am but still it’s not that long ago.) In that day and age every border meant a new currency with a new name and exchange rate and bills and coins. Post Euro in Europe is easier, but still there are tons of travel destinations with their own money. It gets overwhelming in a few different ways.
ABCs of Travel
I don’t do many lists here, nor do I often follow the latest “chain posting” trend, but the travel ABC’s sounded really fun. So here are mine.
Traveling with Books
Post in support of the start of the Passports With Purpose. This year’s goal is raising money to build libraries.
I enjoy the physical object of a book, both the feel of it as well as the smell of paper. They however are bulky and can be heavy, so the desire to travel requires some compromises. Becoming an expat in a non-English speaking country has added to those woes a bit as well. I not willing to give up on either reading or traveling so compromises ensue.
German Stereotypes
Germany is a great place to travel. In the past few years I have taken several organized tours to other parts of Europe. In doing the research I notices how few if any tours there seem to be for English speaking people throughout Germany. It makes me wonder if there are just some wrong preconceptions of what Germany is like. What are the ideas that most people seem to have of Germany?
Don’t Stop Staring
Often when caught staring as a kid, the retort was “Take a picture, it will last longer.” It occurs to me as I travel that this is somehow exactly what happens. Travelers and tourists alike search for the best picture and forget to actually LOOK at what they are taking a picture of. Are pictures somehow more important than looking at a place?
Country of Origin Labels
In the traveler and expat circles we tend to have friends and contacts all over the place. In these situations people often get labeled with their country of origin. “The Spanish girls or the guy from Canada or a bunch of Australians.” Does our “country of origin” define us in some way or is it just a convenient label?
