Cheap Travel News

This is a friendly cosmopolitan capital for all tastes. Everyone speaks English, its safe and Im told, the cleanest city in Europe. It is virtually graffiti free as I stroll the elegant Esplanade. This is the boulevard of trendy shops and cafes. The sidewalks are heated. So much culture here with 7 symphonic orchestras, opera house and a library on each corner. Fins are big on design and big names have left their distinctive mark around the world with cutting edge style.

I am grateful to be here by invitation from the Finnish Tourist Board for a site inspection and travel conference. After hotel check in, I am given a private city tour by Irene, a local guide with sincere passion for her city. There are 560,000 inhabitants and 43% are single! What a venue for a creative AFS trip. Finland is 10% water with 187,000 lakes and 584 islands.

This is a high tech capital of the world. Fins have an extreme appreciation for innovation and love their toys. Everyday tasks are preformed on their Nokia Imaging cell phones. With it they can buy a tram ticket, pay a parking fine or program their lights to turn on before they arrive home. This is also sauna world where nearly every house has an electric sauna. There are over 2 million and even some restaurants have them. Caf Tin Tango is a place where you can do your laundry, eat lunch and sip a beer in a sauna with locals discussing how to solve the worlds problems.

The shopping is great for designer knitwear, jewelry and glassware. Although tax free, prices are high, yet I am told Oslo is far more expensive. At night locals fill clubs that provide some Nordic oddity like gay karaoke, sauna and ice bars.

Sunday I fly the polar express 600 miles north to Roveneimi, gateway to Lapland and where the fun begins. People here ride bikes in the snow, swim in the ice holes and do artic picnics. The hottest activities happen in winter. Last month the city of 35,000 received 20,000 visitors. It is 2 Fahrenheit and considered exceptionally warm

We are a group of 22 tour operators from around the world and check into a cozy wilderness lodge. Each room has a private sauna. Dinner is presented in a rustic lodge lit with traditional candles muted lighting. Glow fried salmon was prepared over an open hearth along with wild mushroom soup and blackberry mousse. Afterward we gather to bake in a smoke wood sauna.

Monday morning we are outfitted head to toe in Gortex artic suits for a full day snowmobile safari. We each mount our super Skidoos and head out to the forest. Across the lakes we reach speeds of 50mph! First stop is a husky farm with 200 dogs to greet us. Seven blue eyed huskies are chosen per sleigh for our dog sled adventure. The cacophony of yelping, howling and barking is near deafening as the dogs anxiously await their turn to run. So strong, so gentle and they love their work. Upon rope release, theyre off like a bullet and the journey is thrilling. We get to view 9 new puppies. After a thousand licks, I hate to leave.

We stop at a farmhouse for a lunch of sauted reindeer, goat cheese potatoes and cranberry ice cream. Back on our snowmobiles, we traverse a snow covered paradise. We cross the Artic Circle, the most northern terrain of all my travels. Parallel with Siberia and just 40 miles to the Russian border, I want to defect but we soon stop at a reindeer farm to be greeted by costumed Lapp-lads. They perform the customary Lappish baptism and give us an official border certificate as well as a reindeer drivers license. We then enjoy a sleigh ride from the docile yet powerful deer.

This is the land of the indigenous Sami. We learn of the fascinating culture of these semi-nomadic people who live on top of the world. Reindeer husbandry is the oldest livelihood. They possess a genuine love of this frozen land.

We had 4 hours of daylight today. As I change back into my jeans, I recall that I was never cold, not even my toes. We motorcoach north to Luosto, a village of 40 residents and check into a beautiful ski resort. Outside on my balcony is a theatre of wilderness. The purity of nature is shown through a forest of birch trees backlit by the moon. The snow listens. White silence surrounds me. I am entranced by the tranquility. This is a romantic environment where all haste is forgotten. Simply put, it is spectacular. Here I wait. Here on earth, the Aurora Borealis presents its most amazing spectacle. Perhaps Ill get a glimpse. A peaceful sleep overcomes me after a totally exhilarating day.

The next day we dine on a hearty breakfast of smoked fish and set out to tour the area. One resort has 310 log cabins each with a private sauna. We tour an amethyst mine, the largest working mine in Europe. With picks in hand, it was a treasure hunt to dig out the brightest purple gemstone. On to the tiny ski town of Pyha, where we lunch at the worlds largest log cabin. There is a snow chapel here entirely sculpted from snow and ice. Weddings are routinely performed. With ice pews, the sermons are short. Another highlight here was a visit to Santa Claus Village. I got to meet the real Santa. He lives here and is fluent in a dozen languages. His elves are busy in the post office answering the annual 40,000 letters from children around the world.

Back at the airport, our plane lifts off a runway of solid ice. I will miss the polar darkness and yet long to return for a visit in the summer with its 24 hours of sunlight.

The following days are productively spent at the travel trade show in contemporary Helsinki. I have learned so much of a land that exceeded my expectations. I never had a chance to overnight in the Ice Hotel of Kemi, ride the Sampo Ice Breaker or swim the Baltic Sea in a floating survival suit. But Im grateful for a taste of Lappish adventure. On my last night, a flickering of northern lights dance in the sky. Its a perfect scene to bid me farewell and is said to bring good luck. I hope good fortune will allow me the chance to share this adventure with a group soon. It is like no where else Ive been. Everyone should experience such a warm atmosphere in the heart in winter.

Thailand is a land of enchanting and exotic tastes for foreign visitors as I was to learn when I experienced the Water Festival of Loi Kathong on the island of Ko Chang.

Ko Chang

In October 2003, the travel bug seriously bit me. The symptoms led me to sell my business, pack a small backpack with necessary items and roll into Los Angeles International Airport with a major credit card and an attitude. A few days later, I was in Thailand and headed for the island of Ko Chang, located close to the border with Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand.

Ko Chang is a heavily forested island with little towns full of beach huts. This is what I was exactly what I was after. Spending days lounging in the sun and contemplating my navel. Unfortunately, I soon experienced the local bacteria, which was not what I was after.

Since I had rented my beach hut for a week with payment in advance, the family running the place looked me upon favorably. They took pity on me and I was soon growing fat on Tom Yom Kung and other soups and curries. After four days, I had finally kicked the bug and felt halfway human. This was good news as it was the night of the full moon water festival.

I had heard of full moon festivals in Thailand. For hard partying tourists, this was apparently the night the big beach parties happened. In Ko Chang, it was a little different as the night was tailored to the actual Thais, not tourist.

The Loi Kathong Festival happens every full moon. Offerings are given to appease the water spirits. These offerings come in the form of banana leaf bowls with flowers, fruit, candles and incense. The candles and incense are lit and everyone heads down the beach and starts putting them in the water. It is one of the more amazing light shows you will ever see and beats Las Vegas hands down. Thousands, and I mean thousands, of little lights bobbing on the surface of the smooth ocean.

After the bowls comes one of the most visually amazing things Ive ever seen. Everyone is familiar with the paper lanterns used in Asia. Typically, they come in the form of a rectangle form with a bamboo or light wire frame. Very popular with college students since they are cheap and look better than a bare light bulb.

For the festival, Thais would take these paper lanterns and close off the top. They would then affix a small this paper plate to the bottom with a candle on it. Light the candle, wait for the heat to do its work and they had an instant hot air balloon. Once the lanterns could float, you simply let go and off the slowly went over the ocean. It was a sight to see as there were thousands of them floating over the water.

As the festival wound down, the ocean had been transformed. The air was full of gracefully floating lanterns while the water itself was dotted with slowly bobbing points of light.

If you intend to travel to Thailand, make sure you schedule your trip around a full moon. It is a scene youll never forget.

Kangaroo Island has been described as one of earth’s last unspoilt island refuges, and with very good reason. This idyllic island located off the coast of South Australian is an idyllic tour destination for those seeking sun, surf, and everything that goes with them, including swimming, fishing, sailing and scuba-diving. Islands are almost always special places … isolation, solitude, the ocean … just think of places like the West Indies, Hawaii, the Maldives, all of which have unique characteristics and special natural environments that have evolved through thousands of years of isolation. Australia ’s Kangaroo Island is no exception.

Kangaroo Island is about seven times the size of Singapore and around 155 kilometres in length, with the town of Kingscote being the island’s capital and main settlement. Wildlife is abundant on the island, where koalas laze in the gum trees and seals laze on the beach. In addition, kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, platypi and goannas all thrive on the island.

A wide range of tours are available on Kangaroo Island, enabling you to relax while someone else does the driving. In addition, guides can provide a great deal of information about Kangaroo Island on the way. Both coach tours and four-wheel drive tours are available, with most tours collecting passengers from their accommodation, the airport or the ferry terminal. Bike riding and hiking are also possible for those with the energy, but beware that Kangaroo Island is large and the necessary level of fitness is required for these options.

Large luxury vehicle and passenger ferries operate between Cape Jervis on the South Australian coast and Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island (travelling time 45 minutes). There are four departures daily, with extra services at peak times. Bus connections are available to/from Adelaide to Cape Jervis, and to/from Penneshaw to American River and Kingscote on the island. Regional Express operates a 30-minute air service from Adelaide to Kingscote Airport, located 13km from Kingscote.

Because of its relative isolation, Kangaroo Island has experienced much less impact from European settlement than than the South Australian mainland. Half the bushland on Kangaroo Island remains untouched since the time of British navigator Matthew Flinders named the island in 1802, and more than a third of the Island has National Park or Conservation Park status. This pristine bushland supports a rich wildlife population of wildlife and makes Kangaroo Island on of the best places in Australia to see wildlife in its natural environment.

Kangaroo Island was separated from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago. In that time, some species have evolved differently from their mainland counterparts. This is evident for example in the Kangaroo Island Kangaroo (a subspecies of the Western Grey Kangaroo common in south-eastern Australia) which is today smaller, darker and has longer fur than its mainland counterpart. The now endangered Glossy Black Cockatoo is also a unique Kangaroo Island sub-species, as is the small marsupial carnivore the Sooty Dunnart.

Similarly, King Island’s plants have evolved in isolation to the point where at least 45 species are endemic (found only on Kangaroo Island) including several eucalypts. The total absence of feral creatures such as foxes and rabbits helps ensures the integrity Kangaroo Island’s bushland ecosystems.

In recognition of Kangaroo Island’s unique plant and wildlife species (some of which are either threatened or unique to the island), National and Conservation parks were declared across the island very early in the history of its European settlement. Kangaroo Island’s National Parks provide access to spectacular coastline scenery, unique geological formations, fascinating history and abundant wildlife. There are four major parks: Flinders Chase National Park (walking trails and spectacular rock formations), Kelly Hill Conservation Park (limestone caves and hiking), Seal Bay Conservation Park (Australia’s largest accessible colony of sea lions) and Cape Willoughby Conservation Park (first lighthouse in South Australia).