The Land Down Under is a traveller favourite thanks to its warm weather, stunning beaches, exciting cities, and diverse landscapes. And if you´re visiting from the Northern Hemisphere, keep in mind that the seasons are reversed. So this month through November is spring, and December through February is summer - which is an especially fantastic time to visit - including these iconic destinations:
No trip to Australia is complete without a
"Nature's Grace" along the Maine Sculpture Trail. Photo by Alan Stubbs
Some people are traipsing through lovely landscapes as others explore history from days of North America's earliest tribal peoples to the present. Avid birders use binoculars to spot colorful feathered friends in flight while canoers and kayakers dip paddles into the water. At the end of the day, many of these visitors to Panama City, Florida, belly up to an oyster bar to enjoy freshly shucked bivalves prepared in a variety
Road trips can be a lot of fun and a great way to travel with flexibility and convenience. But they can also quickly turn into a never-ending string of "are we there yet" enquires. When planning your road trip, there's a number of things you should include in your packing list in order to ensure everything goes smoothly.
Mix CD- Most essential item on any self-respecting road trip. You want a mix CD with up-beat songs, which you can sing along to. You can never go wrong with the classics. This wi
Portugal is a popular summer destination, mostly due to its great weather and amazing beaches. It also doesn't hurt that this southern European country makes for a relatively economical holiday. If you are driving in the Algarve this summer, there are a few things you should know about the A22, the highway which runs across the region, connecting most main cities.
The A22 is also known as "Via Infante de Sagres", or more commonly as "Via do Infante". It was originally built as part of the country
Italy is a great summer destination, bringing together amazing weather, world-famous food, and countless cultural treasures. If you hire a car in Italy for the summer, there are some things you should know, the most important of which is that there's a thing called the ZTL that you should keep an eye out for. Nothing gets foreign drivers fined more quickly in Italy than accidentally wandering into a ZTL.
ZTL stands for Zona a Traffico Limitato, and it's an area in the centre of the city in whi
So you are finally on vacation. You left the office. Your automated email is in full swing. Your voice mail informs callers to dial reception or the poor soul who is left with your calls while you are away.
You’ve packed the car. You still aren’t’ sure if you brought enough clothes for the hot days or the cooler nights. You know you forgot something but can’t remember what. You couldn’t decide whether to wear your flip flops in the car or your running shoes so you took both.
You are 10 minute
For folks of a certain age, “See the USA in your Chevrolet” and “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” were anthems inspiring us to experience the thrill of zipping along the nation’s highways, seeing new sights, eating new foods, and venturing from our home turf – in short, go road tripping!
It was 1961. For me, high school graduation was past, college was months away, and the ink was barely dry on my new driver’s license. I had saved for years to buy my first car – a magic carpet that would take me to p
For travellers bound for the Emerald Isle, picking up a car hire in Ireland can be a great way to explore, particularly if you wish to go out into the countryside and not be confined to a single location. Now, driving in Ireland can seem like a no brainer. After all, how different can it possibly be from driving in the UK? The main language spoken is the same, people drive on the same side of the road (the left!), and there's no reason to suppose that driving in Ireland would be any more difficu
Road trips the perfect travel format as far as I'm concerned. They give you flexibility and a glorious sense of independence and freedom. Whether you're driving across America like someone out of a Kerouac novel or touring Europe, driving is the way to go. But no road trip is ever complete without a matching soundtrack. A mix CD is the heart and soul of any half decent road trip. Here are some songs that need to be in any mix cd.
1. 500 Miles, The Proclaimers - The ultimate road trip song. It's
The rising cost of fuel is a topic that we are all familiar with and it can affect us both in our daily life plus our holiday travel plans. It is not just the UK that is facing this problem; it is a common factor all over the world and with many of us choosing to book holidays that involve a car hire it helps if we know a few ways of conserving the fuel we have and getting the most from it.
Before you depart on your journey you need to make sure your vehicle is in an overall good condition. It’
Driving seems like a straightforward enough business. You get behind the wheel, turn on the car, and then proceed to go places. Most driving laws, while varying slightly from place to place, are no more than common sense, and most people will have no difficulty driving in countries other than their own. However, there are some obscure (and some not so much) corners of legislation where common sense goes to die. Here are some of the world's most bizarre driving laws.
Here a whale, there a whale, e
Spain is one of Europe's most popular destinations, receiving thousands upon thousands of tourists every year. Some people like it so much that they actually decide to stay, and statistics show that foreign residents are something like 10% of the population.
Driving in Spain doesn't present too many difficulties, but there are several things drivers should be aware of. First of all, and this one is a big one for British drivers, traffic in Spain drives on the right-hand side of the road.
Not left,
Travelling with children can be a great experience for the whole family, but it can also be an exhausting experience for everyone involved. Children are more prone to boredom than adults (or at the very least are more vocal about it), so having a game plan to keep them entertained is of the utmost importance for the sanity of everyone in the car. Here are a few tips to keep your kids entertained in long car trips.
1. Embrace the 21st century - We live in the digital age. Finding a way to keep you
When travelling, it's always important to take every necessary precaution in order to ensure your safety and that of family. Driving is no exception. Whether your touring the Costal del Sol, or visiting the colourful city of Cape Town, here are some tips to stay safe.
1. Never leave valuables in the car. If for some reason you must leave valuables in the car, don't leave them where they can be seen from the outside. Put them in the trunk, or lock them in the glove compartment. Never leave your do
One of my favorite ways to travel while home in the States is to do some half-way planning, hop in the car, and hope for the best. This is how my friend, Andy, and I took two and a half weeks of our summer in 2009. We crammed two surfboards and what we thought would be enough clothing for two or so weeks in my Jeep.
We planned out our trip to be as cheap as possible so the first stop came from Andy’s acceptance as a guest at his mom’s high school reunion. So that meant the first le
10. UP IN THE AIR SOUNDTRACK: A great movie with some great performances, but the soundtrack is also very good, well about half of it. Mixes new school and old school with some great messages. If you like travel, this is a great place to start with some music.
9: U2 GREATEST HITS. Ok, here's the thing. I'm not a obessive U2 fan or nothing. I just think they got some good tunes, its inspring, and they mean good. They aren't the next coming of Jesus, but, good guys making good music.
8: BRUCE SPR
Every spring after all the snow melts, cities, towns and states make plans to remedy the devastation snowplows and chained tires generate on their roads. As road-repair budgets are weighed by cash strapped states, we decided take a closer look at data compiled by others and determine who had the worst roads in the country.
Four metrics were analyzed to do this. Each state was ranked on each indicator and the results pooled to generate a cumulative ranking for all 50 states. Washington, D.C. was
Don Ramey Logan
Northern California offers some of the USA's loveliest road tripping, with scenic views, great beaches, beach towns and state parks as well as attractions such as the Monterey Aquarium and the Carmel Mission. One particularly appealing stretch is the 122 miles (196 kilometers) between San Francisco and the town of Carmel along coastal Highway 1. You can drive it in a little over two hours, but there's so much to see and do along here that you could easily spend a week stoppi
