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East for West – how to save money travelling through Europe.

Friday, 04 November 2011 21:26 Written by David Cronk

Travelling through Western Europe can be an expensive exercise especially if your currency is a little weak at the time. Although the British pound and Euro are not going that well, the US dollar is weaker and this can make travelling in some Western European nations prohibitively expensive. (Read Scandinavia and Switzerland.)

One way you can turn the tables is to substitute Eastern European destinations that give a similar experience for a Western Europe equivalent. It will usually be cheaper and in some cases a better experience as well.

The Art Galleries of St Petersburg instead of the Art Galleries of Paris

On a trip to Paris everyone wants to visit the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa. Well how about substituting the Louvre for the Hermitage. St Petersburg was Russia’s first true European city designed by European architects in the early 1700’s.

The Hermitage was formerly the palace that the Russian Tsars ruled the country from and is full of paintings from European artists including Rembrandt, Rubens and Picasso. The gallery includes 5 main buildings and in the Winter Palace alone there are 1057 rooms and 117 staircases. (Thank You Lonely Planet for that fact).

There are also collections of Egyptian and Oriental art so the Hermitage is a bit like a cross between the Louvre and the British Museum.

As a bonus if you haven’t seen enough art St Petersburg is also the home of the Russian Museum that houses one of the best collections of Russian Art in the world.

Roaming the streets of St Petersburg you will see architecture the equal of Paris and in Paris everyone loves the Seine, in St Petersburg you get to see the beautiful canals. While St Petersburg is not a cheap place to visit it is certainly not more expensive than Paris so you can see one of the best collections of art in the world and not be too light in the pocket.

To read the other 9 ideas to save money travelling through Europe please join our Travel Club for free to enjoy all the content on the website.

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Friday, 29 October 2010 09:16 Written by admin

Backpacking in Tuscany

Holidays in Tuscany and Tuscany hotels are popular with backpackers because of the area's spectacular scenery, history and unspoilt character. There is so much to see and do. Whether you plan to stay in hotels in Tuscany, in hostels or on one of the farms that cater for tourists, there is something to suit everyone and ways to stretch your money further.

Any time of year is a good time to visit and there are festivities during most months if you want to add them to your schedule. These are most prevalent throughout the summer months and you can research before you go, to fit them all in. You can soak up culture in Florence or soak up the sun in Monte Argentario. Relax with blues music in Pistoria province or chill out in natural pools, topped up by waterfalls in Saturnia Hot Springs (and it's free!).

Holidays in Tuscany do not have to be expensive. Look out for museums that have half price entry once a month. In Florence there is a tradition of serving free food with purchased drinks at about six in the evening. In other areas, day old bread is given away by bakeries. Experienced backpackers will know lots of tips on keeping expenses down and it is always worth asking fellow travellers about their experiences locally. Hotels in Tuscany will sometimes give discounts if you are staying for more than one night, so check this before you book. If the Tuscany hotels you stay in are family run ask them about local events and sights not on the tourist trails.

Getting around is relatively easy in most areas. Each province has an independently run bus company. Tickets can be bought at newsagents, bars and other authorised sellers. A single ticket is valid for between 1 hour - 1 ½ hours and you can buy a book of 10 tickets. Buying tickets on the bus is possible but is more expensive. Tickets must be validated before the journey in machines at rail and bus stations. Tickets not validated may incur a fine. SITA S.p.A. run inter-city buses but their website is in Italian, so get a phrase book!

Groups of six or more can qualify for a discount on some train services, so co-ordinate with fellow backpackers. Watch for promotions or weekend offers. Many trains have dedicated wagons for bikes and bikes can be a great way to get around this region.

Backpacking through Tuscany and staying in Tuscany hotels will be an experience of a lifetime whether you go with the flow or schedule in all the amazing things there are to see and do.

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Working Holiday in Australia

Friday, 16 July 2010 11:04 Written by David Cronk

If you’re thinking of going on a working holiday in Australia during your Gap year there are a few things that you need to arrange. Some of these things you can do before you leave, others when you get here.There are companies that will do these things for you (for a price) but really you can save yourself the money by doing them yourself.

I’ve put together a list of some of the things you should think about or arrange before you hit Australia.

Bank Account

To work in Australia more than likely your employer will want an Australian Bank Account to deposit your wages.

To be able to get an Australian Bank Account you need to pass the 100 point identity check.

This shouldn’t be too difficult and you should pass with the following documents

Passport (70 points)
Overseas Drivers License (25 points)
Credit Card (25 points)

These are the biggest 4 banks in Australia and you will find branches and ATM’s in all states. There are plenty of others as well (HSBC, HBOS etc) but with smaller branch networks.

http://www.commbank.com.au/

http://www.nab.com.au/

http://www.anz.com.au/personal/

http://www.westpac.com.au/

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Cuyutlán - Mexico

Friday, 21 May 2010 21:38 Written by Daniel Bakewell

Cuyutlán

Continuing to walk up and down the only paved road in Cuyutlán, sweat flowing from any place that it can in a Mexican summer's afternoon heat. A 10 minute walk reveals that the entire street in comprised of cheap home-food vendors, 6 hotels (most doubling as restaurants), tourist supplies/accessories and 3 all-purpose corner store outlets containing basic groceries and hard liquor. It is a rare sight to see a local moving about the street during the day, each has their station (normally also their homes). They are working. Most of the store owners sit around watching television all day and it is easy to see why with such a sparse population and the merciless day-time heat upon them. Attempts at achieving a kind of vegetative state are made and only ever interrupted by the intrusion of a customer who normally needs to borrrow something to serve their own patron.

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A Backpacker in Mexico City Part 2

Friday, 07 May 2010 17:53 Written by Daniel Bakewell

Mexico City

The following accounts are a series of events which took place in between my third and seventh day in Mexico City. They are events and experiences that I was able to learn something from and that I feel may provide some insight to westerners who plan on travelling to this part of the world in the near future.

The tourists' curse in many parts of the world is that they as a population are staples of the economies in the countries that they travel in. The locals in any of these areas are highly aware that the majority of foreigners that they will come across have bank accounts, ATM cards and a mental resignation to the inevitability of spending money in situations foreign to them. It is a sure thing that ignorance is a kind of aphrodisiac for exploitation, often coupled with circumstance and passive attitudes, a traveller on any kind of budget is bound to be faced with a foreigner fee being placed on any kind of non-advertised price. I found this to be the case on numerous occasions during those first few days in Mexico City.

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A Backpacker in Mexico City

Tuesday, 27 April 2010 16:30 Written by Daniel Bakewell

Mexico City

I had been staying at a place called 'Mexico City Hostel' on the street Republica de Brazil just north-west of the Zocalo (main square in downtown Mexico). The Hostel offered a few different combinations in the way of sleeping arrangements. The cheapest of these being $140 pesos a night for a 12-person, mixed-gender dorm ranging all the way to private rooms for $350 pesos a night. The place offered security lockers for the storage of any extra luggage that you might have had. However, they were without locks and so my first experiences of the Mexican street were in search of padlock and key.

The roads of downtown Mexico are for the most part arranged in blocks and grids, so with a little bit of wandering I was able to spot a place selling assorted combinations of bolt-locks, knives and hardware. I walked in and was quick to eye off an assortment of padlocks. What I didn't know then and soon learnt was that the process for buying things in Mexico differs slightly from that of Australia. In many shops and restaurants you do not order/purchase from the main counter. Tucked into a corner of these shops is a podium or a box with the word 'caja' written on it. When you know what it is that you would like to purchase, you tell the employee at the caja, they will charge you and then give you a receipt. You take the receipt to the main counter and they collect the item of purchase for you. A simple thing to be aware of in Mexico.

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A Backpacker in Mexico

Saturday, 24 April 2010 14:31 Written by Daniel Bakewell

Day 1 – Arrival - Mexico City

I arrived in Mexico City at approximately 8.00pm on Friday the 16th of April 2010. I had flown from Sydney, Australia - first to Los Angeles and then straight on through to Mexico. My total flight time had consisted of about 17 hours, more than 24 in travel time and somewhere around 14,000 km in distance.

My first sight of Mexico as the plane descended through the cloud-cover was what I now believe to be the town of Tepotzotlán - north of Mexico City. It was a land entirely covered in structures as far as I could see, all neatly tucked in between the hills that spotted the area. This was a part of an area (including Mexico City) that was about 7000 X 7000 km in area and had a population of over 20,000,000 people. Making it one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world.

I had made loose arrangements to be picked up from the airport by a friend of a family that I knew back in Australia who had recently migrated from Mexico City. I knew what the guy looked like, I had his phone number and a description of what he would be wearing - no more. Also, I had a limited ability in Spanish, no phone of my own and my plane was running about 45 minutes late.

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Tuesday, 05 January 2010 09:30 Written by Lucy Corne

Walking the Great Wall of China

As the mist dispersed and the snaking, seemingly endless form of the wall appeared I could almost see the Mongol hordes charging over the hills. And it wasn’t just the eerie weather that was making for such an atmospheric Great Wall experience – it was the crumbling rocks beneath my cheap hiking boots and the fact that we were alone in a silent spot far from Beijing’s hustle and bustle.

This was worlds apart from my first Great Wall encounter. As a fresh-faced backpacker straight out of university I’d soon tired of China’s constant challenges – where simple acts like ordering lunch always found me on the losing side of a 20-minute game of charades. On reaching the capital I cringed at the idea of taking the numerous buses, taxis and rickshaws required to get to my preferred part of the wall, settling instead for a tour bus to the much-visited and easy-to-reach Badaling section. Two silk shops and a pearl factory later I finally arrived at Badaling – bustling, immaculately restored and heartbreakingly disappointing. In fact I was so disappointed with my long-awaited trip to see one of the world’s top sights, I actually cried – as much for my laziness in not aiming for a wilder slice of wall as for the pristine paving stones packed with tourists, touts and souvenir stands.

Failing to fulfil my dreams of walking the wall became my top travel regret over the years and as soon as the chance to head back to China arose I was Beijing-bound and determined not to make the same mistake again. And so a decade later I found myself sheltering in a dilapidated watchtower clad in the kind of cheap mac you buy for a buck in theme parks, sheltering from a summer downpour.

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Pyongyang – More Grey than Green

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 19:08 Written by Lucy Corne

It’s Sunday in Pyongyang – the day of 10,000 steps, when each citizen shuns wheels and takes to the streets on foot. The official line is that this is an eco-friendly initiative designed to help save petrol. The pessimistic (or perhaps realistic) view is that there simply isn’t enough fuel to go around – not even for the few who actually own a car.

Truthfully, there’s little to distinguish Sunday from any other day. I’ve never seen a city as quiet as North Korea’s capital. It’s so quiet that the rickety Soviet-inspired buses and occasional cars provide a curiosity worthy of our photographs and since traffic accidents don’t seem to be an issue, we opt for the top vantage point – the middle of the road. When two cars do actually cross paths, the occasion is marked by one of the city’s most elegant and photogenic sights. Clearly hired for their exquisite features and decked out in porcelain doll make up, Pyongyang’s all-female traffic police lend a little theatre to a city with a non-existent arts scene. Their perfectly orchestrated gestures are like some kind of high street ballet, inevitably drawing the largest crowd a city with so few tourists can muster. Never faltering, they spin on the spot, keeping perfect time with rapid jerks of the head and flowing hand signals and as I stand mesmerised by their movements I wonder whether they might cause more accidents than they avert.

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How to offset your Travel carbon footprint

Saturday, 21 November 2009 14:24 Written by David Cronk

My Philosophy and Why?

Recently I’ve begun to wonder how much damage that my traveling has done to ecology of the world and collectively how much damage we have caused through global warming.

And most importantly what I, as a single human could do to help reverse this phenomena.

I guess that the insane weather we have been experiencing and the collective lack of action from those who have power (and the unwillingness to do anything due to their own self interest) have helped formulate this article.

I’m not going to go into the pros and cons on whether global warning is man-made or not, as far as I’m concerned any person can see for themselves the pollution, environmental degradation caused by man. If you have had the pleasure of being on this earth for more than 20 years you have something to compare with.

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Vietnam on a Budget

Saturday, 19 September 2009 12:48 Written by Diana Bocco

Vietnam is a fascinating destination in more ways than one. Its conflicted history includes wars with the French, American, Japanese and Chinese in this century alone. Despite its struggling past, though, Vietnam has managed to raise above tragedy and become one of the most popular destination in Southeast Asia, both for ongoing tourism and as a retirement destination (which has started to rival Florida in numbers).

The goods news is that Vietnam is accessible to almost anybody. As long as you're willing to find your way around and don't mind haggling for a better price, it's possible to travel all across the country for just pennies. Do keep in mind that locals prefer quoting prices in American dollars and while the practice of paying in dollars is not exactly legal, everybody will (very happily) take them without a question.

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Taking your mobile phone on holiday

Sunday, 16 August 2009 22:42 Written by David Cronk

Most travellers when they go overseas on holiday like to take their mobile phone (cell phone) with them. However, regularly you hear stories of how they didn’t get service or their phone wouldn’t work on the network. This article will set down some of the facts and some of the myths.

1. Roaming or buy a local SIM card?

Whether or not to buy a local SIM card is usually determined by how long you are going to spend in the country. Roaming nearly always costs more than getting a local SIM card.

But I don’t see any point in going to a place for a week, getting a local SIM card and letting people know what your new number is. If you need to make a lot of local calls maybe it’s worth it. I think if you’re going to stay in a country for a month I would get a local SIM card for sure.

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A tale of a young backpacker going to Paris for the first time

Saturday, 30 May 2009 20:02 Written by David Cronk

Paris my nemisis, the city I've been to five times and I'm yet to stay a night.

Each time I've been there I've been frustrated by my complete lack of ability to speak French.

My story with Paris starts many years ago as a youngster not long out of school as green as can be. My first trip to continental Europe started with a train trip from London to Dover. When I got there it was mid afternoon I just missed a ferry and all others were full until that night. So eventually late at night I managed to get across the English Channel to Calais with no train due until the next morning.

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Day Trips from Adelaide - Adelaide Hills

Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:08 Written by David Cronk

There are a number of excellent daytrips that you can do while being based in Adelaide. One of the best is a trip into the Adelaide Hills.

You really do need a car to be able to complete this trip but its certainly worth it. Chances are that if you are in Adelaide you are most likely to have a car anyway as its difficult to see the sights without one.

It's only a 20 minute drive from the centre of Adelaide and you are in Hahndorf.

Hahndorf was settled in 1839 by Prussian Lutheran migrants and you can see the German influence in the town today. During World War One Hahndorf was renamed Ambleside as most German names were renamed but later reverted to being called Hahndorf. You find much more German influence in South Australia than the rest of Australia.

It's a pleasant walk down the main street looking at Art Galleries and shops. It's a great place to get some coffee and German cake. Hahndorf was the home to South Australia's greatest artist Hans Heysen.

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Working Holiday in the UK - Setting yourself up

Sunday, 17 May 2009 11:00 Written by David Cronk

I remember well my first days in London as a young 21 year old thinking what am I doing here.

London can be daunting place when you first get there, particularly for me when one day you are living in a town of 2000 people and 2 days later being in one of the bigger metropolis' in the world.

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What You Must See in Vienna

Sunday, 19 April 2009 13:11 Written by Tania

Vienna represents one of Europe’s grandest treasures. The capital city of a once thriving Habsburg Empire, it boasts incredible museums, wonderful parks, cafés, restaurants, shops, squares and astonishing architecture. Its city center was included on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites and represents one of the most romantic downtown areas in the world, regardless of the time of year when you visit it. Due to its architectonic gems, statues and monuments, it is often referred to as a museum in the open.

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Friday, 27 March 2009 17:49 Written by David Cronk

Letters to the Editor

I welcome any letters with comments or suggestions on how you think I could make the site a better experience for everyone. If there is a travel topic that you'd like to write about please email me at editor(at)travelodium.com

There are no letters to the editor at this time

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Travelling the Transiberian Way

Friday, 27 March 2009 17:48 Written by Diana Bocco

HISTORY

The Transiberian train, the longest continuous railway and certainly one of the most impressive in the world, has been around for over a century. When it comes to historical significance, this may not sound too impressive, but that's only until you realize that the original plans for the world's longest railway were set in 1889. When other nations were still establishing local routes for their railway, Czar Alexander III was appointing engineers for what would turn out to be the single most expensive man-made construction in the world. It took engineers until 1913 to finalize the last segment of the train, just in time for the Revolution, which will turn the Transiberian into one of the most hated railways in the history of mankind - From February to October 1917, the train was primarily used to transport prisoners to exile and to connect Allied armies with the main forces stationed in Moscow.

WHAT THE TRAIN IS LIKE

Nowadays, the train, which was once a symbol of splendor, has taken a turn for the worse. Thousands of tourists still flock to Moscow to take the route across the country, but the journey is more a challenge than a vacation. The route between Moscow and Vladivostok is 5,772 miles and takes about seven days. While there are stops in the way, most are just for a few minutes (anything between 10 and 40), which is barely enough to get off the train and stretch your legs or buy something from one of the babushkas (old Russian women) selling homemade food or trinkets right on the platform.

The train itself is not for the faint of heart. Whatever type of compartment you chose, you are still limited when it comes to toilets (there are only two per wagon, shared by everybody) and hygiene (no showers or running water except for the small sink in the bathroom). Each wagon is attended by a provodnik (conductor), who is basically in charge of walking around the train and making sure things are in order. She (is usually a woman) also sells tea and warns passengers of upcoming stops. Unless you speak some Russian, however, you are probably limited here, as you'll be hard-pressed to find a provodnik who speaks any English at all.

While there is a small restaurant on board the train, the food is both too bland and too expensive for most passengers, who usually bring snacks and drinks along or buy something to eat in one of the numerous stops along the way. In fact, if you're taking the train all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok, there are 87 towns in between the two cities, and while the number and places for stops vary, you can expect almost as many station stops as there are cities.

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