| Travel-Wise
Tips |
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| Discover
local colour |
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Meet a local at your vacation
destination: meetURplanet
This great site offers you the opportunity
to meet someone interesting who lives at your travel destination.
This is a superb opportunity to discover local colour! Or maybe
you'd like to meet visitors to your country and be their guide? |
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| Take a look at a local
newspaper: The
Paperboy
This portal allows you to find local
newspapers across the globe. What better way to get a bit of local
colour? |
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Consider a travel writer's
viewpoint : Travel
Intelligence
Great travel
articles to give you a personal feel about a place |
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Getting technical about a
country: CIA
World Factbook
The official
US line on everything about countries upon which the CIA might have
an obvious interest: outline maps, geography, people,
country, economy, communications, transportation, military, world
flags and 'transnational issues'. Everything from natural
to un-natural hazards... such as invading troops. |
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| Maps
and ferries |
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General map sites : use
our Map page
We have
a separate page for this! |
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Car routes, even via ferries
: Via
Michelin
Ideal for a
route planner and maps. Weather, hotels and restaurants are an added
bonus. Just make sure you get the right destination before you set
out! |
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Irish Ferries information
: Irish
Ferries
Good, basic
information on Irish ferries, together with route and port information,
sailings and online booking. |
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English Channel ferry information
: Brittany
Ferries
Very functional
offering route information, timetables, availability and online
booking. Also has a good 'Holidays' section with information about
places you might like to visit in France and Spain. |
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World ferry links : Youra.com
Dan Youra provides links
to ferry sites worldwide. A great place to start if you have that
sinking feeling! |
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| Travel
by train |
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Point-to-point information
and tickets : Europrail
This US-based site uses AcrobatReader
for its maps and allows you to buy tickets. |
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Destinations, timetables,
services and tickets : Eurostar
Great for planning and booking - including
special offers. |
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Enthusiasts view of worldwide
rail travel : The
Man in Seat 61
Former
British Rail station manager's love for worldwide railways knows
no bounds. Nor does the information on this excellent site. The
site is named after his favourite Eurostar seat! (One warning: you
may go off the rails if you haven't got your glasses!) |
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European train timetables
: Travel
Notes
The link is to
the page of Travel Notes that provides European timetable information
for specific requirements. |
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| Fly
there |
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Plan your globe-trotting
trip here : Airtreks
You just select your start city, the
cities you want to visit across the globe, and your final city,
and it then computes the lowest cost, most-for-money (ie extra stop-overs)
and fewest stops - with prices. You then call to speak to an 'AirTreks
Travel Counselor' to commit. Very smooth. |
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Flights to worldwide destinations
from the UK : Airline
Network
Simple and to
the point - and with all those holiday extras available such as
hotels, breaks, insurance, and best-buys. |
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Flights to worldwide destinations
from the UK : Cheap
Flights
A site that
doesn't expect you to know what you want before you know what's
available! Choose destination, then your departure airport from
those available, then your dates. Well thought-out! |
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Flights worldwide from the
USA : Travelocity.com
and the UK : Travelocity.co.uk
One of the best known sites for flight
tickets - but perhaps not the fastest. It is good at giving you
options to consider. So consider! |
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| Go
by bus |
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European bus links: Eurolines
This site provides links to bus lines
in different European countries, plus offers cross-border passes
that could be just the ticket. |
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USA buses : Greyhound
What name is better known? Here is
the site. |
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| Health
& Safety |
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Safety issues : UK
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Aimed
at British citizens, but a winner when it comes to checking out
trouble spots. |
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Health issues : Travel
Health Online
US site
providing health profiles for over 200 countries with country vaccination
requirements, malaria risk, how to handle the undesirable life on
both two and more legs (ie criminals and insects). Dealing with
emergencies and everything else a committed hypochondriac could
need. (But you need to become a registered hypochondriac first.) |
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Health issues : US
Centers for Disease Control
Aimed
at US citizens, this site contains advice about inoculation requirements
plus health and safety ratings for all major US cruise ships. (Warning:
It might just make you want to stay at home! The devil is in the
detail.) |
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Health issues : IAMAT
Worldwide disease, sanitary conditions,
environmental conditions, hospitals, clinics, and other jolly vacation
topics. Should spur you on to immunization! This site provides 'pdf'
charts. |
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Earthquake Sensitivity: In
Fear of Quakes?
Our links
to sites that map earthquake sites and tectonic plates -
so you can avoid holidaying on a fault line! |
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| Accommodation
Reviews |
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Independent assessment of
hotels: TripAdvisor.com
A great way to check out how good
hotels really are all over the world. |
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Independent assessment of
hotels and apartments: RealHolidayReports.com
Another site with guest reports, concentrating
on hotels and apartments, mainly in Europe. |
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| Those
little practicalities |
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Currency
exchange rates : x-rates.com
Our preferred site for conversions. |
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International time zones
: WorldTimeZone.com
A great time zone map of the world. |
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Keep in touch while on the
move : acrossdistance.com
Provides tools and services to help keep
those separated by distance connected via photo sharing, message
boards, etc. |
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| Weather |
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Worldwide weather : BBC
Weather
Maps, forecasts,
sun index, marine, sports weather and great summary maps and 5-day
forecasts. |
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Worldwide weather and climate:
Vacation
Sunshine Planner
Although the above link opens on the UK,
it is also the easiest page to start from for weather anywhere in
the world since it clearly shows the options available to you of
temperature, sunshine, humidy, etc. which offer you handy annual
graphs if your firstly click in the 'climate data' panel. |
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Worldwide sunshine and rainfall
records : World
Climate Records
Want to know
the sun and rain patterns for anywhere in the world? Here's a great
way to plan WHEN to go there! |
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 Worldwide
snow forecasts :
Snow-forecast
If you know you want snow, then here's
where you can find it! 3-day ski resort forecasts updated twice
daily. Covers over 30 countries from Iceland, through Europe to
Japan. (Picture is Grindelwald
web camera.)
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