Flying halfway around the world to someplace I’d never been before was quite an adventure. A different culture, a different alphabet, foreign cuisine, unknown sights and sounds awaited me. Having an adventure is so fun, I thought. Why don’t we bring more of that explorer spirit of curiosity with us in our daily life? What would our life be like if we treated all of it as one big adventure, and not just leave that sense of wonder and excitement to the few weeks of the year when we may travel to some new destination? When set off for a travel adventure of some kind, it strikes me that there are some basic strategies that we naturally adopt. We don’t always use these strategies in how we approach our daily life, however. Set a course and get prepared first: you need to decide where you want to go. Planning a trip or adventure requires you to consciously choose your destination. Once you’ve decided where you want to go, you get prepared. You figure out how to get there, what kind of currency and immunizations you’ll need, what kind of clothing you need to bring. Create an itinerary once the destination has been selected: most of us will come up with at least a rough game plan or itinerary. What do you want to see and experience? How long will you want to stay there? Even if it’s a rough idea, an itinerary provides the starting point and a rough structure for the adventure. Pack along our curiosity: an important ingredient of any adventure is a strong sense of curiosity. As you set off for parts unknown, you become an explorer, setting off to find out something new and wondrous. You don’t know what that experience will be like and permit yourself to relish that state of “not knowing.” It’s not personal when you travel, you just know that unexpected things are bound to happen. The hotel you booked is a dive. The only day you have to visit that world-famous museum is the one day of the year it’s closed. Unexpected glitches are inevitable but you don’t take them personally. You surrender to the unexpected and simply give yourself leeway to make on-the-spot changes in your plans. You go with the flow. It’s easy to simply chalk it up to experience and know that you’ve got another good adventure story yarn to share with your friends back home. The contrast in our daily life: Yet how we handle our day-to-day lives is often quite different. Many of us don’t have a clear plan or itinerary for where we want to go. True enough, at some points we set goals for ourselves like “get married,” “lose 15 pounds,” “get a promotion.” Yet somehow we lose our thread, not giving our plans the kind of persistent and consistent action needed to realize the results we want. In terms of preparation, we leave ourselves ill-informed or under-resourced [...]
Archive for March, 2010
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Motorcycle Travel Guide Romania ? Roads To Die For
It’s mid-summer in Romania and I’m about to die. Storm force winds are shrieking between the lampposts and lashing me with horizontal rain-bullets as I struggle to control my heavily-laden Honda Varadero motorcycle over broken cobbles. I’m on my way into Bucharest city centre and wishing I was anywhere else. Surrounded by suicidally-impatient drivers who are nudging my bike with their bumpers, and dodging un-fenced road works trenches full of swirling brown floodwater, I think things can’t get any worse. Then I see they most definitely can… The car ahead of me rears into the air, crashes down and slithers sideways as it hits some obstacle in the road. Now I can see what it is: glistening steel tram-tracks cross the road at 45 degrees. These rails stand a full six-inches above the road surface. “My God!” I whimper, “They can’t expect us to ride over those?” Realising there’s no alternative, I stand up on the footrests just as a bell rings beside me. A quick glance to my left confirms my worst fears. It’s a tram. It’s going to cross the road at the same instant I hit its tracks. There’s no time to stop. I’m going to die. There are moments in life when one has to make a snap decision. I crack open the Varadero’s throttle and the big V-twin surges forward. Turning my bike at the last moment to hit the wet steel at near right angles, we lurch, bump and crash over first one, then two slippery rails. Miraculously I’m still on the bike, still upright and the tram has missed me. Phew! Then I remember my wife Viv, riding her Honda Transalp right behind me. Omygod! I twist to look over my shoulder just in time to see her bouncing her bike over the rails only feet in front of the advancing tram. By some miracle we both made it. Many others weren’t so lucky. Next day, as we watched the TV news from a flood-bound hotel in neighbouring Bulgaria, we discovered the nightmare storm had washed away houses, roads and bridges. Cars, lorries, buses and pedestrians had been swept away in the biblical deluge. In all 62 people were killed by the floods, falling trees or lightning. Thousands more were left homeless. What on earth were we – a pair of dithery grandparents – doing riding through all this on our bikes? Were we mad? The answer was obviously YES. But we were mad with a motive. We had set off from home in Norfolk to visit the overseas projects of UK children’s charity EveryChild and, hopefully, raise some publicity for their good works in the process. Inspired by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Round trip when they visited Unicef operations in Eastern Europe, we figured we could do something similar, but without the TV crew, fixers, medics and support vehicles. We knew we would take in 12 countries along the way and clock up something like 5000 miles, but [...]
Travel Guides to Decide What to See and What to Eat
Travelling educates you, provides you fun, and makes you feel refreshed. That is why people travel, some occasionally and others quite often. No matter how often you go out for travelling, you will miss out the full fun factor unless you know where to go and which places to visit. Travel guides are important for this. They provide you elaborate information on where to go and what are the things to be seen. Not all people are equally informed; some people may have extensive knowledge on something while others may have only a faint idea. The world is vast and there are lots of places to be seen. If some places are important for their historical connections then other places are famous for other attractions. Travel guides tell about it and are necessary to find out the important spots in a particular place. It is not possible for a single person to know what all places on the earth are attractive and worthy to be seen. Nor can anybody know how to get to the place, where to stay, how to get the right food and etc. One can take a guide who will lead him but at a very high cost. Paying for a human guide may not be possible for all people. With properly prepared travel guides, there will be no necessity of any costly human guides. Reading big books on the importance and attractions of a particular place is not possible for all people, especially when he is on travelling. So, he needs something that can give him guidance quickly. In this regard, cards used as travel guide can be of good use. There are cards that tell the best things to see and do in a place. They also include info on the nearest and best places to eat and stay. They are nothing less than a human guide.
Why To Spend A Golf Holiday In The Sun
Long haul destinations are now attracting tourists on golf holidays. South Africa is one such destination popular with tourists taking a golf break. It is a country that has a great climate, superb scenery and some marvellous golf courses. Many golfers now take a long golf holiday to South Africa and also take in a safari while there on holiday. Dubai is another popular long haul golf holiday destination. It is now regarded as probably one of the most luxurious golf holiday destinations in the world. As well as offering superb accommodation and food to golfers taking a golf trip there, Dubai also has some of the best golf courses in the world. It is a truly amazing experience going on a golf holiday to Dubai. You can be stood in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand about for miles and suddenly see an immaculate golf course laid out before you. Most tourists who go to Dubai on a golf holiday for the first time will always remember the amazing experience of playing golf there. Dubai also offers golfers on holiday there the opportunity to play twenty four hours a day. Many of the golf courses in Dubai are flood lit and so it is possible to play golf at night. It is highly recommended to try it if you are on a golf holiday there as most golfers who have played at night in Dubai admit that it is a great experience. While on a golf holiday to Dubai you can stock up on buying new golf clubs and clothes as there are some great bargains to be had. Golfing holidays to America are the most popular long haul golfing holiday destination. Florida is very popular with golfers and offers some great holidays. One of the main attractions of playing golf on holiday in America is the year round good climate. Florida has a great choice of golf courses and tourists on a golf holiday to Florida are spoilt for choice of which golf courses to play. Florida is a very popular family golf holiday destination. There are golf courses catering for all standards of golfing ability and budget. For the holiday maker wanting a cheap golf holiday in Florida there are plenty of golf courses that offer the facility to just turn up and pay and play. At the other end of the scale of golf holidays in America, there are some of the most exclusive and expensive golf courses found any where in the world in Florida. One of the great things about a golf holiday in Florida is that the whole family can go. When on holiday in Florida are plenty of other things to do as well as play golf on holiday. You can visit the theme parks and many of the great beaches or just simply sit by your swimming pool and catch some sun. Florida is also a popular golf holiday destination because [...]