Travel thread

[Spitfires_Fan]

Originally Posted by nibbs

brighton - pretty gay, lol

Sounds about right.

[Engle]

Travelled a bit, some of my favs :

- Dunn River Falls, Jamaica.

- Fort on St.Kitts with views of both Atlantic and Caribbean.

- Pitons on St.Lucia, 2 volcanic mountains on edge of sea

- Cruise on river Rhine, Germany

- Night cruise on Danube, Budapest

- Excellent views on top of Mt.Pilatus, Switzerland

- Stonehenge, England

- Versailles Palace, France

- Colosseum, Rome

In my view, natural beauty beats man-made, everytime

[cpr]

Bit like Goughy in that i've not got that much of a travelling bug (though that coming from him, the guy who's lived in half the world, is a bit odd at first). Quite a fair few of my friends have done the whole see the world for 9 months after uni thing, couldnt understand why i didnt want to go.

Whereas i'd love to see many a place, i'd rather have a 2 week holiday and head home, need my home comforts, dont like being in a place that isnt mine, without access to my stuff, for too long.

[Langeveldt]

haha can't believe Nibbs has been to Albania

[cpr]

They love him there, in the peoples hearts he's no 2 only to Norman Wisdom

[Langeveldt]

I'll do a Nibbs like Lowdown as I'm really bored then..

London - Filthy, lots going on though
Cardiff - Surprisingly good night out
Paris - Awesome, but I felt kind of out of place as a white person
Birmingham - Always liked it, but I felt kind of out of place as a white person
Tallinn - Lovely city, didn't bump into Craig0s.. Potential for a stag doo
Marseille - Busy, hot, not nice
Chambery - Best city, by a lake and near Mt.Blanc, beautiful
Tunis - Great country with a rubbish capital city
Tokyo - Stayed one night, too confused to stay any longer
Sydney - Great, but don't think I'd go back
Canberra - Nice peaceful place
Wollongong - Interesting railway nearby
Harare - Best climate to play cricket in, lovely city if you ignore everything thats actually happening
Bulawayo - One horse town, fewer cars
Pretoria - Fantastic dutchie town, just lock up everything
Johannesburg - See above, better nightlife
Cape Town - Blegh, sort your attitudes out. Only place where I've been a victim of crime too
PE - Awesome relaxed surfer place. Great because everyone else thinks its boring
Bloemfontein - Just don't bring your video camera
Grahamstown - Like living in a fish bowl
Kingston - Nearly like my surname, couldn't wait to get out
Dubai - Yeah great, but why?
Al Ain - Someone built a motorway up a nearby mountain that has a dead end, like Sim City
Ivalo - Got to -25C when we got some chips, ended up eating reindeer tongue too..

[Spitfires_Fan]

My turn for a lowdown, helps me put off essay-writing.

London - good for a visit, couldn't live there.
Edinburgh - was there for some of the Fringe festival a few years back, was an awesome couple of weeks
Les Deux Alpes - great skiing with lots of powder at the end of March
Toulouse - fantastic city with a great climate
Malaga - Bleh.
Berlin - not hugely impressed
Munich - much nicer than Berlin
Salzburg - really quirky and interesting, but it rained the one day I was there
Tangier - a little bit crazy. Taxi drivers are mental.
Beira - beautiful beaches, incredibly ornate building left over from Portuguese rule mixed with abject poverty
East London (S.A) - more nice beaches, will be exploring a lot more in the summer
Seattle - one of the better cities I've visited. Great views of the mountains from the Space Needle and lots to do
Victoria - felt like being in London. It even rained.
Sydney - Loved it. I'm not a city boy at all, but reckon I could live there very happily.
Brisbane - not as good as Sydney, but still a great place. Southbank was particularly nice.

[Clarence]

Spent a year travelling round Australia, so been pretty much everywhere here - awesome trip, so many great places in this country.
Apart from that:

Paris - Awesome
Singapore - Friendly city
London - enjoyable
Tallinn - Glum but enjoyed the rest of Estonia.
Helsinki - meh
Fiji - too much like tropical australia so didn't really appreciate it.

Planning to go on exchange to the states next year.

[Langeveldt]

Originally Posted by Spitfires_Fan

East London (S.A) - more nice beaches, will be exploring a lot more in the summer
.

haha cool, did you manage to get to Grahamstown and PE? I hear Tri-Varsity is happening in Slummies this year, so I might be there too..

[Spitfires_Fan]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

haha cool, did you manage to get to Grahamstown and PE? I hear Tri-Varsity is happening in Slummies this year, so I might be there too..

Nah, I was only there for 4 days when coming back from Mozambique. Could be out there for up to 6 weeks this summer though, so I'm hoping to explore the area a lot more...

[The Sean]

A selection of some of my favourite, or at least some of the more interesting, major cities I’ve been to, spread geographically over a few posts:

Australasia

Brisbane – my city of birth and a place I can see myself settling down one day, has made great strides from the “big country town” of even 20 years ago and is now a brilliant, modern city with a fantastic quality of life.

Sydney – Australia’s “show off” city, full of glamour and excitement. Not necessarily the city you’d tell a visitor to live, but certainly where you’d send them to on a visit. Iconic attractions and one of the two or three most beautifully set cities on earth, surely.

Melbourne – it can be argued that where Sydney has the style, Melbourne has the substance. Perhaps not as glitzy as its northern rival, many believe is more cultural and sophisticated, and a better place to live. I’m huge fan of both.

Canberra - my home for six years, which seems weird when I think about it as I didn't think I'd stay that long. A very attractive, well designed town with an excellent restaurant/cafe culture, though a l always found it too "planned" and sterile, and not very dynamic. I enjoyed my years there though.

Christchurch – A big change of pace from the major Australian cities, Christchurch is somewhat more gentrified, betraying its “London of the South” nickname. Lovely setting on the Canterbury plains.

Beijing – fascinating combination of glorious ancient culture, 20th century communism and an awakening into the capitalist modern age. In real danger of losing its history in favour of looking to the future (the Starbucks inside the walls of the Forbidden City is one of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever seen) but I loved it regardless.

Shanghai – one of my favourite cities, a very strong European influence showing its legacy as a trading centre, but with a cutting edge modern feel as well. Would love to go back and spend still more time there.

Harbin – up in the far North East of China, close to both Russia and North Korea, it’s -17 at 11am and you get mistaken for a Russian when you’re white and have a beard (shaving when travelling is a hassle). Dismal local cuisine, but interesting place.

Hong Kong – set dramatically on a harbour and certainly the most “Western” of Chinese cities, I nevertheless found this dynamic place less fascinating than much of the rest of the country.

Suzhou and Hangzhou - the two beautiful garden cities of China, where you can feel the history while wandering around the gardens, canals and silk markets, and get transported back into the world of ancient China.

[The Sean]

The Americas

New York – very few other cities have had so much, good AND bad, said and written about it, and it’s almost all true. You might love it or you might hate it but you’ll never be bored. For the record, I loved it.

New Orleans – the first American city I spent any time in, and I’m so glad I did. What a place, so full of life and so very, very cool. I was there before the floods and feel very lucky because, as much as I hope I’m wrong, I’m not sure if it will ever be the same again.

Ottawa – I was expecting the Canadian version of Canberra but was more than pleasantly surprised to find a much bigger and grander city than I had envisaged. The British influence was quite strong in the architecture and culture.

Montreal – didn’t spend a lot of time there but was most impressed by what I did get to experience. I found it to be a city of rather effortless style and cool, with a great vibe and predictably exciting mash of French and English languages and cultures.

Buenos Aires – considered the most European of Latin American cities and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment. Ever so slightly over-rated by the likes of Lonely Planet IMO, it is still a very sophisticated place in terms of culture and style, with beautiful architecture and great variety. And then there’s the steak…

Rio de Janeiro – I was there for Carnival, and let’s be honest it’s tough not to enjoy yourself in the middle of the world’s biggest party. And party they do – beautiful, hedonistic people strutting the streets and beaches of a city that rivals Sydney as the most beautifully set of any I’ve seen.

Salvador – Brazil’s other party capital, with a different feel to Rio in a lot of ways. Very much focused on the people rather than the event, it’s another city dramatically set overlooking a bay and with a cultural heritage unmatched by few places in that part of the world.

Ouro Preto – not a major city but a gorgeous former mining town and now world heritage site in the hinterlands of Minas Gerais, with a collection of spectacular, gold-lined churches that can scarcely be bettered anywhere in new World.

Bogota – forget what you’ve heard and read about revolutions, guerrillas and drug cartels and just go there. An immensely vibrant, sophisticated city with brilliant museums, great nightlife and tremendously friendly people.

Cartegena – the jewel of Colombia, this magnificent walled port city overlooking the Caribbean is a must-see. Just walk around the sea-view ramparts or the cobbled streets and soak it all in. Wonderful.

Quito – one of the more understated Latin American capitals and without quite the grandeur or excitement of many, but an easy place to chill. A side trip to the (horribly touristy) Mitad del Mundo – the equator line – is a cool way to kill a day!

Lima – big, sprawling and dirty, the “city of kings” has some significant sights and happening nightlife, but in my opinion is merely a gateway to the far, far more interesting parts of Peru. And there are a lot of those.

Cuzco – the former Inca capital is a fantastic place with a truly and genuinely tangible sense of history. It’s gringo central, of course – you’ll feel that tourists outnumber locals a lot of the time – but a trip to Peru, indeed to South America as a whole, seems incomplete without it.

La Paz – a (literally) breathtaking location at 4000m above sea level, good food and drink, very friendly people and low, low prices make this one of my favourite South American cities for putting the trials of constant travel behind you and just sitting back and relaxing for day after day.

[Langeveldt]

Is there anywhere you don't like?

[The Sean]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

Is there anywhere you don't like?

Ha ha, well it was intended as a list of the places I've particularly liked (though TBF I wasn't exactly gushing in my praise of Hong Kong, Quito or Lima) - I didn't feel the need to list a host of cities that I didn't think much of, though I suppose that could make an interesting list too...

I've edited the first post to reflect that now.

[cover drive man]

Never been outside the U.K although I would recomend Devon. Nice place nice people(From what I've seen).