I have a confession… I, very briefly, worked for a company selling travel insurance. Yes, I am ashamed, but though the memories of the job still grate me, it did give me an insight into a product that many travellers would rather ignore. Though it may be at odds with your desire to escape a […]

What would you say if I told you that for 15 months we travelled extensively through China and South East Asia and returned home with more money than we started with? Yup, teaching English abroad is becoming a well established way to see the world regardless of whether your bank balance is on your side […]

Half the fun of travelling is sampling national delicacies and, whilst food is one area where you can save significant money, it’s important not to let your budget ruin your experience. Certainly, with a bit of thought you can sample those regional dishes without emptying your wallet.
Avoid restaurants recommended in major guidebooks
Unfortunately, the moment a […]

Planes are a necessary evil for all budget travellers and, try as you might, you very rarely come across a fare that is, for lack of a better word, fair. There are some exceptions to this rule that we will discuss shortly but, on the whole, buying plane tickets is always about damage limitation. However, below are […]

I’d like to say that when I think of Ireland many things come to mind. However, the truth of the matter is that, other than leprechauns, I don’t really know anything about our island dwelling friends. Sure, the political and religious difficulties Ireland has faced throughout history have been slowly drummed into me by the […]

Imagine a place where all the laws and taboos that have been ingrained into your mind since adulthood don’t apply. Better yet, imagine this place actually exists and is just short plane journey away. No, I’m not talking about Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, I’m talking about Amsterdam.
To be fair, despite its reputation, there is far more […]

If you were the Sultan of a tiny country that had, to be honest, nothing going for it, and then, much to your joy, you discovered that you were in fact sitting upon untold amounts of oil, would you:
a. Celebrate by building a US$350 million palace?
b. Allow your brother to go on a US$16 billion […]

We’d always intended to climb Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia’s 4101m monster, but, as we worked our way across Borneo towards our destination, we began to hear increasingly frightening stories from our ever-informative ‘fellow travellers’.
Altitude sickness was the biggest complaint - pounding headaches, a shortness of breath and, according to some, an almost complete physical shutdown (sounds […]

Situated over 4500 meters above sea-level on the old Tibetan border in China, Zhongdian is, in every sense of the word, breathtaking. Whilst not particularly hard to reach, Zhongdian has, as of yet, managed to avoid the perils of mass tourism and successfully clung on to its unique old border town atmosphere. Certainly, from its […]

Well, we’re still in Chengdu. The bus ride here from Guilin went fairly smoothly although the driver stopped every hour or so to pick up ‘extra passengers’. It’s pretty funny because everytime our bus approached a police checkpoint the driver would stop about 200m away, let the illegal passengers off and, once the police had […]