Archive for July, 2009

Adventure Travel on a Motorcycle

Saturday, July 18th, 2009
An exotic, mystical and enchanting land with remote hill tribe villages, ancient ruins, beautiful coastlines and spectacular mountain views. Now imagine how much better it is to be visiting on a motorcycle, with the wind blowing against your face, sights, sounds and smells unmuffled by rolled up, tinted windows.

You see things differently on a motorcycle. You are no longer a passive observer watching the scenes go by, instead you are in the scene. The acrid smell of burning logs tickles your nose and the cold mountain air tingles your skin. You raise your arms for the low hanging tree branches, and the leaves brush by your fingers.

An adventure travel on a motorcycle is one of the best ways to see a country, especially in countries with challenging road infrastructure. Compared to its more glamorous counterpart, it is easier for a motorcycle to edge pass potholes and bomb craters. A motorcycle also makes it easier to go off the beaten track and explore narrow dirt roads and Filipina brides.

And there are a lot to explore in countries like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The mighty Angkor Wat in Cambodia, mysterious Plain of Jars in Laos and picturesque Sapa in Vietnam are but some of the famous attractions. There are plenty of waterfalls, lakes, rivers, hot springs, caves, mountains, jungles and temples to keep the traveller occupied. These South East Asian countries are also blessed with deep history and rich culture.

Because of the cultural and language barriers, it might seem difficult enough just to visit the countries, let alone renting a motorcycle and traveling cross-country. But many foreigners, including me, have made the same trips without much problems. Sure, the motorcycles do break down and we do lose our way once in a while. But, these are just part of the adventures and you can always depend on the friendly locals, who are armed with an uncanny ability to repair motorcycles and are always willing to point you out to the right direction.

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What to Look for in an Adventure Travel Company

Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Adventure travel is a great treat to those who are keen on traveling and exploring a lot. It is all about one’s passion for travel. Today, it is not all about just packing your backpacks and setting out on a tour. An adventure travel company will help you arrange and prepare for the whole trip. You do not have to worry about anything from starting to the end. This is great. This way, you can enjoy your trip without any tension.

You would also need to take help of an adventure travel company because you may have to face a number of situations or settings that you are not at all familiar.

An adventure travel company will help you in providing superb quality equipment, personal and knowledge on the kind of situations you may have to face while traveling to a foreign place.

The best thing about choosing an adventure travel company is that it will provide you many details that are an integral part of visiting to the most remote regions of any foreign nations.

An adventure travel company is one that works towards selling good package excursions to clients and enable them to reach out the most remote regions of foreign places. They make sure that the clients enjoy the trip and take part in many activities while on the trip without any difficulty. Some Adventure travel companies also provide guides or personal to their clients in order to provide nothing but the best.

When choosing a good adventure travel company, there are many things that you require to keep in mind.

Here are some tips on choosing the right adventure travel company:

a) Find a company:

You can find an adventure travel company from various sources. You can browse the world wide web, travel magazines or visit any of the local adventure travel company.

b) Research:

It is very important to make a research on adventure travel companies prior to opting for one. This will let you know how many adventure travel companies are there, the kinds of services they provide and how one is better than the other is.

c) Compare:

Compare various adventure travel companies, the services they provide, the price they provide their services at and the place they would offer you to visit.

d) Contact personally:

It is very important to establish a contact personally via email, phone conversation or meeting in person.

e) Make a list:

It is natural to have many queries when deciding on adventure travel company to set out on a trip. Hence, it is very important to jot down all your questions on a paper.

When talking to an adventure travel company executive, make sure you get answers to all your questions. Try to ask the company about the means of transportation, accommodations offered, camping opportunities, providence of equipment medical precautions required, help provision during a medical ailment, the political situation of the company you would be traveling, cancellation policy, insurance and a lot more.

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Luxury Adventure Travel to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands

Sunday, July 5th, 2009
Michael Donner asked:


Nothing sounds more exotic or exciting than luxury adventure travel to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. Let’s take these one at a time and see what you would be getting if you indulged yourself with luxury adventure travel of this kind.

First the Galapagos Islands. Luxury adventure travel to the Galapagos Islands is following the footsteps of Charles Darwin and the Beagle, as he formulated his theory of evolution by studying the life forms on these islands, untainted by human hand for thousands of years. You can try to spot the blue-footed boobies waddling among the hundred year old 600 pound tortoises, or seek out the Amblyrhynchus, a three-foot long, iguana resembling a dinosaur that lives only on these islands.

You could make your initial stop to tour Quito, and have a look around one of the Indian markets nearby, such as the Saquisili Indian market, and buy a hand-made Panama hat – these are made in Ecuador, not Panama! Quito itself offers a great deal to the adventurer, and you will be able to straddle the equator – one foot in the northern and another in the southern hemisphere. Quito was destroyed by the Indians to prevent it being taken by Pissarro, and rebuilt by the Spanish colonialists.

Then take a business class flight on your first stage to tour the Galapagos Islands, and transfer to a luxury cruiser to visit Espanol Island, the first of the Galapagos Islands you will visit. Don’t forget that this is luxury adventure travel to the Galapagos Islands, and that you should want for nothing: the best accommodations and personal attention.

After admiring the iguanas, which swim only at this island, cruise over to Santa Cruz, and visit the Charles Darwin Research Station at Academy Bay, where you will check out the captive tortoise and iguana breeding centers. After crossing the equator, Genovesa Island can be very deceiving. The quietness of this volcanic area lulls you into a false sense of security, because you will shortly enter Darwin Bay and be assaulted by the sound of thousands of birds of many different types: boobies (both blue and red footed), Audubon’s shearwaters, noddies and red billed tropicbirds among many others. This is an ornithologist’s heaven.

Wreck Bay (I wonder how it got that name) on San Cristobal is the administrative capital of the Galapagos and you can fly from there back to Ecuador, connecting in Guayaquil for your flight to Lima. This is the start on the second part of your vacation: Luxury Adventure Travel to Machu Picchu. However, why rush it? Why not first have a look around some of the other places that Peru has to offer?

Take a trip to Cuzco: at three miles high, one of the highest cities in the world. Imagine your 100 meters time here! When you get this high, you have to take it easy or you could become ill, so let yourself acclimatize after your sea-level trip to the Galapagos Islands. Give it a day and then head off for a tour to Chincero in the Urubamba Sacred Valley, to learn something about the old ways of the Incas. Keep in mind that is a luxury vacation, and in keeping with that you should also visit La Cicciolina, which one of the best restaurants in this part of the world. Now you are ready for your luxury adventure travel to Machu Picchu!

What better than a luxury train ride on the Hiram Bingham train to the lost city, enjoying champagne and a top class brunch on the way. It was Yale historian, Hiram Bingham, who brought Machu Picchu to the attention of the civilized world in 1911, and wrote his first book on his finding under the title “The Lost City of the Incas”. In fact the city had been constructed around 1460, when the Inca Empire was at its peak, and it is believed that it was abandoned less than 100 years later due to an outbreak of smallpox killing most of the inhabitants.

Although many think it had ceremonial origins, current belief is that it was an estate of the Incan emperor, Pachacuti, and it is certainly not mentioned in any of the writings of the Spanish conquistadores. Whatever its purpose, this is an extraordinary city, totally invisible from below, and completely self-contained with its own springs and terraces devised to produce enough food to feed a large population. It also possesses baths, storage rooms, temples and around 150 houses.

It is not enough to travel this far and simply walk around the ruins, or those of them that you are permitted to visit. The ecosystem around the area is fascinating, and luxury adventure travel to Machu Picchu would be incomplete without learning more about this cloud forest. For the botanist there are more than 372 species of orchid to enjoy, from the lady’s slipper to tiny specimens needing a magnifying glass to appreciate.

Finally, when you return to Lima why not complete your luxury vacation and visit the Larco Herrera Museum, then take a private tour of the city, visiting both the modern and the old colonial areas of Lima.

You don’t get to enjoy luxury adventure travel to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Island very often, and you want it to be a wonderful experience, so find a tour company that can offer you personal attention, and with planners that can offer you a personal vacation just for you and a partner. That is far better than joining 48 others, and enables you to enjoy true luxury vacation with luxury travel, accommodation and cuisine that you will remember forever.



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Taking Sport to Its Limits

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Jaks Lloyd asked:


Around the nineteen eighties a new term, extreme sports, evolved to embrace the growing development of sporting activities that involved an increased element of individualism coupled with an element of danger not associated with traditional sports.

Eagerly taken up by the youth of the day as well as adults, activities such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, sky diving, rock climbing, mountaineering and scuba diving grew in popularity aided by the growth in disposable incomes enjoyed by teenagers and the twenty pluses.

During the last twenty-five years, largely due to the recognition by the marketing industry of the potential for profit, extreme sports have undergone a significant demographic change.

Adults still involve themselves in the more established extreme sports but the emphasis has changed to involving youth and promoting activities that, while still needing high levels of skills and dicing with danger, also require specialized gear and clothing.

If you are a parent you will know the importance of brand names to the young and the marketing boys were quick to exploit this new market.

Nowadays the term extreme sports has become associated with youth culture and the popularity of the specialized sporting activities that the younger generation have become involved in.

From the beginning most extreme sports have differed from conventional sports in two major areas, they are not a team effort and neither is competition against another a required element.

It is the rush of adrenalin associated with facing and overcoming a potentially dangerous, or even life threatening, obstacle that provides the buzz that modern over protected youth craves for.

As an example take a look at skate boarding, is there any adult out there that has not been amazed by the dangerous stunts that these kids seem able to perform so nonchalantly.

However they have to wear what looks like a quite a large amount of specialized gear to perform in.

Apart from the skateboard there are elbow and knee protectors, safety helmet and don’t forget the trendy designer label clothing and footwear.

BMX racing, snowboarding, wind surfing, paragliding and all the other youth orientated extreme sports have one thing in common and that is expensive gear.

So parents be warned, encourage your children to take up a traditional sport, tennis football, baseball, cricket, hockey, athletics or swimming.

Oops, sorry, made a mistake as they all need expensive gear and most are just as dangerous as many so called extreme sports. I suppose all we can do is grin and bear it, pay the bills and pray they stay safe.



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