In light of the new terrorist news about the discovery of a terrorist plot in Brittain, the airports have a new ban list. Most notably, no liquids of any form are allowed on planes since the plot included terrorists bringing on bombs disguised as drinks.

In addition to liquids, Britain has banned many other items on fliights from their airport. Yahoo has a list of banned items.

Items that stick out (more…)

Recently, I’ve been getting into the watching the Travel Channel. So much so, that over 50% of the shows recorded on my Windows Media Center DVR are shows from the Travel Channel. I’m not sure whether to think of this as a good thing or a bad thing?? But nonetheless, I find some of their programming pretty fascinating. So I’m going to review some of the shows that they have.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations - My favorite show on the Travel Channel, and one of my top 8 shows on all of cable programming. This is the most uncut, no frills travel show on the air.

Unlike most other travel show hosts, Bourdain is a real traveller and experiences the genuine culture in the areas he visits. He doesn’t stay at the Ritz Carlton, and he doesn’t eat at five star restaurants. Bourdain stays with locals and drinks ayuasca. He most closely resembles the budget badass backpacker, and it really appeals to me.

Globe Trekker - Globe Trekker is a pretty good show. The show is hosted by a guy and a girl (I don’t remember their names) who travel no frills to a lot of different countries.

I like the concept of this show, because the hosts are on a low budget and stay at cheap hotels and eat at local restaurants. Basically, it is Passport to Europe, but for a fraction of the cost. This show can definitely give budget backpackers travel ideas.

One drawback of the show is that it might get a little boring. Anthony Bourdain has the ability to keep my attention no matter where he is visiting, where on Globe Trekker, the destination is the key to keeping my attention.

Passport to Europe - Obviously, about European travel. This show is ok to watch if nothing else is on.It is hosted by the annoying Samantha Brown from their show Great Hotels. This show is pretty much Great Hotels in Europe. She stays at nice hotels and eats at high quality restaurants. When she’s not showing off the hotel she’s at, she’s touring through the museums and other tourist attractions in the area.

I do not highly recommend it unless you want to scout out a destination that you plan to visit soon. But if you’re looking for cheap travel ideas, this is not the best the show to watch.

So there is my short review over a few travel channel shows. Maybe I’ve enlightened or inspired you to become a couch potato and watch more Tv. Hopefully.
[tags] travel, backpacking [/tags]

I was recently doing some research on the best budget airlines in Europe, and I ran across a neat site on google. It is Whichbudget.com. The site allows you to view the airline routes of all the budget a airlines around the world. This is especially helpful for those planning to travel through Europe, and want to know if Ryanair or EasyJet fly to their destination.

easyJet’s flight routes. WhichBudget allows travellers to surf through budget European flight routes a lot easier than the airlines’ websites.

So for example, if you go to the link to “fly out of” Maastricht, Netherlands, the site takes you to a page showing where all the cheap flights fly to from Maastricht.

The site also covers all of the other international airlines. So if you want to fly out of Chiang Mai, Thailand, you can find that Tiger Airways services them to Singapore.

Having a simple list of what flights are available gives any travel planner a starting point for searching for the best deals. It can especially be helpful when planning to fly out of more remote airports with fewer flights.

Hey. I decided to use a new theme for my blog. Along with my other online work I’ve been doing, I have been tweaking a new theme to implement on this blog.
When I started this blog, I was new to the whole blogging world and Wordpress. I hardly even read any blogs before I started blogging, so I did not know which theme to pick. Now that I got the hang of blogging a little more I decided I needed a changefor the following reasons:

1. I’m chlostraphobic - It is small, narrow & too compact.
2. Puke colors - I do not like the colors anymore. I want something new and lighter.
3. My niche - my niche is budget backpacking travel, and the clueless theme did not suit it. Wasn’t targeted a the audience that I am trying to appeal to.
4. My skills - I wanted to use my vast (hardly) CSS skills to tweak a new theme to my liking.
5. Did I mention space? I am infatuated with the three column themes…

So there you go, my new Budget Globetrotting theme. Expect to see it in the next few days. Stay tuned.

[tags] blogging, wordpress theme, blog, clueless[/tags]

Singapore’s budget airline Tiger Airways is making some real noise in budget airfares. Airfares can be had for 2 Singapore dollars, which is roughly $1.25. This is the cost before taxes and surcharges, obviously. Tiger Airways has a 15 kilo max for its checked in baggage, and it will probably have a hefty overage charge.

Nonetheless, Tiger Airways is pleasing budget travelers by creating cheap flights to Singapore. This makes every backpacker planning to travel in the area think about spending some of their trip in Singapore.

Tiger Airways flights service Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Darwin, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hanoi, Hat Yai, Ho ChiMinh City, Krabi, Macau, Manila (Clark), Padang, Phuket, Shenzhen, and obviously Singapore.Since you may not want to read the list above, here is a link to their flight maps.

Cnet’s Google blog has an entry on google’s plan to enter into the market of traveling. According to the story, Google is hiring for a travel position in Chicago. The writer speculates that Google will be teaming up with Orbitz (who is located in Chicago) to tackle the tourism industry.

What does this mean for budget travelers? Probably not much. Google will probably just integrate Orbitz travel deals into search and google videos. So unfortunately, they will probably not create a powerful search through unbooked hotels or airfare.
So do not expect Google to revolutionalize the online travel booking experience anytime soon.