This Week’s Top 20 Australian Travel Deals on the Internet*

Travelzoo
22 MARCH 2011

$95

Metro Hotel Tower Mill

$96

Swissotel Nai Lert Park Bangkok

$170

Big4 Valley Vineyard Tourist Park

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Adventure travel & activities directory & search engine.
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Why you need travel insurance.

When planning a vacation or business trip, travel insurance is often one of the last things you think about, if at all, yet it’s one of the most important things to ensure your trip is stress free.

You carefully plan your holiday making sure you get exactly what you want and the best deal, but what if things go wrong?

This is why you need travel insurance. You never know what might happen.

At home you have a pretty good idea how things work, what risks you can take and where to get help when you need it.

But when you travel, it’s quite different. Especially if you’re traveling abroad but even when traveling in your own country.

You don’t know what kind of unexpected setbacks could affect you and your family while you’re away.

Here are some things you need to protect yourself against if you’re to have a safe, enjoyable and stress free trip.

1.    Things do go missing, get lost or stolen

2.    You can have an accident or become ill and need medical attention.

3.    Your travel arrangements can get cancelled or changed by your tour company

4.    Bad weather can affect your plans. Recent events across the world, floods, storms, cyclones, earthquakes etc have affected thousands of people’s plans resulting in additional travel costs, extra accommodation etc.

5.    Travel companies do go out of business

6.    You may incur legal expenses

7.    Things can go wrong back home and you may need to return

8.    Medical attention, dental treatment etc can cost a lot more abroad than they do at home, especially in the United States.

9.    You may need foreign help, with language or legal situations.

10.   You may need to change your plans for many different reasons.

11.    The world is unstable with terrorist threats and actions, and countries and regions do become unsafe.

12.    Hired equipment such as skis, snowboards, surfboards etc do get broken.

13.     Luggage does get damaged or get lost on flights

14.     Family illness etc can prevent you going on holiday.

15.     If you run your own business and can’t return, who will run it for you?

16.     And finally, the thing no-one likes to talk about, what happens if you or member of your family is injured or even die?.
So your travel insurance will give you peace of mind that if anything goes wrong, you have the protection and help you need.

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traveljunkies – adventure travel & activities directory & search engine.
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Some of the the best German-Style Beer Halls outside Germany

German Beer Halls are bigger than a pub and more boisterous than a restaurant.
Here are some of the best beer halls outside Germany.

Radegast Hall & Biergarten – Brooklyn, New York
Kunstmann Cervecería – Valdivia, Chile
Bier Halle – Glasgow, Scotland
Beer House – Tallinn, Estonia
Paulaner’s Bräuhaus – Cape Town, South Africa
Tawandang German Brewery – Bangkok, Thailand
Sapporo Beer Garden – Hokkaido, Japan
Löwenbräu Keller – Sydney, Australia

See picures and read more about each of them here

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When Is Cheap Travel Insurance Not Cheap?

When it doesn’t do the job when you really need it!

Every day there are thousands of Google searches for “Cheap Travel Insurance”

Today the Google Keywords Tool is showing 90,000 searches per month, that’s 3,000 per day.

But what is cheap? Does it mean the least amount of money to pay? Is something cheap because it costs less?

Yes, sometimes this is the case. Just like at the sales where something is discounted and costs less than the regular price, and when it’s both what you want and what you need, you have a bargain.

But how often do people buy something because it’s cheap only to find it isn’t quite what they thought, or doesn’t really meet their needs, and in some cases was something they didn’t actually need at all?

This isn’t so much a problem if it’s a coat or a pair of shoes etc. which can be sold (on Ebay?) or given to charity or just left in the cupboard.

But what if it’s something really important, like travel insurance?

It’s no good discovering later that what you bought because it was cheap doesn’t actually do the job when you really need it.

You find out the hard way that it’s no longer cheap but in fact can be very, very expensive.

In the next post we’ll talk about how to distinguish between Cheap Travel Insurance, that may turn out to be very expensive, and Good Value Travel Insurance that gives you exactly what you need at an affordable price.

Until then …. take care

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Ecotourism 101: How can children benefit from an ecotourism experience?

Courtesy of  Irene Lane – www.greenloons.com

Ecotourism is full of what educators call teachable moments or, more definitively, unplanned opportunities to explain a concept that has unintentionally captured a child’s interest.  Whether it is touring the rainforests of the Amazon, observing blue footed boobies throughout the Galapagos Islands, or understanding the water issues that surround the Okavango Delta in Botswana, ecotourism is a vacation experience that provides boundless opportunities to teach younger generations about the fragility of ecosystems and the significance of heritage.

Who among us has not witnessed the common occurrence while visiting the local zoo, going hiking through the wilderness or even watching a local artistic exhibit of children looking with absolute wonder and amazement at the spectacle of music, art, flora or fauna?  There is delight followed by an onslaught of illuminating questions about people and the natural world.  And, these teachable moments mark milestones for a child’s personal growth and development.  According to John Bakers of Amazonia Travel, the value system that is at the core of ecotourism can be a positive influence on all age groups, not just the young.  Specifically, children can benefit from an ecotourism vacation because the experience offers an opportunity for:

  • Instruction about indigenous wildlife – ecotours are not only small group tours that allow for up-close-and-personal views of nature, but ones that are generally led by a naturalist that have been trained to understand plants, birds, insects and animals and their relationships to ecosystems thereby bringing education alive
  • Increased awareness about environmental degradation – an important component of ecotourism is to inform tourists about ways to minimize waste, soil erosion, air and water pollution so as not to disturb the environment – lessons that no doubt will stay with children
  • Involvement with conservation efforts – whether it’s helping to record sea turtle activity in Greece or understand the destructive role of invasive plant species in the wilderness, ecotourism allows for deep knowledge of the fragility of the natural world
  • Focus on the depletion of natural resources – whether its learning about how an eco-lodge harnessed solar or wind power for their operations or how countries are implementing renewable bio-energy to power engines, ecotourism teaches how other countries are using low-carbon technologies today
  • Exposure to cultural experiences – from tasting new foods to learning phrases in a foreign language, ecotourism interprets cultural traditions and experiences that provide long-lasting impressions about the world
  • Inspiration for a life’s passion – while snorkeling through a coral reef or observing animals in their natural habitat in Africa, ecotourism sparks the imagination to dream about a career or even find a solution to an environmental problem

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Top 5 list of why exploring new lands and cultures is more important than ever

Courtesy of  Irene Lane – www.greenloons.com

In the age of travel alerts, political uprisings and airport security lines, it is no wonder why so few people travel outside of their home regions.  A recent article posted on CNN.com gave a grim view of Americans who prefer to not travel internationally for a myriad of reasons ranging from our general lack of interest and intense work culture to expensive airfares and logistics.

While some of these reasons may be legitimate, it does not mean that the sentiment should continue.  Now more than ever, Americans must brush aside their suspicions of international travel and, instead, begin a sincere exploration and discovery of nations and cultures.  This is because global issues of the economy, politics and environment will require more of us to do business with and learn the languages of other nations.

Traveling to faraway lands increases cultural sensitivity whereas fear and misunderstanding leads to upheaval.

Hence, my Top 5 reasons why it is imperative to travel internationally in this day and age are that:

  1. Travel enables us to make human (rather than social media) connections with one another and these connections are what will make the global economy mutually beneficial to all
  2. Travel empowers us to discuss and question our social customs and values
  3. Travel provides a different perspective on how regional subsistence issues affects international politics
  4. Travel allows for us to become more sensitive to other cultures whether it’s simply reading the local English language newspaper, tasting local delicacies or making a new friend who has a completely different viewpoint of the world
  5. Travel reveals to us a different outlook on the issues of poverty, race, and religion that is necessary in an age where political discourse within the media is so segmented

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