Books that will take you there

By now you’ve probably realized that I spend a fair amount of the work day talking travel with colleagues. Now and again I do change it up and talk about travel… books. With only a few weeks of vacation, sometimes I need to escape vicariously. I make a habit of checking in regularly with other passionate travellers to find out what they are reading. I don’t have a lot of time to read, so I am always in search of those stellar books that really take you on an adventure with the turning of each page. You know the books I mean, the ones where you can feel the warmth of the sun on your face or smell the local cuisine. As the author builds the characters she paints vivid images in your mind of the surroundings and you find yourself longing to experience this destination for yourself. Funny it seems my reading time these days if often on planes, don’t you love an airport with a good bookstore? Books and travel just go together so well.

Favorite travel books have defined destinations for me, before I visit the destination and then as I explore the destination the book becomes the frame of reference – this was the case with In a Sun Burnt Country—Bill Bryson’s colourful book about Australia. The book painted such an amazing picture of Australia that in my mind there are some memories that I can’t recall if I experienced the cultural icon or read about them, perhaps that says more about my memory than the quality of the book.

Other books transport me back to those favorite destinations where I longed to linger just a little longer. True escapism is reading somebody else’s vivid tales when their interests and reactions to cultural experiences mirror the exact ones I had in that country, reading such books truly creates mini vacations.

I’ve sorted a few of my favorites by destination and are as follows:

Around the World
Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks
Leaving Microsoft to Save The World by John Woods

Russia
To Russia with Fries by George Cohon

France
A Year in the Merde (and all the sequels to this one all provide ample opportunity for a good laugh) by Stephen Clarke
Weekend in Paris by Robyn Sisman
French Woman Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano – I actually ‘heard’ this book (audio books are such a great way to get through more books on a jammed pack schedule) this one is read by the author with an appropriate and quaint French accent which truly brought the stories to life.

Various Countries
Red White and Drunk All Over by Natalie MacLean – a Native Nova Scotian’s self discovery of wine throughout France and California. I appreciate the back roads overview of France offered in this book, it went well beyond typical portrayals of Paris and Provence and much of book was set in the area of France where I too had lived.
Bill Bryson (anything) and including: In a Sun Burnt Country, Notes from a Small Island, I’m a Stranger Here Myself
Eat Love and Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert

Here are just two on my list that I have not read but that come highly recommended by passionate travellers: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (on Pakistan and Afghanistan) Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy is sure to have you dreaming of a vacation in Greece.

What’s on your list of books that will take you there?

Until next time
Melanie Taljaard

Blogging, Logging, and Sharing those Memories

With digital cameras, cameras on your phones, expanded memory cards, laptops that go virtually everywhere, it is easy to come home with hundreds and thousands of pictures, but what next?

What is the best way to store and share all those moments? Not everyone is on Facebook and the album size is limited, but it is so easy and based on your status, friends have already been asking you about your trip.

I take a ton of photos – and with half of our family living a few continents away I have had a chance to evaluate a few tools for sharing photos and here are my favorites.

Shutterfly is a great tool for creating and sharing albums and perhaps the best place to start if you are not keen on social networking tools like Facebook. The interfaces are very user friendly. It is easy to add comments to photos, and to reorder them. You can create one large album with all the photos and then create different albums just selecting some of the photos from the main album. It is also very easy to order prints from Shutterfly. I am now using Picasa (a Google tool) it offers a few more features for online photos (but does not offer the ability to order prints or other photo products). Here is a link that compares sites like Shutterfly and Picasa. With Picasa make sure that you mark your albums private – otherwise they can be publicly searched.

While I love the ease of sharing photos online I am still largely attached to looking at physical photos. I think photo books are the perfect tool to affordably capture all travel memories. You can have photo books created through camera shops and online photo service providers. I have produced many books through www.blurb.com and I am always pleased by the results.

You simply download the software to your PC and then upload photos. There are countless templates, formats and adaptations that can be made. Once images are uploaded on a photoshare site you can do a highlights album on Facebook or simply post the link to your photo site on Facebook.

These memory keepers are surprisingly affordable too. Pricing depends on cover options and length, but a recent book with over a hundred pages (and several hundred photos) cost just over $50 US I couldn’t have printed all the pictures for that. I’d also suggest that once you do the work of putting the book together, print some extras (you can quickly just change a title or dedicate page and give the children each their own copy).

Until next time
Melanie Taljaard

Must Have Travel Accessories and Gadgets

I am back at it; the actual vacation wasn’t quite as long as the vacation from my blog entries. The trip was great – and there were many moments and experiences worth a blog entry—while I sift through those experiences I have to tell you about my new must have travel gadget.

Of course, there are countless nifty tools to be had, over the years I have gathered a few items that add a great deal of benefit for the little space and weight they take up. On our recent trip to Florida, I found a new tool that I didn’t know I needed, and now I won’t travel without.

For years, my Ipod was the must pack item. It serves so many purposes – of course music on the plane (often used to tune out other passengers as well), an alarm clock, it stores favorite photos and notes too. I also love to load my Ipod with audio books and walking tours of the select destination. The more modern hotels have caught on to travelers attachment to ipods and started offering docking stations in hotel rooms.

Recently the Ipod has slide off the list of must pack items (fortunately there is still room for both). While in Florida, I fell in love with the GPS. Until now I didn’t think I needed a GPS, and living in Halifax I probably don’t need one. But when I travel anywhere that I will have to drive I’ll be packing the GPS.

For navigating a new city, there was nothing like it. I instantly fell in love with the GPS. While until now I have survived by asking for directions or preprinting out directions, but, it is so easy to take a wrong turn from those directions. With the GPS of course, it simply recalculates and sets you right. I also loved the time to destination feature.

So in case I am not the last person in the world to fall in love with this tool, if you don’t have a GPS you must try one on your next vacation. Most major rental car companies offer GPS tools as an add-on to a rental or if you do the math, you might be better off buying one before the trip. Either way it is now on my must pack list. If you are a little technology shy—not to worry, these tools are very user friendly.

Here are just a few of the others in my must pack list – a journal – despite all the technology in my suitcase I can find countless uses for a good notebook. I have also started packing a pashmina wherever I go. These oversized scarves come in handy all the time – from a mini blanket on the plane to taking the chill off in cold conference rooms or restaurants or used for wrapping up fragile items upon my return as well. I now take one wherever I go.

I’m still sitting on the fence on the hand held scale (for suitcase weighing that is). I didn’t throw it in the suitecase this time, I thought it was adding extra weight to the case, but after a little shopping I wondered if I’d be paying for extra baggage. I knew I wasn’t over the total limit, but now with carriers putting a strict 50 lb per bag limit, I could have used the scale to evaluate the distribution.

In light of all the crazy travel news of late, I have to mention one more must pack – insurance! There have been times when I have skipped insurance – thinking I am young and healthy. Then I realized that baggage departments and weather delays do not discriminate based on health or age. Get the travel insurance – it is affordable and protects you against virtually any travel hiccup.

What are you must have travel accessories or gadgets?

Until next time
Melanie