I’ve already revealed that I enjoy visiting creepy old graveyards on my travels, such as the Boston Common cemetery. New Orleans, Louisiana has several famous cemeteries, so when I visited in 2010, a stop at one of them was a must.

We chose to visit Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, which was established in 1833 and is located in the Garden District. We took the historic St. Charles streetcar, pictured below, which stops a block away from the cemetery. We took a walking tour that explored the Garden District and then the cemetery. You can visit these on your own, but we enjoyed having a local guide explain the rich history to us.

According to the Lafayette Cemetery Research Project, “Within its walls lies the possibility to trace aspects of the city’s growth from Creole settlement (1718), to American (1803), to a thriving city of immigrants and beyond. Major figures from the Civil War are interred here, and, in fact, individuals and families located here have living descendants who are active members of our community today.” The cemetery has been featured in many movies, such as Interview with a Vampire (whose author, Anne Rice, has a house in the same neighborhood!).

Because New Orleans is below sea level, the graves have to be above ground (I’ll leave it to you to imagine why). This leaves the cemeteries with ornate mausoleums and creepy above-ground coffins. Following are pictures from this famous cemetery. I’m just glad we went on a bright, sunny day…

An empty one to show how the coffins would stack in

Our guide told us that these are the mausoleums of four families who were close friends and wanted to be buried by each other

Wouldn't be NOLA without some Mardi Gras beads

Kids who died of Yellow Fever

Our tour guide

Have you been to any of the New Orleans cemeteries?

The following is a guest post by Kian Rackley.

From April to August, while the rest of Vietnam struggles with rain and strong humidity, Vietnam’s central areas tend be largely dry and hot. This anomalous gap in weather pattern is the perfect opportunity escape on a series of Vietnam tours, get some beach time down and dodge the crowds!
Although resorts are springing up that are a throwbacks to overcrowded regions of the Costa del Sol, Vietnam has largely managed the rise in tourist numbers well. That Vietnam also 1,000 miles of coastline is a help! Central Vietnam has four major hubs: Danang, Nha Trang, Hue and Hoi An. Here we’ll cover two contrasting options: Da Nang and Hoi An.

Da Nang, Vietnam

Da Nang:

Da Nang is the region’s tourist hub. It’s home to the largest regional airport (international). After a one-hour flight from Saigon, you’ll find crystal white sands, beautiful island scenery and outstanding coral reefs! Beaches of note include the beach at Mỹ Khê and China beach. Many of these sandy stretches were frequented and, arguably, popularized by American troops on R&R during the war. Elsewhere in Danang there is ample room to find a quiet coastal spot, but the areas closer to town tend to be perpetually busy. Of the four hubs, Da Nang has the most ‘vibrant’ nightlife – by this we’re talking a few bars and handful of small nightclubs, all popular with backpacking crowds.

If you yearn to mix beach and culture, then the impressive Long Son Pagoda is worth a visit and the Marble Mountains are arguably the highlight. Said to represent the five elements, these limestone outcrops offer great views of the city, Buddhist retreats and numerous hidden caves, which can make a great photo! For shopping, make your way to the Han Market.

Accommodation options are numerous, but budget options are a little harder to find. Almost all the accommodation in centered on the sea front. An excellent luxury option for your tour is the Fusion Maia. Centrally located this hotel offers a great escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, and the onsite spa is divine! The Mercure and Furama are also solid 4* options. As always, check out TripAdvisor.

Hoi An Market in Vietnam

Hoi An:

This town is arguably Vietnam’s most-loved but least-known charm. Located just 15 minutes from the coast, the ancient port town of Hoi An has the perfect fusion of location, culture and sheer beauty! Resonating the various trading cultures that have visited and settled in the town the small streets are dotted with French-colonial, Japanese and Chinese shop-fronts. These features are compounded by the town’s lack of urban development and idyllic location on the Thu Bon river. At night, the streets are beautifully illuminated, and by day, open their doors for some of Vietnam’s best shopping. Their specialties include tailoring and an array of crafts. Hoi An is a must for any Vietnam tour!

Elsewhere in the town, you can visit the rather gaudy innards of the Guangdong or Fukien Chinese Assembly hall or mingle with the fish mongers at one of Hoi An’s markets. Perhaps owing to its ethnically diverse history, Hoi An is home to some great restaurants. Try the Mango Rooms for a more modern flavor, any of the amazing patisseries (the cake and coffee are sublime, a more positive legacy of the French!), the NGO-run Streets International or the excellent Casa Verde, all of which are centrally located. If you want to get hands-on, then get yourself to one of the town’s many cooking schools!

Accommodation options on the beach just outside of town (about 15 minutes by cab) are well managed and many have access to the beach, albeit due to shifting sands, a little shallower than expected. Nonetheless, they offer incredible views of the south China Sea and a few islands that dot the coastline. Relaxing by the beach, you’ll watch some of the local fisherman make their daily commute out to sea and the often listless sea bounce back the sun’s rays. All said, coastal accommodation in Hoi An offers great access to town and convenient tranquility. A great little beach spot is the Cua Dai Beach. With rolling white sands dotted with palm trees, it’s a great place to settle down with a book or sit down with a cold beer and watch the sunset!

About the author: Kian is part of the team at Travel Indochina and has traveled extensively throughout Asia. Next on this list is India and he recently returned from Vietnam. Top Asia travel tip: find one of those plastic street-side chairs, order a beer then, sit, watch and listen! Check out Kian’s Google+ profile.

The following post is by Walker Lukens, my good friend who is now a contributing writer on Maiden Voyage. He is currently on a month-long trip in Africa. Read his last post here.

View from our Ngorongoro hotel. Thanks be to jetlag for this epic sunrise photo.

I wake up fully refreshed at 4:30 a.m. I don’t want to disturb my mom sleeping in the bed next to mine so I decide to go read on the porch. One step out and all the peaceful night time noises are now in my face, crawling down my legs and flying into my torso. I see twenty feet in front of me a large black mass turn it’s two-horned head toward me and snort. I stick my head in the door, tell my mom to come look but before she can make it over, the water buffalo runs off into the brush….

—–
8 a.m. Winding down the west side of the crater, all visible mountains are covered with green pasture. Maasai warriors are the only people in sight. The pastures are dotted with groups of their small huts—from far away they look like half-submerged balls of brown earth—surrounded by wooden wreaths. It’s tacky, I know, but I can’t stop myself from trying to sneak photos of them. Their robes, which I see now are intricately woven patterns similar to keffiyehs, and their black skin are gorgeous against the green and blue of the terrain. Muhammad can’t tell us why they wear red or blue except that they always have. The little children react to my camera and smiles by shouting phrases in English and waving. The adults look displeased, however, and Mohammad tells me they’re saying ‘pay me money for that’ in Kiswahili. Probably in a effort to stop me from taking photos and assuaged my curiosity, he suggests we go visit a village. We can pay a tribe $50 and they’ll give us a tour of their village and we can take all the pictures we want. I can’t figure out if this is some kind of special deal that he’s found, if there’s a particular village that does this, or if its going to be a sort of World’s Fair style exhibition.

West of Ngorongoro crater

We say yes and quickly find out that all Maasai villages do this. (We start to pass safari cars parked outside of many of them.) After leaving the mountain terrain, we pull into one of the villages. Mohammad exchanges a few words with the man who comes up to greet our car. Mom and I are uncomfortable at this point, not wanting to be spectators at an ancient and sacred ritual. Rough Guide to Tanzania says, “depending on your sensibilities, the experience can either be an enlightening and exciting glimpse into the ‘real’ Africa, or a rather disturbing and even depressing encounter with a people seemingly obliged to sell their culture in order to survive.” I only read this after. In the end it’s both.

A troop of Maasai men and woman walk out from the village twenty or thirty feet from our position. They’re divided by gender. The women are to our right and the men are about thirty feet to the left of the woman. Behind them unending sun-dried red dirt, the occasional acacia tree and further the barely-visible remainder of mountains. A boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, makes his way over to us. He introduces himself and explains that they are going to do a traditional welcome song and dance for us. Mom and I are at maximum discomfort level at this point but, once it begins, we see laughter, smiles, varying degrees of enthusiasm, eye rolling…. It’s clear that they’ve done this before and take it pretty lightly.

The male and female groups are each lead by one person. They begin a phrase and the group repeats. The male and female sections are not singing the same phrases. Rhythmically and melodically, they’re not in unison either (at least in any way akin to Western music.) The men sing rounds in low guttural tones. The women do the same in high shrill voices. The result is a sort of nebulous choir piece and the effect is hypnotic. (If I was a music journalist, I might call it cacophonous white spiritual.)

They finish and we’re led towards the village—two concentric circle fences with huts lining the outside one and a large tree at the center of the inner circle. Discomfort level is back up. We’re taken into the inner circle and told that we’ll hear another song. The singers, still divided by gender, are much closer to us now. Other, non-participating tribes men close us into the circle from behind. We’re in their home. We’re inside their private conversations and have no idea what they’re saying (is it us?) I feel their breath, smell their smell and hear their music. The same boy who took the money explains that they use the money to buy water and point to hundreds of plastic barrels. This song is even better than the last one—louder and more powerful since they’re closer. The men’s part is a shorter round and the vocal tone is closer to a growl. There’s still a leader but also someone jumping very high into the air at the end of each turn.

The second song from the Maasai

We go through the motions of being honored guests who deserve a welcoming song although neither host nor guest believes in it. In fact, we’re just paying customers at a poorly staged performance put on for non-native curiosos: no comfortable distance between spectator and performer, no seats, no beverages for sale and no playbill. Yet by failing to be a proper performance a more powerful and vertiginous outcome is achieved; two Americans in the middle of an alien ceremony, smack in the middle of a village and its people, in the middle of a country in the middle of a continent in a corner of the world that we poorly understand. The impulse is there to compare it, to tame it, to disconnect from it even, but for a moment there it’s just strange and frightening and beautiful.

Maasai men can jump (and sing.) The leader is the man closest to the camera on the left.

Then, the feeling’s over. I’m coaxed into doing the jump with the men’s group. (This being the volunteer-from-the-audience portion of the magic show.) Discomfort spreading to cheeks and dripping down my back. No surprise: this white man can’t jump either (I had to, sorry.) The song finishes and we’re taken outside of the inner circle and deposited in front of several tables full of jewelry and crafts.

While all of it is well-made and unique, none of it is something I’m looking for. We both buy some stuff out of guilt. Then our guide leads us into one of the huts. It’s eight or nine foot in diameter and I can only half stand-up. The frame of the hut is built out of branches and the walls are made of newspaper, cardboard, mud and animal hair. We learn this is the home of one of the chief’s wives and her children. He has ten wives and he spends each night with a different one of them. This tribe will live here for two or three months before they move in search of fresh pasture for their cattle and rebuild their entire village. I ask what will become of this village and he shrugs and says another group will probably take it. We find out that the hut is also constructed using manure and human urine, which are great adherents apparently. My mom, while maintaining her cool, goes a little pale realizing we’re surrounded by this.

Inside of a Maasai hut

It all could have ended here but we’re lead out to a school house behind the village where a class of adorable little children, four or five years old maybe, demonstrates their ABCs for us in English. Our guide asks us for the money and asks if we can give it to him in small bills. Half the money will go directly to the chief, he says. Turns out the chief is also the kindergarten teacher and I see our guide hand over the money to him. (I still wonder where that other half went.) He tells me that an NGO gave them this chalkboard and the chalk a few years ago. Then, he asks me how ‘we’ learn at our home. (Is the question a standard part of the tour?) I say that its similar—it is the same methodology—but the differences, my privilege, are too much to articulate.

Maasai school children. Notice the Barack and Michelle Obama on that little boy's t-shirt

I ask the guide where he learned English and he tells me that he went to primary school fourteen kilometers away. That means he walked to and from school seven plus miles every day. It also means that at his age he’s probably done with his education. Most of the other boys in his age group have already left the village. They’ve gone to look for work and, as I’ve seen since, are all over Tanzania working as security guards, taxi drivers, porters, waiters—almost always they are wearing their traditional garb.

The Maasai have not benefited from the westernization of Tanzania. Still nomadic today, they used to roam all over the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, up into Kenya and down into central Tanzania. However, their territory has been reduced dramatically over the last 100 years. First, by the Germans and British who kicked them out of the Serengeti and Central Tanzania, and then by the Tanzanian government who limited them to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area only. How do you incentivize a nomadic tribe to opt into your economy? One way is to force them by taking away their water. There was a time when you could see them in Ngorongoro Crater but since the seventies they have no water rights to the lake there and their cattle cannot stay over night. Their herds of cattle ate tons of grass and reduced the amount of wild herds e.g. wildebeest and zebras, which in turn reduced the predator population and therefore safari-goers, money, etc. Now, the Maasai have to pay for water—and, indeed, ‘sell their culture in order to survive.’

I learn later that we could have haggled and gotten a lower price. I met some folks who proudly told me that they got the same treatment for $12. Did we see a $50 show? No, but we did glimpse contemporary Tanzania at perhaps its most incongruous angle. A tribe largely uninterested in ‘Tanzania,’ the sovereign state, working increasingly mobile and curious tourists on as favorable terms as they can. “… [This is]…the irrationality of the various statehoods imposed on Africa…that, for example makes ‘Kenyans’ out of one half of the Masai [sic] and ‘Tanzanians’ out of the other,” writes Shiva Naipaul about 1970′s Africa. This morning, we were witness to this irrationality or, perhaps, absurdity as it exists in 2012. The absurdity of having to simplify your culture into some ‘authentic’ form for tourists hunting after mementos, anecdotes, and perspective—the irrationality of thinking you can know someone else after an hour.
—-
1 p.m. A friend once told me that he loved returning to his hometown in West Texas because the sky is so big and the land so flat that he remembers how unimportant he is in the scheme of things. Driving into the eastern Serengeti gave me a similar feeling. The gravel road cutting through the unnervingly flat green plain. Deep blue sky stacked on top. The occasional outcroppings of rock and trees (without which we can’t mark our progress.) The big rainy season-sized clouds (without which we wouldn’t feel the shape of the sky). And, of course, the animals. Far away pairs of ostriches. Giraffe families. Zebras herds. Gazelles. I don’t feel unimportant so much as I feel like one fast, armored animal among many different kinds—as entitled to this place as they are. (For shame, that we forget that.) We’re zipping along in a big car, the windows are down, my mom says she feels like she’s water skiing and its awesome.

Eastern Serengeti

—–
3 p.m. I was told before leaving that you know you’ve got a good guide when every time he passes another safari car, they stop and exchange information. Through this method, Mohammad learns that there’s a leopard in a tree. He’s experienced enough not to tell us and to just take us there (what if the leopard leaves?) but we’re driving with more intention now. The terrains has changed. Taller grass, subtle hills, scattered trees. The roof is up and my mom and I are standing on the seats with binoculars around our necks. Other safari cars are also there. Leopards are nocturnal and this guy is trying to nap. This is one of the moments on the trip where I wish I had splurged on a nice camera. From a glance, you can only distinguish the leopard from the tree branch by his paw hanging down. A harder look reveals that his tail flicks ever so often. When he takes a deep breaths, his body does a lazy shudder. Then he looks at us, stands up on the branch—the top of his torso barely visible between the leaves—and extends himself upward so his legs are at their full length. Every muscle is fully flexed. His sharp teeth glare out of his wide open mouth. He looks at us again. Sit back down now with his head resting in the other direction. He was just stretching.

The car next to us is full of Americans and they have all of the hallmarks of a study abroad group. There’s one guy and many girls. Some have taken to dressing like the Tanzanians. Everyone is terribly sunburned. The conversations shifts between ‘the leopard they saw yesterday,’ goading the boy into getting out of the car (which is illegal by the way), ethnocentrism, and various anecdotes from earlier in their Tanzanian adventure. At one point, one of the girls asks the guide if they will see any honey badgers on this trip. The guide looks confused. Here they are looking at a leopard! One of the big five! One of the fiercest animals on earth! Why does she want to see a honey badger, he asks politely. She declines to explain. He says that they are hard to see in the tall grass. (Honey badger definitely don’t give a fuck about your African adventure, girl.)
—–
5:00 p.m. The terrain continues to evolve, the trees getting denser, the grass becoming shorter again, and the hills more pronounced. The stark blue sky and pale green plain from before have been replaced by many shades of green. At times, the bush is so dense the yellow grass is fully blocked for hundreds of feet. Our gaze moves up and down the hillsides for animals.

We see three female lions sleeping fifty yards from the road. While every one of their movements is imbued with significance for us in reality they’re just stretching like the leopard. For the first time we see baboon families occupying huge swaths of land. Some lope across the grass, others groom each other, some climbs trees, all are cute.

We come across a broken down safari car on the side of the road. The driver is Muhammad’s friend so he stops to help him. The family is milling about the car and the driver is putting on the spare. The man has a discreet Americanness about him: Cargo pants, corporate tee shirt over his paunch, goatee, wavy hair slicked back from sweat under his safari hat. Restless, he walks over to offer his guide some help. Then, he walks back to talk to his daughter. Then, he pokes his head in the car to check on his son. His hands rest on his hips then move to his pockets.

I’m tired of driving and feeling social so I go over and ask how long they’ve been here. He says not too long. Our guides must know each other I say and he agrees. His guide seems to know everybody he adds. I ask where they’re from and he tells me that he’s ‘out of D.C. And she’s out of New York.’ We’re roughly the same age, the girl and I. I ask which part and she tells me the East Village. I live in Williamsburg. We smile and make eye contact for a second. We live across a river from each other but we’re meeting here in this nondescript part of the Serengeti. My mind’s trying to work out the logistics of how we both got here at the same time and yet have never seen and probably never will see each other at home. The world doesn’t feel small to me. It feels helplessly big and complex. When so many of the most important things come down to timing how is this improbable meeting so meaningless? The moment’s not magical. It’s solipsistic. I can account for myself but everything else—a dumbfounding ‘how.’

We leave the feeling hanging there. We never exchange names.

About the author: Walker Lukens is a musician and ESL teacher who, most recently, was living in New York, NY. He loves traveling and has been all over the US, Canada, the Caribbean and Western Europe. He has also spent time in Brazil, Israel/Palestine and Serbia. Find him at WalkerLukens.com or on Facebook.

The following post is by Walker Lukens, my good friend who is now a contributing writer on Maiden Voyage. He is currently on a month-long trip in Africa.

My mom, travel companion and temporary Tanzanian resident, booked our safari through Antelope Safaris. Safari companies, and tourism in general, are big business in Tanzania. There are hundreds of different companies to choose from and tons of ways to get ripped off. You want to book with a company that has a TALA license and also with one that requires you to book well in advance (it means they’re busy). High season is during July and August, and there are price reductions for going during the March, April, May as this is the off season.

Safaris are tailor-made, all-inclusive packages, and range anywhere from a hundred to a few hundreds dollars a day per person. You can camp or you can stay in five-star hotels in the Serengeti. You can go for two days or two weeks. They plan everything from the moment you arrive until you leave: your flights or bus rides to and from, hotels, meals, guide, car. With the exception of alcohol and souvenirs, everything is paid for in advance.

I was initially pretty skeptical about hiring a company to plan our entire trip. Fancying myself a rugged independent traveler, package tours are not how I prefer to travel. But I quickly realized how impossible doing this would have been without a safari company, since 75% of the roads we traveled on were gravel, dirt or mud and riddled with holes. There were virtually no road signs and weak cell phone and radio signal. Not to mention, I can’t identify animals by their shit without a guide book nor can I spot a crouching lion in the brush while driving 40 mph or speak Kiswahili. While you could probably get to Ngorongoro Crater easily without a guide, a guide is totally essential if you want to go into the Serengeti proper.

——-

Ngorongoro Crater from the eastern rim

10 a.m. We meet our guide at the Mouth Kilimanjaro airport. Walking on the tarmac from the plane to the terminal. I see Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru in the distance, but these are other parts of the jet-lag montage unfolding since three this morning: drink instant coffee in the room, read book, check email, read book, take taxi, airport security, more instant coffee, ‘cheese croissant,’ walk to two-propeller plane, fly over water, fly over farms, etc. The open air terminal reveals all the operations of the airport. We’re shuttled into a room and then handed our bags through a cargo shoot that looks back onto the tarmac we just came from.

There’s an African man holding a sign that says ‘Suzan,’ a common misspelling of my mom’s name here. This is Muhammad. He’s our guide and we’re driving to Arusha, he says. This means nothing to us but we nod and head towards his beige Toyota Land Cruiser. Having only seen the variant I grew up going to and from soccer practice in, it’s funny to see an actual Land Cruiser—one meant to drive over any kind of terrain and not just suburbia. The car is massive: manual transmission, transfer box, two-way radio, 10 seats, built-in cooler, a ceiling that opens.

The first thing that strikes me about the road and its shoulder is that it’s the route for all kinds of traffic: cars, bikes, pedestrians, shepherds with herds of cattle and goats, farmers with carts of vegetables, stray chickens. Occasionally, we’ll pass someone dressed in vibrant red or blue robes. These are the Maasai, I’m told by my mom and Muhammad, and I will learn later that these are one of the most emblematic tribes of East Africa.

Tanzania was a British colony at the time cars came around, so we’re driving on the left side of the road and I’m sitting shotgun on the left side. I love driving and like the feeling of being on the left side even if I’m not actually at the wheel. Illusion of control! I’ve just realized that I’ll probably be sitting in car for most of the next 5 days. We settle quickly into what will become our in-car mode: little talking, no music, lots of looking out the window and drinking water.

All pan-African roads. Arusha is a pinky fingernail north of Dodoma

The U.S. Interstate Map just for comparison

46 km (30 miles) and an hour and half later, Arusha feels like a bustling farmers market set in dirt, because from Road A23, that’s all it is. We go through a traffic circle, the intersection of our road A23 and A104. Mohammad tells us this is the midway point on the road that goes from Cape Town to Cairo. This seems remarkable to me, though I know so little about African geography.

Arusha is not the most logical mid-point geographically nor a particularly big city. I read later this is the Cairo-Cape Town Highway, or Pan African Highway. A still unrealized road first proposed by the British back when most of the countries it passes through were part of the British Empire (hence the Tanzanian detour.)

While the road does exist, there are several sections that do not have all-weather surfaces or are perilously dangerous. (Apparently, it’s impossible to pass from Egypt to Sudan by road and there are sections of the road in Kenya that are ‘plagued by armed bandits’, according to this article. ) The road is more than 6,000 miles long. To give you a little perspective, that’s like driving from Vancouver to San Diego to Miami to Boston and then to Chicago.

West of Arusha and out of Mount Meru’s shadow, the Africa I’d imagined opens up to us: the sun comes out, all the more brilliant with no mountain in the way, and the humidity decreases. The dirt is increasingly red. Roadside traffic continues and the number of Maasai increases. The age of these travelers range from young boys, most of who have herds of cattle with them, to teenage boys—some dressed in all black. Muhammed explains that these men in black have just been circumcised and must now spend two weeks sleeping outside their village in the bush. Now, I have no strong feeling about genital mutilation in Africa. I’m not apathetic, I just don’t think i’m capable of understanding it properly from my background. That being said, cutting off the end of a teenager’s —- and then sending him out into the bush to fend for himself seems exceedingly harsh. Manliness Merit Badge properly earned, gentlemen. No wonder they’re wearing black!

The apocryphal tale here is that a young Maasai warrior had to kill a lion during this two-week period.
——–
1 p.m. In front of us a low band of grey appears on the horizon. As the band of grey becomes a band of brown, Muhammad explains that this is the Rift Valley. We’re looking at a plateau. It’s completely filled up the horizon. My mom starts up about Dr. Leakey and Lucy and invokes the approval of my 6th grade world history teacher, Mrs. Webb. (Mrs Webb has come up often on this trip.) They found the oldest human and proto-human remains here, cradle of civilization.

The only town we pass between Urusha and Ngorongoro is Mto wa Mbu. From A23, the entire town appears to be trying to sell bananas and only bananas. Apparently, there are eighty plus varieties of bananas here. This town “…was declared a collective Ujamaa village as part of Tanzania’s ultimately disastrous experiment with ‘African Socialism,’ into which thousands of people were sometimes forcibly resettled from outlying rural areas,” says my guide book, The Rough Guide to Tanzania. What’s remarkable about Tanzanians is that this didn’t lead to ethnic strive or rebellion against the government. The town is incredibly diverse—the population is culled from 50 different tribes—but still rather small.

The plateau and beginning of the Rift Valley from Mto wa Mbu

——-
While we only have a hundred or so miles to go from Arusha, we don’t make it the edge of Ngorongoro crater until 3:30. (The roads are paved but full of  debris, potholes, random checkpoints, and reasons to stop.)  It has been a long day in the car and I have been awake for twelve hours now. The climate is humid, a little cold, almost jungly. On the way up we see baboons. I’m contemplating a nap when we finally come to a clearing in the trees and get out of the car.

What’s below had no referent for me. About 12 miles across, the crater floor is an endless plain of brown and green. It’s bisected by streams or maybe rivers that all end in a lake whose entire surface reflects sunlight at this moment. “In all that vertiginous expanse, there was no sigh of human presence. Awesome emptiness. Awesome beauty,” Shiva Naipaul writes in North of South. I guess, at this point, that the lake is in the middle of the crater but it’s impossible to tell—a rainstorm obscures everything to the right of the lake from out vantage point. The storm, the entire sky to our right, rolls in over the lake. We see tiny herds of wildebeest make microadjustments to their positions and we hear nothing up here but our feet on dead leaves.

Descending into the crater

It’s a short time before we make it into the crater. Many herds of animals are visible at all times. We saw lion cubs playing while their mother pulled porcupine quills out of her side. A male lion sleeping by the side of the road. Two male hippos fighting so violently that one of them is forced from the pond, across the swamp, into another pond. Herds of wildebeest running in unison from our approaching car. We see two black rhinos (there are 25 left in the world) through binoculars milling about. Hyenas. Zebras. Warthogs. With the rain storm now gone, the rim of the crater can be seen twelve hundred feet up, completely unbroken around us.

After two hours, we leave for the lodge. I’m seventeen hours into my day and have been uncaffeinated since the airplane ride. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I lay down on the bed and fall promptly asleep. My mom tried to wake me for dinner and apparently I said, “It’s cool, mannnn, it’s cool.”

Animal pictures forthcoming once I figure out how to get them off my camera. These are all from my phone.

About the author: Walker Lukens is a musician and ESL teacher who, most recently, was living in New York, NY. He loves traveling and has been all over the US, Canada, the Caribbean and Western Europe. He has also spent time in Brazil, Israel/Palestine and Serbia. Find him at WalkerLukens.com or on Facebook.

My first wedding anniversary was on March 26, so my husband and I decided to spend the weekend together in Fredericksburg, Texas to celebrate. It’s a historic town originally settled by German immigrants, and it’s just over 70 miles from both Austin and San Antonio.

I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, but had never been to Fredericksburg. I always had the impression it was a boring small town where grannies went to buy antiques. But I started to hear great things from friends who went there on day trips or for a weekend, and it’s been receiving acclaim for the flourishing Fredericksburg Wine Road 290 (a trail of 10 local wineries).

Fredericksburg for 20somethings

My friend Jeff Jung from Career Break Secrets grew up here, and he connected me with Mary Ann McClain, the Communications Manager at the Convention and Visitors Bureau. I told her about my apprehensions, and she assured me that Fredericksburg has plenty to offer 20somethings. “I think your earlier perception of Fredericksburg is what it once was,” she told me via email. “Today, people love to come because Fredericksburg has evolved into one of Texas’ top destinations through its location (gorgeous scenery), great shopping, romantic B&Bs/guesthouses/inns (over 370), through the quality of the 70+ restaurants here, from an explosion of wineries, and due to our emerging art scene.  There’s just a creative vibe here, drawing artists and enabling more galleries to display here. It’s also very relaxing and fun.”

She said there are also hundreds of festivals and events in Fredericksburg each year, plus outdoor activities and entertainment geared toward my age group. “Active 20somethings might enjoy hiking or rappelling Enchanted Rock, or perhaps cycling of scenic roadways. During the spring, these roadways and surrounding fields are sprinkled with color from wildflowers that grow rampantly here,” she says.  Additionally, “Luckenbach Texas is an eclectic place; it’s very laid back and there’s usually live music playing, and a chicken or two or four wandering around.  Speaking of live music, several places in town are great for that, including Ausländer Restaurant & Biergarten, Hondos on Main, Crossroads Steakhouse & Saloon, and Silver Creek Beer Garden & Grill.”

Now for our itinerary, which I highly recommend if you only have two nights and don’t want to be scrambling the whole time. We had a lovely time and definitely plan to go back!

Accommodations

We arrived in Fredericksburg at 3 p.m. on a Friday, which turned out to be perfect. We went straight to Absolute Charm, a company that handles reservations for hundreds of local lodgings (rather than having hotel chains, Fredericksburg has hundreds of independent B&Bs and inns–they have so much character!). We picked up the keys to our place–The Carriage House at Along Shady Creek. I chose it because it’s a few blocks from Main Street, but on a quiet residential street. It was also quite affordable (less than $200/night) and has great amenities.

We had the entire second floor of the carriage house, which is next to a residential home. The space is more like a vacation rental than a B&B, as it has a kitchenette, and they gave us a gift card for breakfast at a selection of local restaurants instead of serving any. It is cozy and very private. It has a Jacuzzi bath tub large enough for four people! I also loved that there was a spacious living room with a flat-screen TV, DVD player, and electric fireplace.

It backs up to a creek and is home to a colony of vocal ducks. We had a private patio overlooking the creek, and I loved sitting out there reading in the mornings while I waited for my husband to wake up. There was also some outdoor seating outside by the creek. They had recently added an outdoor hot tub, though we didn’t end up using it.

Our deck overlooking the creek

The resident ducks. That tall fellow was the ringleader, and he was LOUD.

Bryan wanted to pet a duck, but they were not having it.

Friday

Visitor Information Center

After checking in and putting our bags down, we went to the Visitor Information Center. They have really friendly staffers and endless stacks of maps and brochures about local attractions, events, and day trips. I highly recommend stopping by if you want to learn more about the town or get insider tips on what to do and where to eat. It’s in the center of town, just a block behind Main Street.

Pacific War Museum

Our first stop was the main building of the Pacific War Museum since it’s right down the street from the Visitor’s Center. You can see my husband standing in front of it below, where there is a full-sized ship protruding from the ground. The museum tells the full history of what led up to World War II with artifacts, written displays, timelines, and videos.

The place was a maze just teeming with information, and while I did start to get bored after about an hour, my history-obsessed husband was enthralled. Though I was captured by the Pearl Harbor exhibit, which puts you in a dark room with an submarine and eerie submarine sounds, and it plays a series of videos and audio that tell the gripping story of that day. The museum had several full-sized planes, tanks, and guns. Down the road is a reconstructed combat zone, which offers tours every hour. There’s another museum in the complex that is dedicated to the history of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who was from Fredericksburg. Your museum ticket gives you access to all of these.

An American military plane in the Pacific War Museum

A Japanese gun at the Pacific War Museum

A piece of the original USS Arizona from Pearl Harbor

Explore Main Street

Main Street is where most of the action happens in Fredericksburg. It has many restaurants (some serve German food) and shops. There’s also a pioneer museum and several venues that offer live music at night.

The town has over 150 shops, many of which are on this strip. I had the misconception before coming here that they would all be dusty antique shops or Western wear stores. While there were certainly some of those, I was happily surprised to find many chic clothing boutiques, fun candy stores, a modern pet accessory store (I wanted everything in there, including one of the employees’ puppy teacup chihuahua, who chills out there), cute wine tasting shops, and book stores.

We couldn’t get enough of Rustlin’ Robs, a shop with aisles and aisles of canned nut butters, salsas, peppers, jams, sauces, dressings, and other yummies. They had bowls of crackers and an open jar of just about everything in there, so you could stuff your face for free while exploring all of these amazing local offerings. I bought a jar of apple butter; it was my first time to try the stuff, and I’m in love.

Main Street

Chocolate-covered pickles, bacon, and jalapenos at Lone Star Candy Bar

Boots at Something for Men, a shop on Main Street

Peanut butters at Rustlin' Robs

Rows and rows of nut butters at Rustlin' Robs

Vinegars at Rustlin' Robs

Dinner at The Cabernet Grill

This restaurant came highly recommended to me by a seasoned Fredericksburg traveler, and it had excellent reviews online, so we gave it a try for dinner. The service was a wee bit slow, but it’s a small town, and oh boy, the food was amazing. The menu was diverse and infused with Texas flavor. It was also very reasonably priced for the quality and creativity. The wine list is enormous, with many wines from local vineyards.

Warm goat cheese with garlic and sun-dried tomatoes

Jalepeno-stuffed, bacon-wrapped quail with grits and green beans

Trout stuffed with asiago cheese and bacon with maple chipotle sweet potatoes and green beans

Saturday

The Sunset Grill

The next morning, we were slow to rise and stopped by The Sunset Grill for brunch at 11 since it was one of the places where our breakfast gift card could be redeemed. My husband had a regular ol’ omelet, but we were about to go wine tasting and I needed some real food in my stomach, so I had a colorful crab cake salad with mango vinaigrette. So fresh and tasty! Everything else we saw come out of the kitchen looked great. The restaurant is extremely casual and very affordable. Perfect for a quick breakfast or lunch.

Messina Hof Winery

From Fredericksburg, hop on Highway 290, also known as the Wine Road. There are 10 wineries just a short drive away. I’m not a big drinker, and I’ve never liked wine, but I decided to do some tastings and see if I could find one I fancied.

Messina Hof is a new winery in the Hill Country; their home base is in Bryan, Texas, but they opened this location last year as a tasting room. It’s housed in a gorgeous villa. The inside has two bars for tasting, plus an outdoor patio where you can enjoy a glass. It was recommended to me as a place to go since it’s less crowded than some of the larger vineyards (ie. Becker and Grape Greek).

Here’s how it works: You pay $10 and get a wine glass with their emblem on it that you get to keep, plus five wooden tokens. They give you a menu of their offerings and a chart that lets you rate the ones you try. You tell the bartender which one you want to sample, he pours it in your glass, and you drop a token in the jar. Each pour was enough for many sips, so my husband and I tried all of each others’ wines so that we could sample 10 total. I was shocked to discover that I liked the rosé and the sangria–they were very sweet, tasty, and easy to drink. I was so excited and bought a bottle of each. They were very reasonably priced (both less than $15).

Messina Hof Winery in Fredericksburg, TX

One section of the Messina Hof Winery tasting room

Becker Vineyards

While we were already out on the wine trail, we decided to go to a second vineyard. Becker Vineyards is in Stonewall, and it’s one of the largest wineries in the area. We were warned that it could get uncomfortably crowded, and packed it was. Inside, it was hard to get the attention of the bartenders, and some of the other patrons were pushy. But the outside area was beautiful; people were picnicking, napping on the grass, playing with dogs, and a band was playing live music. The vineyard did an event with free pasta earlier in the day; they often have cool events like that.

The tasting worked the same way here; $10 per person, and you keep the wine glass. You get six tastings here, and since we shared, we got to try a total of 12 wines. I wasn’t wild about any of them, but it was still a fun experience, and my husband really liked the pinot grigio and Riesling. By that point, I was a wee bit tipsy, so it was time to go back to our place and take it easy until dinner. Note that several companies offer winery tours that take you around in vans from place to place so you don’t have to drive after trying a few too many wines.

Becker Vineyards in Stonewall, Texas

Becker Vineyards tasting room

Movie and nap

We found a Redbox at the local HEB and indulged in a lazy afternoon until dinner. Hey, it’s vacation!

Dinner at Navajo Grill

I’m reluctant to mention this place. A foodie I respect recommended it, and it had very positive ratings on TripAdvisor and Yelp, so we gave it a try. While the food was delicious, the service was horrendous. Truly some of the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced at a restaurant. It was especially upsetting since the dishes were around $30 a plate. Based on all of the good reviews, I have to think that they were just very understaffed or having a very unusual night. The main thing I liked was that my salmon was served with seared pumpkin in a sweet honey balsamic sauce. I’ve never had pumpkin that way before, and it was very good.

Filet mignon with sweet potato and green beans

Salmon with honey balsalmic sauce and pumpkin

 Sunday

 Amish Market

We woke up late and had some time to kill before lunch. This store was on the quiet part of Main Street near where we were staying, and I wanted to go poke around. I was disappointed to learn from the shopkeeper that there are actually no Amish people in Fredericksburg; the store imports their Amish goods from places like Pennsylvania and Ohio. But the good news is that everything there is genuinely Amish. There were Amish cookbooks, noodles, wooden cooking utensils, syrups and molasses, candies, and knickknacks. We left with some tasty Amish cheese.

Amish furniture and buggy

Fredericksburg Brewery

Mary Ann said visiting this brewpub is a must, so we had lunch here on our final day. Texas alcohol laws are very strange; if you make beer, you can sell it locally through a distributor, but you can’t sell it from your own brewery. So what Fredericksburg Brewery does is sell the beer only on-site; this means they don’t have a distributor so you can’t buy it anywhere else, but you can enjoy the heck out of it while you’re there.

My husband ordered the beer flight, which gives you 4 ounces of each of their freshly-brewed beers. It’s served in order from light to dark, and while I’m not really a beer drinker, I enjoyed watching him taste and critique them. He fell in love with the Enchanted Rock red ale. If you like one, you can buy a big jug of it for $18 to take home (I can’t remember exactly how much it holds). The friendly waitress said if you come back and bring the jug with you, a refill is only $12. Amazing! The food was your average American fare–not spectacular, but certainly good. It was really neat to eat with the brewery tanks out in full view.

Beer flight at Fredericksberg Brewery

Bryan's philly sandwich with sweet potato fries at Fredericksburg Brewery

My beef fajita salad at Fredericksburg Brewery

Me with a jug of beer at Fredericksberg Brewery

Phew! We definitely plan to go back so we can visit some of the other wineries and try some of the other restaurants that were highly recommended. Have you ever been to Fredericksburg?

One of the many reasons why I love Europe so much is that I geek out over their history. It’s totally normal visit a castle in Scotland originally constructed in the 1100s, or to explore ruins in Italy that were built before Jesus existed. We just don’t have that type of documented history here in the U.S.

What I love about Boston is that it’s one of the oldest cities in the United States, so it scratches my itch for seeking out history when I travel. Due to the city’s long past, many of the old churches and buildings actually have a European feel (view my post on the Boston Public Library to see what I mean).

There are also several historic graveyards sprinkled throughout downtown that really show how old the city is. I love that downtown Boston is a lively urban hub that has these incredible little pieces of history wedged between it.

Boston Common, founded in 1634, is the country’s largest park, according to the City of Boston. It’s nearly 50 acres and has a central burying ground that is still preserved. When I was there a few years ago during a February (lesson learned, never go during that time of year), I explored it. It was so peaceful and quiet. Maybe it’s morbid, but I found these faded, disheveled gravestones fascinating. The names are so uncommon now. Some of the lives were so short. Who were they?

Here are some of my photos from the graveyard in Boston Common.

Have you ever been? Do you enjoy visiting old cemeteries, or does it creep you out?

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The following is a guest post by Mohamed Khazma.

Cape Town, South Africa is a populous city that’s a hub for both business and tourism. Here are some of the best activities for visitors to Cape Town, both inside and outside.

INDOORS

The City Centre

Sitting on an ideal location between mountain and sea, The City Bowl (city centre) connects nightlife, hotels, restaurants and entertainment, the waterfronts, as well as Cape Town’s notorious blue flag beaches. Hop-on, hop-off bus tours provide an ideal way of viewing Cape Town’s canvas. If a full day’s shopping is desired, The Canal Walk shopping centre serves any shopaholic right; Africa’s third largest shopping mall brings with it the Ratanga Junction theme park to make the visit for those who don’t enjoy shopping a little more bearable.

Museums

Cape Town hosts a number of interesting heritage-filled museums. The Gold of Africa Museum situated in the city centre holds 350 West African gold artifacts together with gold from the ancient civilizations of South Africa. Home to the drama of the world’s first human heart transplant, The Heart of Cape Town Museum shows the fascinating and epic development in medicine by reconstructing the procedure on replica silicone models. Other notable museums and galleries include The South African National Gallery, Two Oceans Aquarium, and District Six Museum.

Wine Estates

Cape Town’s location and climate serves a great environment for producing some of the world’s best wines and beers. Stellenbosch is one of the best known wine estates in the region along with Constantia, Franschhoek, Paarl and Wellington, and Robertson. Most wine estates offer accommodation for a romantic getaway with stunning scenery.

OUTDOORS

Skydive Cape Town

Interested in the best views of Cape Town and its vast landscapes? Skydiving offers the ultimate perspective. The adventure begins with a 40-minute drive to the north of Cape Town where small Cessna aircrafts climb 9,000 feet before unlocking their doors allowing eager divers to plummet over the Cape Peninsula for roughly 30 seconds before opening their parachutes.

Table Mountain

Exploring Cape Town’s landscape on foot is the best way to experience most of what the city has to offer. Its most significant structure is Table Mountain, a flat-top terrain overlooking Cape Town’s central business district.  It opens its landscape to abseiling, biking, and for a hearty workout, there’s a choice to hike on foot – with Platteklip Gorge being the most popular route.

Langa Township

The Langa Township provides an alternative tour of the historic black Cape Town. The township, developed in 1923 for the Xhosa tribe, hosts guided local tours to experience its history, art, food and drink, music, education and social issues. Gugus’thebe Arts and Culture Centre is the focal point of the town and represents its rapid socioeconomic development.

Robben Island

Taking tourists back to the 17th century, Robben Island housed a prison, where Nelson Mandela spent his jail-term, and a training/defense station used in World War II. The island, accessible by a 7 km boat ride from Cape Town, provides guided tours of the derelict prison by ex-inmates – guaranteeing a first-hand account. Tours last approximately 3.5 hours long and include a 45-minute bus ride of the island. The penguins surrounding Robben Island make the visit that little less haunting.

About the author: Mohamed Khazma is a freelance travel writer for My Destination–locally informed, globally inspired.

Photo credit: Martin Power

In short, it’s because it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I used to say that about the Colorado Rockies, but when I went to Greece several years ago, I was enthralled by Santorini. Simply being there felt surreal, like I was really just in a daydream or an IMAX theater.

When I went to Greece, I took a cruise that gave me a sampling of several Greek Islands. I had originally planned to just spend several nights in Mykonos and Santorini, but the Greek ferry system was baffling, and taking the cruise made the logistics far easier. As I expected, Mykonos and Santroni were my favorites. While I was happy to see more of Greece than planned, and even some of Turkey, I fell in love with Santorini the moment it was in sight and was heartbroken to leave after only half a day.

The craggy cliffs of Santorini are too dangerous for cruise ships to get close (major shipwrecks have happened there), so we docked off-shore and took dinghies over. The white buildings sprinkled atop the cliffs were hard to see from where we anchored down. I couldn’t wait to get closer.

When we arrived on the ground in Fira, Santorini’s main town, the cliffs were so steep that you could barely see the buildings up top. To get up there, you either ride a cable car (you can see a cluster of them near the top left corner), ride donkeys, or hike the switchbacks.

Yep, we chose the cable cars.

The height is intimidating, but the views are worth the stomach-flipping. And you’re in an enclosed car, so there’s no risk of you or your belongings falling out.

If you look closely in the bottom right corner, you can see some of the folks ascending on the donkeys.

Almost there!

From the cable car, you could perfectly see the island’s caldera, which was formed by volcanic explosions thousands upon thousands of years ago (you may recognize this as my Twitter background!).

Finally on the ground! My sister (to the right) and I instantly loved this charming little place. It had a similar feel to Mykonos, but a completely different landscape and more colorful buildings. We later learned that Oia, a smaller town in Santorini, has the white-washed, blue-capped buildings that Mykonos has. Sadly, we didn’t have time to make it over there.

Due to the jagged shape of the land, buildings are stacked in all kinds of levels with no seeming rhyme or reason.

We stumbled upon a Greek Orthodox church and decided to go inside and check it out.

The inside was ornate and colorful, with the walls completely covered in murals.

There was also a massive chandelier so pretty that even a priest stopped to admire it.

We walked through the narrow maze of streets to explore shops. We got lost a few times, and street names were hard to understand, but I was told that’s the norm. I came home with a classic white Grecian dress.

From Fira, you can see two uninhabited islands made of black lava (Nea Kameni and Palea Kameni). You can actually go visit those islands by boat and bathe in the hot springs at Nea Kameni.

As soon as we saw the view from this cafe, we stopped in for a drink. I don’t think there is another cafe in the world with such a stunning view. That’s our cruise ship in the background.

While walking around, we came upon several “doors to nowhere,” which were a bit haunting when you looked through and realized they went straight out into the ocean. Merchants seem to like putting these at the steps that lead down to their businesses.

My sister took this picture of me with the reflection of the ocean in the background before we had to leave.

The view going down was just as beautiful as the view going up, but it looked very different bathed in the setting sun’s golden hues.

On the way down, I saw these bizarre doors that went straight into rock. I was dying to know where they went. I might have to go back and see…

Before I knew it, we were back on the dingy and saying goodbye to Santorini.

When we got back to our cruise ship, we still had some time to enjoy the view before we took off. It was that perfect time of day when the sun starts to set but is still shining. I was a happy girl.

Then it was time to set sail in the Aegean Sea. But don’t worry. I’ll be back.

Have you ever been to this magical place?

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The following is a guest post from the guys at Trip and Travel Blog. I haven’t been to Poland myself, but my dad’s side of the family is orginally from there, so I really want to go!

Krakow, Poland

The major cities in Poland have a particular and unique character. Lodz is famous for its well-known road, Piotrowska, and its construction in the nineteenth century. In this city there is also the largest park in Europe.

Krakow, the ancient capital, the former residence (at the Wawel) of the old Polish monarchy is now a city very active culturally. According to their city guide and this travel blog, the museums as well as clubs and social gatherings are too many to be listed. Breslavia is famous for its architectural monuments in Ostrow Tumski, for the church of St. Elizabeth, and the Aula Leopoldina. You can also admire the modern construction of “Hala Stulecia” (Centennial Hall), made of reinforced concrete.

The Polish landscape is not only formed by big cities, but especially by small towns. Kazimierz Dolny has always been particularly popular to artists. In Sandomierz there are underground labyrinths, Suwalki buildings are thickened into a single path, and Borne Sulinowo is a demilitarized city, which for over 40 years did not appear even on the map of Poland.

At Plock you can find a Romanesque cathedral and a castle overlooking the Vistula. Pultusk is famous for the longest market in Europe. Biecz is a small architectural gem, which owes its origin to its nobility that has been enriched with the commerce of the Hungarian wine and has kept a medieval structure. It is also considered as the “city of love” in Poland, and there are in fact relics of St. Valentino. The capital of Poland from the sec. XVII, totally destroyed during World War II, Warsaw was rebuilt and restored in its original form. In the old town you can find many restaurants with traditional cuisine. The streets are lined with everything from ultra-modern skyscrapers to simple and elegant pastel palaces. You can find many pubs, discos, and cafes here.

Gdansk, Poland

You’ll see the picturesque Market Square frequented by artists, the Royal Castle, the Gothic Cathedral of St. John, and the Church of Santa Croce, which houses the urn with the heart of Frederic Chopin’s Palace of Culture and Science, the monument to the Unknown Soldier (where is the spectacular changing of the guard) and one dedicated to the famous Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus. Following Vistoia, the river that runs through Warsaw, we reach the princely Ujazdowski Castle, the Palace and Lazienki Park, eighteenth home of the last king of Poland, then to the presidential residence of Belvedere and Wilanów, the country residence of King John II. In Zelazowa Wola (54 km from Warsaw) is the house where Chopin was born. You can attend concerts of music by the composer in the museum or go on tours arranged on request.

Back to Krakow: Formerly the residence of the kings, it is considered the capital of Polish culture. The historic city center has been recognized by UNESCO as one of the 12 most valuable architectural ensembles in the world.

Among the many monuments including The Great Market Square are dominated by the splendid Renaissance palace Sukiennice (old cloth market) and the Gothic Church of Santa Maria, which has a famous wooden altarpiece. There’s the Collegium Shift – headquarters of Jagiellonian University, one of the oldest in Europe (founded in 1364), the Royal Castle on Wawel, and the Kazimierz district, with its magnificent Renaissance synagogues. All the old town is surrounded by a ring of green – the Planty – built in place of the old city walls. In the vicinity of Krakow you can visit the salt mine of Wieliczka, the Royal Castle of Pieskowa Skai, the mountain resort of Zakopane, and Auschwitz.

Danzig (also known as Gdansk), one of the largest ports in the Baltic for centuries, has a beautiful old town that is home to most of its monuments. See the Court of King Arthur, or the Gothic Church of SS. Virgin Mary, one of the largest in Europe, capable of accommodating 25,000 people. It now houses the Maritime Museum.

Wroclaw, one of the oldest and most beautiful Polish cities, Southwest, on the Oder River, is crossed by numerous tributaries and canals, and built on 12 islands connected by 112 bridges. It’s also home a university, which has over 50,000 students and a beautiful campus.

Photo credit: robsw18 and ciaranz

The following is a sponsored post from DialAFlight.com. I’m trying to save up for a new lens for my new DSLR so that I can take even better photos for Maiden Voyage!

So you’ve bagged yourself a couple of bargain flights to Sydney in the off-peak travel season. Congratulations. Sydney is one of the most sought after city break destinations in the world, promising sun, sea and surf alongside plenty of art and culture and a heady dose of stylish city living. If you’re keen to start planning your break away, here are five of the top recommended sights, sounds and surf locations to experience…

1. Manly beach is one of the most famous surf spots in Australia but in order to make the most of your seaside excursion, why not indulge in a Manly beach boat trip? The boat allows you to get some of the most spectacular views over the city, encompassing iconic landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

2. A real one-off Sydney treat is a visit to the Open Air Moonlight Cinema. Be sure to book in advance as this is one attraction that continues to be popular with residents and visitors alike. Once you’ve got your tickets, pack a bag full of salted popcorn and fizzy pop and sit back and enjoy the old-school cinema experience.

3. The Royal Botanic Gardens are a real hit with family travelers. Wander the grounds at your leisure or sign up for one of the gardens’ comprehensive bike tours in order to be sure that you’ve seen everything that this delightful destination has to offer.

4. In order to get a glimpse at a little more of Australia’s enchanting landscape, get yourself on a tour of the Jenolan Caves and Blue Mountains. There are a range of tempting add-ons available including kangaroo spotting venture and a trip to see the famous Three Sisters rock formations.

5. If your visit happens to coincide with the main sway of the Opera season then be sure to take this unique opportunity to enjoy a performance by one of the world’s most prestigious opera companies inside one of the world’s most spectacular architectural accomplishments of the 20th century. It won’t come cheap, but it’ll be worth every penny.

On my August trip to Vancouver, one of the attractions I was most looking forward to was the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown. It was the first large-scale classical Chinese garden outside of China. It’s also a non-profit that aims to serve as a cultural exchange between Chinese and Western cultures. This stunning landscape opened in 1986, and it’s free to wander around the main area of the garden. We immediately knew we were in Chinatown when we saw this:

The garden is named after Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, shown in the bust below, who is recognized as a symbol of modern China. According to the garden’s website, he worked toward establishing democracy in China and helped lead a revolution in 1911 that overthrew the Qing dynasty. In 1912, he became the first president of the Republic of China, but quickly resigned in order to work toward the economic development of China instead.

The architecture brings together all of the elements of a traditional Chinese garden from the Ming dynasty: jade green water, weathered rocks, mystical plants, and beautiful buildings that appear to be floating.

The park is full of beautiful wildlife, including these critters:

The most amazing part was that this garden was set amongst urban Vancouver, as you can see from the condos and office buildings in the background, but it felt like you were in a quiet part of China.

The garden was a joint effort between the Canadian government, Chinese government, and private workers in both countries. They brought 52 master craftsmen all the way from Suzhou China, who worked with local Canadian to build this within one year.

The halls and walkways of the garden were built so precisely by the master craftsman that they didn’t use any nails, screws or glue.

The garden also had several indoor rooms that you could explore, many with traditional Chinese art, writing, and clothing. You have to pay a small fee to enter this area.

The garden was such a peaceful and quiet respite in the midst of a busy city. Have you ever been?

The following is a guest post by Isabel Clift.

Berlin is a real playground if you’re in your twenties: food, drink and travel are cheap, and there’s a wealth of DIY art galleries, underground clubs and cafes to explore. No cheesy check-box sightseeing here, either: Berlin’s raw recent history gives edge and immediacy to its landmarks.

Landmarks to see

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Holocaust memorial: A tight, oppressive grid of concrete blocks you walk between, whose sides grow taller the deeper you go: the Peter Eisenman-designed Holocaust Memorial is a masterpiece whose effectiveness will shock you.

The Wall: A remaining section of the Berlin Wall runs along Mühlenstraße near Oberbaum Bridge. It’s been nicknamed the East Side Gallery after being covered with graffiti art.

TV Tower: This GDR-era ’60s landmark on Alexanderplatz looks like it was drawn by a Jetsons cartoonist. Climb to the observation deck for the highest views in the city.

Babelplatz book-burning memorial: The less you know before you go, the more poignant this is. Go to Babelplatz at night, walk towards the light shining up from the middle and look down…

Clubs

Berghain club in Berlin

Berghain/Panorama bar: A Friedrichshain power station turned clubbing Mecca, Berghain operates a strict door policy and confiscates cameras on arrival. If you do make it in, expect Bladerunner-style surroundings and relentless, vocal-chord-shaking minimal techno played til 3pm Sunday (yes, you read that right).

Golden Gate: You know a club’s intimate when you feel like you’ve stumbled in on a particularly grimy house party. Found behind an unmarked door underneath a railway bridge on Dircksenstrasse, drinks are cheap and the dancefloor’s sweaty.

Watergate: Your go-to for sleek and stylish clubbing on the Spree. Grab a breath of fresh air on the floating terrace and be mesmerized by the giant, glowing Universal logo on the opposite bank.

Restaurants, bars and cafes

Breakfast: The Soviet-themed Gorki Park serves a fine ‘worker and farmer’ breakfast platter for two including fresh potato pancakes, salmon caviar and blini rolls.

Lunch: Eat lunch in former factory Michelberger Hotel’s shabby-chic courtyard; think fresh European fare like seasonal veg risotto and spicy tagines.

Dinner: Want a glass of wine with your dinner? At Weinerei you rent a glass for EUR 1.50, then sample from a range of bottles. Soak it all up with a buffet of German fare made with organic ingredients, and pay what you think you owe at the end.

Takeaway: Hipster takeaway Angry Angry Chicken serves finger-lickin’ Korean chicken at varying spice levels: friendly, sexy, angry and furious. Brush the crumbs off afterwards and duck through an unmarked door at the back to secret bar Soju.

Shops

Voo: Indicative of the area’s slide from grit to gentrification, Voo is a fancy new concept store off Kreuzberg’s main drag Oranienstrasse. Pick up threads from Acne, Pendleton, Wood Wood and Surface to Air, plus books and artisan cosmetics.

Made in Berlin: With several outlets around the city, Made in Berlin specializes in affordable vintage edited with an eye on current trends. Perfect if you love vintage but hate rummaging.

Parks

Mauerpark: Join the crowds every Sunday for amphitheater karaoke, flea-market riffling and impromptu beers ‘n’ barbeques.

About the author: Isabel Clift (@Isabel_Clift) is a London-based travel blogger for AnyTrip, the budget travel specialists – check out their selection of cheap Berlin hotels. A fan of all things currywurst and techno, Isabel’s got into the habit of visiting Berlin at least once a year.

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