Going to Antarctic is a once in a lifetime experience and there is no way that we’re heading there without a full bag of camera equipment and electronics to capture every moment. With each trip we keep adding to our gear list and now we have gotten to the point where our electronics are definitely outweighing our clothes and other gear.

So What’s Coming With us to Antarctica?

Well let’s start with the camera equipment.

Camera Gear

The Canon 5D Mark II -  Having always been a Canon guy, this camera has been a gem to use over the past year and it takes great video too.  The full image sensor allows my wide angle lenses to capture the full focal length of the lens.

Canon EOS Rebel T3i 18 MP - We are bringing a second body for the first time in our travels. This one has a crop sensor so it allows Dave’s lenses to have a longer reach. Plus it is smart to have a second body in case the Canon 5D MK II fails for some reason.

Olympus PEN E-P2 with 17mm f/2.8 Lens - We wanted to bring this camera to have something to pull out quickly with a wide and fast lens. I can keep this camera in my pocket in a ziplock bag and get to it quickly to capture unexpected spontaneous moments. We’ll be using our waterproof cameras for most of our zodiac activities but I wanted to have something with more versatility. This higher end camera bridges the gap between the point and shoot and Canon.

For more olympus cameras check out Olympus Canada. Dave’s loved testing their products especially the PEN camera.

Lenses

Canon EF 16-35 mm f/2.8 L II USM
This is a super sharp lens that is excellent for vast landscape photography. I can’t imagine what images Dave is going to capture in Antarctica with this lens. It’s his oldest piece of camera equipment and it is his favourite. He just had it recallibrated and it is in tip top shape waiting to be used in the most beautiful location on earth.

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Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS

This is a heavy lens, but Canon’s most reliable and widely used lenses by professional photographers. It’s going to come in handy capturing close up views of penguins, whales and seals from the boat. 

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Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II This is a very reasonable lens and does the trick for good portrait lens due to its shallow depth of field. The higher end 50 m 1.4 is worth more money, but our 1.8 is only $139 it is ultra light and has done the job for us. It is actually Canons lightest and shortest lens that they offer.  

Point and Shoot

Olympus Waterproof Camera (Times 2!) : Olympus TG-810 Tough 
A year ago we didn’t have one waterproof camera in our arsenal of electronics. Now between our GoPros and Olympus, we own four! We are bringing two Olympus Waterproof cameras with us. One for each of us to use during our kayaking and zodiac trips.

Video

Panasonic GH1 – If you have been following along for the past two years, you will know that we downsized our camera gear and bought a Panasonic GH1 with the 14-140mm lense. Dave used this as his main camera for a year and it took amazing photos in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Alaska. He missed his Canon though so after that year we bought his Canon 5D MKII. Now the panasonic is my baby and I use it for video which we are definitely doing more of. We still have a year of footage to edit, but slowly but surely we’re getting it done. This micro four thirds camera is lightweight, small and takes great HD video and still does the trick for awesome photographs.  

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Rode VideoMic Pro VMP Shotgun Microphone - We really want to invest in lapel mics down the road, but right now we are very happy with the Rode VIdeo Mic shotgun Microphone. When we bought this one, the guy behind the counter said that it is taking over the industry leader Sennheiser. Sound is very important when making videos and we have been extremely satisfied with the sound quality of this microphone. It’s done well in the Canadian winter so we think it will do well in the Antarctica. What we like, it’s suspension system separating the VideoMic Pro capsule and electronics from its mount, providing isolation from external physical factors causing rumble and vibrations in the microphone.

GoPro® HD HERO2 Outdoor Edition
We love this camera. It is the best for adventure travel and capturing extreme sporting moments. We used this camera during the Mongol Rally and captured all sorts of amazing footage. We mounted it on the hood, bumper and fenders of our car and drove through rivers and deserts while our Go Pro captured the moments in time. We liked it so much, that we bought another. We’ll be taking two of these babies to Antarctica with us. It will be great capturing underwater footage. What we like about it is the wide angle lens. We dont’ have to worry about focusing directly on a subject. If the camera is pointed in the general direction, it will capture the action.

Accessories

XShot Camera Extender 
This is a great extender that we’ll be able to hang over our kayaks to capture underwater footage with our Olympus Cameras. It will keep us from getting our hands wet and allow us to get right under the boats for some amazing footage. We also love this extender because we can grab quick shots of ourselves without having to ask others to take photos for us 

F-Stop Loka Camera Bag 

As a Rogue Team member for F-Stop Dave has been using this bag for the past year and loves it. It has waterproof zippers and a waterproof bottom. Grabbing camera gear is easy with the back compartment. All his gear fits beautifully with it’s insert system for organization, he can change inserts to fit each situation. The Loka bag is built for adventure photographers and Antarctica is definitely a place for adventure. 

Lowepro DryZone 200 -
I need a bag too and this time and our LowePro DryZone 200 fits the bill. We’ve had bag for a few years and haven’t brought it on any recent trips, so it is good to get it out of storage for our Antarctica Expedition. We’ll be in Kayaks and Zodiacs and we’ll be winter camping on the continent where there is potential for everything to get soaked.  The last thing we want to be worrying about is if our camera equipment is getting wet so the Lowepro DryZone will definitely put our minds at ease. We’ll be able to strap it on our kayaks or zodiac while we paddle to shore and while we’re using our GoPro’s and Olympus cameras, our DSLR’s will be happy and dry to in our camera bags. 

Tripod - Manfrotto 732CY M-Y Carbon Tripod and Manfrotto 494RC2 Ball Head

Manfrotto 732Cy Carbon Fibre with a 484 RC2 Ball Head – Dave has been very happy with this tripod. It’s lightweight yet sturdy and durable. We’ll be using the tripod for time lapse photography, video and HDR photography. Since we will need a tripod for many different occasions, we have decided to take two tripods with us for the first time as well.

Intervalometer- It will be our first time using an intervalometer to take shots with the Canon 5D of time lapse photography. Since we’ll be camping over night on Antarctica itself, we imagine there will be incredible photo opportunities as the sun goes down and we plan on capturing all of it.

The Rest of the List…

Computers - We will be bringing along two MacBook Pro’s

IPhone – Old 3G that needs an upgrade, but is great for instagram photos for twitter.

Computer Storage

• A 1 Terrabite Lacie Rugged Drive- it is lightweight, small and durable.
• A couple of thumbnail drives – to share documents and bring to the Internet Cafe if needed.
• 1 WD Passport – This is another lightweight and compact hard drive . We store our videos on this one.

Belkin Mini Surge – This is a must for anyone travelling. The Belkin protects electronincs from power surges, it charges several electronics at a time and it also has two USB ports.

So, that’s it. We have extra memory cards and Dave bought a new 1.4 teleconverter which increases the focal length of his lenses. Let’s hope what we have is enough, we’ll let you know when the trip is over. Only four days to go until we leave for Antarctica!

Check out Quark Expeditions for planning your own Antarctic Expedition. Mention ThePlanetD and receive 5% off your booking - 5% can be redeemed on any voyage and is be combinable with any of Quark’s promotions.

Stay tuned for a complete breakdown after our voyage by Dave to discuss what worked, what he wishes he should have brought and what he could have left behind. I just did a round up of our gear, but Dave is going to put it to the test.

“Power and Performance” the words that really grabbed me when I was looking for a camera to complement my already heavy, cumbersome DSLR set up.

With a claim like that who wouldn’t want this camera. So when I was approached by Olympus to be one of their camera testers and review their gear I immediately wanted to get my hands on the Olympus E-P2 .

Putting the Olympus E-P2 through its paces in Mongolia

Where could I put this camera to the real test? As an Adventure travel photographer I wanted to put the micro four thirds camera through what I would normally put my DSLR through. If I was going to use this camera it had to stand up to the everyday bumps, challenging shooting conditions and be easy to use as well. What better test then to take the E-P2 on our next adventure The Mongol Rally.

Putting it to the Test

As I packed my bag for the rally the Olympus camera already seemed to fit with my kit. It packed nicely next to my other gear and did not take up too much space. This was key as there would be 4 of us in a small car driving from London to Mongolia for the next 5 weeks and space was at a premium.

I brought a few lenses with me, namely the Olympus 17mm 2.8 Pancake Lens and the 14-40 kit lens. I also had the Olympus VF-2 Electronic Viewfinder which came in very handy.

The first thing I loved about this camera is the way it felt in my hands. Sturdy and comfortable. This is always my biggest complaint about compact cameras. They just seem too flimsy. I want a camera that feels like I am holding something of quality, not something that might break at any time.

Next., I was impressed with the layout of the controls. Having convenient controls such as…..at the tip of your fingers rather than having to dig through the menu certainly makes for a much better user experience. My only complaint would be that the thumbwheel on the right hand side of the camera can be moved accidentaly too easy. Since it adjusts the EV compensation it can be a little frustrating. Perhaps a push in and turn feature would make things easier. If you do need to navigate through the menu this can be a little daunting for a first time Olympus user. It is time consuming.

Enter the Super Control Menu.

The Olympus Super Control Panel

Olympus has made it easy to navigate all the essential controls at the touch of a button. Just press the OK button in the middle of the compass and then press the info button. This brings up a screen that gives you all the pertinent settings that you can set without having to navigate through all the sub menus of the normal menu system. Genius!

The Olympus E-P2  has a good selection of shooting modes. For me I only really use 3 modes: Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Manual. But for people who like to get creative or just use the point and shoot mode the E-P2  offers some good options. iAuto, Program, Movie Mode are all pretty much self explanitory. But here is a breakdown of the Art and Scene modes:

• Art Modes:  Art modes include pop art, pinhole, light tone, grainy film, diorama, soft-focus, pale/light color, and cross-process
• Scene Modes: Landscape, portrait, macro, children, high key, low key, DIS mode, nature macro, candle, sunset,  sport, night scene, night portrait, landscape + portrait, documents, panorama, fireworks, and beach/snow

So as you can see they give you lots of options to get creative and deal with set shooting scenes. If you want to know more about all the shooting modes mentioned above click here.

Using my Olympus E-P2 in the field

In-Body Image Stabilization

One of the things that sets the Olympus E-P2  apart from it’s counterparts is the in-body image stabilization. Other Micro four thirds cameras offer IS within the lenses. This works fine but are usually only available on the zooms and longer lenses. The wider faster lenses are not equipped with this. Having the image stabilization in the body makes a big difference when not using IS lenses. In addition to the image stabilization the Olympus has a vibrating sensor plate for dust prevention which came in very handy when we were dealing with windy and dusty conditions in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Not a single spec of dust even though I was changing lenses in some dodgy situations.

The electronic viewfinder that comes with it is a welcome accessory as the screen can be hard to see in direct sunlight. I did use the camera almost exclusively with the VF-2 and would recommend you do the same. The big downfall here is that it adds significantly to the bulk of the camera. It goes from something you could fit in your coat pocket to something that would fit nicely in a small camera bag.

Posing with my Olympus E-P2 camera

Conclusion

Over all the Olympus E-P2  is a camera I would buy. I feel that the pros far outweigh the cons. To have a camera that shoots high quality images, is easy to use, durable and compact enough to carry with me wherever I go makes the Olympus E-P2  a welcome addition to my camera kit.

Although I hear they just came out with the E-P3 with faster auto focus and other features. May have to give that one a try!

The title says it all doesn’t it?

You just know you’re in for a great read when someone is writing about, Crossing the Heart of Africa.

Julian Smith tells a tale of love and travel. I love travel and I am in love with my husband so this book was definitely for me. I haven’t written a review in a while, but this titile intrigued me.

Crossing the Heart of Africa Intertwines two love stories. One taking place at the end of the 19^th century and the other in today’s world as the author embarks on his own journey of self-discovery.

I found it interesting that Smith compared his story to that of Captain Ewart Grogan in the late 1800’s. Grogan was a soldier who journeyed to Africa to survey the continent and prove his love and loyalty to his one true love, Gertrude Watt.

He walked from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo surveying the continent to prove his worth to her stepfather. Being dismissed by her family as a “ne’er-do-well,” Grogan banked on fame and fortune to achieve their acceptance and her hand in marriage.

He laid his life on the line and faced the many dangers of a wild Africa surviving Malaria, savage tribes, man-eating animals and the untamed jungle all in the name of love.

Not Exactly the Same Situation

So what gave Smith the inkling that he could compare his story with this great love affair? His is of running away from his love while Grogan is of running to his love. The Author was to be married in 3 months to his girlfriend of 7 years. Being afraid of commitment he leaves his fiancé to set out for his one last solo adventure before the old ball and chain of marriage ties him down.

While Grogan went to Africa to prove himself and gain the respect of a family that was of a higher class and state in life, Smith seemed to want to do get as far away from his fiancé as he could.

Although this annoyed me greatly, I still enjoyed reading the book and found that the interweaving of time moved smoothly.

I found the era of the 1800’s to be a more compelling read than Smith’s story in today’s world and wanted more out of his adventure through Africa. After all, uncomfortable bus rides and near ferry delays aren’t quite as exciting being eye-to-eye with a lion or surrounded by hostile tribes.  I’m not going to lie, having cycled from Cairo to Cape Town, I wasn’t blown away by Smith’s portion of the journey that Grogan did on foot. It simply looked to me like a backpacker wanting to run away for a bit and get out of planning a wedding.

As a couple that shares our travels and looks at marriage as a great adventure it was impossible for me to relate to his reasoning for taking off so close to his wedding.  But, I did enjoy the read and admire his courage for putting his heart and feelings out there to be judged by all. Smith is a good writer and can tell a captivating story. He held my interest all the way through the book even as I grew frustrated with his fear of commitment.

Crossing the heart of Africa made me want to learn more about Captain Ewart Grogan. It took him two and a half years to walk from Cape Town to Cairo and upon his return he was met with fame and fortune. But the icing on the cake was that he married Gertrude and lived happily ever after until her death in 1943.

Now that’s a great love story.

Julian Smith is an award-winning travel writer whose work has appeared in Outside, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Wired, theWashington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He is the author of guidebooks to El Salvador, Ecuador, Virginia, and the southwestern United States, and he has been honored by the Society of American Travel Writers for writing the best guidebook of the year. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Oregon.

I love carrying a journal.

I write notes and ideas in it all the time. Even though my computer comes with me on all my travels, I still write quite a bit when out sight seeing.

When I’m walking through busy city streets or on a rigorous trek in the jungle, that last thing I am going to carry with me is my laptop and that is when my journal comes in handy.

The problem lately is that I am carrying so many electronics, that I have to scale down the rest of my luggage. I have yet to find a small journal that I like, but I’m trying one now.

The Globe Trotter’s LogBook

This little pocket-sized book not only has space for me to write my notes, it also has some great reading material and fun facts.

“In a small amount of space, you’ll find a whole lot of information.”

Starting with…

Listing all 193 countries of the world and sharing information on population, size, location and currency. Each country is put in a square of 4 on a page. I feel like I want to get a little stamp-to-stamp out all the countries I have visited, just like my passport.

That’s what the Globe Trotter’s LogBook feels like, a very thick passport just filled with more information than a stamp from a country.

Very Cool Feature…

Now that I have my Logbook, I can register with Globetrotters and join their community. I can locate fellow globetrotters and match up interests or locations. Where are other people travelling?  Where can I find like-minded adventure lovers? Who can give me advice on Mongolia?

It’s all there in the community.

My favourite page is 82.  The Earth: Impressive Figures.

I love being filled with facts and useless information. When I’m out at the pub having a few beers and the trivia game comes on, I can impress my friends because I know so much. Or I can whip out my handbook and find out all the facts about the world that I need to sound well travelled.

It Arrived Already Gift Wrapped!

Tons of Fun

It’s a fun little book to play around with. I can see myself doodling and browsing as I sit on a long bus journey.

For people just starting out in their travels, I think it would be an ideal gift. They can start keeping a database of flights and numbers in the Flight Register portion of the book, check off the countries that they’ve visited and jot down the vaccinations that they have and when they expire.

These are all sections in the book!

For us, we are starting a little late and won’t be able to put in any flight information from previous trips, but I am planning on filling in as many details as I can in my spare time.

I can see the GlobeTrotters LogBook becoming more of a badge of honour than a passport full of stamps. In Canada, we have to renew our passports every 5 years so we are always starting over. Whenever we get a passport filled to the rim, we have to apply for a new one and start from scratch. Our Globetrotters LogBook never has to be renewed, we can keep adding to our list of countries and experiences and look back on it for years to come.

For people that love keeping a tally of where they’ve been and what they’ve done, they’ll get a kick out of this book.

You’d think with all the travelling Dave and I do, we’d have thousands of airline reward miles racked up and are flying all over the place for free!

That is not the case at all.

Over the years, we have been terrible at keeping track of our rewards miles and simply end up looking for the cheapest flight to get us from point A to point B on a charter airline that doesn’t give anything back to customers for choosing their product.

We have come to the conclusion that this is a very big mistake.

We decided during our last set of travels that we were going to take action and start to accumulate points once and for all. That is why we were so excited when American Express Canada contacted us to partner with them to test drive their new American Express Gold Rewards Card.

You can check out the American Express Gold Rewards Card for yourself to see how the points add up, and the first year is free. Not only that, if you spend $500 within the first three months, you can earn 15,000 bonus Membership Rewards points.

It didn’t take us long to spend $500 since we fly out to London in less than a month. We put our flights to England on our Gold Rewards Card and earned double the points.

How Will We Earn Points with Gold Rewards over the next few months?

1. Travel Spend. With our Gold Rewards Card, we receive double reward points for every dollar spent on travel spend. At that rate, we just may accumulate our flight home from Mongolia! Before we leave on our trip, Amex also gives double points for purchases at drugstores, gas stations, and grocery stores. I don’t know about you, but that about covers all of my shopping! Yes, we lead simple lives.

2. Aeroplan Got a favourite rewards program? You aren’t limited to Aeroplan, you can transfer rewards to a variety of loyalty programs, including Alitalia, British Airways, Delta, Cathay Pacific, Hilton Honors, Starwood Preferred Guest and Priority Club. We’re Aeroplan collectors and we are looking forward to transferring our points earned on the Card 1:1. Once we combine our Welcome Bonus rewards and our already accumulated points from our travels last year we may be able to get a free flight home!

Dave and Deb Loving Business Class

3. TripFlex: With the TripFlex feature of Membership Rewards, all you have to do is buy your ticket with your Gold Rewards Card and call American Express once the charge has been posted to your account. Then have them use your MR points to cover the charge, including the taxes! It doesn’t matter if you purchase last minute deals, seat sales or through budget airlines – any travel that you buy with your Gold Rewards Card is covered. With TripFlex, you don’t need to have enough points to cover your reward at the time of booking because you have up to 12 months to redeem your points for a statement credit.

I Love All These Options!

In Need of Medical Insurance in Africa

4. The travel insurance. Up until this year we have been automatically covered for medical insurance. Our film union paid for our travel insurance needs with a group plan. Since we’re not working in film anymore, we don’t qualify for that amazing free travel health plan.  It was time for us to start looking around. We were relieved to see that the American Express Gold Rewards Card offers emergency medical insurance, trip interruption insurance, car rental insurance…the list goes on and on. We’ll be purchasing all our travels on our Gold Rewards Card as it automatically takes care of our insurance needs, saving us money and giving us peace of mind.

Whew, another thing off the list!

Mongol Rally

We leave for England on July 14 and we ordered a chip card so that we can use it in Europe and Asia. We’ll earn double rewards on any travel purchase abroad. On top of that, we will earn one point per dollar spent on gas abroad, making the cost of filling up over the 16,000 km of driving a lot less painful. Our Mongol Rally teammates Sherry and Rick will be very happy – we just may be offering to fill up the car all the way to Mongolia!

I had no idea what to expect when I received my copy of Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens.

Here we go again, I thought, another backpacker indulging in his latest trip thinking that the rest of us would care about his exploits.

As it turned out, I was completely wrong in my quick judgement.

Travel Writer Jamie Maslin tells a engaging tale of couchsurfing, making connections and corruption in Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens.

The book begins with him arriving in Caracus, Venezuala. A dangerous city where crime runs rampant and where the police are more corrupt than the muggers in the streets. Venezuala holds the infamous title of being the murder capital of the world. Wit h 15,000 murders per year, one wonders why anyone would be interested in traveling there. However, after reading Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens, I couldn’t wait to go there myself.

It’s a land where petrol is a fraction of the price of water, universal healthcare is practiced and the nations leader is revered by the poor and reviled by the rich.

Throughout his journey he meets up with interesting characters through the couchsurfing community

I found this book as informative as it was entertaining.

I always enjoy exploring the truth behind the headlines and I was fascinated with history of Chavez, his rise to power and the West’s hatred for the leader who has openly challenged and disrupted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Chávez has described the IMF and World Bank as “tools of the empire” which only serve “the interests of the North.”  ”And He’s Right,” according to Maslin.

Don’t agree? Read Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens and see if it can change your mind?

I was particularly drawn to the statement of the West claiming Chavez borders on being a dictator because he changed the constitution to allow future presidents to run for office as many times as the people were willing to elect them. If people think that allowing a president to be voted in as many times as the people will allow to be a dictatorship, well, Canada is in trouble too.

We don’t have a limit on the amount of terms our Prime Minister is allowed to serve. We voted Jean Chretien into office giving him over a decade of being Canada’s Prime Minister before his retirement. The same can be said for Pierre Trudeau, our most beloved PM in history. He held office for 11 years before taking his “long walk in the snow” to contemplate retirement.

I enjoyed the history and political lessons and just when I felt that it went on long enough, he moved on to Angel Falls.

It was time to explore the beauty of the country and the history of it’s explorers.

From Angel Falls to the iconic mountain from National Geographic that sparked Maislin’s interest in visiting Venezuela to uncomfortable bus rides, colourful characters and unbearable couch surfing lodges, I was absorbed from beginning to end.

I learned much from reading Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens and I was entertained all at once. Maislin paints an engaging story of Venezuela past and present. He blends his own experiences of today with an historic lesson of the country’s politics and people.

It is a book that enticed me to visit Venezuela and to see the contrasts of the country whose leader is either passionately loved or hated by his people.

After reading Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens, Venezuela moved up on my list of countries to visit and I am looking forward to exploring it and creating my own opinions of the country. That is what I love about travel, it shatters the myths and preconceived notions and you come away with a completely different view of a place than from when you first entered.

Visit Amazon today to get your copy of Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens

One of the most popular and well known travel bloggers on the Internet is RTWDave of GoBackpacking. Dave was one of the first people we found when we first started blogging and we have always looked up to him for inspiration and information.

Who better to give advice about having success in Travel Blogging than one of the most successful guys in travel!

Have you dreamed of living the life of travel and writing about it through your blog? Travel Blog Success is an excellent way to help you get started and keep you on track in achieving your goals.

We have been checking out the Travel Blog Success website and we find it to be a very valuable recourse for both beginner and established bloggers.

You have your choice of signing up for two different levels. Basic or Premium.

We don’t join many affiliate programs. As a matter a fact, the only one that we have kept on our blog is Nomadic Matt’s Make Money with Your Travel Blog. We followed his advice step by step when starting out and we believe that this book is a key factor in our early success. We believe that others can benefit from buying his ebook, so we like to share it with our readers.

After going through the lessons on Travel Blog Success, we have decided that this is another product we would like to be involved in.

And Other top bloggers feel the same way!

“Before starting Travel Blog Success I had no idea how to make money with atravel blog. I was actually pretty scared of it. Now I am confident enough to not justapproach advertisers, but to negotiate with them deals that work in my favour. AndI have landed some pretty impressive press trips as well.”
– Caz Makepeace, yTravelBlog.com

“I love having the opportunity to ask some of the top bloggers in the world specific
questions in a private, secure forum.”
– Matt Long, Landlopers.com

I suggest to anyone starting out in Travel Blogging read Travel Blog Success. Most of us that have been around for a while wish that we did things differently. If we would have known then what we did now when we first started Travel Blogging, and if programs like Travel Blog Success were around, we would have been much farther along earlier on. Something as simple as choosing the right domain name and defining your goals can give a travel blog a great leg up.

Travel Blog Success is laid out in an easy to follow manner with different lessons and sections to help a blogger at any level.

With lessons broken up into categories like, Creating Content, Developing Traffic, Making Money and Growing Your Business, you will receive expert advice in every aspect of creating a successful Travel Blog.

Better yet, there is a forum where you can network and ask questions to delve deeper into working on your goals.

One thing that we particularly liked was the expert audio interviews with top bloggers in their niche such as Shannon from A Little Adrift on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Anil of FoXnomad about the technical side of Blogging.

To get started with the program head over to  Travel Blog Success to find our more.

It’s $99 to join the basic membership program but for the extra 30 bucks we recommend the Premium package. With that you get unlimited coaching calls, a secret facebook group and audio interviews.  If you want to sign up for the basic level, you do have the option to upgrade to premium at a later date by paying the difference.

And you don’t have to worry because Dave offers a 60 day money back guarantee!

Travel Blog Success has been around since March 2010 and with it’s 2011 relaunch, 12 new lessons were added and 7 new audio interviews were recorded.  All members have a lifetime access to the recourses at their level and a 60 Day money back guarantee.

After studying Travel Blog success, I was inspired to pull up my socks and try to work harder by taking Dave’s advice. I was reminded of some points that I should be focusing on and I learned some very useful new tips and tricks. I am thrilled to be a member of Travel Blog Success and look forward to taking part in the discussions and forums  and listening to the next coaching call. If you sign up now you will make it in time for the June 22nd coaching call.  Hope to see you there!

So what are you waiting for?

Have you dreamed of living the life of travel and writing about it through your blog? Travel Blog Success is an excellent way to help you get started and keep you on track in achieving your goals.

One of the greatest advantages of being a travel blogger is the opportunity to meet extraordinary people.

We met Laurent Dick last year while traveling with Princess Cruises in Alaska and were completely in awe of his life. Hailing from Switzerland, he settled in Alaska after exploring the high Canadian Arctic.

A contract photographer for the Associated Press with five photography books published, Laurent is a leader in his field. He is an expert in photographing under extreme conditions such as documenting the epic Yukon Quest dog race and guiding climbers on Mount McKinley.

It was his part as the photographer for an international expedition retracing the first scientific journey to Antartica that really blew us away.

Laurent is now returning to Antartica to share his knowledge and expertise with independent travellers and aspiring or professional photographers on an exclusive 28 day-long photographic expedition.

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2012 Antarctica Photo Expedition – Sail To Antarctica On This Exclusive Photo Adventure

Do you want to be a part of this once in a lifetime adventure?

This unique voyage is tailored for amateur as well as professional photographers. No sailing experience is required, however, the chosen seven team members must have a passion for photography and an enthusiasm for capturing the magic of the least explored continent on earth. Expeditions members must also have the resilience to endure crossings of the Drake Passage, and a deep desire to experience a unique adventure on ‘The White Continent’.

This expedition is not designed to be a trip for the weekend warrior or a cruise with guaranteed smooth sailing – it will be a true adventure for the independent traveler. The groups interest in photography and wildlife observations will dictate the schedule.

Unlike so many other trips to Antarctica that we have seen, this expedition will maximize the time on shore at amazing locations. This photo expedition will be a photographic highlight of a lifetime to one of the wildest edges on our Earth.

28 Days in Antarctica

The length, commitment and remoteness of this expedition requires participants to be in overall good health, mentally prepared and to have a strong team spirit, as we will spend periods of time in close quarters with each other. The yacht is cozy but if you expect a hair dryer and bathrobe in your cabin, this expedition may not be for you.

The Expedition: by Laurent Dick

The motivation for organizing the this photo expedition stems from my own experience discovering Antarctica from a sailboat. In the winter of 2007/2008, I was hired to be the photographer of an international sailing expedition, and we spent over a month along the Antarctic Peninsula retracing the first scientific journey to Antarctica (the ‘Belgica’ expedition with De Gerlache, Amundsen and Dr. Cook).

During the same winter, I was able to cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula on board the icebreaker Polar Star. Unlike being on a big cruise ship, where everything has to be very scheduled and there is little time for personal input, the intimacy of a small group on sailboat gives a lot of flexibility and freedom for personal exploration.

I also believe that one really needs time in Antarctica to really be able to absorb and capture the exquisite nature of the place. After subtracting sea time, we will actually spend around three weeks in Antarctica, and in all my research I couldn’t find any other expedition or photo tour that spends that much time in Antarctica.

This created the impetus for a photo expedition by a photographer for photographers. Going to Antarctica takes a significant financial and time commitment, but the journey is a trip of-a-lifetime. I would like to make this experience possible for other photographers, so they too can return with an amazing portfolio of landscape and wildlife images.

The journey has been timed to coincide with the longest days of the austral summer, as well as with the birth of the penguin chicks, a period of breathtaking beauty and life.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up now for this extraordinary once in a lifetime opportunity. Follow the links below for more details or head straight to the website SailAntarctica.com

All Photographs by Laurent Dick

28 day-long photographic expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula on a sailboat with professional photographer Laurent Dick
Departure from Ushuaia, Argentia: December 29, 2011
Return to Ushuaia: January 25, 2012
Cost: $12,950
For more details, please visit the expedition website http://www.sailantarctica.com
or contact Laurent Dick directly at polarphotos@gmail.com

For More on Laurent Dick and his Photography visit:

http://www.alaska365.com
http://www.laurentdick.com
http://www.sailantarctica.com

When we first started travel blogging we bought a great book called Make Money With Your Travel Blog by Nomadic Matt.

We learned a lot from that book and it kickstarted our travel blogging career.  We believed in it so much that we joined his affiliate team and put his banner on our site to sell copies to our readers to this day .  But we’re not here to talk about how to make money with your travel blog even though it too is an excellent book.

We’re Here to Talk About Matt’s New Book

When Matt emailed us his new book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, we knew that it would be a product that we could get behind. Having been on the road since 2005, he is an expert on saving money and making the most of your dollar while traveling.

How To Travel the World on $50 per Day is an excellent resource for anyone who as dreamed of world travel but thought it was only for the rich. It’s for a person who has wanted to get out there and explore but thinks that they can’t do it.  For those who have a limited budget but still want to travel the world, this book is for you!

It is even a good resource for seasoned travelers that have been around the block a few times.

This book is now on my desktop for easy access when I’m looking for money saving tips.  We’ve been traveling for several years but definitely aren’t as savvy as Matt when it comes to saving money and finding deals.

We can all learn a thing or two from him.

The Book is Divided into 4 Chapters

• Pre-Trip Planning
• Destinations
• Other Ways to Save
• How the Numbers Add Up

I found the book easy to read, understand and to flip through easily for quick reference when returning for more information.

From finding cheap overland travel and accommodations in Europe to booking cheap flights you will find all the tools you need to save money on your travels.

Matt even breaks down money saving tips on each continent!

The Biggest Incentive is that 20 companies have offered discounts at the end of the book. I loved the discounts that he has offered in various parts of the world, from a hostel in Budapest, Hungary to an adventure discount in New Zealand you have a good chance of receiving more than one deal on your round the world trip.

Over all, I was very impressed with this book.

For all my friends out there that have wanted to travel the world but don’t know how, I would tell them to buy a copy of Matt’s book to find out everything that they need.

For anyone who travels a lot but isn’t the best at finding deals or sticking to the budget, I recommend How To Travel the World on $50 per Day.  Dave and I aren’t the best budget travellers and we need to work on finding those great deals.  With the tools that Matt has provided us, I think that 2011 just may be the first year we will actually be able to stick to our budget.

Are you ready to travel the world? What are you waiting for pick up How to Travel the World on $50 per Day today!

For a Limited Time it is only $19.97. A small price to pay for big savings.

One of the many perks I enjoy about travel writing is the time when authors and publishers send me a book to review.
Steve Stillwater sent one our way a few weeks ago and I have finally gotten around to reading it. I don’t know what took me so long How To Take a Green Vacation is a very easy and enjoyable read.

At 84 pages in length, divided into 14 chapters, this ebook packs in a lot of information.

We all want to do our best to take better care of the world. While travellers tend to be some of the leaders in raising awareness and practicing environmentally friendly habits, we can all learn a thing or two more to minimize our carbon footprint.

How to Take a Green Vacation offers practical advice on how you can do your part to save the planet. If we all make little changes together we can make a huge difference in the long run

The Book begins with talking about hotels. We all have to stay in them so we might as well learn which hotels are the Greenest. I was happy to hear that one of our favourite chains is at the top of the list. The Marriott was voted number one of Newsweeks 500 most green companies. However, Steve is quick to stress that some hotels are better than others, even in the same chain. It takes a long time to overhaul hundreds if not thousands of properties so do your homework.

How do you do your homework you ask? Well, Mr. Stillwater devotes an entire section to offering suggestions as to what questions you should ask tour companies and hotel chains to ensure that you are choosing the greenest option.

He then goes on to describe the different types of vacations for the Green Traveller and what are the best adventures, destinations and where to stay for each category.

The Vacation types that he covers

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1. Nothing but rest- You can be pampered and still go Green
2. Do-it-yourselfer - The do it yourselfer has the easiest time finding green alternatives, but we can all use a little help
3. Explore in Luxury - Just because your rich doesn’t mean that you can forget about the environment. Some of the most luxury resorts are leaders when it comes to being eco-friendly. They are doing their part to help the local economy, preserve the environment, encourage eco tourism and to raise funds for health care and education
4. Not your Ordinary Family Vacation – And what better way to show your family that you care about them than by showing them to take care of the Earth as well? (quote-Steve Stillwater)
5. Special Needs Not Limited Opportunity - I was happy to see this section in the ebook. Not a lot of people touch on special needs travel, but there is a growing amount of people with disabilities traveling today.  As Steve said…”Everyone deserves to travel. Just because you or a loved one has developmental or physical disabilities does not mean that your needs cannot be accommodated
6. Nifty Past Fifty Crowd - I loved this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes.  ”Men do not quit playing because they grow old. They grow old because they quit playing.”
7. Toe Curling Adventure – Our personal favourite. He even gave us some ideas for future adventures in our travels.
8. Green Vacations for Volunteers – Probably the most green and eco-friendly vacation that a person can take and Steve offers up ideas for your volunteer trip and his top green vacations to volunteer.

The Wrap Up

I enjoyed the easy to read format.  Each section begins with an explanation of what it is all about, How you can go about planning and ends with his top suggestions of where to go and where to stay. You don’t have to follow his suggestions however, because the chapter at the end that focuses on what questions you should ask your tour operator and travel agent gives you the tools to explore and plan your own green vacation.

While a lot of the book was common sense, there were things that I learned and needed to be reminded about. By having the book divided into easy to read chapters and headings, How To Take a Green Vacation makes for a useful reference when planning your next vacation.

Even though How to Take a Green Vacation focuses on green travel, it also has a lot of information about travel destinations in general.

Before we leave on our next travels I will check back with Stillwaters book to remind myself what I need to do to be green on the plane, at the resort or hotel, when I am travelling and what I can do at home before leaving.

For only $17.97 it is a great value with the added bonus of receiving a free incentive. A bonus offer of 10 Ways to Save Gas on your Vacation.

Steve Stillwater wants to help you live a greener lifestyle. The goal at Green Travel Tips is to provide information on taking green vacations and maintaining a green lifestyle when you are away from home, whether for business or pleasure.

To get your copy of How to Take a Green Vacation visit Green Travel Tips

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More Book Reviews by theplanetd

• Write Right online
• Make Money with your Travel Blog
• Surviving Paradise – One Year on a Disappearing Island
• Lunatic Express, Discovering the Worlds Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains and Planes

We love finding new travel and vacation package booking sites.

It has become our favourite way to find hotels and transportation when planning our vacation. So when people email us to ask us to review a site, we are always keen to give it a try and share our findings with you.
Holiday Extras is a UK travel site that specializes in Airport hotels and transportation and we found it to be filled with great deals and information.

I found this site to be extra helpful because it doesn’t spread itself too thin.

By concentrating on only airport hotels and transportation all around the United Kingdom it can give the best deals and advice. Many websites offer too much information and it can become overwhelming to the traveller.  Holiday extras focuses on one location offering the consumer targeted information on specific travel locations.

I popped on to their live chat to ask a question and they responded in 32 seconds. Now that is impressive. If you are planning your trip to the UK, you can be sure that their will be somebody online waiting to respond to your questions.

What it offers

From Airport parking to accommodations, car hire to theme park breaks, Holiday Extras has everything you need to fulfill your needs upon your arrival. Their slogan is “We take the hassle, you take the holiday.”  We always find that the arrival at any country can be the most stressful of times. To have your first couple of days cared for can make your holiday more relaxing. Something as simple as having a shuttle meet you at the airport and take you to a hotel to refresh and relax before your trip begins can set the tone for a fabulous vacation.

When we clicked to book a hotel at the Airport near Manchester we were surprised to find hotels for as low as £39.  The hotel booking page offers customer reviews and ratings, photographs and maps, more information on each hotel and even airport transfer information.  If you are looking for something more luxurious, never fear, Holiday Extras offers hotels in all price ranges.

But if you are like us and always looking for a deal, you can pre-book with manchester airport hotels and parking and save up to 65%.  Even if you are planning on spending more money, it is always great to save a buck or two to spend elsewhere on your vacation.

I am impressed with how easy it is to find all the information that you need at the click of a button. I like that they offer a live chat and even a phone number where you can speak to a customer service representative.  They even offer a 10 minute guarantee on reply if you email them with a question.

Another feature I enjoyed was their Theatre Breaks section.

You can check out a London Show and book a hotel nearby at a discounted rate. It doesn’t allow you to book a theatre ticket without booking a hotel room, but by combining both accommodation and tickets, you can find another great deal.  As I started to follow the links in the site, I found that I could book a train from my airport hotel to a hotel near the theatre of my choice and tickets to the hottest show in town for a very reasonable package. It seems that a person can plan the perfect London getaway at very large discount prices with this site.

We have always put off traveling to the UK because we thought that it would be too expensive to book hotels and transportation. Now that we have found Holiday Extras, we just may be spending a bit of time in London before flying out to our next great adventure abroad.

We have reviewed a couple of booking sites in the past and since our reviews, we have found that we use them regularly. Holiday Extras will be another site that we are lucky to have been asked to review as we will be using them for our future UK vacations. While we do earn an income off of some reviews, like everything at theplanetd, just because we are asked to review a site, it doesn’t mean that we will give them a strong review.

We happened to find this site very strong and easy to navigate with some great deals to boot. Two Thumbs up from us.

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Back in January we entered a contest where we had to let people out there on the Internet know that Air France has launched a new class, the Premium Voyageur Class on many of their long haul flights. We thought it would be fun to do the research and write a blog post. Besides, we had a very good chance since Air France Canada only invited 20 Canadian travel blogs to take part.

As it turned out our article Air France Launches New Premium Voyageur Class won.

We were treated to a flight to Paris from Montreal on their new class. As luck would have it our flight to France had a last minute change and we were upgraded to Business Class.  Lucky us!

During our flight home from France we were in our proper place in the new Premium Voyageur Class and we wanted to share what it was like with all of you.

The Arrival

We arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport early hoping that we may be able to sit in the Air France Businuss lounge since we were in a premium class.

Deb at the Premium Boarding!

When we checked in we asked at the ticket counter if we were allowed in the Air France Lounge and they told us that they were not sure, we would have to go through security and ask once we arrived at the departure area.

That was odd, you would think that the Air France staff would know these things.

Unfortunately once we went to the lounge we were told that we could only enter if we paid 35€ Each.   We decided against paying 70 € to sit in a lounge and decided to buy our dinner instead.

One Problem.

We have never been to an airport with such a lack of facilities as our terminal at Charles de Gaulle. There were no restaurants or even nice little coffee lounges.  If only we knew before going through security that we couldn’t go into the Affaires lounge, we would have waited to check in and would have eaten in the main area of the airport that actually had some restaurants.

Gotta love Pasta in a box for 8 Euro!

The 70 Euro for the private Air France Premium lounge with unlimited beverages and food was looking better by the second.

When we went to board the plane, we went to premium check in that stated Premium Voyageur, Affaires Business and Premium First Class check in,  but we were shooed away.  Luckily the supervisor saw what was happening and called us back.  “Sorry for the misunderstanding, you can check in here.”

I am sure that by the time you read this, Air France will know what to do with the people traveling Premium Voyageur.

We started to feel special!

Once we got on board the plane though, we started to feel special.

Our Premium Voyageur Class had a total of 5 people including Dave and myself sitting in the section.  One woman was on our previous flight a month ago to France and we had a great chat.  She just finished walking Spain over the Camino de Santiago!  Another woman lived in the same town as my sister in Germany an she  knew her! Can  you believe it?

The world was very small that day my friends.

The seats looked good!

The Premium Voyageur Class looks very good.  It has the same slightly smaller version of shelled seats as Business Class where they  recline within themselves.  The one problem we found with the seats is that they didn’t recline enough. The woman behind us actually thought something was wrong with her seat, but that was as far back as the seat went.  We felt that they could have reclined a tad more but at least they had a foot rest to allow you to stretch your legs out and there is far more leg room in front of your seat than in the Voyageur Class.  It also had clever head rests that folds on either side to hold your neck straight.

They are quite comfortable and far wider than the seats in the voyageur class.

• Business class consists of a seating plan of 2 /3 /2
• Economly Voyageur has a plan of 3/ 4 /3
• Premium Voyageur has a plan of 2/ 4 /2  giving us ample amount of space and comfort.

The entertainment system is second to none with choice of movies, T.V. series and games to keep you busy for the entire flight.

We also received a little care package of toothpaste and toothbrush, hand cream, socks, eye masks and earplugs in a handy little case.

Time for dinner!

Dinner

The meal was great as usual on an Air France flight, but we aren’t special enough to receive metal knives and forks like the folks in business class.  Do you remember the days when we all had metal cutlery on a plane? It is supposedly for security purposes that we now eat with plastic but what, are only poor people a security threat? 

And don’t get me started on the environment!  Bring back the silverware! Round the edges, make the knife dull, give us a spork (spoon/fork combination)!  A person with money has just as good of a chance at being a security threat as the rest of us.

But I digress….

A good upgrade from coach!

Final Impression

Air France Premium Voyageur Class was comfortable and it looked good.  It is definitely worth the extra money to upgrade from coach.  Business Class can be a little too much money for the regular person to upgrade but Air France’s Premium Voyageur offers the average person the chance to travel with more comfort and style for a fraction of the price.

More Legroom!

Makes a lot of difference!

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For the cost, we think It is great value for your money.  On average a flight from Paris to Montreal is about $1300.  If you are looking for an upgrade with more room and comfort and extra perks like priority baggage, and priority check in. You will be satisfied.  You don’t have to stand in long lines and your luggage will come off the plane first making your travel experience much more pleasant.

Would we fly Premium Voyageur on Air France again? Definitely.

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I’ve contributeddownloads

Download Free eBooks

led by Tripbase

Last November we were invited to take part in a fun post circling around the travel blog world.  We would all share our 3 best kept travel secrets with the world.

Started by Katie from Tripbase, “The aim of this game is to unite travel bloggers in a joint endeavor – to create an amazing list of top travel recommendations across the globe to share with the entire online travel community.”

The concept caught on quickly and 200 bloggers took part.

The people at Tripbase compiled a list of every post and decided that the tips were just too good not to share. So they put together an ebook that we are very proud to be a part of.

Giveaway

They have come up with a unique idea of compiling all 500 secrets into a series of ebooks available for you for Free!  Learn secrets and tips about travel and destinations from some of the top travel writers and bloggers on the Internet.

Just click on this link TripBase.com Travel Secrets for your free copy today.

Charity

TripBase will donate $1 to Charity Water for every ebook downloaded.  Charity Water is an organization that provides funds to build freshwater wells and clean drinking water to people in developing nations.

When you visit their site TripBase.com/TravelSecrets you can download any or all of the books of your choice for free and have the opportunity to give if you choose to an amazing cause.

Just $20 will give a person clean drinking water for 20 years!

We are thrilled to be a part of this unique charity campaign and Internet collaboration and hope that you will check out the book that we are honoured to have contributed to along side excellent authors that we admire and respect!

I’ve contributeddownloads

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led by Tripbase

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Why do people put their lives at risk and pack into over crowded ferries in Bangladesh?  Why do businessmen fly on airlines with the worst safety records on the planet? Why do mothers and children ride through terrifying mountainous journeys on buses barely fit to stay on the road?

The Lunatic Express explores how the poorest people in the world are forced to make these dangerous journeys every day.  The world is growing at a rapid pace.  People need to get from one place to another and in developing nations the citizens are traveling in uncomfortable conditions and risking their lives regularly just to get from point A to point B.

Carl Hoffman has always had a curiosity about the world.

He has been paid to travel to some of the most remote destinations on earth. As a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler, Wired and Popular Mechanics, Carl Hoffman has reached the pinnacle of adventure travel.  He has explored every corner of the earth writing for magazines like Outside, National Geographic Adventure and Men’s Journal.

The Lunatic Express is his second novel.

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His life has been one  big adventure and the adventure became addictive.  As he puts it “home became ever more strange to return to.”  How can a person be in a war zone in the Sudan one minute and be shopping at the Safeway the next?

While I haven’t been in the middle of a war zone, I have been in some mind blowing situations and I can relate to his predicament. It is impossible to blend the two worlds together. Eventually one life has to give way to the other.  But when you have a wife and three children waiting for you at home like Carl does, how can you give up your stable relationships and family?

It was time to do something drastic, something to satisfy his craving to see the world and jar him back to his life at home.  A long journey seemed like the only way to finally satisfy his wanderlust.

This wasn’t going to be your average trip to explore exotic destinations or a break on a beach.  This was a journey where he was going to put his life in jeopardy every day.   He was going to circumnavigate the globe riding the most dangerous trains, planes, boats and buses of the world.

A suicide mission you ask?

His friends thought so, but the Lunatic Express is far more than a shock value book telling the tales of dangerous situations. It is a triumph of the human spirit, a love letter to the people you meet on the road and a testament to the resilience of people in the world that are not given a choice. These people welcome a stranger into their life. They treat him as a friend for the brief time that they spend together taking part in the simple act of moving from one place to another.

Hoffman puts a face to the statistics. There is a quiet dignity in people that carefully wrap their belongings in cardboard boxes and hang their hammocks on an overcrowded deck.  There is surprising strength in men that can share a drink at the end of a 14 hour day of driving and hustling for fares and there is a zest for life in people flirting, laughing and dancing with one another during a long and arduous journey.

A moving moment in The Lunatic Express comes when Carl interviews one of the few survivors of the second worst maritime disaster in history.  The MV La Joola. A Senengalese Ferry that sank 6 years earlier off the coast of Gambia killing over 1800 people.  Pierre Colly was a young student at the time and he survived by being swept out the window and into the sea.  Clinging to a floating fish trap he was eventually rescued by a fisherman.  He survived but lost his brother and continues to live in despair and with the guilt of being labeled a survivor.

These people are forced to travel on dangerous modes of transportation.   They don’t have the choice of taking a flight, traveling in a higher class or exploring other options.  The over crowding, the filth and stifling heat are the only choice available to them and millions of people face these obstacles every day.

Carl Hoffman brings this to light in The Lunatic Express. People wouldn’t travel this way if they had a choice.

Why Carl chose to put his life at risk and leave his children without a father I cannot explain. Luckily, he came out unscathed and ready to face his life with fresh eyes.

The Lunatic Express is a journey worth taking not only for the adventure but to read along with Carl as he discovers the value of deep human connections taking place in some of the most harrowing of situations.

To read more about Carl Hoffman visit his website TheLunaticExpress.com

Follow him on twitter at lunaticcarl

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We had seen the ads for months throughout Asia.  “Qatar Airways, the world’s five star airline“  Wow, it must be good.

We were surprised to find Qatar Airways had one of the most reasonable flights out of Kathmandu to Toronto when we booked our tickets online.

Qatar Airways..A great Airline!

We had checked everywhere and the only flights cheaper were on Air India through Delhi. We all know about the new Visa Rules in India. You have to be out of the country for two months before they will let you back in. We had heard horror stories of people being denied entry even if they were in transit.

Delhi’s airport doesn’t have a transit lounge so we would have to go through immigration when we changed flights from Kathmandu so we didn’t want to risk it.  A couple thousand dollars is a lot to throw away if bureaucracy wins out.

Weren’t we lucky to find a reasonable flight out of Kathmandu through Doha in the Middle East instead. We went directly to Qatar Airways website to book our tickets.  We had tried other booking sites, but going to the source seemed like the best choice and it was.

Booking our ticket!

The site was easy to navigate, but it always kept timing out for us.  It took an entire afternoon to book the ticket. Luckily we had Wifi at a coffee shop.  We weren’t sure if it was the Qatar Airways site or the connection in Kathmandu.  Whatever it was it took forever.  But once we got through the process we had our seats secured and ready to go.  We could even pick our seats online and we chose prime ones at the front with extra leg room.

One Big Problem

When we boarded the plane someone was in our seats.  We had duplicate tickets and the woman in the seat had no intention on moving. We promptly walked to the flight attendant to tell her about our dilemma.  She took our tickets and exchanged them with other seats with barely a glance in our direction.

I told her that we were very upset because we specifically booked these seats because of the extra leg room.  She didn’t let me finish my sentence and interrupted me by saying “You have been upgraded to business class ma’am.”

No Way!

Upgraded to Business class..Awesome!

Not only are we flying one of the best airlines in the world, we get to fly it in style.  We have only been upgraded once before in our lives and we made a point of enjoying it.

We didn’t worry that we looked ridiculous taking our photos sipping champagne.  We weren’t worried that everyone in business class knew that we were the upgraded people who really couldn’t afford the flight.  We relished every minute of it.

As a matter a fact other passengers decided to join in and asked us to take their photos sitting in their comfy seats as well. Maybe everyone was upgraded.

Kickin' back enjoyng the entertainment in style!

We ordered our wine and set put our seats in the perfect position to relax and enjoy the entertainment system.  The headphones were so much better than anything in general seating.  They blocked out every sound and we had to tap each other on the shoulder to speak.  Our seats reclined right back into beds and they were motorized. They even gave us a massage as we laid back watching our movies.

I know there are many of you out there that have flown in style, but Dave and I are economy travelers. We normally fly routes like our scary trip to Lukla from Kathmandu. We don’t normally enjoy this type of service so we were in heaven.

Dinner is served...with metal utensils!!

We both commented on the fact that you can eat your meal with proper cutlery in Business Class. We used real metal utensils!  Do airlines assume that only poor people are a threat? I can’t bring on nail clippers, but buddy in business class gets to cut his steak with a knife.

But what a meal it is.

Appetizer

Main Course!

Dessert!

We were served four courses on china with proper wine in wine glasses accompanying our goose liver pate, our salad, stuffed chicken with roasted vegetables, our raspberry coulis under a custard pudding finishing off with and fine chocolate…and more wine.

We didn’t want to sleep we were enjoying the flight so much.  But when you are this comfortable sleep is inevitable.  We cozied up under our soft blankets, put our seats back into their beds and fell into a deep sleep.

It's Bed time!

The downside…

We could get used to this.  How can we go back to the crowded cabin in the back?  How can we share our toilet with hundreds of other people?  We want our private, clean  toilet in the front that we never have to wait for, we want our unlimited wine and welcome champagne with orange juice, we attention from the flight attendants.  We want our metal cutlery!

Lucky for us our next flight is to Paris on Air France’s Premium Voyageur Class.  We leave next week.  It looks like we get milk the decadence for a couple more flights anyway.

There is a fantastic guesthouse in Hikkaduwa that we probably shouldn’t be telling you about because it is Top Secret.

OK, to be fair the name of the place is Top Secret and I think that they wouldn’t mind if we let the cat out of the bag since they are located right on Galle Road with a big sign promoting the spot.

Are you looking for a great guest house in Hikkaduwa?  Top Secret is what you are looking for.

There are very few places that Dave and I spend a long time at.  We are wanderers and even when we travel, we like to keep on the move.  We get itchy feet and need to keep seeing new things.

This was not the case when we came back to Hikkaduwa after traveling around Sri Lanka to see the sights.  We knew that we needed a little time to mellow out before heading back to India and Top Secret Guest House was the perfect place for us to be.

Our Guesthouse

Located in Hikkaduwa, Top Secret is close enough to all the action, but far enough away that you can relax,

Top Secret is probably the best budget accommodation that we have ever stayed at.

We loved it so much, that we decided to write about it.

Top Secrets Beach

Located on the beach, this is more than a guest house.  The prices are guest house prices, but Top Secret is like a mini resort.  It is set up tastefully with the all the comforts and amenities that a beach lover needs.   Plenty of lounge chairs and beach beds with covered cabanas make it easy to spend the day on the beach.  Hammocks hang lazily in the shade along with padded mats and massage tables.

It is the perfect budget accommodation to spend several days relaxing on the beach.

Dave relaxes in a comfy hammock

The dining area offers two options, eat under the thatched roof at a table, or choose a maharajah bed complete with plush pillows and coffee table.

There is a bar, and tuck shop to buy everything from jewelery to bathing suits.  Prices rival bartering on the street and you can browse in a relaxed setting.

The staff is smart and friendly. They wear their Top Secret T-shirts and look the best of any place on the beach.

We were sold on our room. A large bed covered in mosquito net built on an attractive frame, a desk to work at and chairs to relax outside on the terrace.  The bathroom is impeccably clean and when they clean your room, they create a little pattern with your fresh sheets decorating the bed.

Our Room

Top Secret gives all the service and cleanliness of a top end resort at bargain basement prices.

You can see that they manager, Nayana Maria Bach and her husband Saman Priyantha know what people want. They run a well organized business.  Each day it seems that the entire beach comes to hang out at Top Secret.  The place only has a dozen or so rooms, but the 20 cabana beds are always full, the tables are packed and the hammocks are reserved with towels and books early in the day.

At night people stop by for dinner and drinks with laptops and iphones in hand to take advantage of the free wifi and relaxed atmosphere.

Free Wifi for everyone

We are sad to leave this place, but lucky to have discovered it before the whole world decides to come here.

It won’t be long until prices rise and rooms book out.

We paid 1800 Rs per night ($16 U.S. ) with a delicious breakfast included consisting of 2 eggs, 4 pieces of toast, a pot of tea or coffee and a giant mixed fruit juice. With meals like this, we never needed lunch!  Breakfasts around the area go for $4 each, so we decided that we were getting our room for $10 a night. Worth every penny.

Is there anything not to like about Top Secret?

• Well, there are a couple of things that they could improve on.
• The ceiling fans in the room offer little reprieve from the heat. We started to think that they possible have it turning the wrong way and was sucking the air up rather than blowing it down.  This needs to be dealt with because everyone complains about the heat.
• Also in the chill out maharaja bed area, they should have ceiling fans put in, it can be very hot sitting there as the breeze does not make it in from the beach.
• The showers are cold water only, but the weather is so hot, that a cold shower feels great. Besides, the water is well heated by the sun, so it comes out quite warm as it is. Sometimes we have been disappointed hoping for a cold shower, but getting a very hot one. (I am not exaggerating when I say hot, I mean hot!)

To find out more and to make reservations, you can visit their website at Sri Lanka Holiday Info

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One of the most important tools for running a successful website is search engine optimization – SEO.

Have you always wondered how other websites manage to receive so many views?  Do you want your posts and services to show up higher on search pages but have no idea how to make it happen?

Shannon O’Donnell and Andy Hayes Book, Do It Yourself, Search Engine Optimization – (DIY SEO) gives you the tools that you need to improve your sites ranking, search results and performance.

When we received a copy of their guide, I was excited to read tips from two travel writers and website experts that I respect and admire.

It is an easy to follow guide that debunks the myths associated with optimizing your site.  SEO doesn’t require a large financial investment and you don’t have to resort to shady tricks to get noticed on the Internet.

They offer simple solutions to improve your rankings and search results with Google and give you the tools to maintain a strong presence helping you to stand out above your competition.

DIY SEO covers topics from choosing the right key words for your site, explaining terminology and acronyms, how to find inbound links to your site and how to make the technical changes that you need to put your website at the top of its market.

The book also comes with an audio guide and worksheet to help you organize your to do list and to start optimizing your website or blog right away.

We implemented a technical tip that Andy explains in his book and it immediately moved our site from a PageRank 2 to a PageRank 4. Before taking his advice, we wondered why we had not been  moving up in the rankings.  We thought that we had been doing everything right creating inbound links, writing regular content and submitting our site to search engines.  He gave us some quick and easy tips to make the changes that we need and the site has been performing beautifully ever since.

We trust Andy and Shannon’s work and would recommend this book to anyone wanting to improve their Internet rankings, people who feel that their site has come to a plateau or for people that have no idea where to start.

You can buy this book and other useful ebooks at Travel Online Partners

While we are an affiliate of DIY SEO and make a little money if you do decide to buy their book, we here at theplanetd would never endorse any product that we did not believe in.

Thinking of taking your first round the world trip?  Don’t know where to start?

No Debt World Travel is an excellent resource for first time travelers and the questions that they may be pondering about taking the step to travel the world.
It is that time of year when people are making New Years Resolutions and already breaking them.  If you have always dreamed of World Travel, what are you waiting for?
We received a copy of Brian Peters, No Debt World Travel and thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to share our review of his book with our faithful readers of theplanetd!

World travel doesn’t have to be expensive, intimidating or scary.

Brian‘s book is an easy to follow guide for people that have never traveled before outside of tours or package holidays.
He takes the mystery out of what it is like to travel independently around the world.
Brian had caught the travel bug when his girlfriend at the time took him to Brazil years earlier.  He traveled for short periods to other countries, but it wasn’t until after losing his job that he decided to take the plunge and see the world. Instead of worrying and panicking about what he was going to do with his life, he took the opportunity to live his dream.
He has since become a respected travel blogger and provider of advice and I was excited when he sent me his ebook to have a look at.

What’s in No Debt World Travel?

From talking about budgets, banking tips, travel insurance, round the world airline tickets, visa’s and passports, safety and even food options, Brian give you excellent tips for the first time traveler.
He also provides links to important information.
He gives pros and cons of travel options and gives the reader an all around idea of how to book their world travel.  You can then make your own informed decisions on how you want to travel this world!

Bonus Material

Brian Provides Extra Bonus Material.  From excellent interviews with respected travelers, to videos explaining how to book a hostel, what to look for in a back pack as well as a check list of what you should bring.

As affiliates of Brians book, you can buy it right here at our website.  We have it in the sidebar or you can click on No Debt World Travel right here.

You can read more about Brian at his website: another excellent recourse of the same name nodebtworldtravel.com

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Just before leaving for India, we were given the opportunity to read Peter Rudiak Gould’s fantastic book Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island about his time in the Marshall Islands.  He spent a year teaching in one of the most remote islands on the planet.  You can read our review of his book for more information at our post One Year on a Disappearing Island/Review

I enjoyed the book so much, that I contacted Peter to ask him for some more insight into his writing and time spent on the island.
He was kind enough to take the time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions.
Hope you enjoy our first interview here at ThePlanetD

D&D: Your book is called Surviving Paradise. It seems to have a double meaning. Is it named for your time on the islands or for the Marshallese surviving in a harsh environment? Do you think the Marshallese live a rich life or are they just merely surviving?

Peter: The title definitely has the double meaning you point out – maybe even a triple meaning if climate change is taken into account. It refers to the fact that Ujae was something other than paradise both for me and for the people who live there.

The Amazon has been called a “counterfeit paradise”; the same could be said of coral atolls, which are some of the most difficult and marginal environments that humans have managed to colonize. That doesn’t mean that people only survive there, though.

No culture just gets by: every society finds time and resources for games, stories, rituals, art, and music. But it would be wrong to imagine that Marshall Islanders exist in a state of childlike innocence, in a place that easily supplies their every need, or that all of their waking hours are devoted to spiritual reverie or communing with the cosmos. (That may sound like a straw man argument, but it is pretty close to the romantic descriptions of indigenous life that we sometimes hear.) That’s not really a letdown, and certainly not an insult. The people are far more interesting and human than that.

D&D: The Marshall Islands will be one of the first places to be destroyed by global warming. Why do you think that the world is giving Vanuatu and Tuvalu attention as disappearing islands when the Marshall Islands will clearly be the first to disappear under the sea?

Peter: The amount of media attention devoted to a country seems to have less to do with how vulnerable it is and more to do with other factors. One of them is how energetic and clever the populace is at publicizing its plight.

For instance, the government of the Maldives—a low-lying island nation in the same vulnerable position as the Marshall Islands—staged an underwater cabinet meeting to get media attention. And it worked. Tuvalu, also threatened with uninhabitability, negotiated migration rights to New Zealand.

Although this had nothing specifically to do with global warming, and almost no one in that country is leaving because of climate change fears, nonetheless the migration plan was picked up by the media as an example of a country that was “already fleeing”. (You can probably tell that I have mixed feelings about this spin, but at least it gets the country some much deserved attention.)

Also, a flood like the one the Maldives experienced in the 2004 tsunami, while having nothing to with climate change per se, put the country on the map as a low-lying nation vulnerable to sea level rise. The Marshall Islands, in contrast, hasn’t performed any publicity stunts, hasn’t made evacuation plans, and hasn’t had any major floods, so it gets little notice despite its high vulnerability.

D&D: Very interesting, that leads me to my next question…You say that the Marshallese need to do more to help themselves with the impending crisis of global warming and rising oceans. In what ways, if any, can the people of the Marshall Islands help themselves? Is all hope lost?

Peter: Of course, the blame isn’t on them, but the problem is there whether they caused it or not. There are a few things—important things—that they can do in response. I can think of four:?

1) They can protest the lack of international action on climate change. Although the fate of the Marshallese matters no more (and no less) than any other group of 60,000 people, the fact that they are a country has enormous psychological pull – climate change activists prefer to say that “a whole country will have to be evacuated” rather than “60,000 people will have to be evacuated”. The Marshallese can use this rhetorical tool to their advantage. They have no clout on the international stage, but they can make headlines for their plight. They have started to do this, but could do much more in this category.?

2) They can plan for migration. Note that planning for migration is not the same as planning to migrate. It is merely making a plan for the possible eventuality in which life is no longer sustainable on these islands – not resigning oneself to inevitable exodus. This distinction is incredibly important and often missed. There is a debate in the Marshall Islands, and abroad, about whether people should leave their country because of climate change.

The pro-migration people say “Migration is inevitable, so we’d better face up to it”, while the anti-migration people say “Migration is not a solution – it would destroy our culture and is an utterly unacceptable option”. To me, this seems to be an unnecessary debate. Surely both sides can agree (so long as both sides realize the reality of climate change) that a) total migration is a terrible prospect and is to be avoided at all costs, and b) it may nonetheless become necessary to do so for very survival. This means that both sides should be for planning for migration but not for planning to migrate.

Preparing for the worst is not the same as predicting the worst.?

3) They can make steps to adapt to the more manageable aspects of climate change. Vulnerability to erosion and storms can be reduced by planting trees on the shoreline. Houses can be built a few feet above the ground. Disaster management can be improved. Water resources can be more effectively protected. These steps will not prevent the destruction of the country in a worst case scenario, but they might delay it, and they might, just might, be enough to prevent it if climate change is not quite so bad as we have feared.?

4) They can reduce their own carbon footprint. Again, the blame is not on them, but every little bit of emissions reduction helps the world, and it also demonstrates their commitment. Carbon-free energy sources also have side benefits in this country: the economy would no longer be at the mercy of oil price fluctuations.

Solar energy is one option that is already starting to catch on in the Marshalls.

Another more speculative option is OTEC, which would use the temperature difference between deep sea and shallow sea water to generate energy. Apparently the Marshall Islands is in an ideal location to do this. If it works, installing this technology in the Marshall Islands could change not only this country, but the whole world.

Excellent points, I hope that they start to work on your suggestions. You actually make me think that there is some hope out there.

D&D: After spending a year in the Marshall Islands, you became fluent in the Marshallese language.  What makes it unique and why have you continued to use it, even writing a language text book? Is it a dying language or does it have a chance to live on?

Peter: Marshallese has many interesting features.

Predictably, it has a huge variety of words for things that people pay close attention to in this society: for instance, 11 words for different stages of coconut ripeness and maturity, and 159 other coconut-related terms including a word that means “the sucking noise made in drinking green coconuts”, plus a plethora of extremely specific fishing terms, like apep, which means “using woven brown coconut fronds to catch sardines and minnows as they are chased ashore by bigger fish”.

It has a directional system based on the fact that every islet of a coral atoll has a lagoon side and an ocean side – to tell someone which way to turn a door knob, for instance, you’d be more likely to say “towards the lagoon” than “towards the right”.

It also has some unusual sounds: two different trilled r’s, two different varieties of m’s, n’s, and l’s (one ‘heavy’ and the other ‘light’). (Okay, so maybe this last fact is only of interest to linguistics nerds, but as one myself, I find it pretty thrilling.)

It’s been great to continue using the language.

I wrote a language textbook (definitely a niche market!) and acted as an interpreter for a scientific expedition in the Marshall Islands last summer. I’ve still never had the experience, though, of running into a Marshallese person in the US and shocking them with my knowledge of the language, which has always been a daydream of mine. I should hang out in Springdale, Arkansas, where there are 10,000 Marshallese people.
The Marshallese language isn’t endangered for the time being. It is still vigorous, although some words associated with discontinued traditional practices are being forgotten.

Marshallese children speaking better English than Marshallese is definitely not a problem, as I can attest from being an English teacher.

But if climate change forces everyone to leave the country, then the language could easily become endangered.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

D&D: I thoroughly enjoyed this book – you have a talent for writing.  Have you always had the desire to write or was it your experience on Ujae that prompted you to tell you story? Can we expect another book from Peter Rudiak-Gould? What is in store for you next?

Peter: I always wanted to write a book about something but didn’t have anything to write it about – that is, until I found Ujae. Actually, I should say: until I came back from Ujae, because while I was there I somehow failed to realize that these experiences might be interesting to others.

Even while in the Marshall Islands, surrounded with material that would eventually become a book, I fantasized about my next adventure, the one that would be truly book-worthy. My idea was to go on some sort of bushwhacking expedition in the remotest corners of Vanuatu – which might have been interesting, but it later occurred to me that staying in one tiny place (rather than intrepidly traveling across large distances) is also a kind of adventure.

As for new writing projects, I’ve got two.

One is my doctoral thesis on how Marshallese people are reacting to the threat of climate change. It is a kind of book, and might eventually be published as such. My first priority, for career purposes, has to be to publish it for an academic audience, but I do hope that I can also (or at the same time!) get it out to a wider audience. I’m also hoping to do some writing about the other exotic culture I’ve landed in: the culture of Oxford and of academia.

D&D: Now that would be an interesting read. You write with great humour and whit, I can only imagine what you will come up with about your time at Oxford.  Looking forward to your future projects.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions!

For those of you that haven’t yet read Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island, go out and get your copy today, you won’t be disappointed.

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If there is one thing I love when I am at the beach catching some rays, it is reading a good book about an exotic location. So when Peter Rudiak-Gould contacted me to see if I would be interested in receiving a copy of his book Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island, I jumped on the chance to review it.

It arrived just in time for our adventure to Asia and wow, what a surprise it was to be granted such an excellent read.

I am a traveler, but I will admit, there are very few travel novelists that I love reading.  I find that I lose interest part way through the book because the author doesn’t have a lot to say.  They have lengthened a good magazine article into one very long and boring read.

This was not the case with Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island.

-I thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover.

Surviving Paradise takes place in the Marshall Islands, our author has just arrived at the small atoll called Ujae.  A small island middle of the Pacific Ocean where he will spend the next year teaching English to the children.  Ujae is remote, it’s closest neighbours being the Philippines at 2500 miles to the west and Hawaii 2000 miles to the east.

Arriving with big dreams and preconceived notions of the exotic and unknown, his bubble is quickly shattered upon arrival.

He goes on to tell us about the complexities of dealing with isolation, culture shock, boredom and frustrations with great humor and wit.  The Marshall Islands are nothing that one would expect and this raw account of his time there is honest, insightful and laugh out loud funny.

It takes great talent to talk about culture, politics and history while keeping the reader amused and immersed in the book.

As you follow along, you can feel every emotion that he faced on Ujae.  From his love for the Islands to the frustrations that he faced each day, Peter takes you on a roller coaster ride where you yourself feel the need to visit the Marshall Islands one minute and then the next you wonder what you were thinking.

The Oddities of Island Life

I loved the intimate observations that only a person that has integrated into that society can convey.  From the islanders odd habit of keeping him out of the loop, but then welcoming him with open arms when he does show up to an island wide festivity that that they had “failed” to tell him about, to the unruly students that may or may not show up to class.  There is the strange behavior of practicing their church dances in the middle of the night and the fact that if you ever compliment someone on an item or article of clothing, they will be obliged to give it to you whether they want to or not.

This little piece of information caused our author one of his most peculiar and frightening moments out there in the middle of the Pacific and made a believer out of him and myself that demons really do exist.

As we read more of Surviving Paradise, Peter adapts beautifully to his surroundings.  A highlight is his time on a fishing trip with the local men and learning to spear fish himself.

I learned so much about life in the Marshall Islands and about the turbulent history that has plagued this nation.  I had never even heard of Ujae and I didn’t know that first thing about this tiny island speck of disappearing land surrounded by sea. Now after reading Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island I am intrigued to go there myself.

Peter Rudiak-Gould is currently pursuing a doctorate in anthropology at oxford, focusing on Marshallese understandings of global warming and sea level rise.  In the summer of 2007, he interviewed the President of the Marshall Islands regarding the effects of climate change.  Proficient in Marshallese, the native language of the Marshall Islands, he is the author of the language textbook used by the WorldTeach Volunteer oOganization as its official language manual for the Marshall Islands program.

To Get your Copy of Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island go to Amazon.com

For more information, visit www.peterrg.com