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Ideas, suggestions and recommendations that can help you choose from a more limited palette of options that we know — both from professional and personal experience.

August 31, 2016

Anxious. Scared. Terrified — Tales of an adrenaline junkie — Part 3

If you've ever watched the original Jurassic Park movie, there's a scene shortly after the T-Rex has broken through the high voltage fencing and is on the prowl. There is this long, gutteral, low frequency growl which is shown to cause ripples in a pool of water on the road. Now, imagine if you were experiencing that sound for real! I had been on safari in the Kruger for three days and was flying out

August 23, 2016

Anxious. Scared. Terrified — Tales of an adrenaline junkie — Part 2

When most of your day is spent sitting in front of a computer, it is inevitable that you will want to 'live a little' whenever you get the opportunity — particularly when you're abroad. I've always been up for doing everything at least once and so having previously undertaken a parachute jump, tried my hand at culling rattlesnakes and even shot the rapids, it was inevitable that i would eventually get around to doing a

August 18, 2016

Anxious. Scared. Terrified — Tales of an adrenaline junkie — Part 1

It would appear, if you believe everything that you read in the media, that travel nowadays is less about the destination and more about what you do when you get there. The word they use is experiential. I can relate to that as it's something that I've been doing for years and will continue to do until I pop my clogs. So what's with the cryptic headline in this week's blog? Well, I was trying

August 1, 2016

Are you a tourist or a traveller?

Why do you travel? Is it to have new experiences or meet new people? Is it out of curiosity? Is it for bragging rights? Is it literally just for a change of scenery or a change of pace perhaps? If you were to conduct a poll of 100 people chosen randomly, chances are that you could get a 100 different answers — such is the diversity of reasons that motivates people to leave the comfort

July 24, 2016

The inherent dangers of booking online!

The Internet is, without doubt, one of the greatest innovations in technology in the past 30 years and has democratized the dissemination of information like no other medium in history since the invention of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. Indeed, the internet (and by extension, the commerce that is transacted through it) has so insinuated itself into everyday life that in many instances, statute law has been playing catch-up ever since!

July 5, 2016

Where’s the nicest place you’ve ever been?

It's a question I get asked all the time, when people find out what I do for a living and genuinely, my stock response up to relatively recently was always: 'The last place I visited'. Whilst this may sound like me trying to avoid the question it wasn't! It was because of a combination of me being unable to single out any one destination for honourable mention and the fact that I love everyplace I

June 11, 2016

When in Sydney — stay here!

Everything in life is subjective, I think you'll agree! Whether it be one's definition of beauty; what constitutes good music or art, or even good food. So, inevitably, the same principle must apply to other, more mundane things such as the type of accommodation one chooses when one travels abroad. I can live it up with the best of them when it comes to staying in opulent 5-star hotels such as Ritz Carlton or Four

May 8, 2016

Sheer beauty — and the statistics that sit behind it!

Earlier this year whilst en route to Australia, I decided to stopover in Abu Dhabi. I had visited its Emirati neighbour, Dubai, on a number of previous occasions over the years but as I had never been to Abu Dhabi, thought that this was the perfect opportunity to do so — not least because I was flying with Etihad Airlines. Whilst the purpose of the stopover was simply to break the long journey, I felt

April 8, 2016

What do you enjoy most about travelling?

It's different things for different people, isn't it? For some, it's the destinations themselves: the scenery, the city-scapes, the beaches. For others, it tends to be the culture and the history of each destination. The human interactions that we have with locals when we're abroad most likely features highly on most peoples' lists. For me, whilst all of the above are extremely important, I must confess that one of the highlights when I travel tends

March 20, 2016

The ‘other’ Los Angeles

Like all large cities, Los Angeles or 'LA' as it is more affectionately known, is really just a large collection of separate communities that have coalesced into one almost homogeneous whole over the course of the past 50 years or so in much the same way that Malahide or Rathgar or Dun Laoighaire are all part of the greater Dublin metropolitan area but with each having its own, distinct personality and reasons for going there.

March 2, 2016

It takes 15,000 casualties to train a major general

So pronounced Marshal Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch, a french general, military theorist and the Supreme Allied commander of World War One! A hundred years ago, the 'war to end all wars' devastated Europe and in particular much of Belgium and north west France. The numbers of casualties on both sides were staggering and the obscene loss of life is still impossible to get one's head around with most of the victims in their late teens

February 25, 2016

Where is the best place in the world to live?

If you're like me, you will have experienced at least once in your travels abroad, some location — it may have been a picturesque village; a hotel room with a 'to-die-for' view from the balcony or indeed even a whole country — where you said to yourself: 'I could imagine myself settling down and actually living here'. I regularly experience that sensation when I'm abroad but is it realistic or is it simply naive? (more…)

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