Travel Blog

This was my first flight on Japan’s flagship carrier Japan Airlines (JAL), and it was rather pleasant indeed. I was seated in 1K for a 14 hour flight to Tokyo - the longest flight I’ve ever taken. Anyway, I needed a little luxury, and anybody who thinks I was being…

March/April Better late than never with this blog. Spending four nights in Vegas at the Golden Nugget was the prelude to a family holiday in Scottsdale, Arizona. There were three highlights of Vegas. Firstly the Mob Museum just a short walk from my hotel. It chronicled the Mafia in the…

Wednesday 1st - Cyprus Another splendid day weather-wise. Not a cloud in the sky, reaching a high of 76°. We had travelled 170 miles from Israel to Limassol in Cyprus. I had developed a cold in the last few days and wasn’t sure what I was going to do ,…

Monday 27th - Ashdod, Israel Only the second ship tour I’d booked on, I was heading for the Dead Sea and Masada. Luckily my poker buddies were on the same tour. It’s nice to know a few people on the bus, even if I do my own thing for the…

On Wednesday we reached the Jordanian city of Aqaba at the northern end of the gulf of Aqaba. From the ship we could see across the gulf to Eilat in Israel and then Egypt a little further south. Israel only has a few miles of coastline on the gulf. I…

Monday 13th I had cruised overnight from Dubai to Abu Dhabi with MSC, and now I was getting a taxi back to Dubai to board a Norwegian (NCL) ship. It’s only 90 minutes away but my hapless driver made it more like two hours by getting lost. The Norwegian Jade…

We now had four sea days heading south along the coast of Yemen before making a sharp right at the Horn of Africa (Somalia). Then heading northwest past Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt towards Jordan. This is the high risk areas mentioned by the captain. Yemen coastline The…

Wow! My only previous trip to Dubai was 20 years ago when Katy and I stopped on the way back from the Maldives. She didn’t like it much because they treated women as second-class citizens. You can imagine how that went. With two full days in Dubai and perfect weather,…

Thursday 9th This was my first trip to Oman and we arrived at Port Qaboos in the capital, Muscat, nice and early. My unplanned late night in the casino meant that I missed the sail in. Completely unplanned you understand. It was a beautiful sunny day and the white buildings…

Well, the airport experience was rather acceptable although Heathrow’s terminal 4 did feel like I was in a different country. A lot of international flights not involving “caucasians” is all I can say. This was my first flight on Etihad, the airline of Abu Dhabi and I was looking forward…

After two nights in Succitoto at the splendid hotel Los Almendros de San Lorenzo (highly recommended), we left for Honduras via Honduras and Guatemala. We were facing three border crossings. Into Honduras, into Guatemala, then back into Honduras. I blame the road planners. During our brief lunch stop in Guatemala,…

Day 5 - San Juan del Sur to Granada, Nicaragua We had a free morning to do as we pleased so I went walking and exercising along the shore. Australian Allan persuaded me to go for a morning livener and I succumbed. We found a beach bar and had a…

Apparently I don’t. On the Explore website it said the tour started in Antigua, Guatemala and ended in San Jose, Costa Rica. I had booked flights accordingly. When the trip notes came through I noticed I had booked the reverse itinerary. I shall accept “partial” responsibility. I spoke with two…

A little late in posting, but at the end of September, Dianna and I made our first trip to Cabo. I say first because we will be returning. We both fell in love with the place. We’d flown separately to Cabo - I went via Texas with an overnight stop…

Monday Our adventure continued as we traveled from Belgrade to Novi Sad on a high-speed train. Novi Sad is Serbia’s second largest city and is also located on the Danube. This was a nice train. When I say nice, it was spectacular. Unlike some of the grubby rolling stock that…

Wednesday We walked with our bags about half a mile to Zagreb station for an early train toward Bosnia. Our evening destination was Sarajevo, but with issues involving trains in Bosnia, we were going to the Croatian border by train, and then transferring to a minibus. Our second train journey…

My Balkan rail adventure started with a long weekend in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Three nights in the 3 star Hotel Park was mostly acceptable although the bar had peculiar hours which included shutting at 8pm on a Friday night, and closed all day on Sunday. When I say…

Saturday First stop was a salt mine a few miles outside of Kraków which is a major tourist attraction. Luckily I’d booked the English speaking tour with about 25 people. I think I was the only actual person from England. We started off by descending 64m via a wooden staircase…

I flew club class from Heathrow to Warsaw and was pleased to avoid the summer airport chaos, otherwise known as queueing. A little over two hours later the plane landed in Poland’s capital and I went in search of my hire car- a Nissan Qashqai. Sadly, it was a manual,…

Wednesday I woke at 3 am in a very hot room. I couldn’t get back to sleep again so I decided to award myself another “free day”, not to go on the hike with the others, and do my own Paddy hike, (otherwise known as walking on the flat). I…