Arles can be found between Marseilles and Nimes and is known for being the largest community in metropolitan France. It has 2,500 years of history, offering visitors a chance to see numerous old buildings and monuments that still survive from Roman times.

Any time of the year can be considered suitable for a visit to Arles, as average temperatures hover around 11°C on typical January days and 31ºC in the height of summer. Most visitors arrive by air, into Marseille and then hire a car or hop on a train to get to Arles.

Once in the city, there are numerous attractions to explore, including the amphitheatre, Roman theatre, the crytoportico, the Thermae of Constantine, the obelisk and the Roman necropolis, all of which have been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The city is also renowned for its museums. Two of the best are the Reattu Museum, which displays contemporary art and a distinctive collection of photographs, and the Arles Museum of Antiquity, which is where you can see the oldest known bust of Julius Caesar.

Other great things to do include shopping, visiting the outdoor markets, which are held every Wednesday and Saturday. There are many local events, such as Les Suds a Arles music festival, the Rencontres de la Photo photography festival and the Feria de Paques.

Siena is famous for its Palio, a horse race and festival that takes place in the beautiful central square Il Campo during July and August, so summer is ideal for visitors who want to see this dramatic spectacle.  August is also when the annual International Jazz Festival is held, but temperatures at this time can hit 35°C, so those who prefer it slightly cooler should come in spring when the flowers of the Tuscan hills are in full bloom and many street festivals are taking place.  Autumn is equally pleasant, as it is still warm and many art events are still being held in the city.

Surrounded by the Chianti vineyards with their world-famous wines, Siena is spoilt for choice when it comes to the pleasures of the grape.  Eating out is a pleasure here too, and there is a plethora of cafes, wine bars and lovely family-run restaurants serving the rustic and delicious fare typical of the region.  Copy the locals in their evening stroll around the piazzas of del Campo, Mercato and Sale where there are many gelateria (ice cream parlours) and al fresco restaurants.

Many of the top resorts on Menorca are found on the southern coasts, which offer sandy beaches and pretty coves, while the north is more rugged but equally picturesque with fishing villages and calas, or rocky bays.  The capital Mahon is based around a lovely marina and has many bars and restaurants as well as a gin factory, a legacy of the British.

On the north coast is Arenal D’en Castell, an ideal family destination with a much photographed horseshoe-shaped bay, warm azure waters and white sands, as well as lots of child-friendly restaurants and cafes.  Cala Galdana on the south coast is a livelier resort that is often considered to be one of the most beautiful settings on the island with stunning pine-fringed sands and clear blue sea.  It is also home to many smart restaurants rather than frenzied clubs, and is close to excellent shopping in the ancient capital Cuidadela, famous for its leather goods.

In the far west is Cala’n Forcat, perfect for younger children with its water sports, and for adults with its buzzy nightlife, tapas bars and typical Menorcan restaurants, as well as clubs, bars and shops in the Los Delfines area.

Restaurant Natalie, which is situated in Palma Nova, is a UK-owned restaurant that offers a diverse menu of fish and chips; steak pie and Sunday roast dinner.  A real home from home.

Porto Club Nautico in Cala Ratjada is a marine restaurant serving, of course, traditional Majorcan fish dishes like fideua (paella) and arros brat (sea bass) specialities.

Calle Galerias Toboso, Torrenova, Magalluf.  Popular with visitors and locals alike, this restaurant serves delicious dishes and light snacks such as pa amb oli (garlic covered bread with tomato and ham), sobrassada (Majorcan sausage) and trempo (salad dish of peppers, onion and delicious juicy ramallet (tomatoes).

Most restaurants and cafe bars on Majorca are child-friendly and are well used to serving visitors and families.  For those with children who enjoy something sweet, or if you have a sweet tooth yourself, try the popular Majorcan breakfast dish of ensaimada which is a twirl of light pastry lightly covered with icing sugar.  Ensaimada is available in restaurants and hotels and from takeaway vendors.

Many Majorcan dishes tend to focus on pork and fish dishes and almost all dishes have a strong garlic and herb flavour.  Majorcan dishes are cooked in olive oil.  Vegetarian visitors will find a good selection of meat-free dishes such as tumbet (fried aubergine, pepper, tomato with potato).

The city is served by three main airports, with varying degrees of convenience if, like most tourists to New York City, you’ve booked to stay in a Manhattan hotel.

The busiest airport is John F. Kennedy International Airport, located in Queens, around 12 miles from Manhattan. In 2009, more than 46 million passengers used John F. Kennedy Airport, making it the 18th busiest in the world, and over 90 airlines operate out of it, with airlines ranging from the likes of Aer Lingus to XL Airways.

From John F. Kennedy Airport, it will cost a flat rate of $45 to find your way to Manhattan, excluding tips and tolls. This is a reasonably quick way of getting to your hotel; depending on the time of day, it can be done in around 35 minutes. There are several city bus lines that link JFK to the subway system, and all are accessible for disabled users.

AirTrain is a rail service linking all the airport’s terminals with parking lots, hotel shuttle areas, car rental lots and the subway system. A combination of AirTrain and the subway will take around an hour and a quarter from downtown Manhattan to JFK.

LaGuardia is the closest airport to Manhattan, as well as being the smallest of the three main airports servicing New York City. Located on Long Island, it handled 23.1 million passengers in 2008.

From Europe, no direct flights to New York land at LaGuardia, but European travellers may well land there if they are connecting from elsewhere in North America.

There is no rail access to LaGuardia, but there are several city bus lines linking it to the subway system and the Long Island Rail Road. There are also many private bus lines that offer express services to Manhattan.

Although it’s actually in New Jersey rather than New York, Newark Liberty International Airport is only 15 miles from Midtown Manhattan.

Newark passengers can travel by bus from the airport to transport hubs within Manhattan such as Grand Central Terminal or the Port Authority.

Another good option is to use the monorail system, AirTrain Newark, which connects the airport to Amtrak and the New Jersey Transit service.

No matter how you find your way to this most exciting of American cities, you’re bound to find that the flight time and cost of getting there was worth every second and every penny.

If you’ve never been to this amazing city you’re in for a real treat. With the many lovely sites, interesting attractions, friendly people, good food, great places to stay and great nightlife you won’t have a dull moment. The first item on your travel plans should be acquiring a good place to stay. You’ll have many choices of hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, apartment rentals and cottages in this diverse city. If you happen to be a backpacker, you will find a good spot to spend your nights.

This cosmopolitan city is the largest city in New Zealand. It is considered to be the gateway to New Zealand and no trip to this country to exclude a visit there.

The major activities located here are in and around the Hauraki Gulf. These beautiful waters offer terrific boating, sailing and fishing. For anyone who is an avid boat lover, the annual Auckland Anniversary Day Regatta should not be missed in the end of January. January and February are true summer months with July and August being winter months.

Seafood lovers are right at home here. This cuisine is called “Pacific Rim”. Some of the favorites include char-grilled scallops, hot-smoked salmon, lamb shank on pasta and many other unique, delicious choices. The local wine is produced on Waiheke Island or in nearby vineyards in the valleys to the west of the city. This means that everything you enjoy in food and drink is strictly local.

Some fantastic activities to enjoy while in this city include a harbour dinner cruise, a hop-on hop-off tour, the harbour bridge climb, a Bay of Island overnight cruise and many others. The Harbour Dinner Cruise is held on a 50-foot yacht which will also take you on a cruise on the beautiful Waitemate Harbour. This is a perfect way to get a great view of the city from the water.

The Hop-on Hop-off buss is a double-decker bus which lets you jump on anywhere that you please and then get off when something catches your interest. This is a very convenient way to see a lot of the city and being able to do it on your own time picking out your own destinations. This bus will visit the big 14 attractions of the city. They conveniently leave every 30 minutes in the summer and 60 minutes in the winter. Some of the attractions include Kelly Tarlton’s Auckland Museum, Mount Eden and Sky Tower among many others.
You can purchase a ticket for this bus for one or two days. Two days is recommended so that you can take full advantage of all that Auckland has to offer you.

Walking the Harbour Bridge may not be as easy as it sounds. It will take at least 90 minutes and you will be walking with a guide. There are more city sites to be see from the bridge. The paths are modern to make for easy walking, and there are also ladder-like walkways with curving arches while being 2000 feet right above the water. The views of the harbour from this bridge are very much like a postcard and the architecture of the bridge will amaze all bridge enthusiasts.

When you are done with the on and off bus and wallking the Harbour Bridge you can come back to your choice of modern accommodation to enjoy a great meal and perhaps some active nightlife which is very much alive in this city. Enjoy the trip!

One of the best-know landmarks is Rizal Park in the historic city of Intramuros — see if you can spot the crescent-shaped park from the air as you come in for a landing on one of the many flights to Manila . The park is dedicated to national hero JosÈ Rizal, who was executed by the Spanish during the rebellion of 1896. In the park you’ll find the Japanese and Chinese Gardens, the Butterfly Pavilion, a relief map of the entire Philippines, a children’s lagoon, a chess plaza, and the Manila Ocean Park, with many marine animals. The flagpole near the Rizal Monument shows the distances to many of the important places in the rest of the Phillippines.

The Manila Metropolitan Area seems to have no definable center, and that’s true. The cities of Quiapo and Binondo are quite energetic, with unique street markets, while Malate is the place to go find the nightlife. The neighborhood of Makati in the city of Manila, by contrast, is calm and orderly, and a wonderful place to relax, eat, drink, and shop.

In Quiapo, buy any type of electronics you can think of on Raon Street; the photography stores are on Felix R. Hidalgo Street. Binondo is the Chinatown of Manila; Paco is the Japanese town. You’ll find the universities in the cities of San Miguel and Santa Mesa.

Malate is a very popular tourist destination, with art galleries, antique shops, hotels, cafes, bars, restaurants, casinos, lounges, discotheques, and nightclubs. Zamboanga Restaurant on Adriatico Street, known for its fabulous seafood, is a family-owned restaurant serving customers continuously for the past thirty years — they host a cultural show every evening with dancers from all over the Philippines. Explore M.H. del Pilar Street and Mabini Street for nightlife that goes on all night. Go get something to eat in the upscale restaurants, such as the Korean Village, Larry’s Bar, and Cafe Adriatico, all along Remedios Street and Adriacto Street. Artists, both performing and visual, flock during their off-hours time, to the Penguin Bar near Remedios Circle.

People often see the region surrounding the bay as one huge mass, and not as a vast collection of individual cities and neighborhoods, each of which has its own flavor and character.Manila is more than a mere sum of these individual parts, it’s a multiplication of all those parts.

There are travelers all over the world that feel the same way you do. Thankfully, by networking with other travelers, there is a way to avoid hotel costs. You can find a place to stay for free!

Hospitality exchange programs, also known as home stay networks, have lists of people (usually other travelers) that are willing to let travelers stay at their homes for free. A member offers a place to stay at his or her home to other travelers, in exchange for similar offers from the entire network of travelers.

You can find several of these clubs by doing keyword searches for “hospitality exchange” and “couch surfing.”

There are several exchange networks that connect hosts and guests worldwide. Most of these groups let you sign up for free on their websites. Some networks just ask you to fill out a form to join, while others require more verification.

Once you’ve signed up to a network you can search the website to find free places to stay during your trip. Hosts may offer the traveler a room, a bed or a couch. Most hosts have a wealth of information about the local area and are willing to show the traveler around a bit. An additional bonus is that some will even provide free meals!

You can read reviews about a host left by other travelers to get a feel for what their experiences were like at the host’s home. When you have found an offer that you like you’ll need to contact the host a few days or so before your arrival.

Don’t forget your friends and family. They may be able to offer you a free place to stay as well. It is a good idea to develop your friend network by meeting other travelers and participating online at social sites and forums. Be sure to keep their contact information current and drop them a note once in a while. They’ll be invaluable travel aids and you can return the favor. Travel often enough and eventually you’ll collect addresses from people across the globe.

When participating in any home exchange, remember that you are a guest. Try to abide by your host’s house rules to make things more comfortable for everyone. Help out with the daily duties when you can. If you are staying at a home in a foreign culture it is wise to learn about their customs. Sometimes what is perfectly normal to you can be very offensive to your host. Be courteous and polite. Most hosts expect you to stay for about three days, but it really depends on each individual. After your stay don’t forget to send some kind of thank you note for the kind hospitality.

Using hospitality networks takes very little planning. Once you have signed up to a few of the networking sites that you like best, it will usually be easy to locate free places to stay all over the world. Not only will you save a lot of money, but you may also come away with valuable friendships.

What is travel insurance? Well there are two kinds of insurance to look at when traveling.

1. Travel insurance, (sometimes called trip insurance) which covers cancellations, delays, lost baggage and emergencies.

2. Travel medical insurance protects you against any medical expense while traveling.

Ideally, you need a combination of the two when traveling. 

Imagine these scenarios:

You are in Darwin, Australia when a cyclone hits the area. The city is devastated by the cyclone and all services shut down. You have to be evacuated and sent home. Your travel insurance will cover you for this. You do have travel insurance don’t you?

Your luggage goes missing in India. You need to buy new clothes and fast. Can you afford it in your budget? Of course you can, you took out traveler’s insurance – didn’t you?

Or what if you go surfing in Hawaii and take a big wipeout? You are so severely injured you need surgery and major medical assistance, and then are airlifted home. But that’s okay – your travel medical insurance covers all that. You have got it, haven’t you?

Travel insurance is there to protect you in case bad things happen on your trip. It is a necessary expense. Overseas medical costs can be astronomical if you are not insured. And if you are injured in a developing country, medical attention may not be as good as at home. If you are insured you can get flown home and attended to at no cost.

Every year the government deals with thousands of cases of travelers being injured, falling ill or dying overseas. This is a distressing situation for all involved, but made even worse when the travelers are not insured, often leaving them with huge bills to pay. Hospitalization in other countries can cost over one thousand dollars a day. Medical evacuations can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you die in Europe, it can cost over ten thousand dollars to bring your body back home. If you do not have travel insurance you have to cover these costs yourself (or your family will have to find the money).

Travel insurance is a cost you need to budget for. If you don’t take it out, your medical expenses could cost a whole lot more. Insure yourself and travel safe.

This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru

www.stuartstravel.com

Let’s say you have taken advantage of a last-minute deal and you’re off on your summer holiday first thing tomorrow. You’re probably delighted to have won yourself such a fantastic bargain, and getting your cash sorted is a fairly low priority compared to finding your swimming costume and lilo. After all, there’ll be a choice of Bureaux de Change at the airport and even if that fails, there will be plenty of ATMs abroad and retailers/restaurants that accept your cards.

If you want to maximise your holiday budget, though, you would be wise to take stock of your options now. By exchanging cash at the last minute – at the airport or station, for example, you will undoubtedly lose out to higher exchange rates, based on the fact that you have little choice but to accept what’s on offer if you want to have some cash on your arrival at your holiday destination. Even if you find an exchange bureau that offers ‘commission free’ deals, the location of the office makes it unlikely that the exchange rates will be competitive.

You may instead decide to trust in your debit/credit cards, either using them directly for transactions abroad or withdrawing cash from the increasing number of ATMs appearing across the globe. This may be a sensible idea and it is at least likely that you will use your cards for some of your overseas spending, but you still need to do a little homework. For a start, you may not realise the increased costs of using your debit/credit cards overseas. A few high street lenders do not charge for foreign transactions and/or for withdrawing cash from ATMs while abroad, but the majority of banks will apply costs at varying levels.

The most common charge is known as a ‘loading fee’ or lenders may refer to it as an ‘exchange rate administration fee’. On average, this amounts to a 2.75% commission payable on the total cost of your credit or debit card transactions, although Morgan Stanley’s recent quarter-point increase to 3% on credit card transactions may be followed by other providers in future months.

Your card provider may also charge a flat fee for any transaction you make abroad – for instance, Lloyds TSB charges £1 and Natwest £1.25 per transaction. You will have to pay this in addition to the exchange rate administration fee, meaning that a £100 payment would incur charges of £4.00/£4.25 respectively.

Withdrawing cash from an ATM while abroad has never been so easy, but this also incurs costs of which you should be aware. For example, you may be charged up to £5 for using a cash machine overseas, depending on which card provider you are with and the amount you withdraw. Add the exchange rate administration fee on top of that, and the charges quickly add up. For example, if you make two £100 cash withdrawals and two £100 card purchases, you will be looking at paying average charges of around £15/£16, which could further rise as you enjoy your holiday freedom.

There are several ways, however, that you can ensure you make the most of available spending money. No matter how eager you are to get on that plane, it is always worth taking some time to compare credit/debit card charges beforehand so you get the best deal. Read the summary boxes in credit card leaflets; among the fees and charges displayed will be the foreign currency loading fees, meaning that you can compare providers and apply for the best card before you leave. In addition, search services such as BeatThatQuote.com will provide a quick and easy comparison service of various credit cards in the market. If you are a frequent traveller, you may work out that it’s worthwhile having two cards: one that has the best rates for the UK and another that offers low charges and fees for use overseas.

As a final note, you should also watch out for lesser known charges while you are abroad. Many restaurateurs and retailers now have the facility to get you to authorise your bill in euros but then they recharge your card in sterling. This system, called dynamic currency conversion (DCC), may sound simple enough, but the retailer will charge you a service fee of up to 4%, much higher than the 2.75% average loading fee of your card provider. Always ensure, therefore, that your transaction is processed in euros to avoid incurring this higher charge.

If you withdraw cash from an ATM, you should also remember that interest will be charged from the minute the euros leave the cash dispenser. Unlike other transactions, there is never any interest-fee period on cash withdrawals so you will be paying more, right from the start. If you must withdraw cash, pay it off as soon as possible and, if you don’t repay your holiday spending when you return home, consider transferring your balance to another card provider, which offers a 0% balance transfer rate or a ‘low rate for life of balance’. Again, BeatThatQuote.com will be able to help you do this quickly and effectively.

Taking the time beforehand to work out the best card deals for your holiday spending may seem a little dull compared to booking your water-skiing or fine restaurants, but if you think of the money you might save that you can put back into your holiday fun, then it is surely well worth the effort.