Tropical Travel Plans

Tropical Travel Plans
Free independent travel is rapidly becoming the preferred way to arrange trips for many adventure-seeking holidaymakers. The abundance of enticing destinations advertised on the Internet makes the prospect of going it alone even more tempting. Most of the time though you'll n

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Valencia Eating Out? Eating Late is the Norm

For our 4-day trip to Valencia, we selected in advance a number of interesting restaurants with good reviews. The only problem was these restaurants were dotted around the outskirts of the city and not particularly easy to get to. Our Valencia eating out plans therefore had to be revised to fit in

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Isla Bastimentos Bocas Del Toro - Panama

Following our 5-day tour of Isla Colón, we were ready to venture further afield to one of the other large islands of the archipelago - Isla Bastimentos Bocas Del Toro. We were looking forward to pristine beaches and fascinating jungle trails, similar to what we had discovered on Isla Colón.
Isla B

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Philippines Best Beach Destinations? 50 Shades of Pink

If getting a suntan is high on the priority list, then unless you want to stay pale pink you need to choose your Philippines beach destinations carefully.

Our 3-week trip around the Central Visayas - Cebu and Bohol - presented us with several unexpected challenges, one of these being to find a

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Indian Railways Sleeper Class to Kochi

Travelling north along the West coast of India, our next destination after Varkala was Kochi. 5 days earlier, while we were still in Kovalam, we had purchased our train tickets from a Travel Agent. He had explained to us which ticket classes were available for a trip from Varkala to Kochi. He also

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Miserable in Mersing Malaysia

Mersing Malaysia is the gateway to Tioman Island, a very popular destination for travelers. We had a pleasant coach ride down to Mersing from Cherating, on a very comfortable Adik Beradik coach.

The 240 km trip took around 4 hours, including a 20-minute stop along the way where we could eat and

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Terravision Rome Airport Bus

Getting from either of the airports outside Rome to the city center can be an expensive business. Fortunately, there are some inexpensive and efficient alternatives to taking a taxi. On different occasions, we've used the Terravision Rome airport bus service to travel between both Fiumicino and

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A Sri Lanka Travel Plan - Central & South

Our Sri Lanka travel plan comprised a 21-day rollicking rollercoaster of a ride to the World’s End and beyond, taking in the Central Highlands and the South Coast. It promised to be an eventful trip, with all content published from a tiny Samsung smartphone.



 
Researching the Trip - Sr

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Our Turkish Airlines Inflight Experiences 💺

How the mighty have fallen... Considering they were once the No.7 airline in the world, Turkish Airlines dropped to No.12 in 2017, No.18 in 2018, and then to No.27 in 2019 (see SkyTrax World's Top 100 Airlines). The jury is still out for 2020, but you can see where this is heading. We were quite

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Visit the Canary Islands ✈️ Via Spain!

A trip to the Canary Islands had long been on our agenda. The availability of cheap budget-airline flights with stopovers in Spain finally made this trip too good to resist. So we carefully put together a 14-day Canary islands itinerary.

Instead of getting return flights direct to the Canary

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Madrid Budget Break 💃 Where to Eat & What to Do

Our 9-day tour around the Canary Isles started and finished in Spain. We spent a few days at the beginning of the trip in Girona, and finished off with a few days in the capital - Madrid.  So - as the finale to our trip - we were keen to find out what there is to do, see and eat during a short

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Venice Off Season 🎭 Save Time & Money

How much should a short 2-night break in Venice off season really cost?

With low-cost airlines flying from numerous destinations, the return flight is possibly one of the cheapest items of a trip to Venice. However, even this can be deceptive: The budget airlines fly to Venice Treviso, not to

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Sleeping in a Shipping Container - Dash Box Hotel Cyberjaya

As an addition to the wide and wonderful variations of ‘Glamping’ accommodation, sleeping in a shipping container shouldn't raise any eyebrows.

At 20 feet (6.1 m) long by 8 feet (2.44 m) wide this certainly isn't the tightest hotel room we've ever squeezed ourselves into: The Pearl Premium Gues

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The Soná of 'Prison Break' Fame

Any fans of the mini-series will be familiar with the infamous Soná of 'Prison Break' fame. This fictional prison featured in much of Season 3 of the series.

The good news is that if you're planning to travel by bus from Panama City (or from Boquete) to Santa Catalina, you will get to visit S

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Maldives Under the Reef

Your first underwater experience of the Maldives is likely to be your local house reef. All the islands have their own unique house reefs, and Makunudu is no exception. For many people, this is all you actually need. Just put on a mask and step into the shallows. You don't have to go further than

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Cherating Accommodation: Will you choose Top-end or Budget?

After our first night in Kuala Lumpur, we made an early start: We needed to get to the bus station to take an early coach to Cherating, on the east side of the peninsula. Cherating accommodation options are a little limited, but for this occasion we'd decided to choose one of the larger beach

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Rome - Inexpensive Start for a Long-Haul Flight

Rome is not exactly South-East Asia, but this is where our journey to the Philippines began, following a short flight from Malta.

The reason for this was our discovery of some very reasonably priced Emirates flights running from Rome to Manila (€528 return). Since Italy is a small hop from our b

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Getting Gringoed in Isla Colon Bocas del Toro

After spending a couple of days in Bocas del Toro, we decided to spend some extra days in a more secluded spot where we could enjoy beaches and jungle. The Tesoro Escondido Guesthouse seemed to be the answer, located by the sea just 5 kms north of the town, but still on Isla Colon Bocas Del

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Malaysia My Second Home - Our Personal MM2H Application Experience

Our interest in the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program started after several visits to Malaysia and some long trips through the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, all spread over a 5-year period.

If you have the time, then taking an extended multi-week break in Malaysia works out much cheaper

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London City Stopover - What to See & Do in just 6 hours

We arrived back in London Gatwick at the end of our multi-stop flight to Hong Kong and Bali, courtesy of Cathay Pacific. With just 12 hours between our arrival at Gatwick and our onward flight home from London Luton airport, we were optimistically hoping to cram in some essential sightseeing on o

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Langkawi Long-Term Stay - 3 Months in Malaysia

Ever considered a long-term stay in just one location in South East Asia?  An opportunity to get an in-depth feel of the region at a more relaxed pace, while actually saving on your daily budget? We did just this on the chilled-out paradise island of Langkawi in Malaysia: An excellent destination

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13 Weeks in Langkawi - Where to Stay and What to Do

Our plan for this trip to Malaysia was quite unlike our other adventures to date. Having spent many years touching the surface of different Asian cultures through shorter visits, we now wanted to understand how it feels to live in just one locality. Spending 13 weeks in Langkawi seemed an ideal

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Apartments at Sri Lagenda, Kuah Langkawi

Looking more like the location for a post-apocalyptic movie than a condominium in a tropical paradise, Sri Lagenda is a prominent 13-storey apartment block located close to the center of Kuah in Langkawi, Malaysia.

Here it is possible to rent apartments for short or long-term lets, either

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Sri Lanka 21-day Budget & Costs

Our Sri Lanka 21-day round trip started and ended in Negombo. From there we traveled inland to Sigiriya to visit the Lion Rock.

We then took a bus to the central highlands, taking in Kandy, Polwaththa ECO lodges, a tea plantation and the Knuckle Mountains.

Following a dizzying descent from

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Georgetown Penang - A Cultural Smorgasbord

Following our island hops through Phuket and Langkawi, we planned to spend 7 days on the southernmost island in our itinerary - based in Georgetown Penang.

Although it is an island, Penang is connected to the Malaysian mainland via a very long and narrow 13.5-kilometer bridge. We would travel

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Madrid Airport Transfers & Where to Stay

Arriving late in the evening at Madrid airport, we were keen to discover how straightforward our transfers into the city would be, and how our selected hotel on the Gran Vía in the center of the city would measure up.

Following a 9-day trip through the Canary Islands - including Tenerife and

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Turkish Airlines Hotel Desk Istanbul - Beware Scammers!

For many years we had heard a lot about the complimentary hotel services offered by Turkish Airlines for unplanned Istanbul layovers exceeding 10 hours. Many people try to game the system in order to qualify, but the rules are quite specific. If you are not a truly genuine candidate, the Turkish

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Checkout Our 360 Degree Panoramic Images

Using Google Street View and some post processing software, its possible to produce some pretty nifty 360 degree panoramic images from a standard smartphone, without having to splash out on an expensive dedicated 360 degree camera. Having said that, a 360 degree camera is definitely on our

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Exploring Songkhla Thailand 🧜‍♀️

Songkhla is a large city located in southern Thailand, near the border with Malaysia. We were inspired to visit this province not so much to admire the architecture as to renew a 30-day Malaysian visa, which was due to expire. It also seemed to be an ideal excuse to spend a few days exploring this

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Climbing Gunung Raya, Malaysia

Among the most impressive features of Pulau Langkawi in Malaysia are the mountains. The highest of these is known as Gunung Raya, which dominates the island at 881 meters above sea level. Although not for everyone, climbing Gunung Raya by foot is a challenging but massively rewarding

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