Travellog About Me Itinerary People Airlines Tips It's not pretty. It's not technically brilliant. It's just a travellog, or perhaps a travelogue. Some people with swankier browser-exclusive websites aren't having half as much fun as I am. The other thing you should do to become a successful blogger is change your website to use dotted lines and unreadable tiny fonts wherever possible. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to Blogging

802, where are you? Get a small device which can tell you the strength of any wireless networks in the vicinity. I have an intego WiFi locator, and I wish I'd bought it earlier. It doesn't tell you whether the network is open or not, but it's useful to find out whether, for instance, an airport, hotel lobby, or cafe has wireless internet, without always having to whip out your laptop. Also, if you just happen to find a weak signal from an open wireless network (as I did in Regensburg and Geneva), and you don't know whose it is, it's helpful to figure out where the signal is strongest, without having to walk around in weird positions with an open PowerBook. I wish I'd had one then. Venetian rip-offs If you're in Venice, shop around. Most of the shops have the same or similar stuff at vastly different prices. That goes for coffee too. Actually it's true of most places, but it was the most striking in Venice. Travel agents If it's urgent, don't even try to contact your travel agent by email or phone. Go into the agency. You'll be waiting there a while but at least you'll eventually get seen to. Of course, that could be a problem if you're on the other side of the world. If that's the case, then use the phone, because sometimes it takes a week for the email to be filtered down to somebody who's paid to care, and there's a good chance that person is on holiday. By phone, it might be possible that if you make distressed enough noises they'll actually call you back. Snow If you are lucky enough to be somewhere where there's snow, don't even think of going outside... without any pants on. Look behind you! No, it's not a monster, and it probably isn't the curator of the museum wearing a mask, either. But it pays to look back once in a while... sometimes I'm busy enjoying the view as I walk along and don't realise that there's an even better view in the other direction, looking back on where I was. Getting high Wherever you are, go up some tall tower or mountain and take pictures, even if you have to pay to do it. You won't regret it. But make sure you have plenty of batteries and memory in your camera. If you're in Amsterdam, don't buy drugs from people on the street. Go into a coffee shop instead. (I did neither, but it's what the tour guide said.) A friend read that and said that his friend said, 'I can verify that... But what they sell in the coffeeshops in Amsterdam is for the tourists. If you want the gooood stuff ("nederwiet", which the dutch government is considering reclassifying as a hard drug, even though it's technically just standard marijuana), you have to ask around, possibly know a local or two.' Q&A This one's for Mac users who are learning French and usually use the QWERTY keyboard layout. While you might think that it's a good idea to switch to the French keyboard layout and learn to type all those accented letters the same way native speakers do, I would advise that you instead learn to type the accents on your usual keyboard layout. Otherwise you might get a nasty surprise when you instinctively go to hit Command-A to select all... the Q and A keys are around the other way. For those of you who don't use Macs, Q stands for Quit. Of course, usually you will be prompted to save any unsaved documents, but if you're using a web browser with a lot of pages open that aren't bookmarked it's a bit of a pain. I think Omniweb has a feature which will reopen all those windows next time you open it though... I vaguely recall seeing it and not turning it on. Corollary: If you really must use the French keyboard layout, turn that feature of Omniweb on. European plug adaptors If you plan on going to Europe, make sure you get a plug adaptor with a thin sticking out bit. My NZ-to-European plug adaptor does not fit into the recessed sockets here. I don't recall having that problem in Dublin or Regensburg, so perhaps it depends on the building, or the country. Essential equipment Always have your camera and whatever batteries it needs with you, and bring an extra power lead for you laptop if possible. Get a digital camera with plenty of optical zoom, plenty of pixels, and plenty of memory... you'll want to take a lot of pictures and doing that with film will cost the Earth. Memory is perhaps not as important... it limits how many pictures you can take before you either download them to your laptop, or, if your laptop's power cable is broken, pay to have them put on CD. Escargot If you want to be able to tell people you've eaten escargot, but you can't stomach slimy crawly things, eat escargot in Switzerland. In France you'd be eating snails, in Switzerland you'd be eating what the French call 'pain au raisin'. Perhaps you could make a pact with a friend (or enemy) that you'll eat escargot if they do, and once they've gulped down some snails make sure you cross the border to have your share. Contiki basement If you have to go to the Contiki basement before checking into the hotel, bring somebody strong who can carry your suitcase down the stairs. Accommodation Use something like HostelWorld or Deutsche Bahn to find cheap accommodation, but if possible, find the ho(s)tel's own website and compare the prices. Sometimes it's cheaper through another site, sometimes it's more expensive. Also, make sure you don't pay for the same thing twice. Several places I stayed did not seem to be aware that I'd paid a ten percent deposit to HostelWorld on booking the room. I had to specifically mention this on checking out in order to avoid paying it again, and on one occasion I had to convince them that the money I'd paid was indeed a deposit toward the accommodation and not the booking fee which HostelWorld keeps.