Travel for the Over 30s

We all have to learn better ways to cope with stress, but it can be even more important when it comes to combining it with travel. If you are embarking on a rather stressful trip, it’s important to find proper ways of dealing with it and allowing yourself to be and stay healthy.

1. Drink Plenty of Water: Though this may sound obvious and trivial, it can really help as you travel in general. If you are on a particularly stressful trip and getting on and off airplanes and other modes of transportation, drinking water can help to ensure that you don’t develop blood clots from sitting for too long. It can also help to push out any toxins or potential colds that you may come across in your travels—this is particularly in close quarters such as on an airplane.
2. Practice Deep Breathing: Before you get your stomach in knots or get a headache that won’t go away from the stress and the actual travel itself, learn the fine art of deep breathing. You can practice this anywhere and sometimes taking a moment away from things and breathing in and out deeply for a few moments can not only allow you to gain perspective, but also allow you to get focused and feel more alert.
3. Take Your Vitamins: As you will likely come across people that are sick, taking your vitamins is extremely important when it comes to traveling in generally. This becomes even more important if you add the factor of stress to your trip. Taking your vitamins and any necessary supplements before you leave and throughout your trip can help you to feel better and prevent you from getting sick from the stress.

4. Get Plenty of Sleep: This may not sound like a viable option if you are in the midst of a busy or stressful trip, but it’s a really important step to keeping you healthy. Be sure that you get a restful night of sleep at night so that you’re ready to take on the day and can deal with the stress much better. This is even more important if you are traveling to a different time zone and want to ensure you don’t get jet lag.
5. Exercise Whenever You Can: If you have a gym at your hotel, use it. Even if you get out for a walk or do something that involves a bit of cardio, your body will thank you. Not only is exercise an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but it can also help you to properly fight off stress. This will keep your body running as it should and help you to feel a bit more normal and healthy.
6. Eat Well: Eating a well balanced diet isn’t just good for weight loss, it’s important to keep your mental health in check too. If you are traveling you will likely come in contact with some rather unhealthy meal choices, but it’s important to make the right ones for your health. Add to this the fact that healthy foods can help your body cope with stress in a much more natural way.
7. Avoid Alcohol, Smoking, and Caffeine: Though your first instinct may be to turn to your vices, they are only going to increase the stress that you feel. Whenever possible avoid these three culprits that can weaken your immune system and contribute to you feeling sick as you deal with stress.

Mary Frederick is a blogger and enjoys writing about medical career topics, such as how to go to radiology tech schools online, job and education tips, and more

Need something to do over the long-weekend if you aren’t taking a road trip . How about coming up with a cute name for some of Air Asia X ’s new planes? The cheeky Malaysian startup is doing very well these days - taking on the old tired airlines and winning. But I recently a couple of extraordinary things they are doing:

• offering return flights Australia-Europe for under A$1000 - you have to change planes in KL of course -no great hardship - but for the price who cares if food is extra?
• they actually have an entertaining corporate blog - who would have thought it was possible?
• they are buying new planes left right and centre 23 A330s and a A340 on order.

Which brings us to the point of this point - they need some more names: they like the “X” thing - Xanadu being their call sign and recent names include Xuberance and Xcalibur (on the London route of course)

Winners will get a free return trip anywhere on the network which would take you from the Gold Coast to Stanstead to China - Detail are on the Air Asia blog here

SY over at Golden Prague asked me to write a post about living in Australia as an ex-pat.  I am a New Zealander and have lived overseas in a number of countries: from Papua New Guinea, Canada  to England but I guess Australia is, in reality one of the easiest countries in the world to live in.

Lets look at the pluses for living in Australia :

• I live in Perth Western Australia - its late March - I just got back from the beach - at 6pm at night, its around 28C - the surf was up
• They speak English- mainly
• The culture is fairly close to my usual home - New Zealand.
• Within the cities its a fairly tolerant society
• The landscape and scenary is amazing - and generally, particularly outside of the east coast, empty.

Its not all beer and barbie though - and anyone who is actually thinking of moving to Australia should consider these points:

• Its a big country a long way away from - everywhere. Perth is the most isolated city in the world - the nearest city is Jakarta, its 3.5 hours flying time to Melbourne, 7 hours to New Zealand, around 5 hours to Singapore.
• Outside of the cities is very much still a heterosexual, racist society - bare this in mind. Sure Sydney has a vibrant gay society - but that’s the exception not the rule.
• There are far too many levels of government: local, state and federal means that doing business or simpling moving from state to state where neither car regulation or school systems are compatible can be less than easy.
• Drinking is a serious activity - drink to you drop -rather than a social event.

Its a nice movie - but its highly unlikely that the Priscilla Queen of the Desert “queens” would have made it from Sydney to Alice Springs with no broken bones.

For another view of an expat - check out 100decisions who is an American who has lived in England and is currently living in Alaska - nice photos to! I’d love to see Alaska - but even Vancouver was too cold for me!

One of the weird things living in Internet-land is that most people live in the Northern Hemisphere - so right about now they is lot of chat about spring and finding a sunny beach hotel for their upcoming holidays - or vacations if they are in North America.

Now I understand the desire -  my home doesn’t get that much sun in the winters either - or in the summer sometimes! But its weird now that I live on arguably one of the best beaches in the world Scarborough Beach, Perth - where do  I go on holiday? Well let’s face it I am not travelling for sand and surf - got that all just down the road! I don’t need to be holiday - I can just pop down after work for an hour or so!

I guess the point is that we travel to have what  we haven’t got - I’ve gotta say that as usual as humans we want what we can’t have. I would love to get to Europe again: mainly because I have forgotten what history and culture are living in Western Australia! I’d love to check out some of the castle hostels in Germany or maybe a Jumbo Jet hostel in Sweden.

As it is I am far more likely to catch a quick flight up to Asia - where the beaches are excellent and  food good and cheap. The next trip is going to be up the coast in Western Australia to swim with whale sharks, which is a whole lot different! And what do the local newspapers promote  to tempt West Australians to travel: ski holidays in Japan and New Zealand this week!

I got interviewed over at BlogInterviewer.com I’d love to win the monthly prize - so please head over and vote for me - you can vote every 24hr!

OK I got tagged by Jennifer over at Journeys and Adventures , a fellow today dot com travel blog - so rather than think of a creative post for today at 11:30pm - I now have an excuse.

The deal is that I have to tell you seven things about myself and why I love to travel. OK

• I was born in the UK, my mother was a New Zealander and returned when I was seven. I was extremely disapointed to discover that Wellington had no castle and therefore did not have an annual tattoo  each year!

• I have lived and worked in England, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Canada.
• I travelled for 6months from the UK to New Zealand via India and Asia in the late 1980s.
• Then I took 6 months off and travelled most of South America and picked up some bad Spanish on the way
• I drove 35,000km around Australia in 2007 with my partner.
• My passions are ballroom dance and travel -and no they don’t go well together!
• I am trying to make a living writing and developing websites on the internet so I can become  a  true nomad.

OK Now I have to tag seven more blogs to do the same, in no particular order

Prague Expat Life Reviews and Tips  by hospitalera is an interesting blog by a photographer who is now living in arguably the most beautiful cities in Europe.

Remember Basil Fawlty and his approach to hotel management? Well you might want to take a real look behinds the scenes of a luxury resort and check out Journals of a Hotel Manager by “globalhotelnomad” - hilarious and eye-opening!

Si at Overland Wannabe is just starting off wandering Europe with his new van - but this blog is different - Si can actually write - check it out!

Nomadic Matt has a beautiful blog and he takes absolutely stunning photos - check it out at Nomadic Matt - check out his photo essay - Best Places to Go Scuba Diving

This is a new blog to me but if you want to find out all about Barcelona- one of my favourite cities in Spain - and that’s saying a lot - then look at Unlikely Words Barcelona Guide

Now I know these last two won’t respond to this tag game but if you want to check out becoming a global nomad have a read of Lea’s Location Independent Professional blog.

Matador Network combines some great travel stories with a job’s board - for their own network plus a forum - worth checking out

What does a hostel mean to you? Is this your image? Times have changed. When I started hostelling you had to do a chore in the morning and were locked out of the hostel from 10am to 4pm - you know so you would get outside and be healthy! Too bad if you just came off an overnight bus trip or it was below zero outside - that happened to me in Vancouver in January!

These days hostels come in all sizes and shapes but I the best modern Australian hostels include swimming pools, some rooms with en-suite, the odd hostel which is a “bunk free zone”.

City hostels are either 24-hour reception or give you24 hour access once you check in. Hostels will hold luggage for you while you travel and most have parking - for fee in big cities .

When my mother hostelled you weren’t allowed to arrive by “motorised transport” - it had to be on foot, on horse on bicycle or by canal boat (this was England).

What does the word “hostel” mean to you? It comes from the Latin hospes meaning guest. For many years hostels have struggled to be distinguished from homeless shelters or student dorms - in fact one of the largest hostel booking sites - hostelworld - is running a petition to formally change the definition from out-of-date listings such as the Oxford English Dictionary listing of

” an establishment which provides cheap food and lodging for a specific group of people, such as students, workers, etc. 2 an inn providing accommodation.”

Hostelworld’s proposed definition is pretty much on the money for me:

“Hostel: Budget, fun, sociable accommodation for people of all ages”

I’ve pointed out the advantages of hostels before, and it seems that more and more people are catching on - Hostelworld reports a noticeable increase in bookings especially in Asia and Australia.

So this week - for something a bit different I’m going to do a series of posts looking at hostels, their history, the weird ones, the cool ones and their future! Stay tuned for hostel week!

Photo Credit

OK I still have concerns about entrecard but it still brings me readers so at the moment I have it on the blog. So I thought I better acknowledge the top ten droppers for January 2009

1. Good Life Review - unfortunately this site appears to be down or highjacked at the moment - I’ll update if they return!
2. Postcard a Day - an interesting blog where the author publishes a real postcard a day from her father’s (vast) collection - unusual and well worth a look!
3. PhotoJournalist an aspiring photojournalists site from Singapore - some great Asian photos here!
4. A Changing Life an expat wife living in the UK who takes great photos!
5. Journeys and Adventures another today.com blog Jennifer has travelled a lot and, I suspect, worked  in hospitality - so has some good stories to tell
6. Muckbeast another today.com blog - this one on gaming - a topic I don’t know much about but thanks for the support - and gaming and travel they are both escapism right?
7. Prague is another today.com blog - this one about - you know the Czeck Rpublic’s capital but an expat living there.
8. My Second Trial - not sure about the name of the blog but this wirter is a talented photographer who has travelled extensively - nice blog
9. Fabulous Holidays in Paris reviews hotels in Paris   - so we can at least dream right?
10. Retroyakking opinionated rants from a northerner (of England that is)-  hard to categorize - just go and read it - fantastic blog.

So if anyone else wants to make my top list - you have a whole month of dropping ahead of you - thanks everyone! Remember to subscribe to my feed so that you know when I’ve posted - I try to go for daily but sometimes its more, sometimes less. Drop me a comment too - especially all you expat and travel bloggers out there - we have something in common!

Yes we are three - three months old that is! I started this blog at the beginning of November and now its the end of January!

What I try to do with this blog is to mix it up. There are lots of travel blogs which are just travelogues - which although no doubt fascinating for your people who know the blogger tends to be less than fascinating for the rest of us.

Then there are the “semi professional” blogs which feature a lot of, normally very under paid, talented writers - I can’t compete with that because I am only me and this is far from my own blog!

So instead what I tried to do was pick some topics I know about - places I’ve been, travel tips I’ve learned along the way and mixed it up a bit with latest travel news and some humor on the side. I threw in some of my pretty average photos too, because they are from some pretty un-average places!

The blog is up and down in terms of traffic - I aim for search traffic but that is very up and down - not surprising for a such a new blog.

December Top Traffic Sources

I’m ignoring traffic who typed in the url directly

Entrecard

Googles(.com .co.uk. co.nz .id etc etc )

and a long way in third place traffic from my ads on Entrecard

December Most Viewed Posts

Booking An Australian Hotel Online

Air Conditioned Beach at Dubai

Best Cities to Fly to Arrive in Australia

Money Belts Carry Cash Comfortably

Stay Underwater in Dubai

January Top Traffic Sources 

Entrecard

Googles (.com, .se . nz etc)

Entrecard advertising

January Most Viewed Posts

Real Outback Travel

$1 for a Hotel Room Scam?

Booking an Australian Hotel Online (again!)

Stay Underwater in Dubai (again)

Hmm woops embarrassing - the About Me page!

Photo Credit