Travel for the Over 30s

 If anyone is heading to the UK or out of the UK and need some airport parking then you need to check out this cool little site: Go Simply: Airport Parking

The site also includes some near airport hotels mainly in Europe and the UK as well as world-wide airport lounges but their focus seems to be UK airport’s notoriously expensive  parking: for exampleEdinburgh airport parking  starts from around £25!

That said a site like this will let you make the most of a bad deal if you HAVE to take a car to an airport (the much better deal would be to take the train - Manchester is one of my favourite UK airports cause the long-distance train is right there under the air terminal!)

I like this site though- its clean, fast to load and has lots of user-reviews which are always very handy - remember price is one thing but you need to have a reliable service if you are going to need a pick up/drop down service to actually get you to the terminal on time.

Oh and triple check your airport too - its very easy to end up at the wrong one in the UK - rule of thumb the cheaper the air ticket the further away the airport is likely to be!

Continuing on with our website reviews series, today we are looking at Budget 4WD Travel

This is a site about travelling by 4WD around Australia. The author drove 35,000 kilometres around Australia and has used this site to document some of her hard-won lessons on camping on a budget

This site has some great information particularly for those people looking for camping gear reviews or basic how-to’s to set up a camping holiday. There are also some nice descriptions of some of Australia’s iconic drives such as the “Big Lap” - right around Australia and the Gibb River Road in far north Western Australia.  The site is using a pleasent WordPress theme which rotates a number of posts in the “feature” spot which is a nice touch for the visitor.

There is also an attached eBay store which allows the visitor to see the current cost of used 4WD’s in Australia. As with any site which mentions prices - things change, particularly the price of petrol (gas) and diesel - but overall this site has a lot of general useful information for anyone contemplating a trip to Australia - or even wanting to know which camping lights to buy!

I came across this site a while ago and its the real deal. Developed by someone who really has travelled the world and has some great advice on how to  travel the world  to share.

The site is a beautiful example of flexibility of WordPress and how nice a site can look - especially if the owner is a talented photographer as well.

How To Travel The World takes the wanna-be traveller through the whole process of deciding if to travel, pre-trip preparation, finding a place to stay and even returning home.

Its focused mainly on the younger backpacker market but there are tips and tricks for all ages here. Not sure whether you should buy point-to-point or round the world ticket check out the RTW tickets pages. Even if you are not down to last $10 - why waste money on unnecessary items, my pet hate is over-paying for a so-called “hotel” when a hostel would have been cheaper and better quality!

I think these types of websites are going to really take off as people get tired of over-paying for vacations but still want to travel - the bonus is that the cheaper you travel the more likely you are to have a great travel experience

Although its better than the old days of travel guide books and nothing much else its still pretty hard to get decent local information on a place you plan to visit. The large sites such as Lonely Planet - which used to be pretty reliable have now gone very corporate and bland - but bloggers are stepping into the breach. No I don’t mean the 90% of travel bloggers who tell you step by step how they couldn’t find a soy decaf in Sweden or bacon in India for breakfast - but those that actually live and blog about their home town.

A recent example of a great local site written by local expats is a Mexico Blog I found whose owners live and blog about their home of Manzanillo.  Mazanillo was just a small resort town on the way to Puerto Vallarta from Acapulco  when I passed through in the 1980’s - and basically the bit I remember most had something to do with Magaritas - having gone authentically local and learnt to drink the lethal concoction while in the country.

I get the impression from the Manzanillo Blog that the town has grown up a bit - certainly I didn’t stay anywhere as nice as the Dolphin Inn which they reviewed recently. The site is a nice mixture of local reviews and advertisements but all very professionally done and a nice clean layout. I really like the look and feel of the site - its a very nice example of a “magazine style” WordPress Theme.

Its a relatively new blog - about six months old -but there is a wide variety of posts which include a weekly series of local photographs - nice photography from one of the partners I suspect. Manzanillo is a retirement destination for Americans as well as a shorter term vacation destination so there is a mixture of articles on how to live in Mexico, English-speaking services, and relevant how-tos for those who come for the surfing, fishing and diving.

Nice site guys - keep it up!

From time to time I find a new travel site so  I thought I would share the latest one I have come across - entrecard has a lot to answer for some days!

What caught my eye with Dirt Cheap Tickets Travel was its attractive clean design - I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes for all the widgets to load and then scroll through them all to find the entrecard one!  The site provides travel news and information and also includes information on attending sports events, concerts and other functions.  Their advertising is relevant and include eBay and Amazon deals for travel accessories such as GPS Units, travel wallets, luggage, carry-on’s and so on.

They include lots of information on deals for airfares, hotels, car rentals or vacation packages. They also include info on hard-to-find concert or sports tickets? Its a nice  site - hopefully they will keep up a more regular posting schedule.

Its tough these days being in the travel website niches as you have to compete with the big boys such as lonelyplanet.com now owned by the BBC and I think thats a shame because the small sites offer a far more independent view than those which have basically become on-ilne arms of real-world media outlets complete with editorial control on the content.