Ultimate Vacation Spots

posted by Travel Cat on Jun 22

Jersey, one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel (in contrast to Jersey, USA), is a small yet beautiful island, perfect for a short holiday.

The island itself is as far south as France (St. Malo is less than 4 miles away and visible on a clear day) and so whilst still part of the British empire it benefits from far better weather.

This weather means not only an ideal place for camping, beaches and outdoor persuits but also you will see a profusion of plants and animals not normally seen on mainland Britain. Most notable is the only British population of the Green Lizard, often nicknamed the Jersey Green Lizard for just this very reason. Reaching around a foot long, and the males possessing a bright blue throat they are certainly a wonderful (if rare) sight to behold. Red squirrels can still be seen here for the eagle-eyed and dolphins may often be seen during the summer months.

Talking of beaches, whilst the island only measures a few miles long there are beaches for all ocassions. Long, sandy beaches perfect for surfing, more protected “sun bather” beaches and wild rocky outcrops covered in breeding sea birds. There are even some caves that only appear at low tide.

You can arrive by ferry or plane as Jersey is well served by both a safe port at St. Helier or an airport on the west side of the island.

Escaping from the attractive but busy main town of St. Helier, venture to the northern half of the island for the “true” Jersey experience. Rolling fields filled with Jersey cows producing thick, delicious cream. Farmers fields green with the tops of Jersey Royals - the finest new potatos around. Greenhouses filled with flame-red tomatoes. Foxglove-strewn laybys and meadows and the deep blue sea. There are also castles and fishing-boat filled coves to enjoy.

Jersey has a low national speed limit, plenty of narrow tracks and a “no caravan” rule making it a great place to walk or cycle, and an efficient local bus service covers the entire island. Exploring this small island is therefore safe, practical and incredibly good fun.

Other things to see here are the underground tunnels used by the Nazis during the war (the Channel Islands are as far north as the invasion got) and the world-famous Durrell Wildlife Preservation Trust (or just “Jersey Zoo”!). It was here that a small boy fell into the gorilla pit many years ago much to the shock of his parents. Alive, but scared, rather than being attacked, the boy was watched over and looked after by the gorillas until keepers were able to extract him safely.

Personally, I like to camp though there are plenty of hotels around (less self catering accomodation though) of an international standard. Being a tax haven, Jersey boasts rich businessmen, private jets and Ferraris making it a more British Monaco. English is spoken, they drive on the left and they use the pound. There is, however, a lovely “French” feel in the style of the houses, many French place names and in the excellent quality of food available here - especially the seafood.

The Channel Islands also consist of Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, all of which can be reached by one of the inter-island boat services in operation over the summer months and day trips to France from here are easy to arrange.

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posted by Travel Cat on Jun 5

Waiting for Pay Day is a thing of the Past.

Having just got home from holiday in Europe, my friend found that she was a bit shorter than she thought - and there was the car road tax to pay…..

We’ve all been there - thinking we have it all planned for when we go away:  enough in the bank to cover everything for that month, then we want to do that one extra trip on holiday (well, we might as well while we are there…) and the budget is blown.

Many of us would just reach for the credit card, but some people just don’t have one - like my friend - however I had just been asked to review a site that offers small loans with the minimum of fuss: e-payday loans.

They don’t do credit checks before issuing the money, you just need a current account check book for your wages bank account (as you send the repayment checks forthe loan in advance), and some identification documents.  The money is in your account the day they receive all your information by fax or post.

It couldn’t be simpler - and it doesn’t affect your credit rating to apply.

My friend got her money just in time, and had it all paid off within the month.  Job done.

If you’re interested in a quick, easy loan, maybe you should find out more by visiting their website at payday loans.

posted by Travel Cat on Apr 16

Mini Road Trip 2007.

Well, it wasn’t quite across the whole of America, but we certainly had some fun on the way!

Me and a friend had just finished college and decided to head off for a week driving to all the places within easy reach that we fancied seeing. We packed our bags, got the road map and set off one evening with the intention of avoiding the worst traffic.

Our vehicle of choice was a clean but very old British car - a Ford Fiesta, already having several thousand miles on the clock before we even set off! With Elvis on the stereo, we trundled across town and up the highway, heading for our first stop - which was as far as we could get before it got too late to find somewhere to stay!

We failed of course, and spent the night in the car! We were in a side street in a busy city, reclined in our front seats eating burger and fries before falling asleep!

We woke up in daylight, in a stinking car and in need of a freshen up ourselves! Pulling into a city car park, we went into a shopping mall - they usually have the best restrooms - and we got cleaned up and changed into fresh clothes, then stopped in a local restaurant for a cooked breakfast!

The town itself was a bit boring, but it meant that we would be driving through the best countryside in the day light today, so we soon headed off again, singing ‘Viva Las Vegas’ with The King! We made sure that we got to our next destination in time to find a place to stay and have a look around too this time!

After a great day in the sunshine, stopping for lunch when it took our fancy, we found a great building in the centre of a small town with its own parking, perfect! After checking in, we were free to look around the town at the sights, even taking a short drive to a local beach. We returned in time for a great meal there, then simply headed upstairs to bed.

We continued on like this for the week - booking places on arrival rather than in advance. It just gives you that extra flexibility to get one town further if somewhere or something is not as exciting as you thought it would be!! Some of the nights we weren’t so lucky with the accommodation in terms of location (or bedroom decor!), but on the whole we did OK with availability and that’s all that mattered to us.

We managed to cram in hiring a boat, some fishing, some shopping, some sight-seeing, some cheese tasting (?) and even some horse-back riding. We certainly didn’t hold back - if we saw something worth stopping for - we stopped!

We had no problems with the car, but a few problems with the driver!! Well, apart from endless Elvis - who was great to start with, but really getting on my nerves now - we had her singing, which again was OK to start with…..

Sandra Nettles

posted by Travel Cat on Mar 24

Here’s a little story of what I did with my 7 hours stopover in Atlanta, Georgia.

Basically, I was flying from South America with a group of 6 people - on route to the UK - and the flight went via Atlanta where we had to wait some time before our connecting flight. Why waste the transit time sitting in the airport we thought - lets go investigate.

As we were transit passengers, we just checked our hold luggage straight back in after collecting it from reclaim, and headed outside. It took us about 30 minutes in total to get off the plane and out into

the street as we had had to get on a local tube for a handful of stops.

We had a mini meeting and worked out that we had to be back to check in one hour before the flight, so we had 5 and a half hours to fill here - we headed for the nearest mall grabbing a coffee on the way!

Luckily it was quite early, so the mall was reasonably quiet as we entered and tried to find our way around. The couple from our group said they would spend the time alone, so we were down to 4 - then we saw the sign for the movie theatre…….

There was only the new Texas ChainSaw Massacre film showing in the next few minutes, so that was the one we watched! Bearing in mind this was around 11am it wasn’t our preferred choice - but time was against us and it was an easy way to pass the time.

So, shocked out of our skins 2 hours later, we emerged from the movies a bit paler than we went in! There was almost a hush across the group as we hit the sunlight again, before we remembered where we were: 2hours 15minutes remaining.

The only man amongst us said that he fancied a new pair of trainers while he was here and one of the girls said she wanted to look at some scents (?) so we split up - arranging to meet at the big restaurant we had seen at the entrance to the mall in just under 2 hours.

I had started to get a bit of a cold by now (great!) so I was on the look out for a drugstore. I made the mistake of walking into the entrance lobby of a department store and was imediately doused in scent spray from the over-zealous sales assistants and promptly started sneezing continually until I was well away from there! Great sales technique ladies - scare people away from the entrance to your store!!!

So with shrunken watering eyes I kept looking until I finally located a drug store tucked away in a corner and started reading labels. We had a long flight ahead of us and if I had a cold, I wanted something to send me to sleep - I needed ‘drowsy’ in big letters on the packet!

Failing to find one, I asked the assistant for ‘drowsy’ and she told me in no uncertain terms that ‘NOTHING’ she sold would make me drowsy - ‘why would I want that?’ Obviously she thinks everyone wants to stay wide awake when they are ill???

I brought something non-drowsey anyway - and plenty of tissues, then headed to the restaurant a bit early. I sat myself down at a table for 4 much to the annoyance of the staff and ordered a lovely chicken fillet with curly fries and BBQ sauce to cheer myself up.

The others all arrived one at a time with bags of new products and ordered something themselves and we chatted away about anything really while we ate.

Then, time was up and we had to head back to the airport.

Looking back it would have been great to have researched it more thoroughly, and since I have another long stop-over coming up with my family this time, I found an Internet sight showing trusted tours and attractions for Atlanta and other US cities to help us make more use of the time while we are there.

So if you want family vacation ideas for your next stopover or longer vacation - like theme parks. Why don’t you check out their site, and sign up for their newsletter like I did - so they do the hard work of finding places for you…….

posted by Travel Cat on Feb 26

We booked our own tour of Egypt independently to fit in all the sights we wished to see, remembering that when you book a Nile Cruise - which takes in all the tombs and temples - that it doesn’t automatically include the Pyramids as they are a flight away. Abul Symbel is also not included in the cruise for the same reason.

We arrived late at night in Luxor, where we had to stay the night before we met up with ‘The Nile Beauty’. We woke up in the morning and looked out over the balcony. Our first thoughts were ‘Oh my god, we’re in Beirut!’. We took a stroll before breakfast anyway and were shocked to find armed guards all along the waterfront. This didn’t put us off however, as this trip was our long-awaited dream.

We finally embarked the boat and went to our cabin; it was wonderful. The staff had made swans out of our towels and put flowers in them - it was a really warm welcome.

During the cruise, we stopped off at all the main temples: Karnak, Luxor, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae. These were all included in our tour with this cruise and they were most awe-inspiring.

We cruised for the whole week and the staff on the boat entertained us the whole time. The food was good, with afternoon tea on deck every day at four. We stayed in Aswan for three days afterwards, where we saw the Hotel Cateract, apparently where Agatha Christie (a favourite author of mine) wrote some of her best novels!

We also went round a Nubian Village which really was an eye opener. Nubians apparently ruled Egypt for some time, but now things were very different. We were told to bring sweets, pens and little gifts to give to the children there, but we were told not to give them money.

From Aswan, we got a convoy bus taking us to the Red Sea. We had armed guards on the front and back of the convoy, with machine gunned soldiers, in case of what? We weren’t sure. This extra trip took about eight hours with one stop for refreshments before arriving in Hurgarda for a five night stay. This is a beautiful beach holiday, which you need after the tombs and temples we visited.

There was still plenty to do here, so it was up at 5am to catch the tour buses and back in time for afternoon tea. We took some additional trips through the hotel as well, which included a submarine trip to see the coral reefs, and a boat trip to a desert island called Paradise; which it was! No-one there but the day-trippers who came with us. The sea was warm and the weather in the 40’s. Beautiful it was.

From there, we also took a plane ride - with kamikaze pilots - to Cairo, where we stayed for five nights at a lovely hotel called the Mardi Gras. The next day we saw our dream come true, the Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx. We were absolutely gob smacked! They were the most awesome thing we have ever seen!

We spent the whole day there and we even went inside one of the pyramids for a tour! Wandering round the Cairo Museum was a sight to behold as well. All the items from Tutankhamun’s tomb were on display and we took all day just oggling these. This was made even better as later, when we were in the Valley of the Kings, we went into King Tuts tomb and tried to visualise the amount of relics from the museum in here, it didn’t seem possible that they were able to fit inside!

The only thing that may put people off going to Egypt is the armed soldiers all around the area, but once you realise they are there for your safety, it was reassuring. The people themselves are so poor that they pester you all the time to help you with something, just so they could earn some money. We just politely told them we were ‘OK’, which meant that they didn’t bother you again, well…. until the next day at least! They were nice people, just very poor.

We spent a lovely two weeks there, have been back four times since and would go again at a drop of a hat! The whole holiday cost us about $2000/£1000 and really was worth it. The food, which we regularly brought off the local traders cost a pittance, thankfully neither did it make us ill!

Elaine Andrews