Amanda's brush with an English bobby

Me, on the right - in a photo that might not be allowed to be taken these days (almost - cough - 25 years later). Last month when the new laws came out in Britain forbidding pictures of London bobbies, I remembered this photo, but I've only just unearthed it.

What's most significant about this picture, though, is not my run-in with the law (because I've certainly not made a habit of hanging round with policemen since). More interesting is the fact that this was an early moment in my first big travelling experience. My travel-loving parents were my original budget travel influences, because they took my sister and I around Europe in a campervan for six months when I was nine. No prizes for guessing that this trip absolutely kickstarted my love of travel. (Perhaps I could sue my parents for all the costs I have incurred through my travel addiction?)

Reader question: How did your love of travel start? Can you attribute it to childhood travel, to books you loved or films you watched, or did it start in adulthood? I'm curious, so let me know in the comments.

Picture pirouette: Spring's sprung in the northern hemisphere

The web seems full of "spring has sprung" messages this week - for fairly obvious reasons, even if it is autumn where I live instead - so my time at the Keukenhof Gardens in the Netherlands has come back to me. Tulips make me think of two things: my Mum, who would count these as her favourite flowers, and my Dad singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". Okay, three things, because I also think of seeing tulips across the Netherlands. Aren't they gorgeous? These ones look almost fake to me, but I know they're real because I saw them in Keukenhof and photographed them myself.

My picks on the 2009 Travel Blogger Awards

Just a quick note to urge all you travel blog lovers to vote for Lonely Planet's 2009 Travel Blogger Awards, because the voting finishes up in a week on March 20, 2009. The nominees for the awards are pretty much all sites, people and blogs that I actually like and fit into my image of what travel blogging should be, so I think it's a great event to support.

And while you're utterly entitled to your own opinion, let me try to sway your judgment for a couple of categories. In the Best Travelogue section, my Vagabondish colleague Nora Dunn has been nominated with her Professional Hobo blog - you might remember I mentioned Nora as she got caught up in the Victorian bushfires recently. Secondly, in the Best Podcast category my tip is for the Indie Travel Podcast. Not because I've mentioned it before, but because just last week I met Craig and Linda, who run this site, through an odd chance at a pub - yes, in little old Perth - and not only are they lovely people, but their work is great too. Vote and check the nominee list for more great blog finds by going to the award site.

Vladivostok, Rottnest Island and Italian art: All in a week's mail

I've had a sudden influx of mail from Ballerina readers, with questions and comments about all kinds of different topics, and every email I get makes me smile - it's nice to know there are real people out there reading this blog. I had a great message from Zachary who's planning to head off on the Trans-Siberian and was hoping for some advice after learning I'd started from Vladivostok - as well as writing back to him, he inspired me to write up my post on Tackling the Trans-Siberian.

A German named Marco who's studying journalism for a short time here in Perth contacted me with a slightly obscure question about my favourite island, Rottnest. He was looking for German people who had lived and worked there - but it's really got a tiny population of permanent workers who actually stay on the island, so I wonder if any Germans have ever lived there at all. Just the same, the question was an interesting one. And it gave me a chance to dig through my photos of Rottnest with its gorgeous aqua sea.

But sometimes I just can't help. A painter named Lucas from Philadelphia read one of my old Jaunted posts on some frescoes they unearthed at Pompeii a while back - and he wanted to talk about Italian art with me; definitely not my special area. But it was nice to know I obviously sounded vaguely expert in my blog post.

Picture pirouette: Latvian port has pretty and not-so-pretty spots

It's not always the beautiful sights that catch my eye when I'm travelling. Sometimes it's beautiful words in ugly places. This ship was docked in the harbour at Ventspils, a key Latvian port. "Pretty Flourish"? I don't think so.

You'll probably be glad to hear that the rest of Ventspils was a lot prettier than this ship. It's the place I met two smiling gentlemen and got to sleep in a room overlooking the main town square, all of which helped list Latvia amongst my favourite destinations.

Tackling the Trans-Siberian: Q&A for taking the train across Russia

I quite often get friendly emails from would-be Trans-Siberian travelers. Since this train trip from Vladivostok to Moscow is one of the best experiences of my life, I'm always happy to answer their questions, so here is a summary of the info most people are looking for. If you've got more questions, just add them in the comments.

Why should I take the Trans-Siberian?

Why not? I dreamt of doing this trip for years and it was even better than I could have imagined. I played card games with Russian kids on board the train; I smelt the fish they were selling at the stop closest to the deepest lake in the world, Lake Baikal; and I ate Russian snacks bought from the elderly locals who lined the train platforms every time the train made a 20-minute stop. Not to mention the innumerable joys on my stopovers, staying with Russian families. I can't imagine a Trans-Siberian journey being anything other than memorable.

Should I book train tickets in advance?

It depends. I did, because I'd heard you could spend hours in queues trying to get your next segment, and I had a pretty good idea where I wanted to go and how long I wanted to stay - in fact, this trip was really much more about the journey, the being on the train, then the stopovers (although they were great too). Having all my tickets in advance, and homestays booked, made it a fairly worry-free trip, and I liked that.

You can also buy your own tickets as you go, but be aware that a few popular routes may be tricky to get tickets for. I trust what the train-loving Man in Seat 61 has to say on the matter: book through a Russian agency - you get relatively cheap tickets, but you avoid the hassle of waiting in lines and risking not getting the ticket you want.

Which direction should I travel?

I'm biased, because I think my way was fantastic - I went the less-touristed route of Vladivostok travelling west towards Moscow. I loved it because you can see a kind of progression of Russian society and end up in glitz and glamour - the other way round might not be quite as fun. More organised tours go from west to east than vice versa, so if you're more keen to mix with the locals, start in Vladivostok.

Lots of travellers leave the Trans-Siberian route at Ulan Ude to take the Trans-Mongolian route down through Mongolia and on to China - a great trip too, but not technically the classic Trans-Siberian - or come up from China and miss Vladivostok and the far east altogether. The choice is yours.

Where should I stop?

Occasionally people ask me whether they should stop at all, but that's a no-brainer to me - even a train enthusiast like myself doesn't want to spend a full seven days on the train. My stops from Vladivostok were at Irkutsk/Listvyanka (Irkutsk is on the train line, and Listvyanka a short drive away, and on the shores of Lake Baikal), and Yekaterinburg, before arriving in Moscow. I'd recommend all of these - and Lake Baikal is a 100% must - but there are also other interesting possiblities. If I went again, I'd also look into Khabarovsk, Ulan Ude, Omsk and Perm.


How can I get ready?

I might not be the biggest Lonely Planet fan these days but here's an exception: get a copy of their Trans-Siberian Railway guide. I have their 2002 first edition, so I'm hoping they haven't changed things too much, but I loved the maps where you could follow your journey by travel time and distance, because when you're on the train, the next stop is a big highlight of the day. The info for the cities where I stopped over was fine too, although you might not find it so handy for arranging cheap accommodation.

Another excellent resource is, as I mentioned above, the awe-inspiring Man in Seat 61 who has more train-related information than you could possibly ever think existed (and not just for the Trans-Sib). Check the Lonely Planet Thorntree forum too - many experienced travellers there will help you out with tips and advice, but check their Russian train page first to see if it's all been said before.

Will I get bored?

Maybe. I didn't, but I love train travel (especially sleeping on trains), I love having "captive" time to relax, read and write, and I love just staring out a window and watching the changing landscape pass by. And I love chatting with new people, even if I have to struggle with phrase book sentences to do so. If you're too different to me, then maybe this kind of journey is not for you.

Passport pirouette: Tunisian bureaucracy

I went to Tunisia a little by chance. Suddenly realising that our Bratislavan jobs would give us a two-week (unpaid but compulsory) vacation over Christmas, I ran to the travel agent to book a flight to somewhere warmer. Most places were sold out but a friendly guy told me a flight to Tunis was the way to go. I went home and googled it, and agreed.

When we arrived in Tunis, it didn't start too well. We had to get a visa on arrival - fair enough - but we had to pay for it in the local currency (dinar). To get the local currency, we had to pass through immigration.

The stalemate didn't last too long - immigration simply held me hostage (and our belongings) while my then boyfriend wandered out into the Tunis airport to change some money. Somehow they trusted that he would return. In the meantime, a woman with three small children was noisily having a major panic attack on the bench next to me. Her husband was, I guessed, trying to tell her to snap out of it, but she could barely breathe and eventually the immigration officials got her a wheelchair and a doctor.

But for a trip that started a bit oddly (we did get released through immigration eventually, along with the pretty stamps above), it turned into one of my all-time favourite trips. I've mentioned Monastir before, but that was nowhere near the highlight of the country, so I promise to give you all a better overview of my Tunisian travels soon.

Perth? It's as relaxed as this koala

Lately a lot more people seem to be interested in Perth.

That's handy for me, because it's my hometown, and although I might have left it once, I've prodigally returned, and my big mortgage tells me I'm probably here to stay. But Perth is in some ways an odd city, not least because many recognise it as the most isolated city in the world. What a claim to fame.

I'm going to be writing more about Perth in various spots soon, and I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't told you more about the hometown that I'm actually quite proud of. Sure, I mentioned some posts I'd done on Perth more than a year ago, and I did let you in on the secret of backyard swimming pool life in Perth.

People know so little about Perth that it surprises me - although in turn I often know little about their cities. It's the fourth largest city in Australia, not too far behind Brisbane, although pretty much dwarfed by Sydney and Melbourne. And according to Google Maps it's 2,693km away from the next city, Adelaide.

As a city, it's a real mixed bag. I'm going to be telling you more about it, but before I do, I'm curious to find out what you want to know. Leave your Perth questions in the comments and I promise to answer them for you.

Web pirouette: Cool trips, cool trains and cool crocodiles?

Love this street art? I do - it's from Heffernan Lane in Melbourne where one of my best friends has just flown over to, again, so in honour of her trip I dug out my pics from our time their together last year.

Apart from digging through (virtual) photo albums, I've been writing all manner of articles and blog posts, including Are These 4 Excuses Keeping You From Realizing Your Travel Dreams and Why Themed Trips Are Cooler Than You Think for Vagabondish; cool titles courtesy of my editor, not me. Elsewhere I've been excited by the possibility that there could be high-speed rail links between Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne one day, I've been astounded that a Darwin hotel thinks I'm going to buy an accommodation package because it includes me diving with a crocodile, and I've been musing over 500 potential trips that National Geographic's been recommending to me.

If your eyesight's strained by trying to read my street art, it says "The fairest universe is but a heap of rubbish piled up at random". So there.

Another anti-Lonely Planet rant: The dumbing down of travel guidebooks

I've blogged about Lonely Planet fairly often over the years - from musing over their future direction back in 2005, through wondering what would happen when they were 75% sold to BBC, to complaining about the Disney-isation of my formerly favourite guidebook publisher. This week as part of my work reviewing travel books, I took a good look through Lonely Planet's list of books they'll release in 2009, and I have to say, I wasn't overly impressed.


I accept that it's all about making business decisions (I'll accept it, although I don't like it), but it sure seems like Lonely Planet is overdoing it in targeting mainstream travellers. They have a bunch of city guides that they advertise as giving you "twice the city in half the time" - stuff like the Las Vegas Encounter or the Florence Encounter guides - which seem aimed at cramming all the "necessary" sightseeing into as short a time as possible. That's not what Lonely Planet used to be about, and it's not a style of travelling I like or want to see encouraged - it's usually poorly-informed, wasteful travel that leaves a big footprint without providing much in the way of learning and life experience for the travellers. Sorry to rant, but that's what a marketing phrase like "twice the city in half the time" makes me do.

To be honest, it's a long time since I bought any guidebook and I think that for me, the time of guidebooks might be pretty much over - I can collate my own information from many different sources, and love doing this kind of pre-trip research. However, I must admit to having borrowed the Adelaide & South Australia guide from my local library recently. Not because I needed actual travel details or information, but because I wanted to choose which part of South Australia we'll explore when we fly to Adelaide later this year. This old-style Lonely Planet guide had lots of nice commentary about the different regions and helped me with my choice. But I don't need to travel with it; and if the guides all go in the direction of the Encounter series then I won't even be borrowing them from the library in the future. I guess Lonely Planet has a lot more customers now, but a lot less customers who are people like me.

PS: In defence of Lonely Planet, I got a message from a LP staff member who mentioned that guides for Lombok, China, Jordan, Kenya, East Africa, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iran, Burma and Tibet are all in the 2009 catalogue too. Fair enough, I say; but I haven't changed my position on my dislike of the "twice the city, half the time" marketing strategy.

Picture pirouette: The roof of a Western Australian cave

Isn't this picture mysterious? It's one of those fun surprises I got from letting my camera take a slow exposure picture while lying on the ground looking up - the camera, that is, I was just sitting next to it pushing buttons. What you can see are stalactites in one of the caves in the south-west of Western Australia near Dunsborough. Pretty, ain't it!

City tips: Berlin could be my favourite European city

A friend of mine asked me this week for some tips for his week-long trip to Berlin, and when I'd got halfway through writing the email I realised just how much I love Berlin and thought I'd share my must-sees with everyone.

I first visited Berlin as a 14-year-old on a school exchange trip, and as luck would have it, I ended up being there for the week that included 3 October 1990: Reunification Day. My host family took me to the Brandenburg Gate for the midnight reunification and fireworks show, and I still get goosebumps just thinking about that night. And I still have a photo I took that night on display in my bookcase. (I'll have to scan it sometime and post it).

So, you can imagine that this kind of start has led me to a bit of a love affair with what's now (but wasn't then) the German capital. Since then I've had numerous return visits but dream of living there for a couple of months to really soak up the whole Berlin thing. If you're visiting, then here's a brief list of what I consider the must-sees of Berlin:

• The museum at Haus am Checkpoint Charlie: basically everything related to the Berlin Wall fascinates me - I even wrote a one-act play in high school about the fall of the Wall - so this museum is a natural highlight for me. It's scary to think about the reality of the Wall being so recent, but still worthwhile to see stuff like the various escape methods used; it's sad to read about those who tried to escape but failed.
• The dome on top of the German parliament, the Reichstag - this glass dome on top is relatively new, and the spiral walkway takes you high up above the politicians, lets you see multiple views of yourself in the central mirrors and gives you a great perspective over Berlin. I've gone up twice and had to queue quite a while each time, so get there early (or possibly late - last entry is 10pm and it's open until midnight).
• The Jewish Musuem - it's a toss-up for me as to whether this or the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam is my favourite of all, but in any case, it's fantastic. It's not just the exhibitions (which are pretty interesting on their own) but the design of the entire complex - and especially the halls like Memory Void with its heavy iron faces. You have to see it to really understand it.

There's so, SO much more to see in Berlin - I just opened one of my guidebooks which says there are 170 museums alone, and there's a lot more to be seen in a city than just its museums. Walking (and eating or drinking) alone Unter den Linden; strolling through Tiergarten; checking what's new at Potsdamer Platz; the list is endless. Basically my conclusion is this: you can't go to Berlin and not have a great time.

Passport pirouette: Trip of a lifetime on the Trans-Siberian

I don't remember when I first heard that it was possible to ride a train right the way across Russia, but for many, many years I dreamt of riding the Trans-Siberian. Paul Theroux certainly inspired me with his mentions of the train in his great book The Great Railway Bazaar and I'd long had a fascination with great train journeys.

In any case, moving from a teaching job in Japan to another one in Slovakia led me to the obvious conclusion that the best way to get there would be overland, and that meant taking the Trans-Siberian from Vladivostok to Moscow, with stops at Irkutsk/Lake Baikal and Yekaterinburg along the way. Getting the Russian visa that would allow us to do this wasn't the simplest thing in the world and involved several trips to a part of Osaka I'd never seen and a bit of a shock that the Russians inside the consulate weren't quite as friendly as the Japanese people outside it - although to be fair, I think they let us come back after closing time with the required photographs.

Landing in Vladivostok - on an Air Vladivostok flight from Osaka - turned out to be much less problematic than I'd expected. We got waved through with barely a glance, and the agent who organised our homestay registered our passports the next day. Easy. And then the real adventures began ... but that's a story for another day.

Victorian bushfires a sad reason for Australia to be in the spotlight

Wherever you turn in Australia right now, there's bushfire news. And with good reason, because the fires in Victoria are the worst in recorded history. Yesterday when I woke up, they were saying the death toll could go to 200; now they're saying it could be 300. That's without thinking about the hundreds of homes that have been destroyed.

Yesterday I had to blog about the bushfires for Jaunted.com - way over there in the United States, my editor had put the topic first on my schedule for the week. I struggled to write something about the bushfires in just a paragraph and as soon as I'd sent the piece off, I went to the Australian Red Cross site and donated my earnings (and a bit more) to their Victorian Bushfire Appeal. I've also heard that you can donate at Bunnings and Myers stores here and that on Friday, Coles supermarkets will donate their profits so there are plenty of ways to help out.

Blogger friends of mine from around the world have been talking about our bushfires. Ex-pat Heath in London wrote about them; world traveller Gary Arndt wrote about the issue philosophically; and Nora from The Professional Hobo had the scariest report of all, as she was evacuated from her newest accommodation in Victoria just after moving out of a farm that's believed to have been destroyed by the fires. I hope she's safe.

Thanks to jety for image via Creative Commons