Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I recently had the sheer horror of reading New York Times bestseller, Sarah’s Key which is a fictional work based on the Vélodrome d’Hiver roundups in Paris, France. It is a harrowing read, especially if you happen to have a young child. It is also an eye-opening, heartwarming story about family and history and the second world war. The Vélodrome d’Hiver roundups in France were conducted by the Paris police on orders from the Germans. They rounded up thousands upon thousands of Jewish families and sent them to the Vélodrome d’Hiver where they were locked in, barely fed, not given enough water and they waited, many committing suicide, to be taken by train to Auschwitz. Almost none returned. The most shocking part of this very true piece of history, is that a large number of the people rounded up during this time, were small children.

Whenever I read about the second world war, the concentration camps and the horrors that occurred there, I have an increasing need to go visit. I’ve always found there are different types of travelers. Some go to vacation. Some go for the natural beauty. Others, like myself, love to travel to historic places and feel the ghosts of famous dates, eras and events. The horrific second world war is not exempt. I think the most important history lesson anyone can learn, is that if we do not understand history, it is bound to repeat itself. Going to these places makes history real for me, and brings me that much closer to truly understanding it.

Here is some information on travel to historic second world war locations:

- Walking Among Ghosts: Nazi Concentration Camps
- A Trip to the Camps
- Auschwitz Memorial Tour

And some resources on learning more about the atrocities that occurred during the war:

- Auschwitz Virtual Tour

With Travellr, you can ask your travel questions and have them answered by locals and people who’ve been there. You can answer questions you know the answers to about places you’ve been or live and you can learn new things about any place in the world. Travellr is basically like Yahoo! Answers, but for travelers. The responses tend to be a lot more coherent and intelligent as well. Here’s a great question with an in-depth answer:
You can connect with Facebook as well, so go sign up and check it out: Travellr and be sure to follow them on Twitter: @travellr

travellr, questions, answers, travel

OnTheRoad is a new web based app that gives you the functionality of a Travel journal along with a ton of useful tools to enhance your journal. The Kerouacian name is definitely a winner in my opinion as nothing has ever made me want to chronicle my travels more than a pile of Kerouac books. Make it easy to share every step of your adventure with friends and family back home. Use their interactive maps to plan your next trip or show everyone where you’ve been so far. Publish photos, videos and personal notes and connect with other travelers on the site. Best of all, you can use your iPhone, your Android phone, SMS, email or the web based application to keep your journal up to date. You can also connect with Facebook, Twitter, Google Latitude and more. All your trips are then published to their very own TripBook URL and you can create a different look for each one.

Go check it out: OnTheRoad and be sure to follow them on Twitter: @ontheroadto

Hello all readers,
I am a Fire Department Lieutenant in Canada. I travel extensively on my vacation. What I do is cycle and at the same time raise money for Cancer Research. Last spring I cycled along the Danube River from Munich to Budapest Hungary, travelling through 7 Countries meeting people, attending fundraising events even starting annual runs in two countries. I have some very exciting adventures to write about. This August I will cycle the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to Mexico 2000 miles in 30 days again for adventure and to raise money for cancer research. I have even more interesting sories as a firefighter for over 20 years. So if you think these stories would interest you please let me know.

The first time I heard about them was in Banos in Ecuador. Then again in Cuenca. And when I arrived in Lima my landlord showed me proudly his arm and talk about the same place. I am talking about Cayote Tattoo, only to be found in Peru with a sky high name among costumers.

I want a tattoo for quite some time now so I took my change. I printed out my image (a dove for freedom and peace) and decided to take a look (sorry mom). My landlord walks me to the place where it all happens. The entrance is a small, bright room, with a flat screen on the wall showing the creations of the Coyote artists. Big men with tattoos covering their arms are looking at the available computers to see what would be their next body art. An average looking woman patiently waits for her husband to pick out his tattoo and her little girl sitting next to dad, completely fascinated by his hobby. I fall a little out of tune among those people, but kind of enjoy the rough folks and worship the door  that will lead to the back: the place where it really happens.

A muscular but not so tall Peruvian asks me what I wants and I show him my image. He asks me a couple of questions about the size, place and colors. He grabs a clean needle and gestures I should come along. “Placing it will only take about twenty minutes,” tattoo man says. My landlord throws me a big smile and walks back outside to wait in the sun while I enter the darkness.

We walk through a dark area which looks like a car garage. I have to giggle because of this underground experience and wonder if tattoo’s are still consider “dark” and only for the “wild child.” He lets me into another small room where two different cabines are placed. I see all the equipment laying around and can’t suppress a smile. The tattoo man copies my printed image and makes a stamp out of it. How he did that precisely I missed, because a guy two times my size with an extremely bloody arm appears from the other cabin. He throws me a tough look and again I try not to burst out in laughter.

The tattoo man brings me back to his world and places the stamp on my hip. “Ok?” he asks. I say it’s perfect and tattoo guys turns the music on. Trance music. Loud! I lay down and prepare myself when the tattoo man sits next to me and the needle starts buzzing. “Here we go!” he says. Now, I never really thought about if tattoos would be painful to get or not. But at that moment, with the buzzing needle coming my way I assumed it would feel like someone cutting my skin open with a butchers knife.

Well, it didn’t. I actually kinda liked the feeling. After about twenty minutes (just like he told me) he covers the “wound” with a plastic patch and takes me back outside. I only have to pay twenty dollars for my personal body art, get some instructions on how to treat it and feel very happy. The landlord is still waiting outsides and immediately shouts: “Show me!”  Without shame I strip down my pants on the street and show him my dove with pride. The tattoo man smiles: another happy Coyote.

Today I am one of the most boring people on the planet. When I got up my brain jumped into the what-after-lima-thoughts and like usual, didn’t let me go. This morning the cereal whispered softly to me: “Will you eat me again in Tumbes or in Cusco?” I heard airplanes flying over (even though the airport is about an hour away from Miraflores, the area where I am) and my laptop seem to only show travel ads.

So I gave in to my neurotic instinct and started planning and even more important, hunting for cheap transportation. Now, I consider myself as a really good ticket hunter. I don’t know why I got so cocky about it, but really, I rock. For me the key to finding cheap tickets is research. You can save quite some money if you are willing to put some time in it!

First of all, those sites that compare flights are useless. Sorry for all the fans of those tools out there, but they never show you the cheapest tickets. I learned that in Western countries it is best to look at travel websites like cheapflight.com, supersaver.nl, cheaptickets.com et cetera. I notice Americans are fond of the comparison tools, so maybe it is the best for the USA? (USA-ers, please tell me?)

Anyway, if you are in countries like South America or Asia, always check the local airlines. Don’t get fooled by the South American low prices though, natives get a huge discount (or Westerners get only hugely over priced flights, depending on how happy-go-lucky your way of looking at things is). But still, it is a lot cheaper. Don’t think there isn’t any difference between local companies, because there is! Oh, and don’t forget to check different dates. One or a couple of days can make a huge difference.

So I spend the entire day doing this, locked up in my tiny little room with nothing more than a lot of apple cores lying around while I was getting paler by the minute. In the end I think I did a great job, although my house mates thought I would be better off by marrying a rich man. Who knows, maybe tomorrow?

Hello readers,

Let me introduce myself: I am Noortje (Noor for you), a 27 year old Dutch writer, traveler and more so, a person who wants to chase and catch dreams. That is why I am sitting in a small room in a noisy house in Lima at this moment, completely with a water problem, a landlord who was once a handyman celebrity and recovering from food poisoning.

I left Holland a little over two months ago with the goal: making a living out of (travel)writing. I didn’t knew if things would work out, people at home were skeptical and I knew things would get though, but still, I didn’t care. Live to the fullest and if it doesn’t work out, at least you have a huge amount of (life/work) experience without having to say “what if” on your death bed. Not that I am planning to die any day soon, but.. ah, you get my drift.

So after chasing jobs in Ecuador (which, among things, led to a man calling everyone he knew in the town I lived in to warn people for me, because apparently I was “crazy.” As you might have guessed, that was one of my disappointments on the road of my dreams), right now Peru is the victim of my goals. And as probably many of you know, traveling doesn’t come without wonderful, crazy,  interesting and inspiring situations. And I am here to share them with you.

I hope you will enjoy my blog just as much as I do, because I can always use some support in this crazy little thing called life.

Four Years ago when my first born was just  7 and 1/2 months old, my husband and I decided to brave the world of south east asia for four months…backpacks, baby and all.

It was the perfect time for us, as I have yet four plus months left of paid maternity leave and my husband, who had previously been awarded an educational leave,  was nearing the completion of his course.

So with passports, child and optimism in tow we escaped to the great unknown. At least for me it was. My husband had already done the requisite ’round the world’ journey in his early twenties…so foreign countries were…excuse the pun…not that foreign to him.

Needless to say from the moment we touched down into Bangkok international airport I was hooked.  My senses were overloaded with everything from bronzed skin vacationers about to head home, to humidity in the air that one could cut through with a knife. It was intoxicating!

The one thing that took some getting used to was the constant grabbing of my precious baby bundle. It seemed my daughter was an irresistible delight to the local women, and not something they were at all used to seeing.

We traveled to 7 countries in that four months and I will always look back to that time with pride and fondness. Not only did that trip instill precious memories that I will never forget, it has ignited a hunger for travel that I soon hope to satisfy once again.