Travel Tips
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Essential Tips for a Magical Experience in Morocco
Morocco is magical. Souks. Spices. Sahara. Sunsets, and sunrises. Shy smiles reflected in the warmth of a freshly brewed cup of mint tea. Morocco is one of those places that leave an indelible mark on your memory. Led by our wonderful guides from Siroco Tours, we spent 10 magical days travelling from Chefchaouen to Marrakech, and experienced so much warmth and hospitality throughout our trip. If you’re planning a trip to Morocco, these tips might just make your trip a little more magical! 1. Take the time to get lost in Chefchaouen If you search for things to do in Chefchaouen, you might be fooled into thinking that there really…
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Fulfil Your Bucket List with These 5 Essential Travel Tips
Lots of people say they’ll travel one day, but not all of them take the leap and actually set off. If you want to get going but don’t know where to start, a bucket list can help you focus and make plans. Follow these five tips and you’ll be travelling in no time! Think about where you actually want to go Lots of travel bucket lists are the same, or very similar. There’s a reason for this — destinations become popular because they’re fun and interesting to visit — but you don’t have to stick to tried-and-tested tourist spots if you’d rather go elsewhere. You might want a classic, romantic…
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Why We Can’t Stop Recommending the Entertainer
“What is the Entertainer? We get a free clown?” True story. This conversation actually happened when I tried to offer a friend our Entertainer vouchers for his date. Unlike what its name might suggest, the Entertainer is not a one-stop service for clowns or magicians, although methinks it is pretty magical that one app can contain so much goodness. If you haven’t heard of the Entertainer yet, we regret to inform you that you’ve missed out on at least five years worth of good deals. We first found out about the Entertainer book at the Savour gourmet food festival in 2013, and were initially skeptical about paying $90 for a book of vouchers. The…
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A Love Letter to Airbnb
Dear Airbnb, I love you. I truly do. You have changed the way I travel and experience every country, and for that, I’m truly grateful. I will never forget my first encounter with you. Sweeping views of Table Mountain, an infinity pool that blended almost perfectly with the Atlantic Ocean, an apartment built around a natural geological formation – you were perfect for our honeymoon, and we enjoyed a million dollar view for the fraction of a price we would pay in a hotel. We felt safe there, despite the many warnings we’d heard about South Africa. From then on, we were sold.
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Tips on How to See the Aurora
By now, you should have seen that viral article on how the chances of seeing the Northern Lights are going to dim drastically after next year. I have to admit – my first reaction was THANK GOD we saw them last year! Indeed, the quest to “hunt” down the Aurora has been one that has intrigued, and frustrated, mankind through the ages. While the truth is that the success of viewing the Aurora depends on luck more than anything else, I hope this article can help to shed some light on how to see the Aurora and optimise your chances of catching the amazing Northern or Southern Lights in action!
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The Art of Slow Travel (Or, How I Realised I’ve Been Travelling Wrong)
I’ll repeat that again: for the last 2 decades, I’ve been travelling wrong. But wait – you’ll ask – is there actually a right way to travel? Honestly, the answer is no. Travel is one of those things arguably more personal than your preferred type of lingerie. It is intensely dependent on how quickly you want to move, who you want to move with, and how much you want to move out of your comfort zone. Everyone has a different threshold for these things, and the truth is there is nothing wrong with that. But I’m talking about myself here. For the longest time, I’ve been a very … efficient traveller. I…
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Fulfilling a Dream: How We Learnt to Dive in Tioman with Eko Divers
Learning to dive has been a lifelong dream of mine. But for some reason, my plans to learn have been thwarted year after year by superstitious parents (“this year is not good for Dragons to be in the water”?!) and hectic schedules, until I realised ENOUGH. IS. ENOUGH. So I dragged ET to the Asia Diving Expo, and we signed up for a really affordable package to get PADI-certified with Eko Divers! For $425, our package included: 1. Theory lessons and test (covered over 2 evening lessons from 7-10pm) 2. Pool session (covered in one afternoon at the Outram Sec pool) 3. Practical lessons and test in Tioman (Bintan was the other,…
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Forget the Bucket List [Reblogged]
This is an article I’m sharing from the blog of a wonderful couple, Brad & Mesi, whom I got to know while volunteering in Peru. It really resonated with me, because just a few weeks ago, I tried my hand at coming up with a bucket list, and I really wasn’t very happy with it because everything on my list seemed to either come from some Tripadvisor/Lonely Planet Top 10 compilation or was an aggregate of other people’s unfulfilled dreams and wishes. Most items involved oft-overhyped “must-see” tourist hotspots like “Have a picnic at the Eiffel Tower” that honestly proved to be rather uninspiring and underwhelming. So reading this was a really refreshing…
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Awesome Apps to Help You Travel Like a Local
The school year is finally winding down, and that can only mean one thing: THE HOLIDAYS ARE COMING. ET and I are super excited to be going on an Epic Europe Adventure this November with our families. Our itinerary will cover Barcelona, Amsterdam, London, Iceland and finally Munich in about a month. One might think that the natural inclination when travelling with parents is to just hop on a tour bus and let the guide do the thinking. But we have a strong aversion to “checklist tourism” i.e. going on big tours where we are just herded from one tourist attraction to another. ET likes to wander around, sit at cafes…
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The Beauty of Disconnection
I honestly never thought I’d say this, but we just had one of our best holidays in Bintan. It wasn’t the accommodation – we stayed in one of the SAF Cempaka Villas at the Bintan Lagoon Resort that was comfy and had all the basic amenities but was honestly nothing to shout about. It wasn’t the food – our best meal was the BBQ we prepared on the first night that involved cooking copious amounts of meat, seafood and corn which proceeded to be our source of protein for the next two days. Carbs were mainly instant noodles and sweet potatoes and the one meal that we did eat…
