TRAVEL TIPS FOR YOU : How To Travel including travel books), and UK Tips (how to visit England and where to go) , Where to stay in South America In Central America CR WWOOF list Panama Links Ghana Tips Singapore Tips, West Australia Tips Later Tips maybe found in the country index postcard page STOP FILLING PEOPLES INBOXES with photos ...I prefer to use webpages to blog. But the Blog sites are easy to use Google has www.blogger.com, with it's easy photo upload tool Picasa which autoresizes photos (just click "blog this") My test blogs bebo.com, blogspot

TRAVEL LINKS : Some NEW ones from the Observer Aug 2008 - shanghai-ferry.co.jp - freighter-travel.co.nz - crewseekers.net - strandtravel.co.uk - freighterworld.com - freighter-cruises.com - NEW April 2009 - WORLD Malaria map If map is red then take prevention www.passplanet.com Travellers Network Tips site Lonely Planet details of tourist highlights and travellers tips on the thorntree, and postcards for each country with travel tips. Other guidebooks also have their own noticecboards see www.LetsGo.com, www.roughguides.com FLIGHTS - Cheapest place to get tickets is from agents, except for East European airlines - best direct or budget airlines best on the web see whichbudget.com (Tool for finding out which budget airlines leave a city) Best UK agents are the phone booking places like someplaces in Croydon Try www.cheapflights.co.uk Cheapest flights sites on the internet are constantly changing, but this is one of the best Famous sites like www.expedia.com and http://www.lastminute.com, Trailfinders are rarely the cheapest. www.kelko.com , www.opodo.com sometimes good - lastcallflights.co.uk used to be great, but no longer functions also check Volunteer Stay - Workcamps VFP - WWOOFing on organic farms WWOOF.org - UN volunteer site quite good

Travel Help - E-mail stewgreen@yahoo.co.uk if you have any questions

Freestay Traveller's Networks To get the best from your travel experience you have have to travel close to the ground. If you stay in the Hilton you don't know what country you are staying in. I have always recommendedn hitching and homestay programs like WWOOF get you into peoples homes and experience the real culture. These new websites are some of the best travel things I have discovered. Travellers sharing their spare beds with foreign visitors. A good example of peer to peer networking. Link up with other teachers and travellers and stay for free The Practice It is better, but also not as good as hotels 1. It can take a lot of planning to search through the profiles and make contact with people, but hotels are easy you just turn up 2. It can be free, but then you can spend a lot of money if the host likes expensive things 3. You can waste a lot of time staying with people, among other things hotels have good locations, hosts can be way in the suburbs. 4. It's difficult to find compatible hosts - most people seems to be into food, which I am not. Also most peoples profiles are not detailed enough to see if you are compatible or not.. 5. When it works it can be great Other networking research - I tried to hook up with people through internet networking sites, but I didn't find great site. The marketing people have some annoying tricks. Seems difficult to connect with people. I guess I'll just have to meet people randomly. Some friendship networks friendster.com 3000 people in Japan didn't find people in kyushu myspace.com difficult to search. they don't give details of peoples personalities when you do a search spacester.com http://japan.tribe.net joined no people found http://www.netfriendships.com http://www.ryze.com https://www.orkut.com/Login.aspx by google http://www.multiply.com joined joined no people found http://www.meetup.com/about/ japan not big http://www.desilinker.com http://360.yahoo.com/ -- not very seachable by name http://www.skype.com/ free telephone MSN Spaces, full listing on yahooo http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Cultures_and_Groups/Cyberculture/Virtual_Communities/ http://trust.mindswap.org/nets.html full details of providers

First 4 are OK - Hospitalityclub.org claims to be the best the largest online hospitality exchange organization! - In my experience the best cos 1. you can see details of peoples profiles easily 2. it has a good comments system so you can see how people are rated - Couchsurfing.com . Now ahead of HC, cos sexier layout and good forums (cos tightly controlled), nice map fn. Disdvantage can only search, whereas HC has directory by region, city etc prioritising active members. http://www.meeturplanet.com seems OK, many people, but most not enough detail http://affordabletravelclub.net/ for over 40s, free membership for overseas hosts; people pay $15, $20 per night fee place2stay.net only 7 places in Japan homestayweb limited countries globalfreeloaders.com clunky not many people 6 month member waste of time stay4free.comneed java travelhoo.com joined clunky have to specify city http://www.hospex.net/ no search available yet http://www.welcometraveller.org joined to test There is always SERVAS, but I never joined. I didn't realise you don't need to own a house to join www.servas.org Some Articles http://www.4ppl.com/directory/Travel /Lodging/Hospitality-Clubs/ good list good guardian list home exchange article http://www.thelivingweb.net/ free_travel_exchange_home.html

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