Back on the top again

Updating to let all you know that I'm back online, and will be updating maybe tonight with some accounts of the inspirational yet oft-degrading adventures I've had in the past few days.

Some pretty weird stuff been going down.

Now to have a look at all your precious updates of the past few days :3

As is the nature of travel, I'm going to be away from posting for about 5 days, I'm going far north to the cold places where they don't have interweb.

Don't forget me bros, I'll come check out all of your updates doubly once I get back.

Laters. Peace.

Hotels and Hostels

One of the key parts of a trip or journey is accomodation [or lack thereof].

Whether you like hotels, hostels, couchsurfing or sleeping rough, it makes up one of the most annoying and important parts of any journey.

Personally I'm a fan of hostels. Whereas hotels can be nice, having your own room and all, hostels provide a sociable atmosphere which i love and which is an integral part of the travelling experience. Couchsurfing provides this often even moreso, however it completely surrenders personal control.

Couchsurfing, by the way, is the wonderful system by which people let total strangers who are travelling sleep at their place, if theres room. Usually this means making friends, and experiencing the place you're visiting from a far more local perspective, nopt to mention getting a foot into the local social scene.

For more information on couchsurfing: couchsurfing.com

When going on short formal or business trips, hotels are pretty ideal. Having your own place, own room, and control over your schedule. Although I love socialising, I also need time alone, and one night in a hotel is often perfect for that.
Depending on budget you can choose the standard of a hotel. for me three star hotels are fine. However on a big payday i love going  four star.

When budget travelling though, I pretty much exclusively couchsurf and hostel.

This is a great site for hotels:

booking.com

and for hostels:

hostelbookers.com
hostels.com

Good sites all.

Next post will be a recollection of the beginning of my recent world travels

but also a segment on insurance. Travel insurance, although often overlooked [by me] is actually important. It fills you with a bit of comfort when you're left violated in a hong kong alleyway that you can probably claim a couple of hundred back :3

So yeah.

Sorry about the WALLOFTEXT

Next time, insurance and Where my trip began: ROME.

FOLLOW MY OTHER BLOG

Follow my other blog, "Forever A Loan"

durhurr.blogspot.com

Now that "Forever Alone" is dealing with purely travel issues, I've opened "Forever A Loan" in order to talk about general topics.

Cheers.

This is a fantastic tool

If you have a trip in the near future, you could do alot worse than trying this:

http://upl.codeq.info/




It basically generates a comprehensive packing list based on your input of the details of your trip. Personally I hate packing and the whole luggage fiasco, I always feel like I've forgotten something, so this is great.

Obviously everyon will have different requirements, but this lays down a really good core.



Also: 100 followers. Mint.

BBC article about the effect of recent times on the travel industry.

 Here's a link to the original article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11362694

Air travel and planes have had a hard time. Thankfully I prefer to go by ground, so haven't been hit by all the recent price hikes the industry has taken.

The past 10 years have tested the travel industry's crisis management skills to the limit.

Terrorism, recession, the SARS virus, strikes, the Icelandic ash cloud: the list piles up.
Even the peaks and troughs of economic cycles can hit the travel industry more than other sectors.
It is a sobering thought that despite a huge expansion in the travel industry - fuelled by opportunities created by the internet and emerging markets - consistent profitability for many airlines and travel-related firms remains elusive.
Given this state of flux, where are future profits to come from? More specifically, what are the travel trends that will secure consistent revenue streams?
A major new report attempts to answer these questions, drawing on interviews with leading executives, including from Lufthansa, Easyjet, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, analysts and academics.
Written by the forecasting group Oxford Economics, in partnership with travel technology company Amadeus, The Travel Goldrush 2020 says the industry will have to shift business models as it adjusts to changing demographics and new customer demands.
Struggling sectorAs they enter the next decade, airlines start from a position of weakness.
Having lost $9.9bn (£6.3bn, 7.5bn euros) in 2009, the global aviation industry is expected to return to profit of about $2.5bn in 2010.
But this figure only represents a net profit margin of 0.5%.
Furthermore, the global profit figure obscures the fact that losses in Europe will be about $2.8bn.
It is growth areas in Asia and Latin America that will lift the sector as a whole into profit.
Travel agents, too, have been struggling.

Global tourism arrivals fell by 42% in 2009 to 880 million. Tourism receipts of $852bn were 5.7% below the levels of 2008, indicating that people were spending less per trip if they did travel.

Maybe the woes of planes and aviation will make people rediscover the magic of TRAINS.

:3

So

You may have noticed this blog has been pretty directionless. NO LONGER.

This blog is now having a do-over and will from this point forth be focused on travel. Travelling is one of my biggest passions in the world, so I hope to share that on here.

I recently returned from a round the world trip, and will be blogging about my thoughts on that, but also general travel, bohemian, hostel and hotel, country profiling, etc

Wish me luck guys, I hope this will work out better than the directionlessness we've had thus far.

Travel :3