TRAVELLING

[ZAPHOD2319 4,477]

As much as I loved going to Hawaii, it is awesome to be back home with my pups watching football this weekend!! 

[Fulham Broadway 16,841]

Great pics looks a beautiful place

[ZAPHOD2319 4,477]

In Cozumel Mexico today. Went on a catamaran and snorkeling. Beautiful place. Looking forward to Uxmal tomorrow which was first built between 600-300BC.  

[Vesper 28,801]

4 hours ago, ZAPHOD2319 said:

In Cozumel Mexico today. Went on a catamaran and snorkeling. Beautiful place. Looking forward to Uxmal tomorrow which was first built between 600-300BC.  

IMG_3132.MOV

lucky fucker, lol, it bloody snowed here Tuesday ffs

😿

[ZAPHOD2319 4,477]

Uxmal is a bucket list experience for me. I love North, Central, and South American Pyramids, especial the ones started BC. Uxmal was a city state of 25k to 30k before being abandoned in 1500AD because of severe drought and famine. It is one of the only meso American city states to have no written or archeological evidence of human sacrifice. 

 

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

Planning for late August Barcelona and Mallorca or Rome and Sicily. Very hard choice to make. 

Some of the places I visited last year or so... Netherlands up and down, impressive country. Nature, canals, people, architecture, art... Every corner is beautiful. Smaller villages oh my. Breathtaking! Amsterdam what to say... Nightlife is different level, what a spectacular vibe and unique place. Spent around 2 months just there. Will always come back. 

Belgium is pretty nice too. Went to Gent and Antwerp. Gent especially is cool. 

Western Germany hmm... I mean it's nice all those cities Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Cologne but something was missing. Definitely in a shadow of other countries I mentioned. 

Switzerland is so clean and beautiful but at the same time not my cup of tea. Picnics at the lakes and by the rivers are cool but it's dead in the night. After 8 actually. Went to Basel, Luzern and Zurich. OK Zurich has some metropolitan vibe but other places no. Boring for me personally cannot imagine living there. Nice to visit tho. 

Strasbourg is so fucking cool as well. Fairytale place. Cathédrale more impressive then the one in Cologne for example. Paris couple hours away with train. Germany and Switzerland so close. I'm glad they are basically our second team now. Alsace wine is must. I'm huge red wine lover. 

Been to Budapest again for Sziget festival last summer. Meet some Americans before who are like Budapest is most amazing place and in general people are always impressed and putting Budapest in top3 or top5 European cities. For me personally, I cannot see it. Not even close I mean compared to my favourite cities. It's not bad don't get me wrong just way overhyped. 

I don't like those excursions a couple of hours, day or two somewhere. You cannot really feel the place. Stay longer to get full experience. 

Will focus on Mediterranean countries in next period. Cheers. 

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

On 29/03/2020 at 09:04, Tomo said:

 Went to Milan in the middle for a few days aswell purely to see the San Siro (as it's being demolished soon).

Looks like it won't happen anytime soon. Will host winter Olympics in 2026 and Inter and Milan new stadium project is going so slow. 

[Tomo 21,733]

23 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Planning for late August Barcelona and Mallorca or Rome and Sicily. Very hard choice to make. 

If you're doing the latter I would recommend to add Pompeii to the list aswell, really surreal experience being in the ruins and on top of the volcano (although you will have to book in advance for the latter, I didn't and got extremely lucky by getting the last spot while I was there). The City also has a very relaxed pace which was much needed after a few days in Naples (same will apply to Rome).

I do agree Budapest is overhyped in terms of tourism but the nightlife is something else (the instant nightclub especially is bonkers).

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

23 minutes ago, Tomo said:

If you're doing the latter I would recommend to add Pompeii to the list aswell, really surreal experience being in the ruins and on top of the volcano (although you will have to book in advance for the latter, I didn't and got extremely lucky by getting the last spot while I was there). The City also has a very relaxed pace which was much needed after a few days in Naples (same will apply to Rome).

I do agree Budapest is overhyped in terms of tourism but the nightlife is something else (the instant nightclub especially is bonkers).

My father's best man had his jeep stolen in Naples just last week. Thanks for advice. Was thinking to take a flight from Rome to Palermo/Catania but that area is definitely something I would like to visit especially Amalfi coast. 

About Budapest, I couldn't really experience any nightlife in the city because I was at the festival every night. 

Currently I am closer to chose Spain option for this summer even tho I finished super level Italian duolingo course lol

How did you liked Belgrade?

 

[Tomo 21,733]

16 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

My father's best man had his jeep stolen in Naples just last week. Thanks for advice. Was thinking to take a flight from Rome to Palermo/Catania but that area is definitely something I would like to visit especially Amalfi coast. 

About Budapest, I couldn't really experience any nightlife in the city because I was at the festival every night. 

Currently I am closer to chose Spain option for this summer even tho I finished super level Italian duolingo course lol

How did you liked Belgrade?

 

Unfortunently I didn't get much tourist stuff in as I spent the first few days partying then the days I specifically set aside for the tourist stuff i fell ill (I think through the pollution which i read Belgrade is something like #9 in the world and by far the worst in Europe).

I did manage to get to a Red Star game though (I can't remember the opponents but it was the same day we played Arsenal at home last season).

[WillyMillyNilly 0]

We are contemplating trying to explore Chautauqua Lake (NY) a bit this summer, with a vaca rental for a week through https://www.newyorkrentalbyowner.com/search/chautauqua-lake. What are your favorite areas that are maybe not as packed as others?

Edited March 7 by WillyMillyNilly

[ZAPHOD2319 4,477]

8 hours ago, WillyMillyNilly said:

Greenland has been top on my list for a long time. I studied geology with a glaciology emphasis in college and really want to see Greenland before it is further diminished by climate change.

My wife has been on me for years about an Iceland trip.

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

Crete was tremendous. Like country on its own. Has absolutely everything. History, among best beaches in Europe, hiking, nature, nightlife, great big cities. Chania has such a cosmopolitan vibe like you are in Switzerland or South of France. Food is amazing omg 🤤 need to find their secret, meat tastes so much better there. Oranges and peaches so tasty. They grow there. This is my 6th time in Greece but Crete is something else. Also hospitality of people... No wonder their life span is so long. Mediterranean diet, the whole ambient... Sorry Italy but never been blown away by food like that. Will spend time learning more about it. Definitely will come back. Couldn't see everything I wanted this time. Elafonisi and Balos beaches were spectacular. Falassarna as well. 

Only negative thing is you cannot flush toilet paper. It's an old septic system. You need to work on that @cosmicway

Edited September 6 by NikkiCFC

[cosmicway 1,323]

10 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

Crete was tremendous. Like country on its own. Has absolutely everything. History, among best beaches in Europe, hiking, nature, nightlife, great big cities. Chania has such a cosmopolitan vibe like you are in Switzerland or South of France. Food is amazing omg 🤤 need to find their secret, meat tastes so much better there. Oranges and peaches so tasty. They grow there. This is my 6th time in Greece but Crete is something else. Also hospitality of people... No wonder their life span is so long. Mediterranean diet, the whole ambient... Sorry Italy but never been blown away by food like that. Will spend time learning more about it. Definitely will come back. Couldn't see everything I wanted this time. Elafonisi and Balos beaches were spectacular. Falassarna as well. 

Only negative thing is you cannot flush toilet paper. It's an old septic system. You need to work on that @cosmicway

I 've been to Crete only once, in 1976 with my dad.
We went to Heraklion and Knossos, then Retimo then to a small village in the mountains, then Chania.
Chania is an impessive city.
Now I am in the island of Ikaria and the plumbing system is old (worksthough). But it's a house built in the 19th century.

[Vesper 28,801]

8 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Now I am in the island of Ikaria

[Vesper 28,801]

An e-biking tour of England’s newest forest

Over nine million trees have been planted in the east Midlands’ National Forest, where mines once churned up the land, offering great cycling routes that explore villages and industrial heritage

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2024/oct/16/ebike-national-forest-derbyshire-midlands-cycling

You couldn’t make it up. As early autumn darkness deepened around Whistlewood Common – tealights a-flicker, guitars twanging around the campfire – I found myself sitting between Peter Wood and Gill Forrester. It was a pincer movement of nominative determinism: Wood, a woodworker and teacher of heritage crafts; Forrester, community and wellbeing manager at the National Forest. Both – along with members of the Whistlewood community – were singing the praises of planting trees.

The National Forest is the Midlands’ great rewilding. In 1991 this ambitious environmental project launched to green-up an area of 200 square miles and connect the remnants of two ancient forests: Needwood in Staffordshire and Charnwood in Leicestershire. Back then, scarred by years of coal mining and clay extraction, this was one of the least-wooded parts of Britain – only 6% forest-covered. But in summer 2024, having planted 9.5m trees, the National Forest hit 25%.

Whistlewood, 4 hectares (10 acres) of formerly fallow farmland near the town of Melbourne, was bought by a local social enterprise in 2013, with the support of the National Forest, Whistlewood’s director Graham Truscott tells me. Now, it’s been planted with 3,500 trees, and offers a mix of spaces for different activities, from food cultivation to yoga to forest school.

I joined one of Whistlewood’s regular community feasts, a tasty spread of curries and foraged mushrooms and allotment salads, while on a short break exploring the area with National Forest E-bike Holidays. Truscott had contacted owner Sue Jerham to say if she had any clients riding through he would love to host them. It’s this level of on-the-ground knowledge that makes Jerham’s bespoke itineraries special, and it was also, I soon discovered, typical of the National Forest, which aims to build relationships and bring people together, as well as plant saplings.

I rode through various woods, each with its own mood: mature, youthful, aspiring; pungent, playful, squirrelly

I had started ebiking that morning at Hicks Lodge, one of the National Forest’s flagship sites, near the villages of Moira and Donisthorpe. The most heavily mined area, left disfigured by coal production, has been transformed with well-established native broadleafs on the edges of bird-skimmed lagoons. A section of the Ashby Canal has been dredged and refilled; footpaths and cycle tracks weave around meadows, along reclaimed railways and through flourishing thickets flush, in season, with wildflowers and fungi. There are info boards dotted about too, which speak of the mining past, recognising the impact of the loss of industry.

Vicki James, the National Forest’s marketing manager, who grew up here when the project was in its infancy, rode with me for a while. She remembers planting trees as a schoolgirl – within the forest area, 90% of primary schools participate in outdoor education. “It made me so much more passionate about the environment,” she said. “I worked in London for a while but the forest called me back.”

I pedalled an old railway line before some fun forest off-roading around the ruined priory of Grace Dieu

Hicks Lodge is the National Forest’s cycling centre, so good trails were to be expected here. More of a surprise was the rest of the route Sue had designed, stringing together permissive paths, bridleways, farm tracks and back lanes. I rode through various woods, each with its own mood: mature, youthful, aspiring; pungent, playful, squirrelly. I also visited a fairly unexplored patch of the country at Staunton Harold, a picturesque hamlet with lovely lake, rolling parkland, a blush-pink manor and an old stable block now filled with artisans. Then I rode on to the Tollgate Brewery, on the National Trust’s Calke Abbey estate. Breathing new life into long-disused farm buildings, Tollgate also makes special ales – including Charnwood Copse bitter and Needwood Nobbler stout – that raise money for the National Forest. The taproom was heaving, the beer was good, but I eventually left, pedalling on through Calke, via inky tunnels and big old trees just crisping for the season, to pretty Ticknall village.

After the community dinner at Whistlewood, and a night at the cosy Staff of Life inn, I set off the next day for Charnwood. There was plenty of interest on the way. In the market town of Melbourne, I nosed into the huge Norman church just as the bellringers began their practice. Then I rode up to Breedon’s church, lonely atop one of Leicestershire’s highest hills. And I pedalled an old railway line, past sculptures of vultures, before some fun forest off-roading around the ruined priory of Grace Dieu.

I eventually reached St Joseph’s tearoom and, over one of its specialty scone-wiches, I met Dr Jack Matthews, geoheritage conservation and interpretation officer at Charnwood Forest. Charnwood isn’t just the ancient woodland marking the National Forest’s eastern edge. It’s an internationally significant landscape and aspiring Unesco global geopark, home to some of the oldest animal fossils known to have evolved. Dr Jack took me to several sites, including Morley Quarry, an impressive yet hidden-feeling amphitheatre of some of England’s oldest rocks, dating back 600m years. We finished at Bradgate Park, recently made a national nature reserve, and the jewel in Charnwood’s crown.

He showed me the grazing deer, the ancient oaks and the Swiss roll – a swirly formation that provides a perfect lesson in diagenesis (how sediment becomes rock, to you and me). He didn’t show me the fossils – “we can’t risk losing them, so don’t tell people where they are” – but he has grand plans for smart new interpretation, to help everyone understand their significance. “They reveal where we came from,” he said.

These were big ideas to contemplate, which I did, over wine, at Wigwam Holidays Charnwood Forest. Ten years ago, this plot near Bradgate was bare paddock. But, with a grant from the National Forest, Steve and Clare Small planted 700 trees, creating alcoves for sustainable-wood cabins. Now there’s an orchard, a pond, owls and badgers; they’re planning to add accessible cabins, plus a sensory garden for people with autism.

The wine was a local one: Rothley’s elderflowery King Richard, made in Leicestershire. Along with Sue’s holiday company, and Clare and Steve’s wigwams, Rothley is one of Charnwood’s geopartners, businesses committed to working together and supporting the geopark – just like the ethos of the wider National Forest. Because while the trees are great – and they are really, really great – none of this works without strong roots.

The trip was supported by nationalforest.org. National Forest E-bike Holidays offers bespoke ebiking and walking trips, with three-night breaks from £522pp (5% discount if arriving by public transport, £10 a booking donated to the National Forest). Cabins at Wigwam Holidays Charnwood Forest cost from £80 a night. The Staff of Life in Ticknall has B&B doubles from £110 a night

Edited October 16 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,801]

Airlines Hate ‘Skiplagging.’ Meet the Man Who Helps Travelers Pull It Off.

Aktarer Zaman is the founder of a controversial website that unearths airfare hacks, most notably skipping the last leg of a flight for a cheaper price.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/travel/skiplagged-flights-hacks.html

 

Finding a great flight deal often involves diligently tracking and setting price alerts, comparing miles or points programs, signing up for new credit cards, flying out of an inconvenient airport at an inconvenient time, and more.

Some travelers will go further by booking connections and sometimes even purposely skipping them. This workaround, called skiplagging or hidden-city flying, means purchasing an itinerary with a layover that is the intended destination and skipping the last leg of a flight. Some travelers will employ this tactic when it’s cheaper than buying a direct flight.

Aktarer Zaman founded a website called Skiplagged in 2013 to help travelers unearth these deals. Skiplagging, however, is prohibited by airlines, and carriers will occasionally punish travelers who do it, clawing back frequent flier mileage and even suing passengers. United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have sued Mr. Zaman’s company over the years, and a lawsuit filed by American is ongoing.

But in a conversation with The Times, Mr. Zaman, 32, said more than 12 million people have used his website in the last 12 months. He said that skiplagging offers significant value to cost-conscious travelers and he’s invigorated to empower them.

How did you initially discover the price savings that can come with intentionally skipping flights?

Initially, it was just curiosity. I’d just graduated from college, had a job lined up at Amazon in Seattle and was looking up flights from New York City. I saw that it was half the price to fly from New York to Seattle, with a layover in San Francisco, than to fly directly from New York to San Francisco. I then went into a rabbit hole trying to understand what was going on.

Airlines operate on a hub-and-spoke model, which means they price on market and not by distance. It’s been like this for decades. So in this example, the airline had a strong control over the New York-to-San Francisco market, but maybe not over the New York-to-Seattle market.

I wanted to see, as an engineer, if I could create a program to help me efficiently find these fares. Before Skiplagged, it was kind of difficult to find.

During the day, I was working at Amazon, and during the nights, I was working on this. I launched the site in September 2013. A year and a half later, I was sued by United Airlines and Orbitz, and the lawsuit brought way more media attention and consumer exposure and interest. The user numbers grew and I felt like there was a huge demand for my product. I quit Amazon to focus full-time on Skiplagged.

Did you coin the term ‘skiplagged’?

Credit goes to my younger sister — and Selena Gomez.

My sister was 12 at the time, obsessed with Selena, and had just seen her post on Twitter about being jet lagged from flying a lot.

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My sister suggested “skiplagged” because people would now be skipping flights a lot. I bought the skiplagged.com domain a few days later.

Is your company an online travel agency? How does Skiplagged make money?

The site shows you hidden-city flights, flights other companies will show you and other travel hacks, but the sellers of tickets are either the airlines or travel agencies. We work with big companies like Priceline and other travel companies, and pass along customer information but we don’t actually do any of the ticketing.

The information is what people come for — most of them are just getting information and price comparison. But some want to book through our platform and we might charge a small service fee, anywhere from $0 to $35, or we might send the user to a travel vendor that we work with, who then will give us like commission if there is a sale. So that’s how we stay sustainable. It’s enough that we can continue to run the business and stay profitable.

Growing up, what was your family’s approach to travel?

My first flight was in 1997, when I came to America from Bangladesh. I was 5 years old. Growing up, I flew two more times to see family in Bangladesh but we didn’t go on vacations. For us, money was hard to come by.

I understand the impacts of small amounts of money. That is one of the driving motivators around Skiplagged. The average person benefiting from Skiplagged quite literally saves almost 50 percent of their ticket price.

How frequently do you think others skiplag? Is it a real threat to airlines?

Every month, about 25,000 people are skiplagging through our platform. We tell people not to do it too often with the same airline.

I don’t agree at all that the airlines are losing money. It’s very possible these sales wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And let’s not forget that these travelers are actually paying for both the segments, what they’re flying and what they’re skipping.

Could airlines close this loophole, if they wanted to?

Yes, it’s their own prices that allow this.

If they want to shut down skiplagging, they could do it tomorrow. One way to do it would be reducing airfare to hub cities. The reason the price is so high because they control this market and want to maximize their profits. It’s the reason hidden cities even exist.

Three major carriers have sued your company. And recently, though the final judgment isn’t in, a federal jury ordered Skiplagged to pay American Airlines $9.4 million for copyright infringement. How serious is this?

It could have destroyed us. But we won everything we needed to win that allowed us to continue to operate the business as is. The trial was about copyright, or their logo, and trademark, or their name. The lawsuit has no effect on whether we can do business.

When you analyze the details, it’s actually a huge victory for Skiplagged.

And the $9.4 million award isn’t final. There are several months in procedural phases left.

Do you think skiplagging is here to stay? Is it ethical?

It’s not nearly as risky as it’s made out to be.

I think ethics are a personal decision. Is this pricing even ethical? It’s motivated by profit. Skiplagged is all about giving travelers options and empowering people.

Read more about skiplagging

 

Whether You Call It ‘Skiplagging’ or ‘Hidden-City Travel,’ It’s Contentious

Aug. 8, 2023