Australia Invites You To Do The Outback Your Way

by Kraig Becker on

The Northern Territory of Australia is inviting travelers to explore the Outback Your Way with limited-time promotions designed to make it easier and more affordable than ever to visit that famous part of the world. The promotions include a variety of great options such as free flights, discounted accommodations and other upgrades designed to enhance the experience.

The Outback Your Way program is designed to give travelers flexibility when exploring the Northern Territory without emptying their wallets in the process. For example, one of the most popular destinations in the Outback is Uluru, also known as Ayer’s Rock, the iconic sandstone formation that has been sacred to the Aboriginal tribes for thousands of years. As part of this new promotion, when visitors book a three-night stay at the Desert Gardens Hotel, they receive a free tour of Kata Tjuta National Park, the location of that landmark. Similarly, travelers who book three-night stays in the Crown Plaza, in either Alice Springs or Darwin, also receive free touring options as part of those packages as well.

Those looking to explore the Outback in a completely different way can travel from Darwin to Alice Springs aboard the legendary Ghan Railway. The package includes two nights stay in both cities, a wildlife tour and a visit to the West MacDonnell Ranges, as well as a number of other activities. Traveling by train across Australia’s countryside is an unbelievable way to experience the natural beauty of the place and when booked six months in advance, travelers receive a $500 discount.

Other special deals that fall under the Outback Your Way promotion include a free helicopter flight over Uluru, complimentary internal flights when booking a comprehensive Australian travel package, a free sunset dinner cruise and much more.

If you’ve been planning an Australian vacation for some time but have been waiting for just the right opportunity, then you’ll definitely want to check out the Outback Your Way website. This is the perfect time to head down under and experience everything Australia has to offer.

[Photo Credit: Huntster via WikiMedia]

Meet The Reclusive American Billionaire Who Bought Lonely Planet

by Megan Fernandez on

Last year, the Wall Street Journal called Brad Kelley “the man with a million acres.” Now the American billionaire and land addict has expanded his kingdom to include the world’s biggest travel-guide publisher. Kelley’s NC2 Media bought Lonely Planet from BBC Worldwide in a deal announced yesterday.

Most of the headlines focused on the huge loss BBC is taking by selling the company for about $78 million. It paid double that to buy the Melbourne-based publisher a few years ago. Some travel insiders are wondering if NC2, a small firm based in Nashville, Tenn. and specializing in digital development, will continue to publish the familiar blue-covered guides while devoting energy to digital expansion. NC2’s chief operating office, Daniel Houghton, made some routinely vague comments about being committed to the brand’s roots in publishing in a Q&A with Skift Travel. NC2 also produces “Outwild TV,” a story-rich Web series on adventure travel:

A fair amount of the chatter surrounding the news questions whether NC2 will have any more luck than the BBC did with the brand, which was portrayed as struggling financially and with digital innovation. But Kelley surely knows what he’s doing. He didn’t become a billionaire by making bad deals. (Actually, he earned his fortune in the cigarette business.)

Kelley, who’s on the Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people, must know a promising brand when he sees one. Lonely Planet is the world’s largest travel-guide publisher with 40 years under its belt and 120 million books sold. The BBC grew it from the third most-popular guidebook series in the U.S. to the first.

Kelley, though, is the anti-Trump, with about as much flash as the Amish. The Wall Street Journal called him “deeply private” and claimed he doesn’t use Twitter or email (as of last fall). His hobbies, according to the article, include making bourbon and raising exotic animals; he’s also passionate about conservation. Most of his land – which is concentrated in Florida, Texas and New Mexico and in total outsizes Rhode Island – is devoted to ranches, and his holdings make him one of the top three or four land owners in the country, right up there with Ted Turner.

According to the WSJ, Kelley grew up as the son of a tobacco farmer in Kentucky and bought his first piece of land at 17. He maintains his primary residence in Franklin, Tenn., a town with about 65,000 residents.

That description might seem to cut against the image of an innovative digital firm and the exotic locations on which Lonely Planet is an authority, but in the WSJ Kelley talked about his land habit in financial terms, not romantic ones: “It’s a nonperishable commodity and it’s as good a place as any to put my money,” Mr. Kelley says. “It’s better than derivatives.” The article reported that “the national average value of U.S. ranchland rose 12% compared with five years earlier; in Texas, it is up 30% compared with five years ago.”

Lonely Planet is now based in a state that doesn’t warrant a blue-spined guidebook of its own, but it may well be in better hands.

[Photo credit: Joshua Alan Davis via Flickr]

Vagabond Tales: How Travel Can Literally Make You Younger

by Kyle Ellison on

The famous Spanish explorer Ponce de León spent parts of his travels on an unfruitful search for the fountain of youth.

Sailing from Puerto Rico to Florida in 1513 on a voyage, which would become the first documented European exploration of the American mainland, rumors of de León’s search for the mythical fountain wouldn’t arise until documents published after his death (which, as it turns out, wasn’t due to old age, but from being wounded in the thigh by a poisoned arrow during an exploration of Southwestern Florida).

Unfortunately for de León, not only was he was searching in the wrong ocean for the secret of anti-aging, he was also searching in the wrong century. Had de León been sailing around the western Pacific in, say, 1910, he would have discovered a completely arbitrary line, which has the ability to make a traveler an entire day younger.

Sure, you might only be younger on the calendar as opposed to in actuality, but thanks to the existence of the International Date Line, trans-Pacific travelers technically possess the ability to go back in time.For those who aren’t familiar (or who have never crossed over the non-existent line), the International Date Line was established as a way of making sense of the world’s time zones for explorers who were traveling across oceans.

Magellan found out on his first circumnavigation of the globe that despite the fact he had kept meticulous record of the days on his journey, he nevertheless returned to Europe and was off by an entire day. Similarly, those traveling eastbound would discover that upon returning home, days, which they had recorded as having happened, actually hadn’t happened yet.

Since no imaginary line had been crossed, which would denote you had “crossed into yesterday,” explorers would continue with their erroneous calculations until an International Meridian conference was finally held in Washington D.C. in 1884. Delegates from 25 nations decided that the “International Date Line” would be 180 degrees from the Prime Meridian in England, and conveniently, this line passed mostly through water.

Over the course of its 129-year history, however, the specific location of the “line” has been conveniently shifted on numerous occasions, most recently in 2011 when Samoa up and decided they were going to move across to the other side of the line.

The reason? The government figured that being closer in time zones to Australia and New Zealand would attract more tourists who simply couldn’t be bothered with flying all the way to a country, which is located in yesterday.

“That’s great. Enough history. Where does the time travel part come in and how can travel make you younger?“

While the establishment of the line was a mere calendar convenience during the days of oceanic travel, with the advent of the airplane and trans-oceanic flights, travelers suddenly had the ability to reach a nation on the other side of the line in less time than it takes the world to spin and catch up. Thanks to the ability to propel ourselves through the air at speeds in excess of 600 mph, it’s now possible to actually live the same day twice.

This was a trendy realization of novelty-seekers who actually celebrated the year 2000 in Sydney, Australia, and then promptly hopped on an eastbound plane to Honolulu so that they could experience the whole party for a second time.

They departed on January 1, 2000, landed on December 31, 1999, and after a quick nap on the plane were geared up and ready to party all over again.

While this isn’t exactly news for those who cross the dateline regularly, what if that day where you skipped back in time … just so happened to be your birthday? Technically, then, according to a calendar and whole numbers, would you not actually become younger?

As it just so happens, I experienced this phenomenon this very past year. My wife and I met a friend for my birthday dinner in Auckland, New Zealand. We went to an Indian restaurant. We drank wine (Gewurtztraminer goes great with curry), and the date was February 13. On the stroke of midnight we clinked glasses to the day of my birth, February 14, and I had officially turned 29.

Hopping on an eastbound flight to Honolulu the next morning at 9 a.m., I drooled on the window in a semi-hungover fog as we passed up and over the imaginary line. Landing nine hours later in Honolulu, I awoke to the reality of it once again being February 13.

I was now 28. Again.

Have you ever experienced your birthday twice in the same year? Share your tales of dateline madness in the comments section below.

Want more travel stories? Read the rest of the “Vagabond Tales” over here.

[Photo Credit: Heather Ellison]

Wrestle A Shark, Become A Hero And Get Fired

by Sean McLachlan on


Back in January we showed this amazing video of a man wrestling a shark on a beach in Queensland, Australia.

Paul Marshallsea, 62, became an Internet sensation when he pulled the 2-meter-long dusky shark away from swimmers. Unfortunately for him, fame came at a price.

Marshallsea has been fired from his job as a project coordinator at the Pant and Dowlais Boys and Girls Club in Wales. In a letter quoted by the BBC, the club trustees said that although he was on sick leave during the incident he had apparently been healthy enough to wrestle a shark. The hint being, of course, that he was faking his illness.

Marshallsea objects that he wasn’t on sick leave for a physical ailment, but for work-related stress.

In a statement on their website, the club states that he was dismissed for a “variety of issues” unrelated to his holiday in Australia.

It’s a case of he-said, they-said and it’s difficult to see who’s right since the club is refusing to make any further statement to the press. You think they could have cut the guy some slack, though. If he can wrestle sharks, he can probably handle a bunch of Welsh kids.

[Photo courtesy SeaWorld, Queensland. The shark-wrestling incident did not involve a SeaWorld shark]

Globalgig Brings Affordable Mobile Internet For World Travelers

by Kraig Becker on

Smartphones, tablets and laptops have all made travel easier and more enjoyable. Those devices help keep us connected to friends and family, allow us to more easily share our experiences and provide the ability to stay productive while on the road. But of course, all of those gadgets depend upon an Internet connection to be useful and at times it can be a real challenge to find such a connection. Mobile Internet services help alleviate many of those challenges, but finding a reliable and affordable service that works internationally can turn into an exercise in frustration.

Enter Globalgig, a mobile Internet provider that is working to take the complexity and high costs out of the equation. The service launched last fall, giving users flat pricing – without monthly contracts – for mobile Internet that works in three countries – the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. By mixing reliable 3G cellular service with affordable data tiers, Globalgig has quickly become a solid choice for the connected international traveler.

Today, Globalgig is announcing expanded service in more countries and aggressive new price points that will make it an even more attractive option for globetrotters. By partnering with wireless carriers in Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Hong Kong, customers can now stay connected while traveling to each of those destinations in addition to the original three countries. Monthly fees now start at just $17 for 1GB of data, while other options include 2GB for $25, 5GB for $45 and 10GB for $80. Additionally, users can now choose to either buy the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot for $119 or get it free by signing an 18-month contract.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been putting the Globalgig service through its paces and I’ve found it to be surprisingly solid – especially for the price. Because it uses a 3G connection you’re not going to get the blazingly fast speeds that you’ll find from newer LTE technology, but more locations are covered in 3G service, which makes it a better option for world travelers. Speeds were still more than acceptable while surfing the web on my laptop and iPad, however, and it worked wonderfully for sending emails, instant messaging and tweeting. Streaming video or uploading photos required a bit more patience but those aren’t necessarily the activities you want to do with a limited bucket of data.Globalgig’s mobile hotspot is small and very lightweight, which makes it easy to carry with you anywhere you go. Its 5-hour battery life comes in handy when away from a power outlet for extended periods of time too. The device comes with several travel adapters for painless recharging around the globe and the hotspot has the ability to support up to five connected devices at any given time. That means, if you’re feeling generous, you can share your Internet connection with travel companions.

Set-up of the hotspot is a breeze, even for non-techies. Prior to using it for the first time, simply head over to Globalgig.com to create a user account and register the device. After a couple of hours the service will be up and running and you can begin using your mobile Internet service while on the go. The device appears like any other Wi-Fi router and serves up data to any device capable of connecting to it. You can even login to an on-board configuration screen that allows you to change the name of the hotspot, add a personal password and configure some of its settings.

In terms of price, it really is tough to beat Globalgig’s data plans, particularly if you travel regularly in the countries that the service covers. If you find yourself routinely in any of those places, and often in need of Internet access, carrying one of these hotspots is a bit of a no brainer. On the other hand, coverage is still limited to those destinations, which may be Globalgig’s biggest drawback at the moment. As the company fills in more of its coverage map, however, the service will only become more useful.

As it stands right now, it is a real challenge to find mobile Internet that reliably works on an international level. But Globalgig is delivering on that promise and they’re doing so without draining your bank account. If you find yourself in need of just such a service and regularly visit the countries that currently have coverage, this is definitely a great option. If you’re patient, you’ll probably see Globalgig expanding even further in the months ahead, bringing mobile data to even more countries. Hopefully, they’ll also eventually upgrade to 4G LTE services. But those minor quibbles aside, this is a service that will likely make many world travelers very happy.

[Photos: Globalgig]