Travel inspiration, advice & recommendations

Travel, especially to a place you’ve never been before, inevitably brings rise to a lot of questions. Questions like, do I need a visa? Where is the good scuba diving? Is it crazy to try to travel from city A to city B and back in one day? Are the buses safe? You get the idea, and I am sure you have many of these questions when you’re planning a trip. Of course the best advice comes from someone you know who’s been recently to your travel destination, but sometimes that’s hard to find.

The web is home to a host of great travel forums and review sites, and depending on your style of travel, you may find one better suited to you than another. Popular forum sites include Lonely Planet’s Thorntree, TripAdvisor and Frommer’s Travel Talk. Posting your question in a forum can bring forth a wealth of good advice from travelers who have beaten a path before you. Be wary of any responses that sound too commercial, many travel company representatives participate in forums. That doesn’t mean their advice is bad, just be wary of it.

Given all these travel questions swirling around its not surprising that from time to time these queries end up being sent to Viator’s excellent customer care team. And folks at Viator love to travel, so we’re always asking each other for advice (i.e., Jason loves Tasmania, I’ll ask him about a good driving trip route). Which got us at Viator thinking, between all of us, we’ve been almost everywhere. Seriously, Iraq and North Korea are like the only places someone hasn’t been. We all work at Viator because we want to help people have fantastic vacations. So why don’t we try to help answer other travelers questions?

And so, Viator’s Ask an Expert was born. Ask us any questions you have about your upcoming trip, we dare you. Call our voicemail line at 206-984-7379 (U.S. number). Email your question to askanexpert@viator.com. Post a video online of you asking your question and send us a link. Send a carrier pigeon (or an owl). Comment on this blog post. We’ll do our best to get you a response and we’ll post the answers online for everyone. We’re here to help you have an awesome trip.

– Viator’s Ask an Expert Team

I confess I was attracted to Salzburg by The Sound of Music, but I was surprised how completely charmed I was by the city.

Crammed with beautiful churches, Salzburg was first settled by monks. I guess they were impressed by it’s dramatic surroundings of cliffs and mountains, who wouldn’t be, and by the wide Salzach River running through the middle of the valley. These days it is a really beautiful city with a surprising amount to do for such a small place; the population is about 146,000.

Light shining on Salzburg, Austria

The main obsessions in Salzburg are Mozart and The Sound of Music. Both had their births there – 1756 and 1964 , respectively - and both now fuel the tourist industry. The locals are clearly prouder of Mozart than the industry von Trapp, with most of the souvenirs being Mozart-related. If only they’d cared about him so much when he was alive. But I have to say the town’s signature Mozartkugeln (Mozart balls) are delicious, chocolatey goodness. They were developed in 1890 at Café Konditorei Furst and its still there in all its elegance.

If you like chocolate, head straight to the café at the Hotel Sacher, sit overlooking the river and the old town and order the Sacher Torte. Yes, this is the real Sacher Torte, still handmade to the original recipe and best eaten with unsweetened whipped cream. The very first was made in Vienna in 1832 by Franz Sacher. Only a second year apprentice chef at the time, Prince Metternich ordered a totally original cake, the head pastry chef was sick, Sacher stepped in and developed this iconic, not too sweet but just right chocolate cake which became a legend. He went on to open a successful patisserie in Vienna and his son Edward and wife Anna opened the first Hotel Sacher in 1866. If you’ve got the money, stay in the hotel as well, great location and you could have cake everyday. Everyday for the rest of your life if you want because from their shop they ship cakes all over the world. Their house blend of tea is great too: Darjeeling, earl grey and jasmine.

Salzburg is a city of walking so you need feel no guilt about all that cake. Wandering the streets, looking at all the shops, finding the little markets in squares of the old town all keep you occupied for hours. There are also contemporary art galleries, palaces to visit and Festung Hohensalzburg, the best preserved fortress in Europe perched dramatically on the hill at one end of the city. It has 6 acres or 33 000 sq metres of living space and the city grants spaces for artists to live there. How great would that be? I presume they have updated the bathroom facilities – one small room jutting from a tower was apparently the prince-archbishop’s toilet with everything just falling away to the ground far below – effective but not pretty.

One night we had dinner at the restaurant of the Museum der Moderne Art, perched on the clifftop of the Monchsberg mountain. The food is good, the service great (we sat outside and the head waiter wrapped me in a blanket) and the view even better. We watched the light change dramatically as storms threatened and the sun set over the city’s slender spires and the fortress, with the Untersberg mountain in the background. Fantastic. And you reach the place by a lift inside the mountain – I love unusual public transport.

View from Eagle’s Nest

Something I didn’t know about Salzburg was how close by Hitler’s second headquarters were, just over the border in Bavaria. We took a tour to the (in)famous Kehlsteinhouse (Eagles’ Nest). This is a teahouse perched high on a sheer white-gray craggy, barren mountain. It was the Nazi party’s 50th birthday present to Hitler and is an amazing engineering achievement even if completely haunted and creepy through association. But it’s worth going for the amazing views and mountains alone – you can see all the way back to Salzburg. And to see what money and power can achieve.

Built in 1937-38, in just 13 months, the building was only ever intended as a teahouse, a mountain top retreat above the village of Hitler and his henchmen, where visitors could be entertained and impressed. It is reached by a very steep road serviced by buses equipped with special brakes and the only way up there, apart from on foot, is via these buses. The road is all hairpin turns and tunnels, only wide enough for one bus except in the special passing bays, and the cliff drops steeply to lakes and villages far below – not for the faint-hearted, my vertigo did not enjoy it and I had to go to my happy place several times. The bucket and broom at the front of the bus were a worry too – are there many uneasy travellers on this bus?

Finally you reach a parking area and, on foot, enter a long tunnel into the mountain. This leads to a lift inside the mountain that takes you up into the hallway of the teahouse. Apparently Hitler had several resting areas on the way due to his terrible claustrophobia, and the lift is large and brass lined for reflections to belie its enclosed nature; perhaps the party didn’t like him that much – the Eagles’ Nest doesn’t feel like a very sympathetic gift for a man with so many deep phobias.

The Kehlsteinhouse is now used as a restaurant and the advantage of going there on an organised tour was that we arrived in time to see inside all the rooms - by the time we came to leave, the main dining and conference rooms were closed off to tourists. Apparently there is some disagreement about why this building was not destroyed along with all the rest of Hitler’s Bavarian HQ at the end of the war. Some say the Allied bombs missed, some say it was deliberately left. In 1952 the building was opened to the public and leased out as a restaurant. All the profit after running costs is donated to charity.

Heading back to Salzburg, we stopped to pick up people who had done the tour of the famous salt mines, drop off people going to the ice caves and others going to the lakes. I was impressed by the efficiency and good humour of the tour guide who was wrangling all these people with different wants, some of who changed their mind halfway through the tour. He took in his stride, made a call and waited to make sure they made their new bus. Great service.

Returning to Salzburg, I was interested to see how different the colour of the river was to the cut-glass clear of the mountains streams not that far out of town. The water of the Salzach looked quite opaque, milky green, not for drinking or falling into its fast running depths. I’m not sure whether the Salzach has picked up dirt or pollution and I wasn’t about to slide down the banks to find out. Too far inland to be tidal, the level of the Salzach rose and fell dramatically in the few days I was there. I guess it was to do with rain falling in the mountains and in Salzburg itself – there were a couple of mighty tempests while we were there even though it was mid-summer.

I would happily go back to Salzburg with no thoughts of nuns, captains, or singing children.

–Philippa Burne

Planning a trip? Browse all of Viator’s Salzburg things to do and tours in Austria.

A few months ago I stumbled upon the Budget Travel Supermarket Souvenir article, with its quirky mix of items you can buy in foreign supermarkets. Pig-liver patee in handy “to go” portions, grilled shrimp and pepper flavored Pringles, that sort of thing. There’s a good slideshow if you’re interested.

I appreciate supermarket shenanigans as much as the next person. But the article left me a little hungry for more (pun only partially intended). The concept is great — travel souvenirs and mementos from foreign lands — but why limit it to foreign supermarkets?

No, let’s go big here. Let’s open this concept up to any and all travel shwag. I’m hungry for a list of the world’s most quirky, oddest, funniest (both strange & ha ha) and downright weird travel mementos. Did you bring home a shrunken head? A jar of pickled feet? A felt painting of Jesus driving a monster truck?

Don’t be shy. You are not alone in your appreciation of weird & wonderful travel souvenirs. I’ve added a few of my personal favorites, but please send us yours! Simply email your photo (jpeg preferably) with a short explanation at feedback@viator.com and we will add the best ones to the list below.

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: It’s Unbelizeable

When I was 22 years old I went to Romania to write a travel guide for other 22-year-olds. Strangely enough, nobody was interested in Romania at the time, especially not the 22 year olds. My mom felt bad, so she bought me an “I Luv Romania” T-shirt. The shirt makes me laugh about a difficult time in my life (you go spend 8 weeks in post-revolution Romania and tell me how you like it). To this day I still know how to say, in Romanian, “No! I do not like pork liver.”

At the other end of the emotional spectrum is my shirt from Belize. It says “You Better Belize It!” Which pretty much sums up the wonderfulness that is Belize (read about the wonderfulness here).

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: Monkey Madness

I ran out of toothpaste once when I was in Kenya. After much fruitless searching I was informed that in Kenya it’s more common to use tooth powder. Fair enough. So I picked up this — tub? jar? bottle? — of Monkey Brand Black Tooth Powder, imported from India. No, it did not turn my teeth black. Yes, I was worried about that.

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: Allahu Akbar

I bought this mosque clock after taking a trip to Istanbul (read about that trip here), where I became completely enamored with the call to prayer. This clock is perhaps the best travel souvenir I have ever purchased. Every time the alarm goes off I think fondly back on my time in Istanbul and Turkey. If you’re curious to experience the clock’s call-to-prayer alarm firsthand, click here (warning - this is loud).

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: Hutt River Freestate

This T-shirt is from the largely unrecognised Principality of the Hutt River Province, which ’seceded’ from Australia in 1970. It’s located in Western Australia, about 5 hours from absolutely nowhere. Prince Leonard and Princess Shirley run a gift shop, as well as guided tours most days. The photo was submitted by John Ryan, author of a superb book on Micronations.

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: The Red Detachment of Women

Another entry from John, this time of a female soldier-ballerina statuette with a pistol, from the balllet The Red Detachment of Women. It was a Cultural Revolution favourite in Mao’s China. Richard Nixon saw it in ‘72 and it’s still performed on high rotation. The statue is just over a foot high and was purchased at a market in Beijing in 1998.

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: Singapore Surrender Monkeys

Another one from John Ryan, who says: “This is a tiny little souvenir fan I picked up in a gift shop on Sentosa in Singapore in 2000. Friends have looked but not seen these since - I wonder if they’re still on sale? Only 7cm (or just under 3 inches) wide, the fan depicts the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II, with British soldiers signing the surrender papers. Ahhh, the memories!”

Best Travel Souvenirs & Mementos: I Love Minding the Gap

Here’s an entry from David McLagan, who says: “I bought these stickers recently in London and they made laugh - as I’m sure it would anyone that’s travelled by Tube in London for any length of time. (Apologies for my dodgy photo, but I hope you get the idea.) It’s all the excuses London Underground feed you when there are delays. Hilarious.”

Do you have a travel souvenir you’d like to share? If so simply email your photo (jpeg preferably) with a short explanation to feedback@viator.com. We’ll add the best travel shwag to this list.

–Scott McNeely

Singapore has an extraordinary blend of local delicacies to sample, from Hainanese Chicken Rice, Nasi Lemak, Laksa, Rojak, Beef Kway Teow, Fish Head Curry… to Peranakan, Indian, and Malay cuisine.

Singapore food - truly a yummy delight

The trick with Singapore’s hawker centres (stalls where local food is served up - think “mega-food court”) is to go with friends so you can sample more dishes. Start by finding a local hawker centre, then follow the line of people to the most popular stall, and try the most appealing dish. For serious foodies, purchase the small guide to the best hawker stands listed for each and every MRT Station on the island, and you’ll get to taste things in places your friends have never even heard of. Or else, just follow my lead and you’ll be guaranteed a rich variety of new culinary sensations.

Singapore Food: City

Located in the Bras Basah Complex opposite Raffles Hotel (below Odeon Towers and Loof bar), next to Carlton Hotel at City Hall MRT. Here is where I found the key to fresh light meals, Yung tao fu DIY, with shelves of vegetables, fish balls, tofu, and other strange items that you select and have cooked up for you in a light broth, a perfect counterpoint to the many richer spicy dishes. ‘You can ask for more cucumbers’ is the charming healthy eating slogan displayed on some of these stands, which can usually be found in any hawker centre.

Hawker Food at Singapore’s Bras Basah complex

I had my birthday dinner at the Hawker centre opposite the National Library on Middle Rd, with good reports on the chilli frogs legs from the place in the far corner. The fried carrot cake was tasty in a variety of forms and the stir-fried noodles with prawns were also a big hit with my friends. This place, like many hawker centres, is open late; at 3am every table in the place was packed. As you may imagine in this tropical setting, where the temperature rarely drops below 26C (78F) even at midnight, the late-night supper is part of the local culture for young and old alike. If you’re craving entertainment, check the weekend film screenings, some cinemas have sessions at 2 or 4am.

Singapore Food: Clarke Quay

Avoid the overpriced seafood restaurants along the water, and head instead to the basement of Liang Court, just past Clarke Quay, where myriad tasty Japanese specialties are available (from teriyaki to eel) outside the Meidi-Ya Japanese supermarket, which also has a very impressive range of sake available in the bottle shop.

Singapore Food: Chinatown

Take the MRT to Chinatown station, which gets you to the epicentre of the night-market hawker centre, one of the only places where the stands are actually out on the street. It’s also home to Singapore’s only Austrian Hawker stand, with arguably the best dumplings in town.

Oktoberfest hawker food in Singapore

There is plenty to tempt you along the street, but I head straight up the stairs of Block 335, the white and green building on the corner of Smith and Trengganu St to stall 02-83/84, called Oktoberfest, for schnitzel and potato salad. When you’re ready for dessert, walk along to the second corridor of stalls (02-59) to try the freshly handmade dumplings at Hai Seng Ah Balling, delicately flavoured with red bean, peanut, lotus… mmmm meltingly delicious.

After that indulgence, find the red and white flowers of the homemade chrysanthemum tea stand, to aid digestion and help you sleep.

Walking along Sago street takes you into some of the morbid history of the area, this was the place of the funeral shops, where people would come to buy offerings to send with their relatives into the next world. Here I found one of the tastiest egg tarts at the local bakery, which also has marvellous lotus-seed cakes and other treats.

There is also a vegetarian restaurant on Smith St, near the corner of South Bridge Road, with wonderful display of Buddhist kitsch, flashing lights, icons, and a peaceful atmosphere amongst old wooden tables, a library and a vegetarian deli in case you need something to take home. Simple meals of brown rice with vegetables include delicacies like lotus root, which to me had a taste and texture somewhere between pineapple and celery, and was amazing to try fresh.

Singapore Food: Little India & Kampong Glam

Every corner in Little India is home to another tasty treat. Walking between Serangoon Rd and Jln Besar Rd is certain to give you sensory overload. If you fancy excellent vegetarian food, try the Masala Dosa and Idli at Saravana Bhavan (36 Belilios Lane), or stop at one of the many street shops offering ‘Vegetarian and non-vegetarian’ food! Azmi Restaurant, an Indian-Muslim run coffee shop here since 1944, will give you a taste of the past. Their specialty is chapatis and nothing but chapatis, made with fresh flour from the nearby mill, in a traditional kneading process and cooked without a drop of oil.

Murtabak, an Indian pancake filled with chicken, beef or mutton stuffing, accompanied curry, is best tried at Zam Zam, in the purple shophouse on the corner of Arab Street and North Bridge Road.

Singapore Food: East Coast

Changi Point Ferry Terminal is at the eastern tip of Singapore, between Nicoll Drive and Changi Coast Road. Changi Village Hawker Centre has reputedly the best Nasi Lemak in town.

Satay & lime at Yuan Ching Rd - Before

If you make the trip to Palau Ubin for a breath of fresh air and something of the traditional island pace, turn left from the ferry terminal and walk through the carpark, then straight through the first hawker centre, to the end of the second one. Look for the long queue of people at the furthest stand on the right, and that’s where you’ll find the highly recommended Malay dish of chicken wings, fragrant steamed coconut rice, peanuts, egg and sambal chilli. There is a long cycle path all the way down the east coast, and you can also watch planes take off from the airport nearby.

Satay & lime at Yuan Ching Rd - After

On Palau Ubin you can pick up a beer and coconut from one of the charming traditional stores in aged wooden huts, and rent a bicycle for $2 a day – although you’ll pay $6 if you want one that goes! – cycle round and explore the island, all the way to the border of Singapore.

Singapore Food: Geylang District

There is some heated discussion on the local food blogs about which is the best place for Beef Kway Teow, also called Beef Horfun. I tried the dish at Geylang Lor 9, with another hawker stand opposite that features a speciality of chilli frogs legs, which unlike me, you may be brave enough to try! This is also possibly the only seedy area in Singapore, where the red light district is located, and worth visiting for the contrast to the majority of this super clean town.

You may want to finish your evening with the soft silky beancurd from Yong He Eating House, just a few streets away, accompanied by You Tiao, delicious fried sugary dough sticks for the perfect meal. Eat them dipped in beancurd, or with vinegar, or plain with a sugar coating. The good news is they’re open 24 hours a day!

Singapore Food: Breakfast & Dessert

Kopi and Kaya toast! Coffee (Kopi) is brewed thick and oily, served with a dash of sweetened condensed milk. It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to it, and for only 80c, is a cheap daily caffeine fix. The kaya toast I also loved, coconut jam often made with pandan for the green colour, on pure white bread. If you want a more traditional savoury breakfast, go for the congee porridge, which I never did, being unable to get past the sweet Kaya. Available at most of the beverage stands.

The best cendol and bobo char I found were actually in the old run-down food centre at the end of Yuan Ching rd, opposite the Tang Dynasty Village. This is a failed tourist attraction, the fake Chinese ruins, currently in deeply romantic decay, although slated to be redeveloped into a hotel and spa, along with the transformation of this are into a new business district. Apparently very seedy around 8 to 10 years ago, reputedly infested with gangs and crime, this locality is now a peaceful suburb, and home to a multitude of communities.

My local Sheng Siong supermarket was right next to the dilapidated food court, with some of the tastiest satay and afore-mentioned desserts. I made up my own variations – thai style cendol with extra lychees, for example was a favourite, although the menu items are all amazing – dragon fruit jelly, and their warm sweet soups are packed with tasty goodness. The main version is a selection of jellies and gooey fruit seeds (like palm seed) served on a bed of ice, and drizzled with sticky sweet syrup. Delectable and very refreshing.

Wherever you go, try the fresh lime juice, sometimes available with sour plum for extra kick, and the fresh young coconut milk which you drink through a straw, straight out of the shell.

-Jodi Rose

I eat I shoot I post has the most detailed descriptions and sumptuous photos of everything you might like to eat in Singapore. Also check out Love Singapore Food and Hawker Fare. If you’re planning a trip, browse Viator’s Singapore tours & things to do, from the Singapore Zoo to Sentosa Island day trips.

There’s the radio in a mall. There’s piped music in a department store. There are buskers. And then there’s music you just come across, that you hear from a distance. It reels you in before you’ve realised it, and then you’re suddenly standing in some Public Place, not your house or your backyard or even some common zone where you feel comfortable, but somewhere all naked and public, and you are… enjoying being there.

Buskers on the street in Paris, Summer 2008

Somehow the air has moved, made room for many people, or maybe it’s just you – like travelling while you’re standing still - even if you are on your way to work or across town, these little moments give a fresh livability to a day and even to a place that could otherwise stay stale, habitual and even unnoticed or unused for more time than you would care to mention.

–> Busker in tunnel, Finland <–

Years ago a friend, he plays drums – with his hands, yes, like bongos but we’ll let him off just this once, even if he is quite infectiously good – went to Japan with his girlfriend, a flautist, with the specific intention of busking. Somehow they found places to sleep, a way to get across the language barrier and all day they would play: in tunnels and around the cities, where the usual rush would prevail around them. On a busy day the same as any other, one salaryman pauses in his transit, stands like a crumpled yet resilient suit before them, stands and listens with his whole body. Slowly he rises: tall, rejuvenated, and produces a note - but this money is just like any other money - and he says in haltingly inflected English, “Thank you, you… have given me… energy!”

–> Gypsy band, on the streets of Bratislava <–

He turns and goes on his way, but now it is his way. Told to me a few years later in Sydney, it retained for me its provocative point. In particular on my occasional trips through the Devonshire Street Tunnel, connecting Broadway and Central Station to Surry Hills and Elizabeth Street. A tunnel that with three people busking 50 or more metres apart can turn into a cacophony of cover songs, but on some days could magically transform its myriad musicians into an instrument beyond their own invention.

–> Church bells in Graz, Austria <–

A solitary Chinese man - of no fixed age so that you could call him old, or middle aged, he just simply was – would sit in the tunnel and bow upon his singular stringed gourd of an instrument. It was a keening sound that could penetrate far beyond other sounds, yet somehow he managed to conjure a mystical quality that was outside of any Oriental exoticism. He’d kept something pure about his sound in the midst of the incessant bustle and jostling of the “I have to be here, I have to go there” crowds that filed through the tunnel daily – completely unaware of the transformative acoustics of the chamber that conveyed them, or positively uninterested in this “inconvenience” of transit along two important points in a busy city day.

There’s always the people and small bands with their porta-PA, that try and wreak this kind of magic on the general public in their general Public Spaces through sheer volume or over-exhuberence. There are too many to mention - the guitar duos at the markets, the band-in-a-box carted by the solo saxophonist on the train, the would-be Australian/American/Italian Idol that belts out their heartfelt song so you almost hand over some coins in the hope for a light reprieve.

Sometime there’s eight of them, surrounding you with their goodwill, drawing a crowd that stands with an impassive stare that just says “something is happening” or “entertain me”, much like the idyll before a half watched television.

Busking with a banjo

Most often it’s the subtle artist, the persistent yet talented player that floats above the ruckus rather than seeking to overwhelm it and force its submission – diligently knowing where that quiet space is than pouring out a public virtuoso performance. There are the stories of the concert violinist put on the busiest point in the day’s public transit, making only a few dollars for their work when in a concert hall hundreds sit rapt in top-dollar seats – but who are they playing for? To make a dollar? To make a point? To get paid to practice in public? Or to really change the shape of these spaces which just form transit rather than travel. If travelling is to be truly moved, then what is just a transit if not a transition?

Come summer, similar stories play out across many of the bigger European cities such as Milan, Berlin, and Leipzig. Violin players and accordionists, sometimes working alone or even working in packs, moving across the city, their sharp, well-honed and almost insistent tone singing out beneath balconies on streets and through piazzas and plazas. They can prick an ear at 40 paces, just a hint of a tune and they can start to reel thoughts in. Drama, melancholy, strong emotion drawn together between the sonorous interplay of worldly sounds; passion or sadness, a quicker tempo for the passers-by to beat out their walk to or just stand and become lost again.

–> Drumming procession in Romania <–

A train in Milan can become polarised in seconds, a joyous wave bursting from the closing carriage-door, sweeping between seats and standing passengers til the next stop comes, a wave of a cup and instantly the sound recedes into the near distance, but a well placed tune can last stations longer.

–> Monks worshiping in Beijing, China <–

Even Singapore’s airport has its quiet warm drone, best heard up near the areas to rent by the moment for sleeping, near the free internet, a soft series of tones that summons a lulling sense of serenity in the simple act of pausing to check lost words before departure once more to new places.

–> Firewords, Andalucia, Spain <–

Walking into St Thomas Kirche in Mariannenplatz , Berlin, I first understood what baroque organs are all about. Standing beneath the first of the four half domes - walking towards the central dome betwixt the four arches of its cross – the stops all out on the organ above the entrance. The pipes sounded their full length and the music ricocheted off every available wall, ceiling and surface – producing an impossible clamour that defied reason. In the church of the same name in Leipzig, again, but this time where J. S. Bach had written all his cantatas, the fugues - works that redefined the instrument. I was struck dumb as a seemingly innocent three beat pause in the piece played by the organist, by now in mid-flight, reached its way all the distance to the back wall before the piece suddenly resumed its insistent standing in the church once again - a near religious experience.

The (formerly) unattended piano at Amsterdam’s State Library

The deep ringing of church bells in Zulpischerplatz, Koln; the unattended piano in the entrance to the new State Library in Amsterdam, anointed with only the sign remarking that ‘If you are good, you are welcome to play’; three men remembering the songs together from their youth during national service, singing acapella in the covered deck of a ferry crossing Lake Como – the unexpected change wrought in the air during an international voyage or just a trip down the street. This is more than a reason to go from your doorway out into the world, not just to travel – perhaps… to be.

–Robert Curgenven

Editor’s Note: If you’re visiting China as the 2008 Beijing Olympics come to a close, check out Viator’s mini-guide for travelers. We’ve also covered suggested itineraries in Beijing as part of our Beijing tours & things to do in Beijing listings.

Visiting Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games? Then read on…

Since 2004, a giant digital clock in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square has been counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, which kicked off on August 8. It’s a momentous time for Beijing, as the Olympics are in full swing and the media spotlight is shining brightly on China for the next week.

More than 1 million people are expected to visit Beijing for the Olympics. We’ll assume you have already sorted your Olympic tickets (if not, click here for information on obtaining tickets to events at the Beijing games). So now we can focus on the fun stuff.

Your first stop? Check out Viator’s day-by-day itineraries in Beijing over on the main Viator.com website. We’ve put together this guide to help you plan your Beijing travels, with several itineraries to accommodate those with only a day to spend, to those with several.

Next, have a look at the suggestions below for making the most of a trip to Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. If you have more time in Beijing, or if you’re looking for activities that only fill a few hours, the city is full of interesting walks and bicycle rides, shopping centers, art galleries and museums, and entertainment. Here are some of the highlights.

Top Things to Do in Beijing

Standing guard in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square

• Rent a Bicycle. Though Beijing was famed in the past for the numbers of bicyclists clogging the streets, cars are more prevalent these days. Even so, there are plenty of cyclists riding along in special bicycle lanes with their own traffic signals and traffic directors, which make biking in the city relatively safe. Rides through hutong neighborhoods and around the Forbidden City are pleasant, and bicycle rentals are cheap and easy to find.

• Peking Duck Banquet & Chinese Acrobatic Show. Enjoy world-famous Peking Duck, an absolute must-do experience in Beijing, followed up with exotic entertainment by a Chinese acrobat troupe. The whole evening lasts about 4 hours and includes complimentary hotel pick-up and drop-off.

• Get a Drink. Head over to Sanlitun, the embassy district, which is a popular expat area with small international bars and cafes tucked in the avenues and side streets. Or check out the up and coming (and somewhat tamer) Houhai Lake for bars, pubs, cafes, and restaurants.

• Go Shopping. Once the commercial heart of the city in the Qing Dynasty, Qianmen Street (just south of Tiananmen Square) has been redeveloped as a shopping area inspired by the past, with renovated shops, an opera house, and a tree-lined marble thoroughfare for pedestrians. Nearby, the glass-faced Oriental Plaza stretches from Wangfujing Street to Dong Dan, an upscale shopping center, the plaza is two stories of clothing stores and several museums. The six-story Shin Kong Plaza in the Central Business District is home to more than 100 stores for designer brands like Prada and Gucci, and restaurants that span the gamut from classic French to traditional Beijing cuisine. Also in the Central Business District, a ritzy new mall called The Place, located near the Silk Market, is best known for its main attraction: a giant, 98-foot-wide LED screen ‘video roof’ that projects everything from swimming sharks and flying birds to intergalactic light shows.

• Visit a Gallery or Museum. Check out the Dashanzi Art District, a neighborhood of industrial buildings previously used for military and factory purposes that have been converted by artists into galleries, boutiques, coffee shops, and restaurants. For antiquities, the Wanshou Temple is home to the Beijing Art Museum, with collections of paintings, carvings, pottery, and handicrafts, and The Capital Museum houses artifacts such as ancient coins, stoneware, calligraphy and paintings. The Beijing Natural History Museum, near the Temple of Heaven, offers an interesting mix of zoological displays and human cadavers. The National Museum, on Tiananmen Square, has a timeline history of the communist party mixed with an incongruent collection of art exhibits on the first floor and a kitschy wax museum on the second, with a better view of Chairman Mao than the nearby mausoleum.

• Tour the ‘New’ Beijing Architecture. See for yourself what all the fuss is about by visiting the controversial new buildings in Beijing’s landscape, designed by some of the modern world’s greatest architects. The National Grand Theater, called The Egg, is a futuristic looking opera house of steel and glass surrounded by an artificial lake located west of Tiananmen Square. On the Olympic Green, get a look at the shiny metal National Stadium, called the Bird Nest, and the glass bubbled National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube. Don’t miss the CCTV Headquarters, a skyscraper with an unusual trapezoidal ‘loop’ shape for China Central Television in the Central Business District.

• Go Dancing. Check out China Doll in Sanlitun, a dance club with an underwater atmosphere spread over three floors, or Club Mix located at the Worker’s Stadium North Gate, recently expanded and packed every night, Mix has several dance floors playing different styles of music. StarLive, in Yonghegong, is the best place to catch live music and foreign acts passing through town.

-Cheryn Flanagan

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s complete list of China tours, Beijing tours & attractions and tours of the Great Wall. You can even prebook a private Beijing airport transfer (PEK).

Editor’s Note: Tom Downs is the author of numerous guides to San Francisco, including his most recent “Walking San Francisco: 30 Savvy Tours Exploring Steep Streets, Grand Hotels, Dive Bars, and Waterfront Parks“.

The wild parrots of SF’s Telegraph Hill

When people ask me if I’ve seen the Parrot Movie, I say yes. And when I ask people if they’ve walked San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, the answer, surprisingly, is almost always no.

To which I always say, Fer cryin’ out loud. Don’t just see the movie.

The Parrot Movie, of course, is The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a documentary about a man with loads of time on his hands. He’s a squatter who inhabits a neglected shack on Telegraph Hill, and he becomes fascinated by the local flock of cherry-head conures, observing them obsessively, and ultimately developing what can only be described as friendships with many of them. This quirky and beautiful film was a big hit in San Francisco in 2003. A year after its release it was still playing in independent theaters around the Bay Area.

Telegraph Hill: First time’s the charm

I hike up Telegraph Hill often, but my first walk up and down its shady inclines left an indelible impression on me, and very likely influenced my move from New York to San Francisco two years later. My gal, Fawn, and I were in town to visit my brother James. A good eight years older than me, James is a native San Franciscan and a man of boundless energy, curiosity and intelligence. He’s walked and snooped down every street and alleyway from Bernal Heights to North Beach, usually without letting little things like backyard fences get in his way. He’s dry now, but in those days he had a hollow leg and was never too hung-over to walk for miles the next morning.

That was more or less our agenda on our visit. After a night out that was never properly encoded in my memory, James led Fawn and me through Chinatown and North Beach and on over Filbert Street to the lush garden stairways of Telegraph Hill’s eastern slope.

It was faintly cloudy, the streets busy with the un-insistent energy of Saturday morning. In part due to our mildly jagged state of mind we were highly receptive to the day’s subdued appeal. I’ve maintained ever since that the best time to walk Telegraph Hill is when the sun is not shining too brightly, when the light evens out above and beneath the trees. Luckily, in the summer, San Francisco complies five days out of seven.

North Beach Coffee Break

In North Beach, we stopped at Caffe Trieste, where older Italians had already claimed the best tables, and we enjoyed coffee and panini while the owner sang Italian songs to a packed house. Mandolin, trumpet and squeeze box all managed to fit into a corner of the room, and the woman operating the espresso machine paused to deliver some bel canto of her own. North Beach has always been very tourist-friendly, but its numerous cafes still manage to retain a neighborly vitality that hearkens to the district’s days as an Italian enclave.

The Coit Murals

Coit Tower, from above

From Trieste, we marched up the steep incline to Coit Tower, which points skyward from the peak of Telegraph Hill like a giant flashlight. (The more common comparison is to a fire nozzle, but why make the same old analogy as everyone else? Besides, its architects always insisted it was not a fire nozzle.)

James wasn’t interested in taking the elevator to the tower’s observatory, and he had a point – views of SF can be found all over town. Even hotel elevators are made of glass, yielding views. But we did enter the ground floor lobby (no admission fee) to admire the 1930s murals inside the tower’s ground floor.

Public art is a vaunted tradition in San Francisco, still very much going strong. Coit Tower’s art roughs out the story of California history, with frescoes depicting the rise of industry without glorifying it. Indeed, some of these left-leaning murals were considered controversial when the tower first opened. They aren’t terribly shocking now, unless you’re a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. But they will always be beautiful and subtle works of art.

A Rocky Past

We found our way to some well-hidden steps that crooked downward into the dense, inviting greenery of the hill’s eastern slope. Though ’slope’ is too gentle a word. Telegraph Hill hurtles downward for two blocks at an angle too steep for pavement before abruptly plunging in a sheer drop to the waterfront.

This final cliff is the legacy of a 19th-century quarrying company, which blasted away a huge portion of the hill. The company hoped to obliterate the hill, sell the rock for ship ballast, and make a killing on real estate. The people who lived on Telegraph Hill at the time weren’t crazy about the idea, and the blasting was eventually stopped. Someone once asked me if this was an early example of NIMBY nonsense, but I’d consider it more an example of self-preservation. This was not an elite neighborhood then. It was working class and bohemian, with strong artistic and pro-labor leanings.

Ultimately, thanks again to the creativity and passion of its residents, Telegraph Hill would become one of the city’s most beautiful hilltop enclaves. A retired Hollywood stuntwoman named Grace Marchant is credited with starting the gardens here in the 1950s, when she began to clear away an ad hoc garbage dump to make room for a crazy quilt of trees, vines, ferns, shrubs, flowers, ground cover.

As the price of property went up, the wealthy inevitably assumed their current position upon this lofty patch of real estate. But devoted gardeners, all volunteers, have continued the work of the old stuntwoman. The stairs wending through this hilltop jungle are city property - they are city streets, actually - to be shared with the public and the parrots, who perch and squawk in the canopy above.

Down Filbert, Up Greenwich

The Victorians of San Francisco

We went down Filbert first, detouring along little sidestreets like Napier Lane, which is essentially a boardwalk that crooks between the foliage and the shiplapped siding of Victorian houses.

A handful of lucky people get to live on this quiet sanctuary. In San Francisco, it’s is about as close to Shangri-La as you can get, and yet the Financial District’s cold-hearted banks and skyscrapers are just a few blocks away.

Steps led the way down the rocky cliff, affording a view of flowers planted by determined gardeners who hung from belays to plant seedlings. A block away, we found steps leading back up, via Greenwich Street - yet another tilting gardenscape, improbably residential, leading back up to the top of Telegraph Hill. We rambled the blocks around the hilltop neighborhood, eventually finding our way back to North Beach, a Muni bus, and James’ apartment for a well deserved nap. We still had Saturday night ahead of us, after all.

San Francisco: A Most Walkable City

Thanks to the escalating price of gas, everyone’s talking about ways to have your fun without paying the piper at the pump. Taking public transit comes up often. So does riding a bike. And walking, of course. This is sensible talk.

It was in this spirit that walkscore.com rated American cities for their “walkability.” San Francisco rated highest, over New York and Boston. The San Francisco Chronicle ran the story on the front page - it was a slow news day. You can check out the story here. The New York papers didn’t find room for the story on their front pages. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Much to their credit, Walkscore doesn’t view SF’s hilly topography as a deterrent. They don’t go so far as to say the hills are what make San Francisco a walker’s paradise, but I will make that argument for them. The hills get your heart pumping. Reward follows effort, because the hills get you up above the rest of the city, making SF a city of fantastic views. And they separate the city into distinctive islands, surrounded by diverse tidepools and reefs, each with their own subcultures and microclimates. San Francisco isn’t a chest thumping town, except when it comes to its hills. But let it be known that even the most buxom of SF’s hills are all natural - no enhancements.

-Tom Downs

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s San Francisco tours & things to do, from SF walking tours to Alcatraz tours.

Editor’s Note: Read the latest on the Optimistic Fools preparation for the 2008 Mongol Rally. Viator is pleased to be a sponsor of the Optimistic Fools rally team, on their journey to complete the 2008 Mongol Rally from London to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. The race began July 19, and this is the Fools’ first post from the road.

Irene ın her native home, the French country sıde

“To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.”
-Charles Horton Cooley

For so long it seemed little more than a dream: driving from London’s Hyde Park to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, in a sky-blue Renault 4 called Irene, in the 5th annual Mongol Rally. Preparing the car, sourcing the visas and studying the route all failed to hit it home as my teammate, Olly, and I (a.k.a. the Optimistic Fools) each went about our daily routines of waking, working, girlfriends then bed. That this simple routine was about to be blown from the waters of monotony was beyond our comprehension.

As I awoke on Saturday 19th of July in my 1-bed flat in Marble Arch, void of all its usual contents - bar a small bag and a pop-up tent I had recently purchased of eBay - I realised that I had no idea where I would lay my head that night, or any other for the next seven weeks. It was a truly glorious feeling, for a short period of time I would be completely free of my suits, schedules, appointments and, above all, tedium. For once I would have a brief glimpse into the world of a hobo and it was a feeling without description.

On the drive to the Hyde Park launch site, sitting impatiently at a red traffic light, a large silver Mercedes smoothly pulled up alongside us. A burly suited chap with sleek black aviators rolled down the window of his nicely air-conditioned and fragranced car. ‘Where are you guys off to in that rust bucket?’ he mused.

‘Mongolia, mate,’ we answered nonchalantly. ‘What about yourself?’

Yet before we could relish his retort, the lights turned green and he was off to his office, leaving us smiling in his wake as we made our way to the adventure of a lifetime.

Spluttering up to the start line we were joined by Fiat Pandas, Minis, Suzuki Sjs and an assortment of various cars, all under 1000cc, whose heydays were mostly around the time I thought Bonjovi were the best band in the world (and that was a long, long time ago). Having somehow managed to persuade the Mongolian Ambassador for a private photo shoot we were off, out of London in the direction of Folkstone, where we would cross into France via the Channel Tunnel, an ingenious feat of engineering. Now if there is anything that the elder generation of French people love more than oaky red wine and robust smelling cheese, it’s a Renault 4. And it was this nostalgıc love that endeared us to all as we bumbled down their motorways and clogged up their little country lanes.

Having lent us her forests (to me France is decidedly feminine) for two nights of free camping, the first had us chased off in the morning by an irate farmer and his son, Irene proving herself worthy as a getaway car and the second in the alpine forests in the mountains next to Switzerland. The following morning we crossed into this wonderfully neutral country. Legend has it that the Swiss boarder patrol are as overzealous and efficient as brain surgeon, so to prepare we changed the Reggae to Rakmaninov and the ripped shorts for suits, only to cross the boarder with little more than a bemused look from a cheery customs officer.

Wanting to cross into Italy within the day we drove from dawn until dusk, finding ourselves surrounded by snow-capped peaks in the middle of the night, navigating steep, windy, unlit alpine roads dressed in thin cotton suits. To say the situation felt surreal would be an understatement. Having thought that the assent was painful on Irene’s 30-year old radiator was bad, the descent proved to be even worse on her brakes, filling the car with the smell of burnt rubber. Finally we made it down to the Italian boarder, bewildered and shaky, only to be subjected to the most intense and thorough search worthy of the aforementioned Swiss legend. Yet, being the relatively good boys that we have now become, they found nothing and to add to the surreal experience of the whole day. They offered us sweets to take on our journey.

Both of have having had previous knowledge of Italy we kept up the fast pace speeding into Milan, getting lost and putting Irene’s satisfyingly intrusive horn to the test, and out again into the farmland of northern Italy. Once again it was getting late and having been on the road for 15 hours we decided to pull off the motorway at the next junction marked ‘Citadella’ in order to find a small forest where we could pitch the tent and pull out the longed-for Whiskey. Being 11 o’clock at night and thoroughly exhausted we hadn’t put two an two together to realise that you don’t call a town Citadel without reason. As we rounded a corner of the deserted town we were greeted by an enormous castle keep, flanked on either side by majestic turrets before which lay an ornate stone bridge undewhich rippled the murkey waters of a moon reflecting moat.

On surpassing the dumbfounded awe that had befallen us at this second bizarre encounter, we continued on our way to our next camp site, a small grassy lane nestled between two cornfields ripe for harvesting. As the moon glistened down in a gothic manner through the towering corn we nursed a few glasses of Whiskey and once again realised how incredibly lucky we were to be undertaking this journey.

Changing the shock absorbers in Italy after the bashing in the Alps

The next morning, wanting to get back on the road early before our morning yawns were met with the barrel of an incensed Italian farmer’s shotgun, we tickled Irene’s rusty (yet so far reliable) engine into action and continued towards the Slovenian boarder, where we would enter for a few kilometers before arriving at the Croat customs. At the passport control the guard joked with us how I, as a German, could allow myself to trust a French car. He then looked solemnly towards the Croatian boarder and remarked, ‘you see that? That is no longer the EU, if you drive just a few meters from here you will no longer be protected.’ Ollie and I looked at one another, grinned the grin of two school boys laden with fireworks outside a nunnery, and sped off with renewed vigor.

Hailed as the new med Mecca, free from the tourist hordes that plague its neighbor’s shores, I had high expectations for this rapidly developing country. So it was with great regret that I felt, no doubt unfairly, slightly let down with my perception as the smiles and waves from the previous countries were exchanged for uninterested gazes and bored faces. True the quaint beauty of the precariously windy road that meanders down the coast, dotted with small coves embraced by gently lapping blue waters and crested with small stone houses were enough to break even the sternest heart, but I was not sold.

Due to a historic political olive branch, Bosnia cuts through southern Croatia, allowing its otherwise landlocked country a few kilometers worth of coastline. So heading down the Croat coast one has to enter Bosnia for brief glimpse before reentering Croatia at the ancient and majestic fort like city of Dubrovnik. Whilst walking its white slippery stone alleys, Ollie asked two beautiful Slavic girls if they could snap a photo of he and I before the grand cathedral steps. ‘Of course,’ they chorused before handing Ollie back the camera , grabbing me each by the arm for Olly to take the photo. As they walked off, heads held high, proud of their splendor, we decided to get back on the road to hit the Montenegrin boarder before midnight.

–Christoph Courth

To find out more about this foolish adventure visit the Optimistic Fools over at their own website: www.optimisticfools.co.uk

Sometime ago I lived opposite two of Australia’s best surfing breaks, I won’t tell you where because I wouldn’t want the poor beleaguered local folk to be overwhelmed with people wanting to know what Jack’s really like. Suffice to say I spent my share of time out in the surf, spurning all offers of boogie boards or anything under 10 foot long.

Over the last 10 years I have been running a bit of a specialty in either living a thousand kilometres from the coast or where the ocean is dead flat. So between that and my first hand experience it goes to follow that this makes me practically a world expert on the Best Surfing Breaks, because with my slow-trained and steady eye I can spot a monster wave from a bloody long way away.

Forget your flippers, grab your board and tuck a pen in your shorts, ‘cos you’ll need to make some notes to remember Jack’s Guide to the World’s Best Breaks – and there’s no dropping the bassline on this one… So, we’ll start with some Australian ones first – because that’s where it all really all started, but otherwise in no particular order:

Kirra, Queensland

Nice sets coming in at Kirra

At Coolangatta, right on the Queensland/New South Wales border, is Kirra – a beach that scored over 670 points in the judging for best breaks in Australia. An easy number one, Kelly Slater gives it the big thumbs up - even though he hasn’t come round to my house for a beer for years now – and it’s a filthy big point break (no Keanu jokes please). Most common saying on the beach at Kirra: “Mate, I’m stoked”. Make of that what you will.

Bells Beach, Victoria
You’ve seen it in the final scene of Romper Stomper