Old doors: wondering what's behind them

Like many travellers I have an obsession with photographing doors. It started in Mexico many years ago and has stayed with me throughout my travels. The more colorful, faded, and older they are the better. If there's paint peeling off them, wonderful. If there are wooden shutters somewhere on the facade that match, perfect. Like the painted blue chairs in Greece, antique wooden doors are something we associate with atmospheric neighborhoods, characterful back streets, ramshackle buildings... it's about having those romantic notions of what an old village should be like satisfied, about having those travel expectations met. But for me, it's something more as well. I also want to take a look behind them. I want my curiosity about what's inside sated. I dream of an amiable little old lady in a headscarf and apron opening the door and inviting me in for tea and showing me around her home. If she offers me her photo album, I'll be in heaven. My ideal 'tour' is one where a guide shows me around a village or town for a day, inviting me into the homes of the locals. I want to be a fly on the wall and see how people live their lives. But then I'll be just as happy to join them for lunch. And I won't mind one bit doing the dishes afterwards.

The ebb and flow of Crete's cafe society

Crete's cafe life is tidal. It ebbs and flows throughout the day and night. It follows a rhythm, a regularly recurring pattern of activity. But each cafe, in each different town, dances to a beat of its own. By day it's rhythm is directed by the movement of the sun and the cycles of the seasons. One cafe may be more popular at a particular time of day simply because of its terrace in the sun. It may be packed in the morning when the sun shines on the tables outside while the afternoon sees it empty when it's in the shade. In summer, it's a different story when the locals welcome the warmth of the morning sun but in the afternoon seek shelter from the sweltering heat. And then there are the winter cafes that only open in the evening when their patrons head inside to take advantage of an open fireplace. Unless you stay in a place at least a few days it's impossible to pick up the rhythm, to identify the time of the tides. You may follow a guidebook suggestion and wonder why you're the only couple lunching at 1pm. When the locals start to arrive at 3pm as you're finishing dessert and the place is packed when you ask for the bill fifteen minutes later you'll understand why. Our first night in Rethymno we went out around 10pm in search of a restaurant for dinner. All of the tavernas recommended to us by the hotel staff and listed in our guidebooks were empty. We took a risk at one anyway, only to find the place filling as we were finishing close to 11.30pm. The next night we went out at 11pm and all the tavernas were buzzing. It was much easier for us to make our choice. Midnight we were in the thick of the local action and able to gauge the scene so much better. By 1am we were enjoying our raki and sweets with the last of the regulars. A good case for slow travel and taking time to get to know the rhythm of towns.

Blue Chairs: imagining Greece, the perception & reality

I couldn't help but capture a snap of these bright blue cafe chairs at a taverna on the waterfront at Chania, Crete, yesterday. How often have you seen similar images on Greece Tourism television ads, in travel guidebooks, or on postcards? This is one of those quintessential scenes that creators of travel images and architects of representations have reproduced innumerable times in the media to feed our desire for postcard-perfect pictures of those destinations we dream of going to for that ideal vacation. This is how we imagine Greece thanks to clever branding, strategic marketing, unimaginative picture-editing, and our willingness to accept the perpetuation of myths. But, Greece's blue chairs aren't entirely a myth... we've seen them all over, from Santorini to Samos, and today in a small town on the south coast of Crete we saw taverna owners taking advantage of the off-season to paint their chairs - Mediterranean blue! And when you travel in Greece you can't not love the blue chairs. They just make those holiday snaps so pretty. But the reality can sometimes be very different to the perception. Visits to tavernas aren't always the idyllic dining experiences you imagine. There are the annoying touts who try to get you in. The menus in four different languages. The menus with pictures. The 'traditional' Greek menus that feature hamburgers and schnitzel. The poor and disinterested service once they've sat you down. The extras added to the bill (and not the kind we like). And I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. As we wandered by this taverna in Chania yesterday the female owner was making her small son lunch. As soon as she saw us she stood and started to call us in. Her voice was desperate. She was pleading almost. But the place was empty. Locals were heading to the tavernas on either side of hers. Tavernas with plain wooden chairs. I felt sorry for her and wanted to go in. But as a travel writer I knew there was a reason for the lack of local patronage (always the best indicator of where to eat) and it had nothing to do with her seating. A couple of hours later when we strolled by after eating an excellent meal at a nearby restaurant that was crowded with locals we saw that her taverna was closed. Sadly, I regretted not giving it a go. But in the end, it takes more than blue chairs to entice.

Sweets in Crete: loving those little extras!

You love those little extras as much as I do, don't you? You know what I mean... a refreshing welcome drink (when you arrive hot and sweaty at a hotel), chocolates on the pillow with turn-down service (just when you're craving something sweet), an amuse bouche before dinner (when you're feeling hungry or just keen to have your appetite whet), or a liqueur after dinner (when you're in the mood for one drink more). Those small gestures of hospitality, whether they're innate to the culture as they are in Thailand or the Middle East, or whether they're a value-adding service, I don't care. I just appreciate that the host has gone that extra mile to make customers feel special. Whether it's about making us feel genuinely warm and fuzzy or about securing repeat business, it doesn't matter if it works and makes us happy. One independent family-owned hotel that recently impressed us with their attention to their guests was the Four Seasons Hotel Limassol, Cyprus (not part of the Four Seasons chain). On arriving in our room we found an enormous platter of fresh fruit and a bottle of Cypriot wine, the next day a small box of sublime chocolates and jellies left on our table, and on our last day, we were presented with a box of aromatic virgin olive oils (thyme & basil - yum!). We did return. And on our second visit, the departing gift was a delicious jar of local honey. The hotel's high rate of return guests is no surprise. In Crete, we've been eating at traditional tavernas and enjoying the complimentary little bottles of tsikoudhia (a clear raki-like brandy... ah, liquid travels can be so pleasurable...) and generous servings of plates of sweets at the end of each meal - preserved figs, oranges, and quinces, fresh local yoghurt, and tasty cheese pastries with honey. Can't help but love those little extras. Sweet.

Memorable meals

The most memorable meals don't have to be Michelin-starred dining experiences, and I like to be reminded of that every now and again when I travel. Having said that, we've enjoyed some long leisurely lunches in fine dining restaurants where every dish is so divine it's inspiring, where every mouthful of food is something to be savoured, where the food is matched so well with the wine it's a revelation, where the decor perfectly complements the style of cuisine, and where the service is so good, so intuitive and efficient yet warm and friendly, that you leave the restaurant as if you're leaving a friends, and you're already planning your return. I love those occasions but they're all too rare these days unfortunately. And sometimes we just want a simple meal. But when those deceptively simple dishes - like this deliciously fresh Greek salad smothered in virgin olive oil which we enjoyed yesterday in Chania, Crete - please us as much as a seven course gastronomic tasting menu, you wonder why eating has to be complicated. And why we don't appreciate the simple things in life more? Because sometimes the simplest meals are the most memorable. Don't you think?

Sublime travel scenes

Sometimes scenery we come across when we travel can be so breathtakingly beautiful that they stop us dead in our tracks and make it hard to move on. It may not even be that the particular scene is something that is always stunning, like a natural landscape, but rather at that minute the play of light and colour are just so that the scene we set our eyes on is, at that moment in time, sublime. We grab our cameras quickly hoping to capture it forever, to be able to return to that special place and time some other day. Or perhaps we just stop in that spot and gaze a little longer than we ordinarily might in an attempt to imprint it firmly in our memory. Because we know that it can just as quickly disappear, perhaps with the appearance of a cloud or two, as quickly as it came. This is what happened the other morning in the Venetian harbour in Rethymno, Crete. I'm thankful for that moment, because it's the opportunity to enjoy scenes like these that really make travel cool for me.

Sleet in Crete and floods in Dubai

Last month there was so much rain in Dubai (for three whole days) that the city flooded and life in the metropolis ground to a halt. Whoever could have expected such weather in an Arabian Gulf city? When we first moved to the Emirates ten years ago it had been so dry that the imans in the mosques were calling for worshippers to pray for rain. Abu Dhabi hadn't see any decent rain in two years. In the guidebooks we wrote on Dubai, we'd tell travellers to visit between December and January when there was guaranteed blue skies and sunshine. These days the sky is often cloudy and grey and it's chilly enough to wear a sweater. Our advice has had to change: wait until February-March or go in October-November. In Crete, over this last week, we've had sleet, hail and snow. Not just in the mountains where this kind of cold weather is normally felt in winter, but in the waterfront cities and resort towns on the Mediterranean sea. We were stuck in our hotel room in Heraklion for three days last weekend while it blew a gale and the wild sea tossed the boats about in the Venetian harbour and snow gathered on our window pane. The locals said they couldn't recall seeing such weather before. Since then we've driven all over the spectacular, isolated, eastern end of the island, and some equally dramatic parts of the central interior and desolate south coast where the mountains meet the sea. We've driven in roads half-buried in snow and slippery with ice, in all kinds of weather - but not the weather one expects in the Mediterranean. And we've driven on pot-holed roads with two lanes that suddenly become one, or that give away entirely altogether, crumbling away to rubble, without guard rails or posts, and it's been a long way down, over a thousand meters above sea level. Believe me, I have dared not look down. I find it incredible that some still doubt that global weather patterns are changing. What's your take on global warming? Has it impacted how you travel?

Collecting #3: miscellaneous travel paraphernalia (or, the equivalent of the bottom drawer, the back of the cupboard, or the shoebox under the bed)

My last ‘filing drawer’ (a re-sealable plastic bag in the inside pocket of the Samsonite, I remind you) contains all those little bits and pieces of travel paraphernalia that are not so easily categorized. There are concert tickets stubs from shows we loved: Marisa Monte in Buenos Aires, The Strokes in Amsterdam, Death Cab for Cutie in Brussels…, opera tickets from memorable nights (Prague, Budapest, and Milan), tickets from museums or art exhibitions that impressed or inspired us (only from the most outstanding), and restaurant receipts and business cards (from the most enjoyable and most memorable meals; the rest are stapled in our research notebooks). Why do I treasure them so much? Because like the flight ticket stubs and hotel room keys, they serve as reminders of our most special experiences, because our memories are faulty no matter how good we think they can be, and because together these little bits and pieces comprise a bigger story. To me, they’re worth the excess luggage fees.

Collecting #2: hotel room keys

An accidental collection of hotel room keys has come about simply through forgetful-ness. It would be tricky to inadvertently tuck away a heavy thing on a key ring with a big brass room number. But the increasingly popular plastic swipe cards are so easy to forget, whether in the back of a trouser pocket with the credit cards and currency, or lost somewhere inside a big shoulder bag amongst the guidebooks, notebooks, and PowerBook. Especially the ones that are stylishly designed or have sentimental value. Especially as the reception staff never seem to want the swipe cards back. So it’s a collection that has come about somewhat haphazardly, a card here or two (or three) thrown together in the bag, another found amongst the reams of paperwork we reluctantly collect: hotel bills, restaurant receipts, supermarket dockets. And – because the collection has involuntarily and inevitably formed, however haphazardly – one is reluctantly retrieved from a garbage bin. It’s another little piece that goes some way in making up the bigger puzzle after all. And one day I'm probably going to want to figure it all out. To find out why we have really done what we are doing. And then – because this is how it happens - I find myself saying: “Um... honey... don’t throw your room key out…”

Collecting #1: ticket stubs

In a hotel room in Heraklion the other evening, I flung my Samsonite bag open wide to retrieve a corkscrew from a handy plastic zip-up pocket inside. We’d had a long day of travel, the weather was terrible, and my husband and I needed a glass of red wine. Although we’ve been travelling around the world together like this, from one assignment direct to another, for over two years, it was the first time Terry had noticed this little ‘filing cabinet’ of mine. “That’s like one of those folders or credenzas,” he pointed out. And it is. Only I store my precious little collections in plastic re-sealable sandwich bags instead of paper sleeves. So, what do I collect then and why? Well, my most valuable collection consists of our travel ticket stubs – whether it’s by plane, train, bus, or boat, I secret each of the little paper slips away. One day I hope we write that book we keep postponing about our two years (or so) on the road, and those tiny ticket stubs will serve as chapter-starters to our story. But they’re just as much a record and reminder of the trip itself – the date and time travelled and destination journeyed to – as they are a little piece in the big puzzle that is our travelling life. So who else out there keeps their ticket stubs?

Postcard stories

Postcards are things I'm passionate about - whether it's browsing, writing, sending, or collecting them - so I've decided to write a magazine article about the travel postcard. If you share the passion and would like to share any postcard tales with me for my story, I'd love to read them. I'm keen for anything at all: do you still send postcards when you travel or do you prefer to email people or stay in touch some other way? do you consider the cards you're selecting or do you just grab a stack of any old cards? do you plan what you're going to write or do you just go with the flow? what do you write? do you write about what you're seeing and doing, what you've experienced, or what you're thinking or feeling? do you write a novel or just jot down a couple of sentences? do you try to fit as much as you can on to a card or as little as possible? does the location where you write the card matter? should it be at an atmospheric cafe, al fresco bar or in front of some inspiring scenery? or could just as likely be on your hotel room bed? do you set aside part of the day to write? (for instance, at the end of a day's sightseeing with a drink in hand?) or do you cram in a card whenever you can (at a bus stop or airport for example?) do you give each card personal attention (with the recipient in mind?) or do you write the same note and tell the same stories each time? how many cards would you send on one trip? do you write to the same person more than once? do you ever address and stamp the cards and not get around to sending them (or is that just me and my mum?) and if so then what do you do? do you send cards cause you're passionate about it or is it just a matter of duty or out of habit? do you still like receiving postcards? and if so, what do you do with them when you get them? (do they go on a fridge or in the back of a drawer, or in the trash perhaps?) or do you just buy cards for yourself cause you collect them? Have you ever sent a postcard to PostSecret? Please leave a comment below, or email me if you prefer, and, if you're happy to be quoted provide your name; if not, I'd still love to get your comments. It would also be really helpful if you could fill out the survey to the right so I have some stats for the article. Thanks!

Postcards: sending secrets

While I admit to writing personal messages on the postcards I send to people (knowing too well that a bored postman somewhere might have a read), I've never considered sharing secrets on a card for the world to see. But that's exactly what thousands of people all over the planet do when they send their handmade postcards to Post Secret. A community art project created by Frank Warren (following a dream he'd had in which postcards with cryptic messages appeared to him; read more about why he started PostSecret here), the site displays the cards people send Frank with their witty, insightful, uplifting, heartfelt, and often heartbreaking messages. Warren has also published four beautiful books featuring some of the postcards, called The Secret Lives of Men and Women, My Secret, Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, and A Lifetime of Secrets. Spend just a few moments at PostSecret and you'll quickly appreciate why it's one of the most popular blogs on the web. And if you don't get it, take a read of the honest and occasionally heart-wrenching posts on the PostSecret Community chat room. Some comments I like about why people love the project and the PostSecret community: "... it made the world seem a little smaller... and allowed me to believe we were all more alike than we could admit publicly" and "I find it so interesting to take a glimpse into the life of others. I guess its because its the closest for me to a trip around the world." And we'd all love one of those.

Okay, I have a few secrets to share: sometimes I do get tired of travelling, I miss having a 'home', I miss our old apartment in Dubai (pictured), I miss the things I collected on our travels, I miss my painting 'Mustapha' which we bought in Alexandria, but most of all, I miss my family and friends.

Postcards: our processes of selection and identity formation

When I used to buy postcards I would browse the racks for hours. Or so it seemed. The card had to be just right. It had to represent as accurately as possible the things I had experienced, the places I had been, and the stuff I had seen. If there was a connection between the image on the card and the person I wished to send it to, all the better. For instance, the cards below which I sent to mother from Greece and Amsterdam had nothing or little to do with those respective destinations. The card of old Hong Kong I found at a museum: I hoped it would remind my mother of her travels to Hong Kong when she was young. The image of pretty feet decorated with henna and silver rings reminded me of the time my parents visited us in Abu Dhabi and I took my mother to the ladies salon to get some henna done. And the painting of Ukrainian women, from an art exhibition in Amsterdam, was intended to remind my mum of her beloved parents, now dead, born in Russia. If I can't find cards that make a connection to the recipient, then I look for postcards that represent me, that reflect my feelings at the time, that say something about me, what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. (When I sent the tulips, I was in Amsterdam, life was good, and I was happy.) Or perhaps the postcards I choose are simply a demonstration of my taste or style, of the kinds of things I like, of whom I am, and how I want to be seen. Can something as simple as a postcard help represent, even shape, our identity? And why is this even important to us? Well, for me, it's because I'm so far away. I don't want my family and friends to forget me. To forget who I was. And perhaps I want them to try and understand the person I am now. The person I've become since I've been 'away'.

Postcards: to my mum

The last time I recall sending postcards was in April and May 2006, to my mum. My mother had been hit by a car and was in hospital in a coma in Perth, Australia. My husband and I were in Thessaloniki and about to collect a hire car to travel around Greece researching a chapter for Lonely Planet's European guides. Fortunately my sister in Perth reached me in time, and we had internet access and the airline schedules were on our side. We managed to get on flights that day from Thessaloniki to Athens, Athens to Dubai, and Dubai to Perth, and were in Australia the next day. A week later and my mother remained in a coma, yet we had a job to start in Greece. As we drove around the country, my thoughts continually returned to my mum: would she recover? when she came out of the coma would she have brain damage? would she know me? would she forgive me for not being by her side? would I even see her again? and what if she died? My mum and I had enjoyed choosing and writing postcards when we travelled together, particularly on the long trip we took around Europe a few summers before, after my dad had died of cancer. We'd spend a couple of hours at the end of each day's sightseeing at an outdoor cafe, a glass of white wine at hand, people-watching and writing postcards. The only way life could have been more perfect would have been if dad was still alive.

Postcards: does anyone read them?

During our travels in Europe, my mother and I seemed to spend more time addressing the postcards than writing them, the world around us proving more distracting than we anticipated. And we'd laugh each time it was time to move on to another country, because we still had a stack of unwritten cards with stamps and scrawled addresses, and nothing more. We'd furiously scribble some notes at the airport then run around trying to find a postbox to send them. Or beg the on-board staff to post them when they got back home. In April and May, 2006, as my husband and I drove around Greece researching a guidebook, my mum back in Australia in a coma, I would write her a postcard a day, sharing my everyday experiences, my secret thoughts, my fears that I might never see her again, as much as my ideas for the things we'd do together upon her recovery. I just wanted her to know that I was thinking of her. Fortunately, three weeks later she was out of the coma, speaking a little, slowly remembering, and (miraculously) rapidly recovering. I was by her side a month later. The postcards were in the drawer beside her hospital bed. I never did ask her if the nurses or anyone had read her the cards. Knowing she was well enough now to read them was enough. But now I wonder: does anyone read the postcards when we send them?

Postcards: does anyone still send them?

As we drive around Cyprus I notice stands of postcards outside souvenir shops everywhere. The spinning racks are stacked full of kitsch cards, of archaeological sites, old men playing backgammon at cafes, and old ladies dressed in black riding donkeys, in the Greek-speaking south, and in the Turkish-speaking north, of archaeological sites, whirling dervishes, and everyday scenes that are more Turkish than Cypriot. In these days of email, online trip journals and travel blogs, does anyone send postcards anymore I wonder. I used to be a postcard writer, when I travelled for pleasure rather than work. There's nothing I enjoyed more than buying a bunch of cards and whiling away a couple of hours at an al fresco cafe on a lively plaza somewhere writing to my family and friends. It was as much a way for me to stay in touch and let my loved ones know that I was thinking about them as it was a chance for me to distill my experiences and observations and instill them in my own mind. Does anyone still send postcards?

Cyprus: the search for traditional charm

Brown cafes are ubiquitous in European cities like Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. These traditional bar-cum-eatery-cum-coffee shops, with their big picture windows, rickety wooden furniture and cigarette smoke-stained walls, have an atmosphere and warmth that no modern cafe can match. Slide into a tattered old leather banquette, order a local beer, and simply sit back and soak it all up - hanging out at one of these is a wonderful way to while away an afternoon or evening. The problem is that after you experience enough of them, their endearingly faded charm spoils you. Wherever you travel, you'll be looking for equally atmospheric experiences. As we do. In Cyprus, unfortunately, we've been hard-pressed to find them. There's no denying that cities such as Lemesos and Nicosia have their fare share of stylish cafes and contemporary bars but finding a characterful, old-fashioned coffee shop or traditional taverna among all of the tacky English pubs, Irish bars, betting shops, and fish and chip joints, has been a challenging task. And in the villages they all seem closed - for the winter or for good, we're not sure. Which is why we were relieved when we discovered The Mill Hotel in the village of Kakopetria in the Solea Valley of the Troodos Mountains. On the top floor of this renovated old hotel is an unpretentious eatery that oozes traditional charm. Picture rustic wooden furniture, rough stucco walls, paintings featuring local village scenes, and a big fireplace in the corner of the room. The food is as tasty and hearty as the surroundings, and the service is warm and hospitable. If only we discovered more delightful places like this. Any tips?

Travel and nostalgia

So what is it that leads us to look for atmospheric antique cafes, charming old pubs, traditional tavernas and the like when we travel? Is it nostalgia? A longing for the past? But what if we're too young for that past to have ever been our own? Is it that we long to relive the past of our grandparents or even great grandparents? A past that we have never experienced. A past of our imaginations. A past from somebody else's memory. But not a past of our own. Could this 'nostalgia' be a longing for similar nostalgic experiences from our other travels? Or is it simply the idea of nostalgia and a nostalgic mood that we're looking to experience when we travel? And if so, why? Are we looking to escape the present in all of its tacky, superficial and cheap forms? Or do we simply want to travel in time to a period and place we think we might have enjoyed more than our present? For many, travel in itself is an escape from the present, from everyday life, from reality. So what then is the search for a nostalgic experience when we're on holiday or on a trip away if not the ultimate escape from the everyday? And is there anything wrong with that?

My guide to Brussels on Lonely Planet TV

One of the cool things about working for Lonely Planet is that its authors occasionally get commissioned to do fun stuff like present destination videos for Lonely Planet Television. Check out my destination guide to Brussels on Lonely Planet TV and my husband Terry's guide to Lisbon, and stay tuned for videos on Amsterdam and Milan coming soon. Don't worry, we're not about to give up our day jobs!

Dubai: a first-timer's guide

If you're heading to Dubai for the first time, take a look at my comprehensive first-timer's guide to Dubai, just published on nineMSN travel:
Dazzling Dubai... endless sunshine, superb eating, great shopping, and a glam nightlife — what's not to love? And yet Dubai is a polarising place. As the world's fastest growing city expands at a frenetic speed — and with its growth comes gridlocked traffic, pollution and inflation — Dubai has become one of those love it or hate it destinations. While its critics argue the place has no culture or soul, Dubai's rich heritage and Emirati traditions are the very things its fans adore about this exotic Arabian city. First-time visitors should make experiencing Dubai's fascinating local culture and history a priority, followed, of course, by some of that fine food, fantastic shopping, and fabulous nightlife...

Why I will never use Expedia again: part one

I've spent the last 730 days on the road travelling, bouncing across the planet from one commission to another. I book all our travel online - air, bus and ferry tickets, hotel rooms, you name it. It's been years since I've stepped foot in an agency and years since I held a paper ticket in my hands. Up until now I've not had a single problem. I've bought all my air tickets on airline travel sites - and I've taken scores of flights over the last couple of years - and up until recently I made many of my hotel bookings using Expedia. But never again... A week ago, after comparing prices on a number of sites, I decided to buy our air tickets from Cyprus to Crete on Expedia. It was my shopping mistake of the century! Firstly, Expedia emailed me to say that despite offering an electronic ticketing option, they were now not able to provide e-tickets. Moments later, an email arrived telling me they'd couriered my paper tickets to my billing address - in Dubai! But I was in Cyprus. When I emailed Expedia to redirect the tickets to Cyprus instead ,as I had no way of accessing tickets in Dubai, they sent me a meaningless email telling me to phone their USA sales staff. I was flabbergasted. An online agency instructing its customers to phone them? And to phone them on a 1800 number at that. Don't they realise that people outside the US cannot call 1800 numbers? And why on earth can't an online business resolve problems - problems that they have created - by email? I frequently travel with Emirates Airlines and when I want to change a flight, no matter where in the world I am, I send a quick email. They immediately email with confirmation. Easy. Why a major web travel business like Expedia can't do the same is beyond me, and 7 days and 19 ridiculous emails later, I am still left wondering. And if they must speak to me, then why can't they call me (particularly as they have created the problem), instead of them expecting me to phone them? Not only is telephoning often an impossibility when I'm travelling all day every day, especially in remote areas, but when I'm in a hotel room it's a costly effort - the cost of a ten minute call from one hotel I checked with to the USA would have been in the vicinity of US$100. The tickets are only costing US$200!

The graffiti pictured is on a wall in the old town of Nicosia, the world's last divided city, in the northern Turkish-speaking area of Cyprus. This is how I'm feeling about the thought of ever having to use Expedia again.

Why I will never use Expedia again: part two

And the saga continues... Expedia's silliest email came six days ago when they actually suggested I get a friend in the US to collect the paper tickets and post them to me! Oh hang on, yesterday's email suggesting I file a "Lost Ticket Application" must take the cake. Especially considering I don't have any tickets to lose. You see, Expedia has taken both a service fee and the cost of the tickets from my credit card - and today they even went as far as to send me confirmation of travel - yet I don't even have ticket numbers. Essentially, Expedia has stolen from me. They've taken money from me for no service in return, nor are they attempting to even providing anything resembling service, unless you consider the 19 meaningless cut and pasted emails from the likes of 'Venus', 'Atlas' and 'Doris'. Despite my repeated requests for a manager to intervene to resolve the situation, there doesn't seem to be anybody in a position of power to direct these moronic robots who churn out these senseless emails, let alone anyone even capable of writing an email explaining why they need to speak to me and what can be done by an expensive phone call that can't be done by free email. The most annoying thing is that my husband and I are due to travel in a few days to start researching a new travel guide book - on tickets we don't have. If they can't resolve this issue by email, I know what I'll be writing instead...

We saw the sign pictured on a walk through the Arkamas Peninsula, Cyprus. A typical Cypriot hunter flouting local laws? Or had he been dealing with Expedia?

The simplicity of travel by caravan

As a child, my parents dragged me around Australia in a caravan for five years. My dad had been diagnosed as having kidney disease and in those days the option was dialysis machine or die. He didn't want to be hooked up to a machine, he told us. If he was going to go, he said, he wanted to see his country before he died. So we sold up everything we had in Sydney, and we took to the road. We had a caravan so massive that it deserved the title 'mobile home', as they call them in the USA. It had separate bedrooms for my parents at one end and my sister and I at the other, with a dining-living area and bathroom in between. Wherever we went people stared and when we pulled up at a caravan park or camping ground, they'd come over for a chat, the blokes asking my dad technical questions ("how much juice does she chew?") and the women asking mum, enviously, if they could stick there head in for a snoop. It wasn't the kind of thing people towed around the country in those days (the late 1970s to early 1980s), but that's exactly what we did, travelling the length and breadth of Australia in those five years. We lived off my parents savings and investments, and Mum and Dad picked up work when opportunities arose... grape picking, shark fishing, and so on. My sister was a toddler but I did correspondence school, eagerly collecting my assignments and library books from prearranged post offices, having 'holidays' when we were on the road, and working hard to make up for the breaks when we settled down somewhere for a while. But the travel itself was the best education of all. We met so many different types of people every day and were confronted with such wildly different kinds of lifestyles. I had to quickly learn how to adapt to fit in. We stopped at places we liked for as long as we liked, and we moved on when we had experienced enough. Or simply missed being on the road. Because we all loved the road, Mum, Dad, my sister, and I. We loved the whole ritual of packing up and hooking the van on to the car and just taking off... we even had a theme song, Willy Nelson's 'On The Road Again', and Dad would pop in the tape as soon as we hit the bitumen. There's something so appealing about traveling in a caravan as I was reminded when we came across this quaint old van parked on an empty paddock in the Arkamas Peninsula, Cyprus. After so many five star hotels with their tedious check in procedures, the well-appointed rooms to inspect, and the expansive buffet breakfasts to try, for the first time in many years, I found myself craving a far simpler traveling experience, that by caravan...

Off-season travel: Cyprus

I’m reminded of how appealing traveling off-season can be, as we travel around Cyprus updating a guidebook. There’s something about clambering across archaeological ruins devoid of tourists, hiking along an empty nature trail through silent scenery, or sitting at an al fresco café by the sea on a cold, windy day, the wild sea crashing on the sandstone sea walls of the port. Generally seen as a summer destination for English tourists, the little island of Cyprus is undergoing a travel revolution of sorts. In the south in Greek-speaking Cyprus, there are chic new boutique hotels, fine dining restaurants, fascinating new shops, and stylish cafés and bars. While some beach resorts are closed for the winter, it’s a great time to book into a boutique hotel such as the Londa Hotel or more plush accommodation such as that of the Four Seasons, and experience the island’s urban delights with the locals – and without the masses of tourists. The south is also home to some truly spectacular countryside, from the pine forests of the Troodos Mountains to the isolated Arkamas Peninsula (pictured), the former of which we’ve criss-crossed half a dozen times during our research, often not seeing another car for hours, and the latter which we hiked early one morning last week. In the north in Turkish-speaking Cyprus, a welcoming trend is toward eco-tourism and sustainable travel and in the village of Buyukkonuk, near the Karpaz peninsula, Lois and Ismail Cemal offer guests at their small B&B a chance to experience the everyday life of this working village. You can take a walk with a shepherd as he takes his sheep out to graze on the lush grasses under the olive trees, go on a walk along the ridge of the craggy limestone mountain range and pick wild herbs, or learn how to bake local olive and halloumi bread with one of the village bakers. It’s a fabulous time of year to simply hire a car and make your way around the small island at your own pace. The weather is mild, the air crystal clear, and the light crisp and clean, defying the fact that it’s winter.

Travel Writing? A Dream Job?

If I'm not getting told that my profession as a travel writer isn't a 'real job', then it seems I'm being told by strangers I meet that it's their 'dream job' (generally accompanied by breathlessness). It is a dream job for me in many ways, but perhaps not in the ways you think. Aside from the obvious benefits of being able to focus on traveling and writing, for me, the best thing about my job is that I get to work all day every day with my husband, my co-writer and a travel photographer. We get to travel the world together, and share both the best - and worst - aspects of the job. The best? From our most recent trip: enjoying some of the sublime scenery in Cyprus, such as this breathtakingly beautiful bay 'Petra tou Romiou', where it's said that Aphrodite, Goddess of Beauty, rose out of the sea and was born. The worst? Searching the streets on a cold winter's night, tired and hungry after not having eaten all day, desperately trying to find a decent, interesting meal that we can write about in a destination that has too easily given over its traditional cuisine in favor of 'English breakfasts', 'fish and chips', and 'Irish pubs'. Tedious and frustrating. But for me, the things I like most about my job are not the things you might expect: being our own bosses, not having to answer to anyone but ourselves, having the freedom to pick and choose our work, to stop working for people we don't respect or enjoy working with, not having to get involved in organizational 'culture' and 'politics' (and that's one of the reasons we've stopped writing for Lonely Planet), and, most of all, not having to listen to office gossip. That's my idea of a dream job.

You're a travel writer? But that's not a real job!

I've lost count of how many times I've been told that my job as a travel writer is not a 'real' job. The most recent person to tell me was a British comedian during her stand-up show in Lemesos, Cyprus, where my husband and I are currently updating a guidebook. The audience laughed hysterically. Okay, they were already laughing hysterically - she was funny - so I couldn't tell if this 'joke' of hers, her joke on my profession, made them laugh any harder. I laughed too, of course, but was it really that funny, I wondered? I turned to look at my husband. He'd stopped laughing. Like him, I admit, I too am finding the 'joke' tiresome now. If what we do isn't a 'real' job, then why do we find ourselves working so hard? So far this year we've submitted a manuscript for a guidebook we spent a few months working on, updated an edition of a guidebook we wrote last year, and we're now in the process of updating another book. Add to that we've written online travel guides and blogs and gathered words and pictures for a dozen potential travel features. We work 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week when we're on the road, often longer during write-up. We can count on one hand the days 'off' we've had in the past two years. How is it that this is not considered to be a 'real' job? What is it that we're doing if we're not 'working'? Is this really some crazy person's idea of a holiday?