A weather report: the results from my latest poll

So how much do you let the weather impact your travel plans? That's what I asked you in two recent posts (the weather, part 1: how much does it impact your travel plans & part 2: how much do you let it affect your enjoyment of travel?) and in a recent poll on Cool Travel Guide. I gave you a scenario - you were days away from travelling overseas on a big trip - and I asked you what you did about researching the weather. This is what you said: only 11% said you checked several weather websites and changed plans entirely if necessary; 55% said you checked a weather site or two and adapted the itinerary, skipping a destination, or changing direction if necessary; none of you simply watched the weather on TV and threw a coat in the bag; and 33% said you ignored the weather completely, that you'd been planning the trip for a while and nothing was going to stop you, not a little rain, a heatwave, nor even a flood or two. Fascinating stuff. One of the reasons I was motivated to explore the topic (aside from trying to prevent a young traveller from heading to a drenched Northern Queensland during the wet season!) was our own experience on a recent trip along Victoria's southern coast. Heavy fog and grey skies spoiled our experience of the normally stunning Great Ocean Road. This time the Twelve Apostles were uninspiring and the scenery drab. We were working, however, we weren't on holidays. We were updating a book, so it didn't really matter. And Terry and I had been before, over 15 years ago, when the weather was superb, and I'd also been as a child. They're the memories I'm going to hold onto!

Pictured? One of the most horrific thunderstorms I've ever seen roll in (quite literally) during the opera in the Arena at Verona, Italy, last summer. I'll tell you that story another time.

The weather, part 2: how much do you let it affect your enjoyment of travel?

Perhaps the issue of how weather impacts your travel experience, providing it's not of disastrous proportions (epic heatwaves and heavy floods aside) is more a question of attitude than planning? We were at a restaurant the other night at Apollo Bay on the southern coast of Victoria where we met a keen young traveller who'd been waitressing for a couple of months to save money to do the big drive north with her boyfriend in a Wicked Camper. When we warned her not to travel to Northern Queensland before April, when the Wet season ends, she said they were in fact leaving Australia in April, so they'd intended to set out soon to ensure they covered the vast distance before then. I imagined the poor things huddled in the back of their Wicked Camper in a caravan park, the relentless rain pelting down around them. And because Australia's geography is the way it is, they'd have little choice but to head back south again, or take an expensive flight to another (drier) part of the country. I wondered if they'd persist with their original travel plans and if they did strike weeks of neverending rain, whether they'd see it as a disaster, a terrible end to what had otherwise been a good trip so far. Or whether they'd still enjoy it and think of it as an adventure, snapping pics of the flood waters rising around them, determined to make the most of it. I'm keen to know how you react to the onset of bad weather that puts a damper on your travel plans. Are you the type of traveller who endeavours to ensure you're not caught in snow storm in the first place? But if you are and the circumstances are beyond your control, do you make the most of it? I'm keen to learn more about how you travel and I'd also love you to complete my poll (top right), please.

The weather, part 1: how much does it impact your travel plans?

Do you check weather reports before you travel? And if you do and it's turned especially bad before you're due to travel, do you change your trip plans? I'm talking really nasty weather. Consistently dreadful, such as the snowfalls in the UK, the heaviest in 18 years, which have severely disrupted flights. Or the heatwave south-eastern Australia has endured over the last weeks which has caused power blackouts, transport disruptions, cancellation of outdoor events, and even deaths. Or the floods in Northern Queensland which in some areas have caused horrendous damage and led to the closure for several weeks of the Barkly Highway, the main route connecting Queensland to the Northern Territory. Do you adapt your plans at the last minute and change the destination or direction if you can? Or do you continue on and risk disruption to your itinerary, and possible disappointment? I've posted about this before on Best time to visit Australia? It may be summer, but don't head Down Under but it's something that continues to intrigue me. From what we've been observing on our travels in Australia, many people simply don't check weather reports in advance and continue with their original plans despite a change in weather. Some appear to be happy to go through the motions of being tourists, despite the miserable conditions, taking photos, doing tours, and, like the couple pictured in the distance of this photo, embarking on a long distance walk that would be far more enjoyable in better weather. What do you think? And how do you react to the onset of weather so terrible that it disrupts your travel plans? Or are you the type of traveller who tries to ensure you're not in that position in the first place? I'd love to know what you think and how you travel. And I'd love you to complete my poll (top right). Thanks.

Travelling: inspirations #3

So just what inspires you to travel? I must admit I was surprised by the results of my recent poll where I asked what motivated your travels. Almost half of you (46%) said 'your own trips and travel memories' inspired you to travel, while 23% said 'the very idea of travel' motivated you to move; 15% said travel photography books inspired you, while only 7% said your family and friends' travel tales motivated you to pack your bags. Surprisingly, nobody said movies about places, TV travel shows, travel literature, or guide books inspired you, yet 7% said travel blogs motivated them. I've been excited about two recent travel blog discoveries (thanks Anne!), including primitive culture, an ethnographer's take on Thailand, South Africa and other places, and placesihaveneverbeen, a beautiful design blog inspired by 'imaginary vacations to far off places'. Both have got me thinking about travel in different ways: how we can think about travel from an ethnographers perspective (or is that already how those addicted to travel think?); what travel inspires (rather than what inspires us to travel); and virtual travel. I'm going to sleep on it. Let's see where my dreams take me. Where do your dreams take you?

Travelling: inspirational reads

Nothing inspires me to travel more than a wonderful work of travel literature. Don't you love sitting in the sun, ideally by the sea somewhere, and getting lost in a great piece of travel lit? Then putting the book down for a bit and dreaming about your destination? To make our lives easier, Condé Nast Traveler has compiled a list of 86 greatest travel books of all time. Check it and choose away. Is there something they've missed? And don't forget to let me know what inspires you to travel by doing my latest travel poll.