Travelcreek - Travel Blog

Diving on Dead Reefs

It was a beautiful day here today but it made me quite sad to be reminded about an article that was recently published about the depletion and imminent death of our massive oceans. As a caring human being, I’m very worried about this, especially since it will probably happen during my lifetime. As a diver, it depresses me because pretty soon there might hardly be anything left to look at while I’m down there. As a potential parent, how is my kid ever going to learn to appreciate the taste of pickled herring on Christmas Eve when there isn’t any herring left to be pickled??!!

So what can I do? Well, I can stop throwing away garbage into the ocean, which I’ve never done and I can continue to shit on the pesky little Spaniard I once say throw a whole bag of garbage into the Mediterranean because it was kinda of fun to do it.

Before you chuck something into the water, out of your car window, into your sink or down the toilet, think twice please please please!

Before you start your car to go get yourself some lunch, do you think you might be able to walk instead?

And before you decide to burn that pile of leaves in your backyard, maybe you should think about a compost heap instead.

It’s up to all of us, nobody else is going to fix it for us!

Add comment November 6th, 2006

More Popular Cities

It’s been a while! Been travelling for the last 18 days around the US. More specifically, we hit San Francisco, Las Vegas and Chicago before heading home. They are all great cities to visit in their own right. We’ll be adding pages to the Bay City, Vegas and the Windy City shortly so come back and take a look. If you have any tips for these cities, we’ll gladly take them in and see if we can fit them in to the pages to help other visitors enjoy these fantastic cities as well.

Add comment October 30th, 2006

Shipwrecked

I was driving home the other day to find a miserably lost doberman cross ridgeback female on the path to the house. She looked completely disorientated and thirsty. I tried to get her back to the house several times before be being successful. We looked around the area for the owner and even put up a sign 5 days ago but still haven’t heard anything. We’re not sure we want to keep the poor thing but she’s very sweet. She’s clever. She’s energetic. She’s well behaved. She doesn’t bother our cats too much and she has a funny way of snapping when she wants to play. On top of that, she likes to run around the farm with my wife on her daily run so I’m quite happy about that. So far we’ve named her Nemo and are still pondering whether or not to keep her. I don’t think we’ll be able to go to the SPCA with her, it would be too emotional for us. Besides that, I can’t even get her into my truck! Anyway, we’ll see what gives and we may even have a new addition to the family. Check the sweety below!

Add comment September 30th, 2006

Selling

It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it. We all have to sell something eventually, even ourselves to potential clients or partners. I kinda like reading a blog called salespodder that covers all sorts of topics with regards to sales, general commentary, pop culture and selling tips.

Add comment September 7th, 2006

Changing of the Leaves

It’s September already and the more I think about it, the more I realise it is fast approaching the time of year when mother nature decides to give us a treat and dazzle us with a vibrant show of leaves changing to bright red, yellow and orange as the icy cold North American winter arrives. A great place to visit and get to see the leaves change colour in fall is Montreal. The leaves can best be seen just an hour outside of town in the Laurentians or the Eastern Townships. The forests become am amazing sea of vibrant colours! The Eastern US states are also said to be quite good but I prefer the spectacle on offer from my hometown and the beautiful Canadian outdoors.

Add comment September 7th, 2006

PR Stunts and the flavour of the month

Africa truly is the flavour of the month. I was on the plane yesterday reading my fantastic Time Magazine in which the current issue has an article about Madonna and her interest in helping the orphans of Malawi. I commend her “trying” to help the orphans of Malawi. That’s great. Thing is, she might want to visit Africa before coming in trailblazing.

The article said that Madonna’s aim was to help raise $3 million fo the orphans of Malawi. Wow! Madonna raising a whole $3 million dollars for the Malawian children. Really, think about it, $3 million, Madonna and charity? How well do those words go together, not really. It probably takes her a whole week of work or sales to make $3 million for the kids. The one good thing I can take though is that she is financing a documentary to raise awareness about the kids as well for a reported $1 million.

It’s pretty clear to me that this is simply a PR stunt by the old lady. I don’t have much time for her anymore, all the stories that seem to surround her just leave a bad taste in my mouth. Frankly I think she is an evil old cow just trying to piggy-back off the recent spotlight on Africa and improve her “image” to sell more of her crap albums. She is like the female version of Dr.Evil and everything she is up to is simply a way to push her name, brand, image and all that crap associated with her.

What I really want to see her do is raise $3 million for the orphans and match the double of that to give the little kids $9 million worth of medicine, school books, desks, pencils, paper, milk and vitamins, and then do it all again next year. Then I’ll change my mind.

That’s my 2 cents, if you don’t like my opinion, tough, I’m not forcing you to read it, go play in traffic.

Add comment August 21st, 2006

Travel Support System

It’s a good idea to keep certified copies of your passport and travel documents with you en route in a different bag than the one you carry around all day. We have no doubt heard about it before, but how many of us follow it through unless we are inconvenienced on a trip away for home?

Certified copies of your documents will save you loads of time and trouble in the event of losing or having your docs stolen from you for that all important flight home or to your next destination.

You might also consider knowing where to locate your nearest Consulate or Embassy when abroad to assist you in challenging times. Also, make sure you know to what extent your medical aid or travel insurance covers you in the event of an emergency. Remember the adage “A stitch in time might just save nine” and then some …!

Add comment August 8th, 2006

Venice

We just added a small page on Venice to the site and it reminded me of something I saw while visiting this great city.

Most of us are accustomed to the local youngsters with the suped-up car, or should I say, piece of crap. You know the type; mags, lowered suspension, flash tyres, stylish lights, custom steering wheel,tinted windows, exhaust make-louder pipe and of course a sound system that is worth more than the car.

Well in Venice, it’s slightly different. Instead of a car, it’s a boat. For real! It’ll have a great new paint job, a great outboard engine, padded seats, tinted visor, chrome mooring hooks and unbelievably, a ridiculously loud and expensive sound system.

When I saw this kid in his purple, show-off boat, I couldn’t resist pointing him out to my then girlfriend, and now wife, and bursting out in laughter.

It just goes to show that no matter what the conditions or location, the obnoxious kid will always be present for you to yell: “Hey you, you’re not cool and nobody cares, turn that shit off!”

Add comment July 21st, 2006

Letting them win

It’s a dangerous world out there. Yesterday, bombs blew up in Mumbai during the rush hour craze to get home. Too many people lost their lives and too many families are feeling the agony of having lost loved ones. Today, here in Cape Town, where we now live, there was a gun fight at a Taxi rank wounding several and killing others. The worst part of it is not that innocent people lose their lives and that others become afraid of venturing into the general public, it’s that it is utterly senseless.

I might be slightly reclusive at times, often for short periods, I step away from it all and hide away in the safety of my own home to do this and that. Personally, I think we should all do it at least occassionally. Why buy a great home and then jump at the opportunity of leaving it so we can go buy some junk at the shops? It’s important to have one’s space, privacy and independence.

The whole point of this little write up is that if we become overly reclusive, stay home, not travel, avoid this and that spot out of fear, then we let these people win. It’s our world, it’s our safety we need to enforce, it’s our job to let these stupid people know that we aren’t scared of them and that most importantly, we are sick and tired of their crap and are going to take them out one by one until our world is safe.

We have to keep doing what we want to do. Keep traveling, keep going out, take pulic transport and just enjoy ourselves.

I ain’t scared of you Mr. Bad Guy, come and get some!

Add comment July 12th, 2006

Does Loyalty Pay?

Loyalty schemes rewarding customers, vouchers, cash back and air miles are all something that we are familiar with. And lets face it, loyalty is worth it when you get bucks in your hand and /or a rebate on your travel. The principle is simple – the more you spend the more you get in return - or not - as in the case with some airlines who make it so difficult for you to redeem your air miles by spending endless hours on the phone or simply not updating their records with recent miles that you have earned.

While it is tempting to wash your hand of the irritation and forget the whole thing, don’t give up just yet. If it is on offer then you should jump at the idea of a freebie especially those of you who are frequent fliers. Some tips to assist you include remembering to keep your boarding pass and to hand deliver it to the customer service counter.

Any other bright ideas you might have are welcome, send us your comments, we want them!

1 comment June 19th, 2006