Champagne Travel on a Beer Budget

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Pour yourself a glass of bubbly and settle back for a little bit of online travel browsing:

Travel podcasts

If you’re like me and couldn’t imagine travelling without your ipod, you can now justify your dependence as being a clever strategy to lighten your load. Vagabondish provides a great guide to all the fantastic travel podcasts available here.

Why not lighten the weight of your backpack or suitcase by exchanging a few of those travel and guide books with some of these travelcasts?

Do you have a favourite travel podcast? Please share it in the comments.

The World’s Best Beaches

I love a beach holiday - there’s no need to pack a great deal, you’re guaranteed to leave relaxed and there’s nothing better to daydream about in the weeks leading up to the holiday than laying on a sandy beach, cocktail in hand.

My favourite beach holidays to date have been spent at Haad Tien Beach, Ko Phan Ngan, Thailand & Paradise Beach, Mykonos, Greece.

But as it is currently winter in my homeland of Australia and I don’t have any beach holidays in my plans at the moment, Concierge is providing me with my fix through the 2008 Guide to the World’s Sexiest Beaches.

Read, dream and then start planning your next beach holiday!

Wedding bells…

When checking out the different search engine terms that bring people to Champagne Travel on a Beer Budget, I have noticed a few people searching for budget honeymoons. If that is what brings you here, you may appreciate another great blog along the champagne life on a beer budget philosophy - Champagne Wedding on a Beer Budget.

Our blogs crossed paths due to the similar names and I’m glad to recommend it, especially if you’re in the process of planning a wedding that has plenty of style without costing you plenty of cash!

Perhaps a future post on honeymoons is in order? My honeymoon was an absolute blast and was spent in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo & Byron Bay, Australia. If you have any tips or hints for anyone planning a honeymoon, please send them in!

One of my favourite weekly (if not daily!) reads is Icing by Gala Darling. She writes beautifully and has a unique voice that entices me back to her site again and again.

This week, Gala has put together a wonderfully comprehensive post on ‘How to Have the Best Holiday Ever’

It is a fabulous read for all champagne travellers and there are lots of points I couldn’t agree with more, such as:

• Allow yourself to be swept away
• Learn some local phrases

I would also add:

• Decide to have the time of your life.

This would tie in with the idea of allowing yourself to be swept away.

So many unexpected things can happen when you’re travelling but how we respond to these situations has little to do with the circumstances themselves and more to do with our perspective towards them.

Bus broken down on the way to your next destination? Stuck on the side of the road for 6 hours with a bunch of strangers? This could be a fantastic opportunity to make some amazing friends, hear tales from around the world and have a hilarious story to tell everyone back home. This same situation could also have you complaining and grumbling for the next 6 hours on how this would never happen where you come from or something as equally painful for everyone around you.

And the wonderful thing about perspective? We are each completely in control of it and we have the daily choice of what our perspective will be. Some of the most interesting and inspiring people that I have met whilst travelling (and in life in general) are people that have an amazingly positive perspective. They are a dream to travel & ‘do life’ with.

Decide in advance to have a fabulous holiday and chances are you will!

What tips would you add? Would love to hear from you in the comments…

Have you ever arrived at your destination only to discover you’ve forgotten to pack a few essentials?

Do you struggle to know where to start when packing for your travels?

An online resource that may come to your rescue is Packing List Online

This site allows you to enter information including destination, weather forecast, mode of transport, purpose of trip & even how much luggage you want to take. After answering these questions you will be given the template for a packing list that you can add to or remove items from.

I particularly like the list of things to remember to do before leaving home.

I made a sample list for myself for a possible upcoming Melbourne holiday - check out my sample packing list here

The list provided by Packing List Online is by no means all-inclusive and I must say it includes a few items I wouldn’t worry about, but it is a great start and something I think I’ll use when planning my next trip.

However, I must warn, spelling mistakes abound at Packing List Online which might make it somewhat uncomfortable for the more anal champagne travellers

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