| Dec 30, 2011 |
| Five New Year’s Eve Destinations on Five Continents |
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| Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and once again, everyone is asking what everyone else’s plans are. My New Year’s Day plans are exciting: I’m headed to Whistler for a few days of skiing some of the world’s best in-bounds terrain. But New Year’s Eve will probably look a lot like this: give kids their supper, put kids to bed, cook nice dinner with husband and try to make our kitchen table look romantic with a few candles and a bottle of wine. Try to stay up until midnight and decide that sleep wins out over watching the pre-televised East Coast countdown on TV. |
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But if I were to buy a last minute ticket to usher in the New Year with a bang, I'd be headed to one of these five places, where they really know how to party:
1. In New York City, Times Square’s giant shimmering ball has counted down the final seconds of the year’s end for over a century. Odds are it will be a long, cold wait until midnight, but dress warmly and snuggle up to the million or so friends and strangers celebrating along with you in America’s iconic New Year’s Eve tradition.
2. Prefer warmer climes? Head down under to Sydney, where the Aussies put on a massive display of fireworks in Sydney Harbour. According to the City’s news release, this is the “world’s largest and most technologically advanced New Year’s Eve fireworks display.” Hire a boat and watch from the water, or grab a table at one of the waterfront restaurants. Bear in mind you’ll have to come early for prime viewing spots as about 1.5 million people have RSVP’d to this party.
3. For more warm-weather, beach-front celebrations, fly to one of the world’s great party-cities: Rio de Janeiro. Copacabana Beach is the centre of the action, where revellers start dancing to live samba music around 8pm. Wear white (it’s a lucky tradition to usher in the New Year) and be prepared for crowds! Two million people flocked to Rio’s beaches on December 31st last year.
4. If your vision of New Year’s Eve involves an entire night of manic dancing on the beach followed by a dawn swim, you might want to think about joining the international crowd on the island of Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand. Sunrise Beach in Hat Rin is already (in)famous for its Full Moon parties, and the New Year’s Eve celebrations are the biggest of all. Be warned: this crowd doesn't always know when to quit.
5. Back in the Northern Hemisphere there’s another group of people renowned for their ability to get a party started: the Scots. Grab a pint and join the crowds taking to the streets in historic Edinburgh. Sure it’s probably going to be cold and drizzling, but who cares when you’re singing the world’s loudest rendition of Auld Lang Syne along with 80,000 other voices?
Are you inspired to book a last minute flight?? Tell us what your NYE plans are on our Facebook Page! |
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| Dec 29, 2011 |
| Kudos from a local Vancouver-ite |
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We recently received a lovely email message from a client who lives in our own hometown of Vancouver. At ToursByLocals, we work very hard every day to keep not only our travelers, but also our guides happy. To hear that we are succeeding warms our hearts!
Here's the message we received:
We recently took three ToursByLocals tours in South America, and each one was a resounding success. We found them to be far superior to any similar tours we've taken over the years, and to anything offered by the cruise ship we were on. What truly warmed the cockles of our hearts, though, was the fact that a company from our hometown was so well thought of by the guides we met. Each one of them commented on how well-run, honest and reliable your organization is. We felt proud simply by the association of coming from the same city. You're giving Canadians, and Vancouverites, a good rep in the world, and we love it! Thank you. Eleanor Joughin.
Thank you Eleanor! And it wouldn't be right if we didn't acknowledge the three fine guides who helped to make Eleanor's trip such a resounding success. Michelle in Montevideo, Lais in Rio and Luciano in Buenos Aires - thank you for sharing your enthusiasm, friendliness and local expertise: you embody all that ToursByLocals stands for.
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| Dec 27, 2011 |
| Spotlight on Madagascar |
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| ToursByLocals now has local guides working in 105 countries! The latest nation to add to our global network is Madagascar. If you have children (or if you love animated movies) you probably associate this country’s name with dancing lions and witty zebras, but of course a visit here will show you something far more unique, beautiful and evocative than even Dreamworks Studios could imagine. |
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Madagascar is considered part of Africa, yet it lies almost 400km off shore and many of its peoples have more in common with their Southeast Asian ancestors than continental Africa. It’s the fourth largest island in the world (any guesses for the top three?); it split from the African landmass around 135 million years ago, and from the Indian landmass 50 million years later. This separation allowed plants and animals on the island to evolve in complete and splendid isolation. As a result, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot in which over 80% of its plant and animal species are found nowhere else on Earth; the nation is consequently regarded as one of the world’s top conservation priorities.
Our local tour guide, Ravo, offers everything from one to ten days tours of his homeland. With Ravo you can spend a full day exploring around Madagascar’s dramatic capital city, Antananarivo, where you can hike through the stunning highland landscapes, meet lemurs, and visit the World Heritage site of the Queen’s Palace. Or take many days to explore the highlights of this fabled island, from the thousand year old Avenue of the Baobabs to the wilderness of its national parks and reserves.
Take a look at the images to the right of this article to gain an understanding of the scope of Madagascar’s bio-diversity. And if you ever go, be sure to share some of your photos with us on our Facebook Page! We’d love to hear all about your Madagascar adventure. |
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| Dec 23, 2011 |
| Christmas in a Foreign Country |
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| At any time of year other than late December, if someone asks me where I wish I could be, I can reel off a list of places I’d love to travel. But come Christmas time, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than home. In my 33 years, I’ve spent just one Christmas away from family – and it was about as far away as I could physically be: halfway around the world in a small town in West Bengal, India. |
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I had been backpacking through South Asia for about three months with a friend, and homesickness was threatening. We debated ignoring Christmas altogether, because both of us associated the holiday so strongly with our families and it seemed painful to try to mimic our snowy Canadian traditions in hot, dry and unfamiliar Santiniketan. But then a few cheerfully wrapped gifts arrived for us at the poste restante in Calcutta (do today’s digital travelers even use these anymore?) and we decided to embrace the season.
The most important element was cooking a proper Christmas dinner. We’d both “gone veg” since arriving in India, and hadn’t eaten anything resembling turkey for months. The house we were staying at in Santiniketan had a basic stovetop range but no oven, so Justin (a supremely capable Newfoundlander) built us an outdoor oven out of a pile of bricks in the backyard. The “cooked from scratch” theme would continue, as we headed to the market to buy a live chicken, which he skilfully decapitated. (I’ll assume it was a skilful job – I was hiding inside at this part.) Cleaned and plucked, the chicken roasted inside the make-shift oven while Justin and I took turns fanning the flames below.
Earlier that morning, we had drawn the curtains in our room to resemble a dark, cosy Christmas morning. Ignoring the heat outside, we wrapped twinkling lights around a potted palm tree and opened our gifts together. Some, like the chocolate Santas from home, we consumed before they could melt any further. Others, like the silver necklace Justin had bought me in Kathmandu, I still have 14 years later.
We walked into town later that evening to call our families in Ontario and Newfoundland, just as they were sitting down to their Christmas dinners. I suppose today we could use a 3G network to Skype them, but in 1997, the phone was passed around the table and we got to wish parents, siblings, grandparents and cousins a very Merry Christmas.
To all our travelers and guides, whether you are at home or abroad, we wish you a holiday filled with friends, family, love, laughter and memories. |
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