My earliest memories of Botswana were when someone in highschool updated their MSN and called themselves Bushpig. Their location was somewhere in the jungle, Botswana. How remote and untouched it seemed. In reality, Botswana is seen as an African success story. A sparsely populated country whose main concerns is not civil war, but the effects of AIDS. The Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust is a community based wildlife project, established in 1992 to assist in saving the vanishing rhino, restore an area formerly teeming with wildlife to its previous natural state and provide economic benefits to the local Batswana community through tourism and the sustainable use of natural resources. I was lucky enough to visit the sanctuary on my first day in Botswana. We set out in jeeps through the park and saw plenty of rhino, wildebeest, ... read more

Getting upgraded on a flight is one of the goals of all travellers. Due to flight cancellations, my flight got re-routed and I had to catch a flight from Bangkok to Thailand on Thai Airlines. This flight let me achieve the ultimate – a free upgrade. I didn’t notice it was an upgrade till half through the flight when I peered through the curtain and saw economy class, with their plastic cutlery, three seats in a row and alcohol rations. Too bad this wasn’t the worlds longest flight. Now once we landed in Hong Kong, we had 7 hours to kill – not knowing much about the place prior, we looked at a train which took you through the city – the logistics of the city however made this option unavailable. We got out the airport, ... read more

Vanuatu is a great place. It is only a two and a half hour flight from Brisbane, it is a tax haven and has been voted the happiest country in the world – as the sign in the customs area of Vila airport reminds us. Unlike the brochures in a travel agency, the 8km drive from the airport to the city of Vila does not drum up feelings of idyllic beaches and happy locals – rather it made me think that it is more like a third world country. One thing to learn about Vanuatu and the south Pacific is that things are generally done on island time. Places close down between noon and 3pm daily for siesta and Sundays are purely a day for church gatherings. I stayed at the Sebel, a beautiful hotel on ... read more

St Augustine once said that the world is a book and those that don’t travel read only one page. My first trip abroad made me want to read the whole book – prologue to epilogue. Thailand is a Mecca for the tourist and a great place to set the first chapter– the most popular of South East Asian destination – it blends an exotic mix of culture, food, history and temples. The national carrier, Thai Airlines, gives an excellent preview into this country – hospitable hostesses, great food and unlimited entertainment. We transited through Bangkok’s main terminal – the escalators echo ‘end of the walk’ – we then caught a domestic flight to our first destination – Chiang Mai. We were met at the airport by Aki, who would be our tour guide whilst in Chiang ... read more