“Ian, which website do you use to book flights”? “How long before flying should I book to get the best deals”? “How do you find cheap deals on those expensive African of South Pacific flights”? “Is it worth making 1 or 2 extra stops in order to pay less”? Those are the questions I most often get from travelers to improve their search for improving their skills in the art of flight deals research. I keep on saying it over and over: It’s getting easier to travel. Flights are now going almost everywhere in the world and they are getting cheaper every year. Just ask Australians who, just a few years back, would need to throw away around 2000 USD just to get to North America or Europe! Now they can get away with 500-700$ per flights! And with all these cheap airlines flooding the market, it’s getting even trickier to choose the good one. With over 1000 flights done (I never counted, but it’s definitely […]
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3 Best Russian Itineraries You Must Do On Your Next Trip
Following my series about Russia, I describe in this article the best itineraries to be done in this vast countries, from my own experience and personal researchers while on the field, and while talking with other travelers. Itinerary 1: Moscow and around Many people will only have a week to dedicate to visiting a country. And in a country as big as Russia, that means traveling very little distances. Limiting a visit that short will constrain to focus on Moscow and St-Petersburg. This is the itinerary that I have personally done in 2010, arriving by plane in Moscow and leaving the country on the western border into Estonia. Moscow deserves 2 to 3 days to visit all of its highlights, including the Kremlin, the Red Square, and the St-Basil Cathedral. Moscow Subway is also a must, and can easily be taken to go around the city. From there, you can decide to concentrate on the Golden Ring, ancient cities close to Moscow that can be […]
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The Trans-Siberian Train: The Ultimate Russian Challenge
My most recent interest since 2013 has been to dig into the cultures of the ex Soviet Union when I moved to Moldova and Ukraine for the summer 2013. Having more than 144 million native speakers, and the seventh most spoken language worldwide and especially in the 18 ex-soviet nations, I knew it would be a very useful tool for my adventures. It was especially interesting to me since I wanted to travel through the 5 Central Asian “Stan” countries, as well as in the Caucasus. So I went ahead and started learning Russian grammar and practiced through my travels and finally made it with at fluent conversational level in Russian by now. I have been back living in Ukraine for several months during the war of 2014 and after the war, back in 2016. My goal in learning the language was primarily to help communicate with locals to make my travels more interesting, as it is the intermediary languages in all 18th ex-soviet countries […]
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Cities I’ve Been Map (188/195 Countries) – Update December 2017
Each year or so, I update my map with the app “Cities I’ve Been” app on Facebook, and have done so for the last 10 years. This was my way to track my way through the world when I was at the stage of going anywhere whenever I felt like it and wasn’t necessarily counting the countries I’ve been to. I’ve never really been a “Country Counter” until I was getting close to 150 and newspapers started asking for my current count, as well as I wanted to have a way to measure the distance I have traveled. As a world adventurer, my Travel Map is really what I am proud of, much more than my “countries Ive been” map. It is really not that really that hard anymore to travel the 196 countries as it once was with all the flights getting cheaper. There are more and more people reaching the count. There’s even an American girl who has done it in a year […]
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Visiting Angola – One of my Favorite Cities in Africa (my 188/195 country visited)
Angola was my last country of the 5 Portuguese colonies in Africa after Sao Tome and Principe, and I would have come much earlier if t wasn’t for the exhaustive visa procedures that are so hard that I had to wait to my 188th country to pay it a visit. Fortunately for my arrival, I had some contacts to receive me. Some Angolan friends from 5 years ago when I lived in Salvador de Bahía in Brazil. Young Angolan Capitan And what a reception! Thanks to my friend Karina (photo above) who warmly welcomed me with arms wide open, I had the opportunity to see Luanda as locals do it! With a carefully prepared plan she had prepared, Karina and I rumbled the capital from navigated to nearby islands, attending he nieces baptism as well as partying the night away in trendy Luanda Beach clubs to the music of local DJs! View of downtown from the Citadel Luanda was a surprise for me. Since the […]
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Top Itinerary to Libreville, Gabon in West Africa – (Country Visited #186/195)
Arriving in Gabon didn’t feel too unfamiliar after being in Brazzaville for a while. Both nations are actually pretty similar economically, being two of the most developed central African Nation and even in Africa. Gabon has one of Africa’s highest GDP per Capita and it was felt as soon as I arrived at Libreville’s shiny airport, definitely an upgrade compared to most African Nations I’ve visited. Gabon enjoyed rapid growth after independence from France, mostly because of its rich resources such as diamonds and gold, but mostly Wood. But most of its economic boom has come from the oil boom which catapulted Libreville into a model African Economy where people from all over the world come to work for a high wage. As soon as I wandered around the city I could see this, with nice roads, clean streets and nice cars all over the place. It feels more like a European city, on the surface, but definitely not underneath. With a president that has […]
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How to Travel to the Republic of Congo – a Wedding in a Great African Family – My Country Visited # 185/195
Ahhh “Brazza la Verte”, as it was called traditionally by the French (literally, Brazza the Green). After Experiencing its big brother the Democratic Republic of Congo last week, I was happy to see this new country that was acclaimed by the French as hosting their most important city in Central Africa, separated only by the Congo river to Kinshasa which was held by the Belgians. From the corniche of Brazzaville, we can clearly see the buildings of Kinshasa with its 9 million inhabitants, making them the two closest capitals in the world. As much as there are similarities between the two countries like having basically the same people, it does feel quite different on the ground. View of Brazzaville from the Sky First, the Republic of Congo is quite definitely the most French-speaking nation I have encountered in sub-Saharan Africa, many people choosing to speak French even over their native languages. This made it great for me since I could communicate much easier with the […]
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Travel Guide to Congo DRC (Zaire) – Climbing the World’s Most Dangerous Volcano – My Country #184/195
Not even two weeks since I climbed the world’s biggest crater, the Khartala in the Comoros Islands, it was now time to climb the world’s most dangerous volcano: The Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo. My Legs had barely recovered from the pain of climbing the 2300 meters of the Khartala, that I now had to climb to another Summit, this time at about 3500 meters of altitude. But the reward for this second climb was unparalleled; a crater filled with a massive Lava Lake, one of the few visible in any volcano around the world and being the biggest lava lake in the world. View of Goma and Lake Kivu from the Top of the Nyiragongo Back in 2002, the Nyiragongo erupted and rivers of lava started flowing directly towards the city of Goma where I was staying, a 1 million inhabitant city and was mostly all destroyed by the disastrous lava flow, which killed over 170 people. Now Goma has been rebuild on top […]
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Rwanda For Digital Nomads – Why Kigali Might Become The Next Digital Nomad Hub of Africa
Anybody who has traveled around Africa knows the roads are Bumpy… Literally! Over the 44 Countries I have visited in Africa so far, I encountered some over-inflated economies making it impossible to find a decent place to sleep under 200$, some are left in ruins by wars and tribal conflicts, some have no interest in tourism at all, some have no intercity transport adapted for travellers other than shared taxis filled with 10 people crushed like sardines, others are enjoying some stability but as soon as you step out of the beaten track it is back to harsh traveling conditions. Malaria and diseases are the other issues that constraint travelers to always be on their guards on the continent. Fortunately, some African countries are getting their head out of the sand. South Africa being an exception (as it is up to European standards), East Africa is now growing at very interesting speeds! Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda are the clear winners in terms of development. […]
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Traveling Tips for SOMALIA – (Country Visited #181/195)
This is probably the country where I felt the most like an Alien walking around town… Most probably the only “white guy” in the country, people were looking at me like “How the heck did this guy get over here…”. The expression in their faces was priceless, and I thought it was quite funny actually. I arrived in Hargeisa in the Northern state of Somalia called Somaliland. things have gone quite a lot better here than in the south around Mogadishu which was managed by Italians after world war 2 in the “Italian way”, and which resulted in total chaos over the past few years, as Terrorism is quite str0ng. The Somalians I talked to over here are still shocked about the worst terrorist attack to hit the country in its history, that happened in the Capital just a few days ago, and tension still felt strong. As much as 385 people have died so far by the bombing of Mogadishu and the authorities still haven’t […]
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