The Globetrotters eNewsletter
eNewsletter Archive

Maggie wrote in to say: “I enjoy reading all the
stories of travelling around the world. I am planning on walking the pilgrim
route to Santiago De Compostela starting in France at the end of May 2004.
Has anybody done this journey? Any advice would be more than appreciated”.

If you can have walked all or part of the pilgrimage
route to Santiago de Compostela and can help Maggie, please e-mail her
on: "mailto:mechthild@InfoAve.Net">mechthild@InfoAve.Net

~~~~~~~~

Gary wrote in to say: “I'm going to be touring
England and Scotland on a recumbent bike later part of May and June '03.
I'm going to stay in B&Bs' and youth hostels. I'll be
flying into Heathrow Airport. What's the best way for me to get to
Colchester from London airport? 1) Bike from airport and figure out a
way to stash my bike box. Or….

2) Catch a train from the airport and unbox my bike
in a B&B in Colchester and hopefully store my bike box their for my
return trip. My plan is to bike up through the Shetland Islands and then
return back to my bike box in late June. If there is anyone who would
like to visit with me or ride part of the way, drop me an email on: href="mailto:garyleffler@hotmail.com">garyleffler@hotmail.com

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Need help?
Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country - want to share
something with us - why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website:
"http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/mutual/mutaid.html">Mutual Aid

A recent UK survey for the Department for Education
found that of over 1,000 adults, 30% felt unable to compare rates in exchange
bureaux. A similar proportion said they were not comfortable converting
foreign currency into sterling. Over a fifth of those surveyed admitted
they had wrongly calculated how much they spent on holiday, with 12% saying
they had run out of money.

The Globetrotters Club has just teamed up with Oanda.com
to provide people with information about currency conversions and cheat
sheets. To translate currency or make a cheat sheet, visit:

The
Globetrotters Currency Converter — get the exchange rates for
164 currencies "http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/trav_cheatsheet.html">The Globetrotters
Currency Cheat Sheet — create and print a currency converter
table for your next trip.

Sent in by Bretislav in the Czech Republic, spotted
on cbc.ca

ST. JOHN'S - A woman who fell asleep on a flight
to Newfoundland and wound up in England has been offered 15,000 bonus
aeroplan miles by the airline. Air Canada apologized to Catherine Coyle
late Monday and offered her the air miles for her troubles. The airline
also said she was partly responsible for falling asleep on the 90-minute
flight from Halifax to St. John's and not waking up on time. Last
Thursday, the Cole Harbour, N.S., woman was on a flight to visit her ill
mother. She fell asleep and woke up to hear the pilot announce a 4-hour
flight time. The plane was half an hour out of St. John's heading
for London. Coyle had apparently slept through the landing at St. John's
and a 30-minute stopover before the flight for England. No one had tried
to wake her up to check her ticket. The pilot refused to turn the plane
around and she had to continue to Heathrow airport, where she waited two
hours for a return flight.

Write in and tell us your jokes, anecdotes, mishaps,
funny things you’ve seen! Drop a line to the Beetle! "mailto:Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk">E-mail
the Beetle.

A recent report in "http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i021216/i021216.html">Cyber Diver News
says that tourists and scuba diver numbers have fallen by almost a third
to between 300,000 and 100,000 a month. This is serious stuff for Malaysia
as tourism is the country’s second largest earner of foreign exchange.
The fall in numbers was triggered by the Bali bombing but a particularly
hard line message that sunbathers should cover up (e.g. no bikinis) has
not helped.

Courtney Love was arrested at London's Heathrow
Airport earlier this month after accusations of verbally abusing Virgin
crewmembers on a flight from Los Angeles. As she left Heathrow's police
station Love said: “I cussed at a lady - my daughter always said
I had a potty mouth.” She was later released with a caution for “causing
harassment, alarm and distress” after nine hours in custody. Love
said she had complained that staff did not let her friend sit in first
class with her. She later met Richard Branson, Virgin’s owner at
a party, who promptly offered her two first class tickets London –
LA return.

~~~~~~

Passengers on small US commuter planes may be asked
to weigh-in before they are allowed on board after intervention from the
country's Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA's new policy
asks airlines to weigh both passengers and baggage on planes that seat
between 10 and 19 people. The announcement came after 21 people were killed
at Charlotte, North Carolina when an Air Midwest plane crashed on take-off.
AT the moment, US regional carriers do not carry out weight checks on
passengers and cargo but work on estimates.

~~~~~~

Delta Air Lines, the third largest carrier in
the US has just promised the two minute airport check-in. Can this be
possible? They say they aim to significantly reduce check-in wait times
and lines at 81 of the airports in its system through a mixture of more
self service technology and better use of its people on the ground.

Changes will include a combination of airport lobby
redesign, increased self-service technology and new airport customer service
roles for employees. The airline is aiming to add more than 400 self-service
kiosks this year as part of the scheme. Rich Cordell, senior vice president,
Airport Customer Service. “Our goal is to ensure that no e-ticketed,
self-service customer stands in line longer than two minutes for any transaction,
even during peak times.”

~~~~~~

Ah…and Delta Air Lines again …….
passengers with tickets purchased on or after February 1 who are travelling
on Delta, Delta Express, Delta Shuttle, Atlantic Coast Airlines, Atlantic
Southeast Airlines, Chautauqua Airlines, Comair and SkyWest Airlines will
have to pay a USD$25 fee on any bag weighing more than 50 lbs. A new overweight
charge applies to bags weighing up to 70 pounds and rises to USD$80 for
those weighing between 71 and 100 lbs. Delta does not accept bags weighing
more than 100 lbs as checked baggage. But, if you are a member of Delta's
Platinum, Gold or Silver Medallion SkyMiles scheme or a passenger confirmed
in the forward cabin, you will be exempt from these charges. Additionally,
it does not apply to sporting equipment, musical instruments, live animals,
cabin baggage, media equipment or wheelchairs and devices which assist
disabled passengers, which may be covered by other baggage policies.

~~~~~~

America has taken the first steps to put civil aircraft
on stand-by for military duties in the event of war breaking out with
Iraq. Several major US airlines including American Airlines, American
Trans Air, Atlas Air, Continental, Delta, FedEx, Northwest, Southwest
and United are part of the nation's Civil Reserve Fleet which can
be called on to supply both passenger and cargo aircraft to move troops
and equipment to a conflict zone. Under the first phase only 47 aircraft
are to be on stand-by. If the Pentagon activated the second stage of the
plan up to 300 planes could be involved. The last time the plan was put
into action was during the operation that followed Iraq's invasion
of neighbouring Kuwait twelve years ago.

North Americans will be pleased to learn that the UK's
tough animal quarantine regulations are being relaxed. From December 11,
2002 dogs and cats that meet requirements will be able to enter Britain
without going into quarantine for six months. These requirements include
having the animals microchipped and vaccinated by a veterinarian, together
with a blood test, at least six months before travelling.

Details of these conditions can be found on the British
Information Services web site: "http://www.britainusa.com">www.britainusa.com and the Department
of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (DEFRA) web site: "http://www.defra.gov.uk">defra.gov.uk.

Source britainexpress.com

If you find yourself at a loose end in Amsterdam’s
Schipol airport, you can now visit a branch of the world renowned Rijskmuseum
in the terminal after passport control on Holland Boulevard which connects
Piers E and F. There is also a museum shop.

The museum includes works by Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Peter
de Hooch and other painters from the Dutch Golden Age.

The joint initiative between the airport and the museum
has cost around EUR2.5 million (USD$2.54 million) to establish. The museum
is housed in a specially designed suspended area and is open between 7am
and 8pm daily.

A new booklet from the London Tourist Board gives suggestions
on making your holiday budget go further and exploring the capital off
the main tourist trail. “Go Further in London” is available
free from British Tourist Authority offices overseas (in English, French,
German and Italian), or look on the website: href="http://www.visitlondon.com">www.visitlondon.com

If you were thinking of travelling to northern Congo
to see the gorillas – don’t. At least 48 people are believed
to have died in a suspected outbreak of Ebola in the north of Congo-Brazzaville,
near the border with Gabon. Ebola is reported to have killed 43 people
in Congo and 53 others in neighbouring Gabon between October 2001 and
February 2002. The WHO says more than 1,000 people have died of Ebola
since the virus was first identified in 1976 in western Sudan and in a
nearby region of Congo. There is no cure for Ebola, which causes up to
95% of its victims to bleed to death.

The authorities were first alerted to a possible outbreak
of Ebola when a clan of gorillas in the region began to die in December.
Tests carried out on the bodies confirmed that the gorillas had died from
the Ebola virus, which has now claimed more than 80% of that gorilla clan.
According to on the scene World Health Experts, it seems likely that eating
bush meat such as gorilla, gazelle and antelope caused the human deaths.

A new website offers an alternative way to stay in the
UK - free! YouStayFree.com offers unlimited free hotel accommodation for
members at selected UK hotels.

Members pay a yearly fee (presently £24.95) and
must pay a minimum amount for meals at the hotel. There are some restrictions,
but average savings for a couple on a 2 night break could easily be over
£100. Website: "http://www.youstayfree.com">youstayfree.com

Source: "http://www.britainexpress.com">britainexpress.com The UK travel
and heritage guide