Gates for East Midlands Trains Sometimes I get the impression that companies do things purely because they have the ability to. I can think of no other reason why barriers have been installed at St Pancras Station for East Midlands trains arriving from the north. This is something that has clearly happened in the last [...]
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Travel writers have a whole different colour palette to ordinary folk. Maybe they’re just special. Take ‘verdant’ for example. Where the average pleb would just call a hillside “green”, a travel writer knows that they’ve already used “green” a couple of times in the piece and thus needs to diversify to avoid repetition. Thus “verdant” [...]
Fans of travel writer clichés (especially those who love a good hidden gem), may be interested in this map I knocked up this afternoon in lieu of doing proper work. I could have kept going for hours and hours and hours…
Tipping for good service? Or all the time? I’m fairly sure that this one will open up a can of worms, but let’s run with it anyway. Cards on the table – I hate tipping, hate the fact that I’m expected to tip, and hate the attitude I’m given when I don’t. And yes, this [...]
Greyhound bus from Cairns to Brisbane In May and June, I slowly made my way down the Queensland coast in Australia. Because I’m a big coward and didn’t fancy hiring a car, I used Greyhound buses all the way down from Cairns to Brisbane. It’s arguably the cheapest way to get down the coast if [...]
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British rail complaints My list of complaints about trains and the railway system in Britain could fill a fair few medieval scrolls, but in recent times, I’ve started to notice a new irritant. Noise on train travel from Sheffield to London and Manchester I live in Sheffield, and thus regularly have to catch trains [...]
This one is a particular favourite of Mike Gerrard from Pacific-Coast-Highway-Travel.com. He’s right, too; a word that was once used to describe genuine icons such as the Eiffel Tower or Sydney Opera House is now used for absolutely anything. In any reasonable terms, an icon is something that can be used as a symbol or [...]
My previous post on hotels and their attitude to providing internet facilities for guests drew quite a response. It seems as though it’s not just me that gets angry with this. Time for part two of the rant, then… Patchy WiFi access The second thing that infuriates me about WiFi in hotels is that [...]
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Or, as it’s better known, horrendously overcrowded and full of people trying to sell you things you don’t want. Vibrant and bustling are instant signs of a writer who’s a bit too old for the third world backpacker thing, but doesn’t want to admit that they’d prefer something a bit more upmarket and relaxed. And, [...]
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What does a double room mean to you? I’m fairly sure that by any reasonable definition, it means a room with one bed big enough for two people. What it most certainly isn’t is a room with two beds pushed together. That is a twin room for people who have a peculiar attitude towards physical [...]
Continue reading about Hotels: Two singles do not equal one double