Introduction
Welcome to my travelogue. I have decided to put this guide together
after suggestions from a friend to keep a log of the places I have
been, the things I have done and the experiences I have had.
When I first started this site in June 2002, I was decidedly
un-travelled. The last family holiday I went on was in 1988 and after
that, apart from one school trip to Calais, I barely left South East
England, let alone the country for another 13 years. The furthest
North I had been during this time was Bradford, ask any Geordie or
Scott and they will tell you that is still south!
Since then things have changed a little bit. From the occasional trip
away, it has become a little bit of an obsession.
As of December 2016 I have travelled over 240,000 miles through 32
countries and to most corners of the UK
Over the last fourteen years, the site has mutated and grown. From a
small collection of web pages, it now has several tens of thousands of
pages and an increasingly massive access database that powers it.
One thing I never wanted to do was to emulate "hardcore travel
writers". Whilst I admire people who can travel by nothing more than
mules across continents, or who can spend weeks living like the
natives in a small rain forest camp, I can't do it. Five nights
sleeping in the desert and bush of Namibia, killed any idea of wanting
to trek across the Gobi desert, or scale Everest in a pair of
flip-flops.
I admit quite happily that I can't abide roughing it and I am
perfectly happy to do the touristy things. I'll trek across the barren
wastes, so long as those wastes are in Northern Europe, the trekking
is done by either plane or coach and each day starts and ends in
civilisation (preferably a three star type of civilisation with hot
and cold running TV)
Consequently, unlike great travel literature, this site contains no
hints on finding the cheapest workers café's or how to ingratiate
yourself with the locals to swing free board for a fortnight.
What it does include its lots of suggestions for very touristy things
to do.
Travel broadens the mind (if slightly narrowing the wallet and gently
par boiling the credit cards). My travels have broadened my mind and
helped me to appreciate the world more. I am barely monolingual let
alone anything else, but hope that I have taken enough in to start to
understand how other parts of at least Europe think and feel.
I have had, and hope to continue to have, some fantastic experiences -
driving across a Lava beach in Iceland; Whiskey tasting in Cork; Quad
biking in the Namibian desert; crossing the Arctic Circle and spending
4 days without any nights, reaching Hammerfest, the most northly town
in Europe and subsequently heading even further north to Svalbard and
the last full service hotel before the North Pole; and watching both
the Northern lights and the midnight sunfrom the decks of the
Hurtigruten in the Norwegian Fjords...
...and I can ask for the bill in 10 languages.
Tom Butler
Croydon
December 2016
Sections
Countries |
Under each country I have broken them down into the areas
that I have visited and then into roughly similar topics
Attractions |
Things to do and see. |
Background |
Some background information on the location and the
country including average weather conditions and other
useful facts. |
Details |
The details of booking, transport and accomodation. |
Diary |
My experiences of the trip. |
Gallery |
Images from the trip. |
Links |
Links to useful sights related to the location |
Map |
A map of the area. |
See Also |
Links through the site to other related pages such
as hotel reviews and My Guides |
|
My Guide To |
This lists my experiences of related
items in a number of cities. Click on the link to see what
guides are available. |
Scoreboard |
This lists my current views of the booking
agents, train companies, airlines, hotels etc. that I have
used. |
News |
A full history of all the updates to the site.
The most recent updates and changes are detailed on the front
page and you can then view the back history of updates. |
Contact |
Details of how to get in contact, feedback form
and feedback results. |
About |
The section you are currently looking at. This
area also contains copyright and disclaimer information, plus
information on purchasing images to use yourself. |
Copyright
All page banners and gallery images on this site are © Tom Butler
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,
2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.
All other images remain the copyright of their original owners and no
claim is made to their property.
However, if you wish to have a copy or use any of the photographic
images on this site for which I hold the copyright then you may using
the
Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Licence.
You can access original versions of the images through the
Flickr site
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this site are my own but they are drawn from
the experiences I have had whilst travelling. I have tried to be as
positive as possible when dealing with booking agents, transport
companies, hotels, tours and attractions. However where I have had a
bad experience I have stated this.
In some instances the companies involved gave me no good or positive
experiences to be able to offset against the bad and in these cases
they will appear to have a much worse write up. If your company has
received such a write up then you might want to consider how your
service let me down so badly. Any statement's, apologies or
explanations given will be added to the original comments if you wish
me to do so.
However, I stand by my views and my experiences.
Purchase Images
The photos in the trip galleries, along with the banner images, are
all available to view, download and reuse under a creative commons
licence:
Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Licence
High quality images and products with the images on them can be
purchased through the
Flickr site.