Travel
Imagine a place where cats are prohibited, as is dying, it’s polar night 24/7 several months a year, the streets have no names, carrying weapons are mandatory and permanent residents are still subject to alcohol rationing. “Svalbard is almost a different planet.” Thus said a hotel bartender in
Blogging
This is pretty nifty: Paul Mathews, an Ericsson employee, was able to use a communication platform at the Swedish firm to enable those stranded without access to the internet to use their phones to post questions and messages to a Facebook page he'd set up to help passengers
Journalism
About a week after the ash cloud from Eyjafallajökull started wrecking havoc to airtravel all over Europe, The Federation of Norwegian Commercial and Service Enterprises (HSH) has launched Reishjem.no (Travel.no) in collaboration with the Norwegan foreign department. Unveiled yesterday evening, the new website is almost identical to Schibsted-owned
Journalism
I had a zillion posts I wanted to blog this Christmas, but soon found I was in more of a contemplative mood once I got through all of the family business. So, inspired by Lloyd I thought I'd sum up the year, if not month-by-month in pictures, at
Travel
When I landed at Keflavik airport yesterday it felt a bit like Stranger in a strange land reversed: an earthling transposed to Mars, or perhaps the Moon. The barren volcanic landscape had a strange and captivating beauty, which I'm afraid this photo, snapped from behind the window of
Travel
Sweden is by far the worst: I've yet to encounter a hotel there with tea- and coffee making facilities and ironing gear in the hotel room - and I've stayed in quite a few hotels there. Norway is pretty bad on this too, and while it&
Travel
It was raining cats and dogs, not exactly the kind of weather you'd want to be out and about in, but just as I walked into the centre of Skien yesterday, a place I'd never been to before, I was approached by a weary looking guy
Travel
At some point I feared a re-run of my trip to Costa Rica in 99, when my luggage never got to San Jose with me, and I, for lack of anything better to wear, ended up donning the hotel bed sheets to a VIP reception. But then I thought: at
Travel
Thanks to Virgin cancelling all its trains to Manchester and Liverpool on Saturday, I got to see a lot more of England than I intended this week. In addition to my planned visits to the three L's (Lincoln, London and Liverpool), I also got to see vast amounts
Travel
Well, that's not quite accurate (it just rhymes better): I almost lost my voice somewhere between that delayed flight from Copenhagen, which didn't quite get me back home by midnight on Friday, and arriving London early Monday morning. But I've never been happier to
RSS
I arrived the city safely from my trip to the coast, although at the wrong bus stop (must have been a new driver). Then, just as I was boarding the underground train that would take me from the city centre and home, a pickpocket unzipped my backpack and stole my
Travel
I picked up this 'would have been very handy sign for hotels', or at least for their customers, from Virtual Economics (via David Black) just as I was sitting in a very posh hotel lounge fuming over the hotel's crap internet set-up. Why is it that