We hired a car and set off to explore the island, in search of great ideas to inspire your next adventure. However as with so many trips it became the journey that we found inspiration in. Driving in Mallorca really is like a Top Gear challenge. The Western coast of Mallorca has some of the most awesome roads. For hours it twists and turns through the Tramuntana mountains and around the cliffs above hidden coves and secluded beaches, only inches from the edge. There were a few scary moments when we did get rather close to the edge. Maybe it was the inner child trying to escape but you actually feel like the Stig as you race along the coast line. It isn’t all about an exhilarating race however as the whole time you have a wonderful backdrop of the Mediterranean ocean and hidden beaches. Traditional Spanish villages pop up in the landscape as you round each cove. Acting as check points to enjoy the some tapas whilst taking in the views from roof top terraces perched on the cliff edge.

Some of the nicest villages are situated along the Tramuntana mountain range, home to the rich and famous like Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas and also Claudia Schiffer. Here are a few of our favourites.

Located in the south-east of the Tramuntana mountain range is the scenic village of Banyalbufar. This beautiful village clinging to the top of a sea cliff is a popular, yet unspoilt, stop for many visitors to Mallorca. The ancient village has a 17th century Baronial Palace with impressive coastal views from the ancient defence tower.

Continue reading this article on Travel Titbits.

One thing that is always overlooked and is perhaps the most frequently used ingredient of all time is salt. Without seasoning food would be dull. Too much is bad, not enough is disastrous. But how many people have actually made it themselves? It is so ludicrously simple to make: collect a jug of seawater, boil it and reduce it down till you are left with a white residue= salt. Done. I could end the post there…that is all there is to it. But to really sell it to you and hopefully urge you to give it a go yourself, I shall continue.

Salt is something that has been used for 1000’s of years, Sodium chloride has been found as far back as the Neolithic around 6000BC, mainly used in the context of preserving, but no doubt our ancestors found it had the ability to heighten the flavour of whatever they were eating. Along with fire, salt was probably man’s second greatest discovery.

Mastering the basics is a must for anyone who cooks: whipping up a béchamel, making mayonnaise, pastry, ragu, stock, bread, the list goes on…

One thing that is always overlooked and is perhaps the most frequently used ingredient of all time is salt. Without seasoning food would be dull. Too much is bad, not enough is disastrous. But how many people have actually made it themselves? It is so ludicrously simple to make: collect a jug of seawater, boil it and reduce it down till you are left with a white residue= salt. Done. I could end the post there…that is all there is to it. But to really sell it to you and hopefully urge you to give it a go yourself, I shall continue.

Salt is something that has been used for 1000’s of years, Sodium chloride has been found as far back as the Neolithic around 6000BC, mainly used in the context of preserving, but no doubt our ancestors found it had the ability to heighten the flavour of whatever they were eating. Along with fire, salt was probably man’s second greatest discovery.

The basics are important, as any bushcraft nerd (ahem) will tell you, making fire by friction is about as fundamental as crafting bush can get…I would say that the kitchen equivalent of creating fire from a few sticks is equal to tasting your first flake of homemade salt. These two ‘fundamental skills’ actually came together on a regular basis during my time in the Cook Islands. Three months with no matches and no seasoning meant fire saws from bamboo at dawn and boiling gin-clear south pacific seawater was a daily occurrence. Salt intake was crucial for helping our bodies regulate water content in the searing heat just as much as bringing our meager rations to life on the palate.

I was allowed to take a luxury item to the islands with me, my first thought was spices…actually at first I thought salt would be most useful, until I realized I would be surrounded by it and settled on garlic powder and hot curry powder. After a bit of research I found out that the salt content of seawater is roughly 3.5%, hence every litre of seawater contains 35g of dissolved salts. And so it was every day or so someone on our island would be in charge of making salt, which ranged in colour from pure white to dusty grey depending who was making it, quite often it was grey on the days the girls made it as they were a little more preoccupied with the application of make-up or topping up their tan rather than making sure the salt didn’t burn…

It must be said that making salt from seawater can be touch and go, I’m not sure how pleasant a raw material murky brown English channel water would be to work with, I think the further west the better for clarity and piece of mind, lets just say I wouldn’t collect it off Brighton beach!  Out here in Hossegor the Atlantic is a pleasant shade of green and blue, but I have heard rumours of bad pollution- trust the French to dump all their shit in the sea and cover everything else in pee (what is it with their penchant for public urination?!!).

With this in mind, I felt a healthy 20 minutes of fierce boiling would at least kill any bacteria, but first I had to collect my said raw material. Below is a short video of how to make salt, collection of seawater not recommended the day after a big storm: see for yourself!

Making Salt from Nick Weston on Vimeo.

Continue reading how to make salt from sea water on Nick Weston’s blog, HUNTER:GATHER:COOK -Adventures in Wild Food.

You may choose to plan your destination, accommodation, route, places to visit down to the finest detail or you may follow the ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ approach, either way solo travel is liberating.  Things like luggage, the climate, budget, food and health are some of the more basic considerations that everyone must deal with before heading off and it always help to follow some tips and advice left by other travellers.  Here are some of ours:

Taking the train / Photo by Stephen Chapman

10 tips for travelling alone

1. Keep your most important things with you at all times, wherever you go.
2. Your visa, passport, mobile, cash etc. should always be in another bag, not mixed with your luggage so that it’s easier to access an important item when you need it.
3. At the beginning of your journey make a note of points to remember like places to visit, things to buy etc. to ensure you don’t leave without doing or seeing something you had intended to.
4. On down times during your trip – there will be some, try listening to music or writing a story to keep yourself busy. If you start to feel lonely, calling home using online phone cards can make all the difference to your mood and act as a great ‘pick-me-up’.
5. Always try to stay clean and hygienic – don’t wait until you get sick to appreciate your health. Also, wash any fruit and vegetables that you purchase and drink clean water.
6. Find a room that’s close to shopping and leisure activities, depending on your interests. If you are staying somewhere more rural make sure you learn about the local area and leave ample time to explore it.
7. Take good care of your belongings. You never know who’s watching and looking for an opportunity to separate you from your possessions.  Be confident and aware but not paranoid.
8. Try to learn the language of the place/country you are in. Locals will always appreciate your effort.
9. Make some new friends by discussing places, talking about home, sharing photographs and involve yourself in group activities.
10. Give yourself time to feel comfortable being alone, don’t immediately seek company when you start to feel lonely.  Learning to be alone takes time but will give you much greater confidence when you’re away and enable you to feel much more relaxed.

Sleeping under the Saharan stars / Flickr photo by tom-ride-earth.org

Andy and I managed to procure product sponsorship for most of our major pieces of equipment, and this article will explain how we went about it, and what worked and what didn’t. I hope that it will save you some time and increase your chances of success.

But before deciding whether or not to pursue sponsorship for your trip, you need to decide whether your time would be better spent working in a full-time job to earn the equivalent amount of money. Seeking sponsorship is an intensely time-consuming, frustrating and regularly disappointing process, for which you will need skin like old boot leather, the persistence of black shower mould and absolutely no hobbies or significant others to attend to.

Continue reading this article @ Tom’s World Bicycle Travel Blog

Jools Stone is based in Edinburgh, UK and joined our Blog network a couple of weeks ago with his new Blog ‘He Thought of Trains‘. Writing a Blog is something new for Jools and alongside his main content focus – train travel – he has been sharing a great insight into the experience of getting started.

This is a collection of excerpts from Jools’ posts that refer to his first month Blogging experience.

Jools attends an Edinburgh Tweet up / Flickr photo from He Thought of Trains

All Aboard (and a thousand other clichés!) | 11 Jul 2010

A very warm welcome to He Thought of Trains, just another sad armchair globetrotter’s paean to the magic and mystique of international rail travel in the digital age. But it’s not all trains, to paraphrase Vic and Bob.  I expect there’ll be general stuff on travel and travel writing, books, film, music and other pop culture, plus probably all manner of weird and wonderful things I’ll stumble upon in this big old sphere of blog.  I’m excited about my foolhardy journey into the depths of cyberspace, but fairly self conscious too. I’ve barely stepped on to the platform and already the niggling self doubt has crept in. What if no one reads this, shuns it with cool indifference or worse still I’m sneered into humiliating retreat? Who the hell am I and what do I know anyway?

Continue reading this article @ He Thought of Trains

Should I backtrack for Flightster? | 25 Jul, 2010

Every now and then I have myself a cursory mooch on the Problogger Jobs Board. It’s rarely an inspiring use of my time, trawling through swathes of posts from content farms and ten bob blogpimps who want the moon on the stick in exchange for penny-a-word rates. But today I stumbled upon (I wonder how long it will take in the (d)evolution of our language before the two words actually morph into one in everyday usage? ) an intriguing posting from an outfit called Flightster. Now, not only are they seeking travel bloggers but they’re actually offering to pay them a pretty respectable rate by online standards: $75-100 per post. Yes, I read it twice myself.

Continue reading this article @ He Thought of Trains

Edinburgh TweetUp Hatches | Jul 27, 2010

I attended my first ever tweetup in Edinburgh last weekend. A great experience all round. This took place in St Giles Cafe (and NOT the St Giles Cathedral Cafe where I first went – which reminds me, £5 for a thimble of coffee and slab of oozy lemon cake, WTF??) near the Mound on the somewhat tenuous pretext of combining it with a visit to the Taste of Spain event nearby.  I confess to being a little apprehensive beforehand. I had visions of everyone hunched over their notebooks engrossed in frantic tweet streams-of-consciousness, but thankfully it was a lot more ‘normal’ than that. Just a regular bunch of friendly travel bloggers enjoying a drink on an irregularly clement day in Embra, swapping tips, stories and gossip.

Continue reading this article @ He Thought of Trains

When will trains catch planes? | Aug 2, 2010

My legion of loyal subscribers (all 3 of them) may be wondering by now if I’ve run out of steam. I haven’t posted for about a week and I’m getting the heebie-jeebies about it. Oh I know, I’ve missed you too. The truth is I’ve been getting a little distracted and despondent recently. I’ve read that many blogs don’t survive their first month in the wild, so this landmark has been hovering over me psychologically like a giant swinging axe from one of those annoyingly hard platform games. So what the blazes have I been up to then? Well, I’ve discovered the joys of twex, been commenting like mad on other travel blogs I’ve enjoyed, got active on the TBEX discussion boards and volunteered my services for various guest blogging gigs. I’ve even met some real, live, flesh and blood travel bloggers right on my own damp doorstep (well, not RIGHT on my doorstep that would be a bit freaky.) All this good stuff has spurred me on a little but it hasn’t had any tangible impact on traffic which has seriously nosedived more in the last week than Will Self in a BA toilet. Nor has it helped me to stockpile future posts that you dear readers might want to read.

Continue reading this article @ He Thought of Trains

The trouble with other people’s rail travel blogs | Aug 3, 2010

There’s no shortage of ’travelogue style’ rail blogs out there. I’ve found so many it’s not even interesting. These are fine for people just wanting to record their trips while still fresh in their minds and share them with jealous friends and family back home, some of them have fun anecdotes and one or two nice pics, but few of them transcend this. Usually they survive only as long as the journey themselves and the afterglow of the bloggers’ memories.

Continue reading this article @ He Thought of Trains

Do we really need more search technology ? Do 3D images and augmented reality applications have the ability to improve “real travel”?  Does all this new technology enlighten us, or spoil us?

Yelp's Augmented Reality (iPhone 3GS) / Flickr photo by hawaii

Researching the net, joining discussions on travel forums, analysing and appraising with others online are common steps many of us now take prior to reaching a decision on travel plans and ultimately making bookings. Our voracity for technology is endless: “travellers on the move (as distinct from “stationary travellers”?) require immediate access to quick and simple-to-use booking solutions while away from their office or home”…we do?

I found the following information much more helpful than any technological gadgetry on offer: ‘Is Twitter the greatest source of travel intelligence?‘, ‘Top 10 travel gadgets under 50‘

Are we killing the joy of travel by over talking it?

Do we need to be walking, talking, interactive encyclopedias for all and sundry in the places we visit?  Twitter enables this behaviour but are we confusing a deeper personal need for cyber notoriety with our passion for discovery and personal enlightenment? Reporting and broadcasting our whereabouts and experiences by cataloguing content and images we share with our ever growing “friends & followers” is surely a distraction from the essence of travel.

Motility Not Compatible With Mobile Technology / Flickr photo by JulianBleeker

Controlling what we experience before we experience it

It seems as though the buzz is in the ever evolving technology we use to travel, rather than in the travelling itself.  Has travelling become a voyage of meticulous research and a pursuit of mistake-free sanitized experiences in increasingly predictable destinations? Have we lost along the way our sense of pioneering… the awe of travel? Where has the spontaneity, the personal voyage of discovery, trips full of missed turns and falls gone?

“On the road learning” is disappearing

My best travel experiences have always been the ones I least expected, they were a succession of mistakes, accidents and surprises by the bucket loads, challenging my resourcefulness to make the best decisions I could in the situation I found myself in. This “on the road learning” is one of the most influential and valuable factors in personal development and looking back, I would not change any of it, the good and the bad days… just like one’s love life, you learn as you go, the more practice hopefully the more you learn… (well that’s my excuse, but my wife doesn’t agree).

I never travelled with a guidebook, but on occasions a map. Travel for me is the ultimate quest for adventure into the unknown, it’s that premonition of not knowing what will happen next that I find so exciting. Walking wherever I could, I always wondered what the next corner would reveal to me, my guidebook was the local man or woman I met at cafés etc. on the road, telling me what was interesting in their neighbourhood… it’s amazing how thrilling macro-travelling can be!

Must we share everything?

I like to discover places by myself (or naturally with a loved one) and pretend I/we are the very first to see that view, taste that dish, or experience that dance. Preparing a trip down to the very last detail, or dialoguing on Twitter in order to share travel moments reminds us that thousands of others have seen that view before, or have sat at the same chair and eaten the same dish, or have witnessed that dance before. It is my/our experience, no one else’s. To think of sharing it with a multitude of others I don’t know devalues my intimacy with that moment, that place, or those people that I have just shared a brief space of my life with. That’s one reason I don’t get Twitter as a travel forum.

Flickr photo from the World Bank Photo Collection

How travel used to be

Travel is not a right, it is an exhilarating privilege that many will never experience, it should be slowly enjoyed like one’s childhood. It should be given space to be discovered patiently, and time to be appreciated in its entirety.

Travelling for pleasure is part real and part escapism, above all it should be very personal, discovering oneself by intentionally diving into as many different environments as possible to your own, the deeper the plunge, the deeper the emotional connection with that moment, and hopefully the more memorable. I guess there are a lot of questions about what is happening to travel which I cannot find answers to, it’s a revolution of sort, the further we dissect travel, the more different motivations we find for travelling. After a life in the tourism industry I am still surprised by the reasons people travel!

Travel experiences are slipping away like the innocence of childhood

Maybe I am a romantic old fool, but there are times I wonder why must we remove all life’s mysteries before we experience them? I pity the young, their childhood and adolescence, a time of discovery and wonder, but in modern society it might as well be a fast food combo meal, for the value that is placed on it. They are informed of more things I ever knew before I was three times their age, but have no life experience to connect with. One may say “how can they miss something they never had?”, true.  Are we also facing a future where travel suffers the same loss of innocence prematurely due to technology?

Evening campfire / Flickr photo by Tom Allen

I thought I’d single-handedly hit upon a brilliant and novel way to travel that ticked all the boxes – the great outdoors, sleeping rough, the physical challenge, and using my own initiative to get to my destination.

In short, I was embarrassingly naive.

I soon came to realise that, on the whole, all good ideas have already been thought of. My ever-growing travel plans and long hours scrutinizing world maps were entirely insignificant. Thomas Stevens cycled round the world more than 120 years ago. Thousands more have done so since. Hundreds of books had been published, online communities created. My trip was a drop in the ocean.

Continue reading this article @ Tom’s World Bicycle Travel Blog

Photo by Blue Ventures

Sailing pirogues to the nearby island of Nosy Hao

The whole group arranged for sailing pirogues to take us to the nearby island of Nosy Hao. It seemed a gorgeous day for a sail and snorkel, with a picnic lunch prepared by the expedition kitchen to top it off. For the eleven of us, we found four pirogues, each with a crew of three, to depart mid-morning for our excursion. I rode in the pirogue led by the most experienced captain, one who clearly enjoyed not only sailing well, but racing hard. His crew quickly unfurled the huge sail, leading us to an early start, and throughout the half-hour journey, he was alternately fiddling with the rigging and pumping his fist in the air, shouting with glee as the wind whipped our hair, the sea sped beneath us, and the space between us and the boats behind grew and grew. The crew, like we, were full of delight for such a perfect day to sail.

A change in the weather

We had a good couple of hours on the island, taking time to snorkel the reef flat (enjoyable but for the many jellyfish near the surface that day) and to enjoy our packed lunch of rice and fish. While we were swimming and eating, we didn’t notice the slow but dramatic turn the day’s weather was taking, and it was only after the wind started to gust after lunch that we noticed the approaching storm. The sky had turned completely gray, the wind had begun to whip the waves of the sea into a gentle froth, and rain was visible from the bases of the clouds in all directions, growing ever closer. We knew the inevitable downpour would not be far off.

The experienced boat crews found the first shelter as the skies opened, crouching in the beached pirogues and wrapping themselves in the sails. Several of us tried to use one of the sails as a massive tarpaulin, an attempt made futile as the sail grew heavier from the absorbed rain and whipped against our backs ever more violently with the increasing wind. The clever ones among our group realized that the air had cooled below the water temperature and swam back out to keep warm while the rest of us were made equally wet from the heavy rain.

A rough return voyage

After a bone-drenching five minutes, the rain began to subside, and everyone jumped into action to prepare for our return, despite the persistent wind. Within moments, our picnic was fully packed, the boats were back in the now-rough water, the sails were aloft, and we had clambered back into the boats for the return trip. Gone was the care-free shouting of the earlier race as the crew focused their entire attention on keeping the boat upright as we faced the stiff wind and tall swells to sail back.

The small flag at the front of the boat used to measure the wind was chattering mightily as it fluttered, standing erect in the wind, as the waterlogged sail was drooping into the crests of the passing waves. One of the crew, sitting out on the balance pole, leaning against the rigging rope, would ride high into the air with every passing wave, and then drop back down as the boat rode down the back of each crest, drenching us with spray as it fell back against the water. It seemed a miracle that he didn’t fall from the pole as he went up and down while the boat listed from side to side. Our captain again fiddled with the rigging throughout the trip as he sat tall and alert, focused on the sea ahead as if waiting to be attacked at any moment, while another of the crew worked to bail out all of the water we were taking on with every passing swell.

Just another day at sea for the Vezo

Our return trip was finally successful and surely shorter than the first sailing even if it seemed longer due to the tense air and the continual drenching. One of the boats suffered a cracked mast under the force of the heavy sail against the wind, though that crew was quickly able to lash the sail well enough to keep the boat moving. Our crew was so sure of themselves that we never felt in any real danger despite the threatening conditions. After all, this was just another day at sea for the Vezo, who are out nearly every day, rain or shine, calm or storm, working hard as they try to catch what they can. Their livelihood depends entirely on what they can catch from the sea, and they toil endlessly to make the most of it. Watching them makes me hopeful that our conservation effort is successful, helping them to fish more sustainably and remain in balance with life in the sea. As we saw that day, living with the sea is already hard enough without having to worry about whether it will die out.

The cow barn / Photo by Nick Weston

There are few things more exciting than building a place of your own: being able to shape it yourself and have everything the way you want it in terms of aesthetics and functionality are just two of the reasons why it is worth doing. If money is no object it can be even better (I barely have any!), so you have to see what other avenues are open for exploration to provide you with a home you can be proud of…back to begging, borrowing and recycling we go! I have got around to adding video to the blog – so I will post the ongoing build and lifestyle elements as we go – apologies for the amateur quality… early days! It begins with an epic session of clearing and learning to use a strimmer.

Continue reading this article @ HUNTER:GATHER:COOK – Adventures in Wild Food

The John Obey Community / Photo by Ben Keene

I’m not sure who had asked the question but it stuck in the back of my mind.

Finding Vorovoro has changed a lot of things. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that.

But finding another Vorovoro wasn’t a priority on that perfect day in September. Our job was to build Vorovoro and we committed ourselves to a minimum of three years.

It worked. Not easily, but it did work.  The project is ongoing and, although some months are slower – even in Fiji – than others, it’s a way of life now. Hopefully for a long time yet.  Claire’s recent Vorovoro Blog sums up why it was worth it.

But how did I go from an island in Fiji to a beach in Sierra Leone?

As we celebrated our three year birthday on Vorovoro last year I finally started to look seriously where we might go next. It wasn’t for lack of offers.

I’ve kept a special file in my inbox marked Tribewanted II. It’s where I procrastinate.

People still find it difficult to describe what Tribewanted is. I do too. Here’s where I think we’re at: “Our mission is to build and sustain cross-cultural communities in beautiful places that benefit locals and visitors; inspiring positive change within and far beyond the village.”

So with this clearly in mind I clicked through the ‘Tribewanted II’ file …Sierra Leone wasn’t there. But soon I was.

Last year a good friend invited me to visit his football academy and school in Ghana. There he told me about a similar project he was managing in Sierra Leone. I made the short journey with him to Freetown and quickly fell for this chaotic, charming, beautiful country.

Later in the year I was introduced to an Italian living in New York who worked in Sierra Leone. I know, I know. But this is how these things work. Filippo Bozotti made a film called Bling – blood diamonds and hip-hop – and had been fundraising and supporting mircrofinance, education and computer literacy through the Shine on Sierra Leone foundation. Filippo was keen to bring a new kind of tourist to Sierra Leone and was looking for the right model.

A natural partnership formed and in Janaury this year Filippo, myself and a local partner – Dr.Michel Sho Sawyer – met in Freetown to see what might be possible.

Three months later we had secured a long-term agreement for a few acres of land at my favourite beach – John Obey – on the awesome Freetown peninsula and a burgeoning relationship with the local community.

Right now – as we share this opportunity for the first time with our members and beyond – I’m as excited as I was when we first found Vorovoro.

Four years later, ‘where we went next’ has finally arrived.