I hear you now - where can I get away from the football?! Good question, and for those who are not interested in watching one second of the World Cup this month. My suggestion is that you lock yourself up in a cupboard for five weeks - only kidding!

It’ll be difficult not to go into a bar and find no football on the television, they know football fans will bring income into the drinking establishment so many pubs, bars and clubs will be showing the games.

Surely though they must be a location where you could get away from it all? Well how about Nauru in the South Pacific. Nauru is just eight miles square long and just one third the size of Guernsey. It’s nearest neighbour is Banaba Island, 300 km away. Nauru is the world’s smallest island nation, covering just 21 sq. km (8.1 sq. mi), and the only nation in the world without an official capital.

A colourful reef surrounds the island, the waters make great diving and the sport fishing is incomparable. The island has very few bars, and only two hotels can be found on the island so watch out for any Aussies who might be looking for places to watch their team play Brazil or Japan!

I’ll be blogging about another World Cup free destination soon!

I’ve not visited a travel agent for a few years, actually since my trip to Spain in 2002, where I spent a few hundred pounds on what was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing holiday, and I ended up staying next to a building site for the week – you risked your life laying near the swimming pool as debris from the site was landing near or in the swimming pool.

Since then I decided to organise and book my own DIY (do it yourself) holiday – okay it takes you a little longer than going into the travel agents, but you’ll save money, and you’ll be satisfied that you have done as much research as possible on the hotel prior to departure.

Flights..

Book your flight as early as possible, and do so before booking any hotel or accommodation. Rather than booking with a travel agent go direct to the airlines website, so if your wanting to fly to Faro, Portugal, and your nearest airport is Leeds & Bradford, find out which airlines fly there – in this example it would be Jet2.com

The later you leave the flight, the more expensive it will be – also try and depart and arrive back on a week day as this reduces the cost considerably. Personally, I don’t like arriving at my destination in the evening, or early the early hours, so I pay that little bit extra and depart in the early afternoon. If your not bothered about when you fly though you can save more money by booking a late night or early morning flight.

Travel Insurance

Thousands of people forget that even though they are booking a long weekend trip, or weeks holiday abroad, that they don’t need insurance – don’t be a fool – buy travel insurance, it is so cheap nowadays and if you shop around you can get some great deals.

Remember the holidaymaker who visited Turkey on a relaxing holiday, got himself injured and hospitalised, and ended up with a £16,000 medical and hospital bill – it’s simply not worth all of this hassle and stress.

Make sure you take our adequate insurance – for example if your going skydiving, take our insurance that covers such an activity – if your injured through this your insurance company won’t pay out unless you have taken the correct insurance, and always read the small print on the insurance documents.

If you a European resident than make sure you apply for the European Health Insurance Card, this means you’ll get free or discounted health and medical care whilst you are in a European State destination – more information can be found on my European Health Insurance Guide.

Hotels & Accommodation

I cannot recommend strongly enough that you research your destination – I actually enjoy doing this and it gets me excited about the holiday. Have a think about whereabouts you want to stay, for example, when I was organising my trip to Paris, I wanted to be near the Eiffel Tower, so I looked for hotels that were located close by.

Get a list of five hotels that you like the look of and then visit www.local.google.com and you can see exactly, how close to the attractions, or beach, etc your hotel is located. If you view the map in the satellite view, you’ll see everything from the trees to the cars parked up on the streets! This is a great way of viewing the local area near the hotel.

Once you have the list then visit hotel review websites like www.tripadvisor.com, www.travel-library.com and www.travel.yahoo.com and enter the name of the hotel into the searching facility, you will then see reviews from other travellers who have visited the hotel – you’ll get to see what the hotel is really like, and if it has some bad comments about it.

Some of the travellers leave photographs, which gives you an better view of the hotel, than from the hotel pictures that are probably dated on the hotel website(s). Once you’ve narrowed it down to one or two hotels you can then visit Google and do a search on the hotel name, just to see if any bad press, and in some occasions I’ve found that the hotel has building work nearby – so it pays to research your destination before you travel.

Airport Transfer

Package holidays are now including airport transfers in the price of your package holiday, no longer do you get free transfers from the airport to your hotel destination. When you are booking your holiday yourself, then you need to be aware that you are left to your own devices to find and get to your destination hotel.

You could go on the public transport system, i.e. tube, bus or train, or take a local taxi which could be expensive – the best way I travel is to book a transfer when I am booking for my holiday, and I have used a number of airport transfer companies like www.resorthoppa.com, www.holidaytaxis.com or www.shuttledirect.com

The advantage of using this type of company is that you have someone waiting at the airport with your name on a piece of card – you then jump in a car, and then are taking straight to the hotel, you’ve paid before you have travelled, so no hassles with getting money changed.

A lot of the drivers speak English if your in a non English speaking country, and it’s a great way to learn more about the destination, or if the destination has any dangerous districts which you should keep away from.

Finally..

Booking your holiday independently, means you are going to cut out the “middle man” and you can sit back at your hotel, relaxing knowing that you have booked the holiday, and made the right decisions - if you have a problem with your hotel, you can depart to another hotel knowing that you’ve only paid for the period you’ve stopped there, with a package holiday it is much more difficult to do this because you have paid for 100% of your holiday up front.

According to the BBC news (just watching it now) a strong earthquake has struck the Indonesian island of Java, leaving several people dead and many injured. Apparently the quake, measured at 6.2 on the ricter scale, which flattened buildings in a densely-populated area near the city of Yogyakarta on the southern coast of the island of Java.

Witnesses said people fled as their homes collapsed around them, after the quake struck early in the morning. Local radio said several hospitals were packed with people seeking treatment.

Electricity and communications across the city were also down, police said. The quake hit at 0554 local time (2253 GMT Friday), around 25km (15 miles) south of the city of Yogyakarta, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Yogyakarta is Indonesia’s ancient royal capital. “We have no figure yet, but yes, there are several people reported killed and hundreds of injured. We are still receiving reports from the various subdistricts,” Subiyakto, an officer with Yogyakarta province’s police, told the AFP news agency.

Update: According to reports over 3,000 people have died and between 8-10,000 injured in the Indonesian Earthquake. For the full story and further updates please visit BBC News

Whoo hoo the weekend is nearly here, and it’s the Spring Bank holiday weekend, so no work until Wednesday! What am I going to do with myself? Well decent weather permitting I’m going to go walking in the Lake District, to a place called Ambleside.

I love walking, its a great way to clear your head, forget about work, and unwind - the great thing about Ambleside, is not only the superb views, and great walking trails, but it has traditional English pubs - not the bars you now see in Leeds, proper pubs, with proper beer!

Ambleside is a town in Cumbria in north-west England. The town is situated at the head of Windermere, England’s largest lake. The town is within the Lake District National Park, in the Westmorland area.

Many well known characters have been connected with Ambleside, including William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter.

For more information on Ambleside check out the visitcumbria.com website

I remember when I first started writing this travel blog that I had to go and find blogs to feature, now thanks to Google Blogsearch and the Blog searchengine, people are now coming to me asking me to review their travel blog or are linking to my blog.

Travelin’ Tracy kindly linked to my travel blog, so I checked out her blog and enjoyed looking at her pictures of Budapest and Vienna plus reading her travel preparations - my travel blog tip to Tracy would be to think about moving over to Wordpress (it’s free!) - you have complete control of the blog, and you can change your theme, or get one designed like my travel rants blog.

Travel Blog: Alaskan Adventures

Turkish firefighters have been tackling a massive fire that engulfed the cargo area of Istanbul’s largest airport. Three people are reported to have been injured, which is believed to have been caused by a short circuit.

The fire brigade are using yellow firefighting planes every few minutes carrying water to pour on the flames. The planes are usually used to tackle forest fires. Airport officials though say flights are now taking off and landing as usual.

They say the fire is now under control and the huge plumes of smoke have stopped rising from the building.

There had been concerns that flames could spread to the main terminals, but flights are now being allowed to land. Ataturk airport, about 16km (10 miles) from central Istanbul, is the main destination for domestic and international flights - and serves as a hub for tourism in Turkey.

Read the full story on BBC News

To see whose reading my travel blog and whereabouts they have come from I recently installed a stats script by www.performancing.com and so far I’m very impressed with the stats I’m getting off it.

As I was going through the referrals I noticed a few visitors from a very interesting and eye catching travel blog written by Elaine Schoch - not only does the blog feature a very cute picture of Elaine (okay I’ll stop flirting!) but it features some great content about her travels.

The regular readers amongst you will realise by now how much I love photographs on travel blogs - and Elaine’s blog is no exception - it displays some awesome pictures of Italy, which has always been a Country I’ve wanted to visit.

The blog appears fairly new but already has some interesting blog entries - so drop by and read all about Elaine’s travels.. It’s worth the visit!

Travel Blog: Travel the World … according to me.

I’m not usually a big movie follower, don’t get me wrong I enjoy watching movies, but I’d prefer to lay on the sofa and relax then be sat in a crowded cinema listening to people crunch on popcorn and slurp their Coca Cola!

This years most talked about movie has to be The Da Vinci Code - controversial, and the screenplay is taken from Dan Brown’s superb novel. Based around a murder inside the Louvre and clues in Da Vinci paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years.

The movie was filmed in 12 locations across England, Scotland, France and Malta:

Belvoir Castle, England
Belvoir Castle, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, commands an outstanding view over the Vale of Belvoir. The name means ‘beautiful view’ and dates back to Norman times when Robert de Todeni, William the Conqueror’s standard bearer, built the first fortress on this splendid site.

For more information visit About Britain

Burghley House, England
Burghley House is the largest and grandest house of the first Elizabethan Age. Built and mostly designed by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of England, between 1565 and 1587, the House is a family home for his descendants to this day. At present is it occupied by Mr Simon and Lady Victoria Leatham, well known as one of the experts on BBC Television’s ‘Antiques Roadshow’.

For more information visit: Information UK

Caledonian Hilton Hotel, Scotland
The Caledonian Hilton Hotel, built in 1903 is situated in the very heart of Edinburgh, many rooms overlooking the famous 14th century Edinburgh Castle. The hotel provides the finest possible base from which to explore one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

For more information visit: Hilton Hotels

Chateau de Villette, France
Luxurious on the inside and exuding classical beauty on the outside, Château de Villette. designed by Jules Hardouin Mansart and just northwest of Paris, is an incredible château that can be rented for a wedding, group gathering or corporate function.

For more information visit: Au Chateau

Fairfield Halls, England
Fairfield Halls, opened in 1962 with a large concert hall frequently used for BBC recordings, the Ashcroft Theatre and the Arnhem Gallery. The Halls are the home of the London Mozart Players, whose Principal Guest Conductor is flautist Sir James Galway. Many famous faces have appeared at the Fairfield Halls, from the Beatles through Bucks Fizz, Kenny Rogers, James Last to Coolio.

For more information visit: Information Britain

Lincoln Cathedral, England
Lincoln Cathedral is Lincolnshire’s distinguishing landmark visible from 25miles away - and it’s even more stunning close up both by day and night. An earthquake caused structural damage to Lincoln Cathedral in 1185. St Hugh (Bishop of Lincoln, 1186-1200) began work on reconstructing the Cathedral in 1192.

For more information visit: Lincoln Cathedral

Musée du Louvre, France
The Louvre, in its successive architectural metamorphoses, has dominated central Paris since the late 12th century. Built on the city’s western edge, the original structure was gradually engulfed as the city grew. The dark fortress of the early days was transformed into the modernized dwelling of François I and, later, the sumptuous palace of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Here we explore the history of this extraordinary edifice and of the museum that has occupied it since 1793.

For more information visit: Lourve Museum

Ritz Hotel, France
Renowned Hotel maintaining reputation for service and excellence, located in a former 18th-century private residence. On the Place Vendôme, the Ritz Paris offers prestigious rooms and suites, its gastronomic restaurant the Espadon.

For more information visit: Ritz Hotel

If you haven’t already read the book then I seriously recommend you do so - I prefer to read the book, before watching the movie - by reading the book, you get dragged into the atmosphere, and your imagination takes over.

Visit the Dan Brown website