Globetrotting - Venture Magazine Issue #2 PAGES 28-29
Venture a little further into our world…
Best place to…
BE
A BEACH BUM
COPACABANA You’ll find blissful, sandy shores on many
of our tours, from Côte d’Azur elegance in France
to exotic idylls in Thailand. The pick of the bunch, however,
is perhaps the world’s best beach. Music and passion
are always in fashion in Copacabana, particularly at carnival
time. Book a Rio package (five nights’ accommodation;
tours extra) and you can hit the beach, tour a favela, and
gaze up at the Sugarloaf and Corcovado, where the iconic
Christ the Redeemer figure welcomes you to the buzzing city
with open arms. If you can’t get enough of it all,
try the Carnival Experience, where you can sample stunning
beaches in Bahia and horse riding in Chapada Diamantina
National Park before reaching Salvador for carneval.
Carnival Experience, 14 days, from £425/€595/AU$1085/NZ$1255/US$830/CAD$895/ZAR6375.
SPY
A BOOBY
GALAPAGOS ISLANDS The wildlife of this Ecuadorean archipelago
is quite simply like nowhere else. These remote volcanic
islands, 1000km from the South American mainland, are rich
with the unique fauna that helped Darwin evolve his revolutionary
theory of the origin of species and the evolution of humans.
Island-hopping for eight days aboard a cruise yacht, you’ll
see more than just the giant tortoises that gave the islands
their name: as you walk along white sands or up volcanic
cones, you will marvel at the marine iguanas, the colonies
of fearless albatross and Galapagos doves. Snorkel or swim
in the cool crystal-clear waters, with fur seals and penguins.
8 days from £795/€1115/AU$2180/NZ$2310/US$1550/CAD$1670/ZAR12,825.
JOIN THE ARMY
CHINA The same first emperor of China’s Qin dynasty
who built the Great Wall in the 3rd century BC, also commissioned
an 8000-strong army of lifesize pottery soldiers, to guard
him in his subterranean mausoleum. Xi’an’s world-famous
Terracotta Army, only discovered in1974, has become one
of China’s most impressive visitor attractions, featuring
on several Kumuka trips. Housed under a protective hangar-like
roof, each of the still, silent troops has individual character
and expression. So much so, in fact, that a German visitor
who last year jumped over the barrier disguised as a terracotta
solider and stood with the others, as a dare, wasn’t
spotted for several hours.
The Terracotta Army features on many China itineraries.
Rough Guide to Lonely Planet
Richard Trillo talks turkey (and other countries)
about the best guides available.
So, you’ve booked your Kumuka tour and you’ve read the useful country info at kumuka.com. But now you want to get 100% in the mood, some real insider’s tips for interesting things to do on those days off, and some useful insights into the places you’re about to visit. You think... bookshop!
One of the largest non-fiction sections in any good bookshop these days is devoted to travel guides. So how do you decide which guide to buy? Actually the process is simple enough: if it’s stuffed with colour photos and not a lot of text, you’ll enjoy looking at it, but it probably won’t pinpoint the perfect restaurant for that dinner for your partner’s birthday in Rajasthan on Day 8.
You may, however, want a beautiful souvenir of the trip before you’ve been, in which case one of the Eyewitness Guides or Insight Guides could well fit the bill. Eyewitness, published by Dorling Kindersley, have cornered the market in sumptuously illustrated guides to the most densely-touristed parts of the world, including fabulous cutaway illustrations of historical buildings. Insight have perfected a laid-back magazine-article style, profusely illustrated with glossy photos, and always featuring a colourful, smiling local on the front. But the practical information can be thin and in neither of them will you get much sense of an author writing the book.
For authored travel guides, you have a choice of two brand leaders and, a bit like Pepsi or Coke, people tend to be fans of one or the other. The Australian publisher Lonely Planet is one of the world’s biggest publishers of guides, doing books to pretty well everywhere, with a robustly practical mindset. LP fans want the practical nuts and bolts; how to get from A to B, where to stay, where to eat and have a drink, what to do there, how to get away again, together with a bit of background and infused with a strong sense of been-there-done-that.
Rough Guides, published in London and New York, arrived on the scene in the early 1980s. Their background is strongly journalistic, with a roster of good writers who take personal responsibility for their own books. There’s a clear house style, all based around a relentless inquisitiveness about everywhere and everything. The guides are stuffed full of practical info, but RGs are for travellers who love to read, and the guides are often 50% bigger page for page than LPs, with much more background to bring the country alive.
Because LPs are so popular, especially with Aussies and Kiwis, you’ll find places that seem to swarm with travellers all following the same pages, while Rough Guide readers get more off the beaten track. Criticisms of RGs are that they are sometimes too long, or that the information is hard to find, while criticisms of LPs often come down to poor maps and out-of-date material.
Don’t overlook two other independent publishers from the UK, who do some of the best guides available to the countries they cover. Footprint publishes the South American Handbook and is regarded as very strong on that continent. Bradt is a pioneering small publisher which publishes guides to many less-well known countries – in some cases the only full guide available.
Finally, whichever publisher you’re drawn towards, do check the publication date (a new edition might be out before you go). And have a look through the index: it’s always a good confidence booster with any travel guide that places you’ll be visiting are in the book’s index.
WIN!
If you’d like to win a guide book of your choice(from either Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Bradt or Footprint), describe for us your favourite destination in no more than 100 words. Send your entry to venturemag@kumuka.com with "GUIDE BOOK" in the subject line. The most evocative 10 entries will qualify.
Conditions apply. Winners are chosen at the editor’s discretion and his judgement is final. The winners will be notified in writing. No correspondence will be entered into. The prizes cannot be exchanged for cash or any other product or voucher. Entries may be published online or in Kumuka literature, including Venture.
Win £10,000 worth of
travel prizes
Subscribe free to Venture magazine for your chance to WIN £10,000 worth of travel prizes!
Win your very own WORLD TOUR worth £10,000 by subscribing to Venture - Kumuka Worldwide’s FREE travel magazine and monthly e-newsletter.
This promotion will run until the end of July, 2007, so log on to www.kumuka.com now to ensure you’re in the draw! The winning entrant will be able to travel on this selection of tours, worth £10,000, at their whim, over a three-year period: Full details and terms and conditions are available online.
To win subscribe online at www.kumuka.com today!
Kumuka travel photography
competition 2007
Send
us your favourite travel shots from Africa, Antarctica,
Asia, Europe, Latin America, The Middle East or the Trans-Siberian
tundra and you could win a place on one of three great tours,
to Africa, the Middle East or South America.
There are three categories for your entries:
- Kumuka Travellers Send us your best shots of you or your friends on tour. Whether it’s bungy jumping at Vic Falls or trekking to Everest Base Camp… the more adventurous the better.
- Landscapes, Landmarks and Wildlife Extraordinary shots from extraordinary places. We take you there; now we want to see your pictures!
- People and Culture Kumuka’s tours are rich in opportunity to meet friendly locals. Whether going about their daily business or attending festivals or rituals, all images reflect life around the globe.
Full terms and conditions, details of the prizes and how to enter, can be found on our website at www.kumuka.com. All submissions to be sent to photocomp@kumuka.com.
Congratulations to Jess Graham of Fulham, London, who wins the Orient Express travel pack offered in Issue 1 of Venture. Jess sent the following poem to tell us where she most wanted to visit:
My dream has always been to trek to Macchu Picchu,
To peruse the ruins of the Inca citadel,
To ruminate about past civilisations,
And on historical happenings dwell.
From the lush tropical Pyrenees mountains,
To anicent ruins and mysterious Mazca lines,
To the Spanish conquistadors and the trail of the Incas
– Peru sends shivers down my spine
More than anything I truly do need a new backpack
– If I may be so bold,
Because on a previous trip, my trusty Macpac emerged
with an irreparable gash from the airplane cargo hold!
