Here's what you can find on GoNOMAD.com today…

New Stories added this month:

destinations

Destination Mini Guide: Mauritius
Mauritius is a beautiful sun kissed island that is just 1,865 km in size. It is located 2000 km off the Southern coast of Africa and has its origins in as the result of a volcano.  The people are of a mix between Europeans, Indian and African and are known as indo Mauritians. English is the language of the country though a type of broken French known as patios is used in rural areas. The capital city is Port Louis and is an actual shipping Port. The religion is predominantly Hindu. Continue story

Destination Mini Guide: Milan
Why Go thereIt's the door to the rest of Italy. Get on a train after a day in Milan and head to many of the other historic cities Italy has to offer.
When to go
Best time to come is in Spring.
How To Get There
Many of the travelers flying to Italy stop in Milan first, because there are many cheap flights to this financial hub. From the Malpensa airport take the 50 minute shuttle bus that leaves every 20 mins to the Central Station; either check your bags at the station or hop on the metro to get to your hotel. There are 4 metro lines and a ride costs 1 Euro, pick up your ticket at one of the machines in the Metro. Once you get to the historic center, you can pretty much tour the city on foot. Continue story

Downtime in Budapest:Teahouses, baths and Baroque
Sultry Budapest is filled with secrets. While it is beautiful to the eye, it is the unexpected that captures the heart. Unmarked doors lead down into busy bars filled with music. Dilapidated buildings hold elegant turn of the century coffeehouses. Nothing in Budapest should be taken at face value, especially on a snowy late December day. Arm yourself with a good map and a copy of The Budapest Sun and let the city slowly unfold. Continue story

features
Smokin' Sadhus: India's wandering holy men make puffing hash their sacred ritual
The half-naked man pushes back his orange turban and getsdown to work. He breaks off chunks of hash and mixesthem with tobacco in his bony fingers, then dumps the contents into a chillum (conical clay pipe). The flaming wooden match lights up the painted lines on his forehead as he shouts, "Bom Shiva!" and starts puffing away, his head disappearing behind a cloud of smoke. After two massive lungfulls, he passes the pipe on to his brethren, more thin men dressed in a minimum of cloth, with long beards, matted hair, and a happily glazed look in their eyes. Continue story

A Trinidad Adventure - Rough Terrain, Gentle People
When friends ask me about my three-day Trinidad adventure hiking the rainforest, I come up with opposites: some of the roughest terrain I've ever hiked and some of the gentlest, warmest people I've met in a long time.

Arriving in Trinidad at night, we drove through the rainforest before settling into a rough lodge to sleep. In the dark, I saw nothing of what would greet me the next day: a mosaic of brilliant colors, tropical flowers, so many shades of green I couldn't count them, birds singing loudly, varieties of vegetation I had never seen, a praying mantis measuring at least 4 inches-maybe 6 (!)-and a group of school children in bright blue tunics and shirts, the girls with red ribbons in their hair. Continue story

Helps


"Akwaaba": Being Welcomed in Ghana
My first impressions of Ghana were 1. The wave of the heat when getting off the plane, after leaving a Country that had known nothing worth calling Summer that year; 2. The noise and apparent chaos; 3. the overwhelming hospitality of all the Ghanaians I met, from the Immigration Officers, to the taxi drivers, to my host family. I soon got used to the heat, I warmed instantly to the locals, made many friends, and relaxed into the Ghanaian way of life. I have never felt so safe as a lone female in a capital city as in Accra. However, as a white person, I really looked out of place, and attracted attention wherever I went, especially in the rural areas. This sometimes became tiresome if I wanted to be on my own for while. Continue story

travel desk

You can ask us travel questions and we'll find you the answers you need

Market-New Travel Books We Recommend


The World's Cheapest Destinations: 21 countries you definitely can afford to visit in 2003!
Yes, traveling overseas can be expensive, but only to get there. The key to living well abroad is not airline specials, discount hotel vouchers, or finding the cheapest restaurant in Rome or Paris. The way to really travel well without spending your life savings is to go to where your first world dollars are worth a fortune. For the price of a bed in a tiny dorm in Japan you can get a beautiful double room in a hotel with a pool in many parts of Southeast Asia. For the price of dinner for two in western Europe, you could pig out for a whole week in Indonesia, Nepal or India. For the $7.50 you'd pay for one beer in a bar in Oslo, you could buy a round of beers for yourself and about ten friends in Istanbul, Prague, or Saigon. (Rome hotels, flights to Paris). Continue story

Moon Handbooks--Nicaragua Why so Many travelers are discovering this "black sheep of Central America"
Nicaragua, the black sheep of Central America, is sorely misunderstood in the world. Since disappearing from the headlines in the early 1990s, life in Nicaragua has moved steadily forward, leaving behind in the rest of the world's mind only the olive-clad images of the war-torn '80s. But this is not a nation of perpetual crisis! The Revolution and ensuing civil war that ended in 1990, now make up one more chapter in the nation's tumultuous history, and their recent memory adds grit to the reality of being in Nicaragua. Continue story

If you would like to suggest a new travel book to excerpt on GoNOMAD, email us.

Discover Fiji's Forgotten North They call it Fiji's "Forgotten North" but once you've been here, you'll find it unforgettable. Many international travellers are familiar with the glamorous resorts of the Coral Coast of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu, where the capital and international airport are located, and the castaway getaways on the offshore Mamanuca islands. Unfortunately, most miss the persuasive and insidious charms of the northeastern part of the archipelago. Eco-tourism and "soft" adventure seem to be the current sweetheart notions of every third world nation-in-the-sun as the west's travel consultants hustle to provide increasingly offbeat answers to their affluent customers'

increasingly strident cry: "Where is there that's new to go? Maravu Plantation Resort, on Taveuni, is a boutique-style marriage of intimacy, immaculate quality and attentive, unobtrusive staff. Each of the 10 well-appointed bures that lie scattered about the working, 54-acre copra plantation is named for a flower. Vuni Tarawau (one of three EXOTIC & LUXURIOUS ADVENTURE PACKAGE: US$1995 for two! Soft adventure package for 7 nights in a Deluxe Bure including all meals, all resort activities, (horseback riding, mountain biking, snorkeling, kayaking and more), transfers from/to Taveuni Airport, all taxes and six half or full day adventure trips. Additional nights $US285 per person, diving $US70 per person/day for two dives.

honeymoon bures) has an outside shower, made private by a stone wall surrounding a lava-rock floor and a sunning deck with its own banana tree. The white-sand beach (where the dive team awaits to guide you to some of the world's best coral) is a pleasant downhill walk through a grassy palm grove (signs warn walkers to beware of falling coconuts). Dinner can be local coral trout or an exotic Fijian take on international cuisine. The service, primarily

Maravu Plantation & Beach Resort Fiji West Coast Road Matei Taveuni Island, NF Fiji Phone: 679 888 0555 Fax: 679 888 0600 maravu@is.com.fj www.maravu.net by girls from the nearby village, is friendly and helpful. The resort is also a good base for eco-exploration (bird-watching, flower-spotting, mountain hiking).

New Affiliations Bring More Ways to Get Tickets and hotels from GoNOMAD:

Featured Tour Operator: Wildland Adventures

Okavango Walking Safari

Walking at the exclusive Selinda reserve in Botswana

Explore Botswana’s famous Okavango Delta on foot, by vehicle, and in dugout canoes, called mokoro, designed by the local BaYei people. This rich wetland habitat is home to abundant wildlife and our activities create opportunities to observe wild dog, elephant, giraffe, lion, cheetah and more! North of the Delta, experience a unique walking safari in the remote Selinda Reserve. Learn to track wildlife and observe the nuances of the bush while feeling the earth beneath your feet on daily three to four mile walks between the remote wilderness lodges and seasonal camps in this private reserve. Additional nights at the spectacular Victoria Falls can easily be arranged. For active wildlife enthusiasts, we suggest our Mana Pools Canoeing Safari in Zimbabwe. Read full itinerary here

This trip is offered from May-October, nine days at $2950, land only.

contact Wildland Adventures at 800-345-4453 or visit them at www.wildland.com.

New Weekly International Travel Bargains.  We've teamed up with IndependentTraveler.com and now publish weekly airfare and lodgings specials for huge savings on international travel. Check out the latest here. And bookmark GoNOMAD to keep up to date with these ever changing special offers that we post evey week. Here are the latest offers posted 1/28/03.
International Hotel Rates From $59/Night Fly to Asia From $253 One-Way Valentine's Day Fares to Mexico & Central America Los Angeles to Sydney From $1050 Take Off For Geneva From $312 RT		IndependentTraveler.com is the comprehensive, online travel-planning guide featuring airfare, car rental and hotel bargains, travel resources, readers' reviews, travel news and travel tips.(Flights to Los Angeles) Check GoNOMAD every Saturday for more of these updated specials!		Fun-Filled Mexico Family Packages Up to 40% Off International Rates Los Angeles to Tokyo From $449 RT Panama Canal Cruise From $1899 with Air Europe Cruisetours From $1495

gonomad travel services

Help Us Grow! If you like the stories, guides and other features you read on GoNOMAD, you can help us keep it coming...by sending your friends and colleagues here when they need airline tickets, hotels, rental cars or rail tickets. Most of our pages have links...please give us a try the next time you need to travel.

READY TO GO? You can find the lowest fares, car rentals, or hotels anywhere by visiting these sites:
Airfares--U.S. and Abroad      Round the World Airfares       Car Rentals      Railway Passes	Hotels Around the World   Vacations and Cruises   Hostels Around the World

Write for us. We are interested in your travel stories. We want stories about places you don't read about everywhere. Different, faraway places in the U.S. and around the world, that will make for exciting reading. If you can provide us with lots of details on where to stay, where to eat, what not to miss and of course, the many websites about the place, we'd love to hear from you.
Visit this link to read our writer's guidelines. We're especially interested in destination guides to your hometown.