Under 24? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?
Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?
Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!
The next meeting will be on January 18th at the the Woodsworth Co-op : Ann Dohler will talk about her recent trip to Peru, the Galapagos and the Amazon.
For further information on Ontario meetings, please contact: Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.
Toronto GT Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.
Fairly self-explanatory, a suggestions form Dick, the London Meetings organiser: onlinenewspapers.com A great way of catching up after months of being away from TV, radio and newspapers!
If the first six meetings of the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club are an indication of the future, it is going to be bright, rosy, fun, informative, exciting, and a great success! Since the first meeting in July of 2001, the Texas branch has had 38 different people attend and Christina, the Texas Chair has received countless E-mails! Thank you, all you Globetrotter e-newsletter readers – if you live in the area, why not drop Christina a line and come to the January meeting!
For me, the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters is a monthly support group to help me with my travel addiction. I’m glad to meet others who like to talk about travel and share their stories.
The agenda for the December meeting was to share travel stories from 2001 and state travel plans for New Years Resolutions 2002. We politely shared our stories, and had no time to state our resolutions. It was a great meeting.
The agenda for the first meeting of 2002 (Saturday, January 12) will be to share our travel plans for 2002. I’m working on mine – a cruise, a train trip, a new continent, a retreat, and a national park – see – this is why I need a support group.
How about you? What are your travel resolutions for the new year? Come prepared to share.
The next meeting will be Saturday, January 12, New Braunfels Library, 3 p.m. Mark your calendar. Everyone is invited!
The meeting will start promptly at 3 p.m. and end at 5 p.m. Bring a favorite travel magazine or brochure to contribute to the door prize. Plan to arrive by 2:30 for extra networking time.
Following the Jan 12 meeting we will adjourn to the Hoity Toit for more talk and tales.
Christina’s advice is to come early so you won’t be late! Anybody who wants to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk
When the Beetle wants to say thank you and money is not appropriate, she gives postcards from her hometown, London, to people as small gifts. Take some with you!
Got a travel tip you would like to share with the Beetle? Then e-mail them to: the Beetle
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel to Pakistan until further notice unless there are compelling reasons to do so. They advise all British nationals still in the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and the northern areas to leave those areas immediately.
This is of particular interest to the Beetle as she used to live and work in Karachi and was due to go out to Islamabad during the month of November. Plans are on hold!
If you find yourself in London, at a loose end, fancy something just a little bit different, then give the Mandalay a go.
It can be found at 444 Edgware Rd Tel: 020 7258 3696. The nearest tube is at Edgware Rd.
The London and New York Globetrotter chairs went to dinner there earlier in the year (with their friend Rob of Grand Canyon fame!) and they had a great time saying the food was fantastic and the owners really friendly and interesting about their country.
Want to tell us about your favourite coffee corner, restaurant or watering hole? Then contact the Beetle: the Beetle
This was our first trip to Bali and I have to say that the Balinese are in general the loveliest people, very gentle and welcoming.
Driving out there was a real experience though! It appears that the traffic laws (where there are any) don’t apply to the thousands of motor bikes on the road. It was common to have them coming at you in a one way street!
Prices are fantastic, it cost us about a fiver to tank up a big people carrier, they thought we were mad driving ourselves but once you get used to it and remember to use your horn as much as they do it’s not too bad.
Certainly a destination I’d recommend and will definitely be going back. Kuta is very touristy but get out of town and it’s a whole different world.
Joanne is from Canada and works with the Beetle. She has not been in the UK very long. She had never been to a bonfire night!
We explained to her that on November 5th, 1605, the Catholic Guy Fawkes and some fellow conspirators, crept into the Houses of Parliament and stored lots of barrels of gunpowder in an attempt to blow up the houses of Parliament.
He and his associates were caught and taken away to the Tower of London and beheaded. Since this time, each year, on November 5th, the entire country celebrate the foiling of this event (I know, it seems strange!) by having a bonfire with an effigy of Guy Fawkes and we have huge organized and private firework displays.
The public firework displays are always stunning! One of the best ones in London is at Primrose Hill and starts at 7.30pm on the closest Saturday to 5th November.
Under 24? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?
Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?
Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!
Meeting news from our branches around the world.
The Beetle likes the UK Foreign and Commonwealth site – it has everything from employment opportunities to individual country reports – really interesting!
Sebastian Hope gave us a delightful talk about fishing and the sea gypsies of South East Asia, peppering his talk with anecdotes of friendships he made on his various visits to South East Asia and glorious slides of azure seas and beautiful multicoloured tropical fish. Sebastian has written a book about his exploits called Outcasts of the Islands
After the break which included requests for information on places such as New Caledonia, Iguaçu, Cambodia, Mali and lots of other places too numerous to mention, Tim Burford gave us a talk centred on Romania’s wooden churches. He explained that although many are said to date from the middle ages, most are only a couple of centuries old. Tim went on to show modern Romanian architecture in Bucharest. Tim also explained Romania’s version of the Dracula story and advised us to visit soon as there are plans for a Dracula theme park.
On the 1st December, Jon Hornbuckle will be talking about Chile, Atacama Desert to the Land of Fire. Jon has spent the last eight years travelling world-wide in search of wildlife and cultural experience. Denise Heywood will be talking about Vietnam, descending the Land of the Ascending Dragon from Hanoi (a French Colonial city) travelling south through the great Cham Empire, to the Imperial city of Hue and Saigon, and ending at the Cambodian border – everything except the war!
For the month of December 2001, only, the London meeting will be held at 3pm at the Concert Artists Association, 20 Bedford Street, Covent Garden , the door is at the end of a long passageway next to the Springbok Bar. (This is the opposite side of Covent Garden to the Crown Court, our normal venue)
Other than in December 2001, all London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotter Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: http://www.globetrotters.co.uk
The November New York meeting was cancelled due to clashing with the New York marathon.
Laurie, our New York Chair says “Hello Globies! and Happy
Thanksgiving!” Due to holiday parties, travel and cheer, we
will not be holding a December Globies meeting.
We WILL resume in January with what promises to be a
great line up of speakers!
More to come on that later.
New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.
As soon as we get information on the annual barbecue we will let you know what happened! For information on Ontario meetings, please contact: Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.
Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.
Paying by credit card? Check the currency you think you’ve just paid in! Ensure that the currency you have paid in is clearly marked on the credit card slip and don’t forget to match it to your credit card statement when you get home – you may be in for a surprise!
Got any scam experiences you’d like to share with the Beetle? Then e-mail them to: the Beetle
The Globetrotters Texas branch held their fifth meeting on Saturday, November 10. Attendence continues to grow, with 19 happy people at the meeting. Brad and Mamie spoke and shared slides from their travels to Afghanistan in the early 70’s. Their separate stories were fascinating. The group discussed favourite travel websites and travel magazines. Most everyone learned about something new.
The door prize was a two volume Encyclopedia of World Travel – a classic from 1973. How appropriate that Mamie was the winner, as her presentation was based on her travels in 1973! Following the meeting, 11 people adjourned to the Hoity-Toit, a local beer joint for refreshments and fellowship.
The next meeting will be December 8. Everyone is invited! Christina’s advice is to come early so you won’t be late! Handouts and refreshments will be available. Anybody want to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk
Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country – want to share something with us – why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid