The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office do not advise against all travel to Zimbabwe, but they do advise against backpacking. But this is what they have to say: there has been a general increase in the level of violent crime. There is a continuing risk of violence at political demonstrations, but main tourist areas have been largely unaffected by political and social unrest.

We advise against visiting high density, low income, urban suburbs. You should avoid engaging in overtly partisan political activity, or in activities that could be construed as such.

Most visits to Zimbabwe are trouble free. We recommend travel with organised tour operators to well-established destinations. We strongly advise against independent travel, particularly back-packing.

Mugging and pick pocketing are becoming common in Harare and other city centres, especially after dark. You should be particularly cautious when leaving banks and cash points. Visitors to Victoria Falls, national parks and other tourist centres should be wary as tourists, particularly backpackers, are the principal targets for casual thieves. Wherever possible, you should travel with a recognised tour group or operator and should always avoid travelling alone.

Armed car-jacking has become a cause of concern in the major towns in recent years. Thefts from vehicles are common. Drivers should keep their vehicle doors locked and windows closed, and be cautious when travelling particularly at night and at filling stations. There are regular reports of incidents of robberies and car jackings of vehicles using the Harare Airport road. You should be extra vigilant when using this route. If possible, you should not leave vehicles unattended in isolated scenic spots or in unguarded areas in the towns. If an attack takes place, do not resist. Hand over keys and anything else demanded.

The incidences of opportunistic theft, especially of handbags etc, is high and passports are at particular risk. You should take care with baggage in public places, and at reception desks when checking in/out of hotels. Particular care should be taken at Harare International Airport where there has been an increase in such thefts.

Real Travel magazine is offering all world travellers the chance to become a travel writer. Real Travel is a new magazine aimed at independent world travellers, combining honest reports for destinations around the world with unbiased kit reviews and expert advice.

Issue one this includes destinations as varied as Southern Africa, Iceland, Thailand, New Zealand, Thailand, Budapest and Dubai, as well as advice on planning the perfect career break and a group test of backpacks.

Readers are invited to contact the editor, Ian Waller, with their ideas for travel features, as well as travel tips and favourite travel photograph.

Ian explained: “Real Travel is based around honest reports from travellers around the world. As such we are keen to hear from writers who want to tell us about their travel experiences.

All they have to do is send in a 200-word summary of their piece, along with a couple of sample photos, and if we think that it suits the magazine, we’ll be happy to feature the report in a future issue.”

As a special competition for Globetrotter members, Ian is offering you the chance to claim one of 500 free issues of Real Travel. All you have to do is log on to http://www.i-dj.co.uk, fill in the form and send it off. The first 500 received by the magazine will receive a free issue.

Real Travel is currently on sale in WHSmiths, Tescos and Borders.

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!!

Tiger Aspect, one of the UK's leading TV production companies are producing a program for the Discovery Network that reveals the reality behind America's lips. We are looking for people who have stories to tell about their dodgy dental experiences abroad.

Are you American? Are you a dental tourist? Have you travelled to Mexico/South America/elsewhere for treatment on your teeth or are you intending to do so?

Discovery Network is seeking people for a one hour program to tell their stories about their teeth problems.

We are interested in why people travel abroad for treatment. Do you want a perfect smile? Are you looking for affordable treatment? Perhaps you have already been abroad for treatment; did it work out well or did it go wrong?

If you have a story to tell please email your story and contact details to me at kategriffiths@tigeraspect.co.uk

Last year, a Quebec cheese company lost its sunken cheese. La Fromagerie Boivin thought it would make its cheese taste better if it was submerged in water, so it dropped 800 kg of cheese into the Saguenay fjord, north of Quebec City. The idea was that 50 metres underwater would produce a cheese that would taste unique, but the plan has backfired as the company could not find the cheese, worth more than $50,000 – it has gone missing. Divers and high-tech tracking equipment were used to try to find the lost cheese. “It's a mystery,” said master diver Pierre Dufour, who assisted in the hunt. “All we know is that the cheese is no longer where it was left.”

A new UN report details that life in Zimbabwe is shorter than anywhere else in the world, with the average person not expected to live to 40. Zimbabwe's women have an average life expectancy of 34 years and men on average do not live past 37. The World Health Organisation report said women's life expectancy had fallen by two years in the last 12 months. Correspondents cite poverty due to the crumbling economy, and deaths from Aids are responsible for the decline. Zimbabwean women have the lowest life expectancy of women anywhere in the world, according to the report. Women in the country are also more likely than men to be infected by the HIV virus. According to the report, all 10 countries with the world's lowest life expectancy were in Africa. Japan was said to have the highest life expectancy in the world, people living on average until 82.

A UK conservation group recently said that whale meat caught under Japan's “research” programme is so abundant it is being sold as pet food. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) say that thousands of tonnes of whale meat has been stockpiled as more animals are killed each year. The Japanese government has attempted to sell the whale meat to schools but the price has continued to fall. “A quiet whale meat boom is starting,” says the website hakudai.com. “The number of pet-owners who care about their animals' health are growing, recognising the nutritious value of whale meat,” it adds.

There's a new car rental company started called the bio-beetle, the worlds first truly ECO rental car company in the world who power all their cars on vegetable oil biodiesel. Based in Los Angeles California and Maui, Hawaii right now and growing. Take a look at http://www.bio-beetle.com

Easyjet one of the UK's low cost airlines has just announced flights to three new destinations: London Luton to Rijeka starting 30^th June and also to Istanbul starting 29^th June plus London Gatwick to Marrakesh starting 4^th July. See their website.

Spotted by Tony of London: ever needed to know what the time was half way round the world? This website tells you the current time just about anywhere in the world.

In considerably bad taste, here's a website that offers tours to see Schappelle Corby in her prison cell in Bali.

The Space Adventures company, the American company that arranged for multi millionaire tourists to hitch a ride into space on Russian rockets is planning to turn Singapore into the world's main centre for space tourism. The company wants to set up its own launch pad and astronaut training centre on Singapore and also make the price of a space flight more affordable. Space Adventures currently charges $20m (£11.5m) per passenger to arrange a ride into orbit on a Russian spacecraft. But it says the new service will be a comparative snip at $102,000 (£59,000) a head.

Need to convert currency?

Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter – get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet – create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.

Sometimes you don't know you're being conned, but here's a scam surely to end all scams: a fake Zimbabwean traditional healer has been found guilty of scamming a businesswoman out of $30,000 to pay for “mermaids” to recover her stolen car. The healer said that money was necessary to import the mermaids from the UK and put them up in a local hotel and also to pay for a bull, whose genitals would supposedly help find the thief of her luxury vehicle. The woman healer also asked for money to buy mobile phones to contact the mermaids.

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

Chris needs your ideas: he is planning to travel to India buy an Enfield motorbike and ride it back to the UK. If anyone has any information or knows any websites that could help him, please contact him on: glanrid@tiscali.co.uk

Can anyone help Bob? Here is his appeal: please don't think I'm a bona fide nut but I am going daffy trying to think of the international association of people who partake of exotic and eccentric foods. It's a well known “club”, of sorts, but the name eludes my friends and I. If anyone can shed some light on our dilemma, we'd love to hear from you – many thanks, Bob. E-mail address: ching3us@yahoo.com

At a time when if you lock your case flying from the US, it will be forcibly opened and searched, news comes in from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics that more bags were lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered by U.S. airlines last year than in at least eight years.

Reports of mishandled bags on domestic flights rose 23 percent in 2005, from 4.91 per 1,000 passengers in 2004 to 6.04 per 1,000. That's an average of about 9,700 lost or damaged bags each day.

Of the 20 carriers that reported to the Transportation Department, Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the highest rate of baggage complaints — 17.41 per 1,000 passengers — and Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest, at 2.95 per 1,000.

The European Union has issued a blacklist banning 92 airlines from operating in the region, stating that they fail to meet international standards. Most of the airlines are African based, including 50 carriers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 14 from Sierra Leone and seven from Swaziland. The list is available from the BBC here.

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites

A high-speed Japanese ferry has collided with what is thought to be a whale, leaving 49 people injured, 13 of whom in a serious condition. The two-deck ferry, carrying more than 100 passengers and crew, was near the city of Kagoshima on the southern island of Kyushu when it happened. Ships in the area often collide with whales, a ferry company spokesman said.

A recent BBC report tells of a British magazine, the New Scientist, that says Pentagon scientists are planning to turn sharks into “stealth spies” capable of tracking vessels undetected. Apparently, they aim to remotely control the sharks by implanting electrodes in their brains, “to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails”. The next step for the Pentagon scientists will be the release of blue sharks with similar devices into the ocean off the coast of Florida.

At the end of 2005, the Beetle was diving around Sipadan, East Sabah, so she was particularly interested in an Australian travel issued 28th Feb warning to its nationals: “We strongly advise you not to travel to coastal resorts and other centres on and islands and dive sites off the east coast of Sabah because of the high threat of kidnapping by terrorists. Terrorists have, in the past, kidnapped foreigners from the eastern coast of mainland Sabah, and from the islands and sea off its east coast. If you are in these areas you should consider leaving. We cannot rule out the possibility of kidnappings.

Now at the beginning of March, the Malaysian authorities are a little upset by this warning and have asked Australia to retract its advisory to its nationals against visiting Sabah because of the risk of a terrorist threat. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the statement that Sabah was at risk of a terrorist threat was inaccurate. He said Malaysia had no knowledge of any report that might have been referred to by the Australian government for it to issue such a travel advisory.

“We can't do anything if a foreign country wants to issue travel advisories but, in the case of Sabah, we're sure the security situation there is under control, with many police and military personnel being deployed there. There are no untoward incidents happening in Sabah,” he said after receiving about 30 Umno Youth leaders led by Umno Youth Chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, at his office.

“Any travel advisory would cause worry among foreign tourists and, therefore, it's our responsibility to do something so that this will not continue.

“Though we don't agree, though we're not happy with what has been done by Australia, we've to do something so that they can withdraw the travel advisory as soon as possible,” he said.