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 group of training lifeguards swimming off New Zealand were protected from a great white shark by dolphins. The lifeguards were training at a beach near Whangarei on the North Island when they were menaced by a 3-metre shark, before the dolphins raced in to help. The dolphins surrounded the swimmers for 40 minutes before they were able to make it safely back to the beach.

Marine biologists say such altruistic behaviour is not uncommon in dolphins. One lifeguard said that it was an uncomfortable experience, as they were circled by a great white shark, which came within a couple of metres, but the dolphins suddenly appeared and herded the swimmers together. The dolphins then swam in tight circles to create a defensive barrier as the great white swam beneath the surface. The swimmers said the dolphins were extremely agitated and repeatedly slapped the water with their tails, presumably to try to deter the predator as it cruised nearby.

Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

1. Congo – Brazzaville
2. Madagascar – Antananarivo
3. Oman – Muscat
4. Azerbaijan – Baku
5. Bangladesh – Dhaka

0 out of 5 – you need to get out more!

1-3 – not bad

4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter!

5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?

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This website is excellent: a guide to low-cost flying in Europe that includes every budget airline route, with maps and associated information. It also has a news feed of low-cost airline news for European travellers – the only such feed to focus on budget news!

This 1091-page travel guide describes and maps Tahiti and French Polynesia, Pitcairn, Easter Island, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, the Samoas, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, Tuvalu, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands.

The 119 town plans and island maps are carefully labelled, without the confusing numbered map keys found in other guidebooks. For ease of reference, all internet and email addresses are now embedded in the listings.

There are sections on scuba diving, snorkelling, surfing, windsurfing, kayaking, yachting, cruising, hiking, fishing, and golf. Beaches, sightseeing, transportation, and places to stay and eat are thoroughly covered, as are the histories, economies, environments, cultures, and peoples of the Pacific region.

Author David Stanley has been writing about the South Pacific for over 25 years. Paul Theroux called his handbook “the most user-friendly travel guide to the South Pacific,” and it remains the leading guidebook to the Pacific islands.

For more information, visit southpacific.org

I was on the Lewis Pass in New Zealand and I saw a sign at a petrol station which stated, instead of petrol and diesel prices, ARM and LEG, gave me a chuckle

This attractive CD gives by means of 10 videos, 700 original photographs with explanations and 60 stories a colourful and varied picture of the country and people of the atoll-state in the heart of the Pacific.

Please visit http://www.kiribati.nl for more information.

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 World Heritage Taj Mahal, built in the 1600's by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a shrine for his wife, is to open on moonlit evenings for the first time in twenty years. But before you get too excited, only 400 visitors will be allowed entrance each night, and there will be parking restrictions around the Taj Mahal.

Recommended by Globetrotter Steve, a great web site that helps travellers with how to pack, pre trip preparations, where to go, pictures, recommended guide books – all sorts, a great resource! Take a look at: Travel Independent

Another website for package tour holiday makers as opposed to independent travellers is:

www.wherewillwego.com It contains 120 activities world-wide from over 2,500 tour operators.

Singapore's Changi Airport has introduced immigration kiosks that read fingerprints and facial features and double as automated check-in counters, in a bid to cut flight check-in times. The project, known as Fully Automated Seamless Travel or FAST, cuts the time needed for passengers to register for flights and check passports on arrival to from 15 minutes or longer, two minutes.

The system, which began trials in November 2004 at Changi, Asia's sixth-busiest airport, requires users to lodge facial details and thumb prints as biometric data on an identification card the size of a credit card. Passengers insert a card into a kiosk and then look into a camera and press their thumb onto a plate to check their details.

Experts estimate that 100 million locusts swarmed over the Canary Islands in November. The locusts, nicknamed 'sky prawns' have invaded Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, the worst incidence in over 50 years. The desert locusts flew to the Canaries across the 60 miles of ocean from North Africa, where an infestation this summer wreaked havoc on crops. The insects, around 2.5 in long and two grams in weight, can travel twice that far in 24 hours. A 40 million swarm can eat 40,000 tons of vegetation a day.

Everyone at the Globetrotters Club would like to pass their condolences and sympathies to all those affected by the tsunami on Boxing Day.

If you are thinking of going to Thailand, here is some up to date news on various resorts. The people in Thailand still need the support of the visiting tourists and are hoping that everyone will not stop coming to their country in their time of need.

Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Koh Samed, Pattaya and all other resorts in the Gulf of Thailand have been unaffected, and tourists are being routed there instead of visiting the West coast.

Koh Ngai has escaped unscathed.

Karon and Kata beaches are not badly affected. Along Karon beach you can hardly see any sign of damage, and the beach is full of people.

Patong beach will probably only take a couple of weeks to get back to normal.

If you are a diver, there are live aboard boats out in the Similan Islands area.

Ao Nang and Krabi only slightly affected.

Khao Lak and Koh Phi Phi totally levelled – thousands dead.

Koh Lanta damaged but not as badly as Phuket, Khao Lak and Koh Phi Phi.

Travel industry researchers estimate that demand for independently booked travel is set to rise by 80% in the next five years. Both Yahoo! and AOL recently announced that they were improving their travel offerings and setting up as online travel agents. Both companies are developing specialised travel search engines (due to go live in early 2005) that will allow users to compare prices from a range of different travel agents, airlines, hotel groups, resorts and hire car companies. The difference between these offerings and sites such as Lastminute.com or Travelocity is that the Yahoo and AOL travel site will include fares offered by budget airlines. At the moment, other companies do not include listings of many of the budget airlines as most refuse to pay a commission to list their services.