Cycling tours continue to grow in popularity as active travelers discover the joys of exploring a destination in a slower, yet very immersive fashion. Riders have the opportunity to take in more scenery, commune with nature, and interact more directly with locals, as they ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Belgium
Tour Belgium breweries by bike
Cycling tours continue to grow in popularity as active travelers discover the joys of exploring a destination in a slower, yet very immersive fashion. Riders have the opportunity to take in more scenery, commune with nature, and interact more directly with locals, as they ...British woman sets out to pedal and paddle around the world
British adventurer Sarah Outen has set out to circumnavigate the globe under her own power. The 25-year old has dubbed her expedition "London2London via the World," and vows to complete the journey by pedaling and paddling the entire way, which means she'll be either on her ...Video of the Day - Sunsets around the world
Seeing the sun set over a foreign land can lead to some of the most memorable moments on any given trip. Even though it's an event we witness every day of our lives, watching it dip over a new horizon always feels like a completely new experience. Today's Video of ...
Remembering Europe before the Euro
American travelers often complain about the current money situation in Europe. With the Dollar/Euro exchange rate sitting around $1.40/1, along with inconvenient credit card PIN requirements, making a purchase in many European countries is downright inconvenient. But there ...Schengen and the disappearance of European passport stamps
Creative new use for border crossing posts at German/Austrian border.
In the late 1980s, an American spending a summer traveling across Europe with a Eurailpass would see his or her passport stamped possibly dozens of times. With a few exceptions, every time a border ...European cheeses: holiday entertaining with the taste of travel
I work part-time in a cheese shop, and I'm also a contributing editor at culture, a consumer cheese magazine. I can't help noticing that, despite a still-sluggish economy, people don't want to do without their cheese. Especially if they've fallen for a specific type during ...Ryanair passengers stage sit-down strike
What would travel bloggers do without Ryanair? From trying to get rid of co-pilots to arresting passengers for complaining about the sandwiches, the budget airline provides endless grist for our mill.
Yesterday more than a hundred passengers refused to leave their plane ...Touring World War One battlefields
On the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the First World War ended. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history and it redrew the map of Europe. As the 100th anniversary of the start of the war approaches in 2014, ...Top ten overrated international travel destinations
Laurel brought us the US's top ten overrated travel destinations, and we thought it was time to go global. Here are ten international sites, in no particular order, that just aren't worth a two-hour wait in line, fighting the crowds, or covering long distances to get there: ...Which country loves to work? See who doesn't take vacation time
A friend of mine asked me a few days ago when I last went on vacation – a real one. I struggled to remember the last time I went on a trip and didn't write or, before that, keep up with what was going on at the office. After stopping and focusing, I remembered a ...Europe's relaxed attitude toward nudity makes American travelers uncomfortable
While the image of a naked Rick Steves getting a rubdown in a Turkish bathhouse might be a bit TMI for many of us, the seasoned traveler, guidebook author, and travel show host makes some excellent points in a recent CNN article on Europe's cultural tolerance for nudity.
...Why Luxembourg matters
Europe has lots of tiny countries. The rest of the world reminds itself of this fact periodically, almost as a running joke. How Vatican City is the smallest "independent" state, but (come on people), is it really a country? Andorra sounds charming, too, until you go there ...The Tour de France begins today!
The world's greatest cycling event, the Tour de France, gets underway today when the best riders on the planet descend on Rotterdam in the Netherlands for a short 8.9km (5.5 mile) prologue that will help set the early tone to this year's event. Ahead of the teams sits 20 ...17 great destinations for romance
Some say that romance is a lost art - but it's not. It's just hiding, waiting to be uncovered in some of the most beautiful places around the globe. Whether you are trying to show that special someone that they truly are special, making a proposal, or rekindling the ...Making your own message in a bottle
You've probably already heard the story of Olivier Vandewalle, a Belgian who in 1977 at the age of 14 threw a message in a bottle into the sea while sailing off the south coast of England. Lorraine Yates found it 33 years later on a beach at Swanage, England. Figuring the ...John Cleese takes $5,100 cab ride to bypass Icelandic ash cloud
While some people may just give in and spend a couple of nights at the airport, funny man John Cleese is far too important to sit around and do nothing. So, instead of spending the rest of the week in Oslo, Cleese and his assistant got in a cab and asked the driver to ...
Around Antwerp - strange and wonderful sights
Walking through Antwerp is like walking through a gothic storybook. The colors are bright, but rained-upon, the cobbled streets are haphazard with marble-tiled crosswalks and lined with buildings which seem to lean left and right. The river has a graffiti-emblazoned ...Hotel Julien - Comfortable minimalism in Antwerp
One of the great things about Antwerp is how walkable the city is. For that very reason, make sure you stay at a hotel that's right in the middle of the action -- such as Hotel Julien, which is located at Korte Nieuwstraat 24, just a hop and a skip from tons of local ...The secret garden of the Rubens' House Museum, Antwerp
Peter Paul Rubens bought a house on Wapper Street in Antwerp back in 1611. The beautiful residence served as his home and studio, and though it changed hands many times after his death in 1640 and eventually fell into disrepair, in 1937, it was fully restored to its original ...Drinking before noon at a Belgian brewery
On a recent trip to Antwerp, I toured the De Koninck brewery, then did some darn fine pre-noon drinking with a couple of Belgians to increase my knowledge about drinking in Belgium. You can do this too, albeit not before noon; just show up at the De Koninck brewery at 3:00 ...
