Time really does slow down on an island, which is hard to comprehend for those of us caught up in the fast paced pressure cooker of modern society, but it’s the single thing I enjoy most about the island life. The smaller the island, the slower the pace, and the first one I visited was also the tiniest I’ve been to, but it was just this smallness that made it such a special place. In the southern Caribbean Ocean, just north of the Central American nation of Honduras are the Bay Islands, a string of three small tropical islands, of which westernmost Utila is the smallest.

Known in backpacker circles as a great, cheap place to get your scuba diving certification, Utila offers little more to do, but plenty to enjoy. Like the other Bay Islands, Utila is reached by a short ferry ride from the mainland coastal city of La Ceiba. Unlike the rest of Honduras, English is more widely spoken than Spanish, and the native inhabitants are primarily Garifuna, descendants of Black Caribs, giving it a much different feel than the rest of the country. Tourism has become the primary source of income, and Honduras recently made Utila a tax-free zone to encourage its further development, as well as standardizing scuba diving rates (read this as get there now before it gets overdeveloped). (more…)

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I sat down at the slender, grey-topped table next to the leafy fence that marked the edge of the Gimbsheim Weinbrunnenfest. My company for the evening, all of whom were more than three times my age, could easily have been half the participants in any small town ladies night bingo club.

Expecting to slowly sip a glass of wine or two over conversation of knitting, gardening, or perhaps if it got a little edgy, how so-and-so had stolen someone else’s goulash recipe and passed it off as their own, I settled in with a mild sense of dread. (more…)

Tags: Abend, afternoon, age, air, answer, approval, area, ascent, awkwardness, bakery, bike, bike ride, bingo, bit, boy, breath, butcher, cathedral, chuckle, club, Coliseum, comment, commercialism, community, company, conversation, couple, dance, dancing, didn, dread, drink, drinking, edge, Eiffel, elderly woman, Europe, evening, evening festivities, Expecting, experience, farmer, fence, festival, floor, flung, Food, foot, Friday, garden, gardening, Germany, gift, Gimbsheim, glass, glass of wine, goulash, goulash recipe, grape, Guten, hadn, hair, haired woman, Hilde, hillside, housing, humor, July, ladies night, landscape, laugh, locals, mild sense, moment, monument, morning, Mosul Valley, music, narrow streets, Neuschwanstein Castle, next morning, night, night bingo, nothing, Oppenheim, Paris, postcard, recipe, region, Rheine River, Rheinhessen, ride, ridge, Riding, road, rock, Roman, round, Ruth, Scattering, scene, scenery, search, sense, shirt, shop, sightseeing, sip, site, someone, something, spot, Square, St. Mark, stand, stone, strung, table, three times, time, tourist, Tower, town, town ladies, translation, variety, War, wasn, way, weekend, Weinbrunnenfest, wine, wine festivals, wines, woman, world, year

Have you got six months off? Do you fancy a long walk? If so, World Expeditions may have just the holiday for you. They have become the only trekking outfit to offer a guided trip along the first completed section of the Great Himalayan Trail (GHT).

Stretching for 1,700km along the length of Nepal, the GHT will take you a mere 157 days to complete. You’ll see eight of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000m, including Everest, and cross passes reaching up to 6,000m, climbing a total of 150,000m. That’s a Snowdon every day for half a year. Oh, and it will set you back £20,500. (more…)

Tags: account, Adrian, adventure, agency, aid, animist, Annapurna, annapurna regions, arc, asian countries, Barwa, Bhutan, Canada, Centre, challenge, China, completion, completion date, Continental, continental divide trail, country, cross, date, Day, Development, difference, district, elevation, Everest, Expeditions, focus, Food, footpath, GHT, government, GPS, Great, ground, guidebook, helicopter, Himalaya, Himalayan Trail, holiday, idea, India, Integrated, International, Kathmandu, leisure, length, lot, man, map, money spinner, mountain, Mugu, Namche, Nanga, Nepal, Nicholas Crane, outfit, outlier, Pakistan, Parbat, peak, Pennine Way, presenter, price, Programme, project, region, research, Richard, Robin Boustead, route, section, Snowdon, SNV, source, steroidal, television, thing, Tibet, Tibetan, time, total, tourism, trail, Trans, trans canada, trek, trekker, treks, trip, undertaking, US, version, walk, War, water, week, western Nepal, westernmost, work, world, world expeditions, world food, year