Boarding a Dreamliner to fly to a minuscule freckle in the vast Pacific Ocean is odd. But one fact about Easter Island (a place shrouded in so much mystery) is that it has the longest runway in the world; built by the Americans in case of an emergency landing of the space shuttle.
Known by its inhabitants as Rapa Nui, the island is a five hour flight from Santiago (Chile) and 1,234 miles from the nearest landmass. It’s as far away as is possible to get from anywhere else on earth.
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For me Borneo has always had an air of mystery about it. I remember watching a TV programme with David Attenborough roaming through the undergrowth in search of orangutans. I had to get a map out to find exactly where this wild place was.
Sandwiched between mainland Malaysia and Indonesia, Borneo is the third largest island in the world and its land mass is shared between three sovereign nations: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
I recently had the chance to spend some time travelling through Sabah, one half of Malaysian Borneo (the other half belonging to Sarawak) to see what it offered, which turned out to be a huge variety of exciting things to see and do: I found myself being mesmerised by the most stunning scenery, gawping in awe at towering peaks, laughing uncontrollably at a female orangutan getting the water from a coconut, donning rather unsexy leech socks to trek through the rainforest and cruising the Kinabantangan River in search of wildlife.
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With your children getting older, is it time to start thinking of a more adventurous family holiday? Or after a long career is a sabbatical on the cards? Or maybe you would like to take advantage of the longer school summer holidays to do an extended family trip?
These were all considerations for one of my long standing clients who asked me to organise a four week trip last summer for him, his wife and three teenage sons. But what were the main ingredients? The family wanted guaranteed warm weather, a chance to relax on a beach or two, a mix of activities to keep mum, dad and kids entertained, amazing hotels and limited rain, which isn’t easy to find if you’re looking for an adventure in an exotic location in our summer months.
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After our amazing time getting up close and personal with wild animals in Kenya (read about that trip here), Julian and I flew to Zanzibar for a few days of culture before our beached out bliss.
Ever since I was young, the name Zanzibar has always sounded so exotic and conjured up images of streets filled with spice traders and intrepid adventurers arriving on dhows with billowing sails. In reality, the traders and adventurers were actually on the hunt for gold and power and Zanzibar was, at one time, East Africa’s main slave-trading port.
Today there are no slaves but the waves of Swahili, Portuguese, Omani, and Chinese traders who passed through the island over the centuries have left their cultural mark. This is most evident in Zanzibar’s capital, Stone Town, where elaborately carved doors, forts and ornate traders’ houses reflect layer upon layer of its past heritage, all weather beaten by the sea breeze.
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