photo by Marc Ryckaert

So what is there to do?

First off, Sharm el Sheikh is famous for scuba diving, and has become something of a mecca in recent years. Join a local excursion to get out and explore some of the best dive sites, including vibrant coral reefs and fascinating wrecks. Or if that’s a little out of your comfort (or financial) zone, try your hand at snorkelling instead. You’ll be amazed at the magnitude of marine life just beneath the water’s shimmering surface.

One truly memorable must-do is an overnight trip to the desert. Stay in a traditional tent with wonderful hospitality, and while the evening away gazing up at the stars, which shine particularly brightly in this arid wilderness.

Ambitious visitors who don’t mind early starts and long days can take a tour to Mount Sinai. Even better, set off in the small hours and watch the sunrise. Even if you hate early mornings, this one is definitely worth it; sit back and gaze in awe as the sun explodes over the horizon, throwing a magnitude of colours across the landscape and creating one of the most beautiful scenes you will ever see.

If you travel with a major tour operator such as Thomas Cook holidays, you can often book excursions through the company. Of course you can also find such tours locally or through your hotel - but just make sure that the tour operator satisfies basic safety requirements and has the necessary qualifications.

Of course there are plenty more must-sees in Sharm el Sheikh, these are just a few of them. After all, half the fun is finding them out for yourself.

Costa Brava is a region that, surprisingly, was unknown to me before I visited. When I considered Spain, I always thought of Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia but never of heading north from Barcelona to the countryside that is between that city and the great Pyrenees mountains.

It turns out, I couldn’t be more grateful to Costa Brava for how they have chosen to promote their great region because now - I have been here:

Edinburgh City skyline at dusk from Salisbury Crags looking towards a floodlit Edinburgh Castle. Photo: Chris Robson / Scottish Viewpoint

If a city break is what you’re after, and with several buzzing Scottish cities waiting to be explored, here’s a guide to some of the popular ones.

Glasgow

Whether it’s the thriving nightlife or the masses of culture that attract you to the bright lights and sounds of Glasgow, you’re in for a real treat. Scotland’s largest city is jam packed with wonderful offerings, to ensure you have an unforgettable trip. You can find hotels in Glasgow that won’t break the bank, meaning you can fully appreciate what’s on offer, even if you’re on a budget.

Whether you decide to visit an art gallery, a museum or the ski slopes of Xscape, it’s all here. Explore the Mackintosh Ten if you would like to learn more about the man

It is the dead of winter, but that didn’t create a lack of scenery. The train was comfortable and cozy on the inside, warmed even more by the fact that Croatians and Serbians are among the friendliest on the planet.

This is what it looked like (all photos snapped on my iPhone from the train window):

Zagreb to Belgrade Train Journey by Kim Mance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.gogalavanting.com.

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Kim Mance is Galavanting’s editor-in-chief, writer, photographer and con-camera host of Galavanting.tv and two cable TV shows in production. She’s based in Brooklyn, NY and blogs for places like Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Huffington Post, and Babble. She’s host of the popular TBEX conferences in North America & Europe. She’s @kimmance on Twitter.

A park on the shore of Plattsburgh Bay.

I took the scenic Amtrak Adirondack train directly from New York City’s Penn Station, through the Hudson Valley and alongside the shores of Lake Champlain. The ride even includes a free talk by National Park Service volunteers in the train’s cafe car, who provide information about the surrounding landscape, point out historic landmarks, and answer questions. It certainly beat a trek to the airport and being harassed by the TSA.

A country road antique shop in Plattsburgh, NY.Folks often roadtrip the surrounding area, past hilly cornfields in-between cute antique shops and farmer’s markets along backroads and highways, or to see the changing of fall leaves.

And francophiles can even get a bit of a fix because of Plattsburgh’s proximity to Québec, Canada.

Directional signs in Plattsburgh’s historic center show off a little French.Historic sites are marked all along Plattsburgh’s Riverwalk.The Battle of Plattsburgh was won by the US Navy on Sept 11th, 1814 and helped prevent the British from making any claims on US land during treaty negotiations.

A highlight is taking a stroll down the city’s Riverwalk with fantastic views of Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh Bay, the historic center of town and the Saranac River.

The air is seemingly solid, it is so thick. While the slowly setting sun casts a rosy-golden hue on the summer haze, red and blue foam fingers, baseball caps and shirts become an ocean of people that is neither refreshing nor cool. It is Game Day in Wrigleyville, Chicago, and the Cubs and Phillies are about to go head to head. It is hot, and I am bothered. “What am I doing in Wrigleyville?” I thought to myself.

Easy enough answer: I’m going to my first Cubs game.

I don’t “do” sports. I’m kind of plushy and lazy, and the thought of watching athletes compete makes me short of breath, not to mention feel a little guilty. “I should probably go do something, huh?” So it came as a surprise when I got invited to

I had been looking forward to our stop in Roatan, Honduras for months. I knew we only had one day there, and I wanted to make the most of it, but the rain just poured and poured with no signs of stopping. My high hopes of exploring beautiful Roatan were dashed. That is until my travel companion Kim Mance took the bull by the horns (the bull being a very grumpy, heavy set fellow working for a tour company). Everyone was lining up for personal van tours, as just about all other activities were canceled due to the downpour. Explorers, we are! Tour people, we aren’t. It took some scaling language barrier walls, but Kim finally got “the bull” to agree to just drive us wherever we would like, and forego the actual tour. Genius!

Our main mission that day was to leave the tourist town and stop over at the Elfrida Brooks grade school. When Kim realized we were stopping over in Roatan, she took up a very successful fundraiser through Galavanting for this tiny school.

The kids—who had come for miles to see us and get some new school supplies—were fantastic! They were all polite, grateful and energetic, as was their teacher, Darla. It was very plain to see that Darla cared about each and every one

A gathering of bicyclers for a “Taco Ride” in small town Iowa (photo by Courtney McGann).

Do you remember how fun it was to first learn to ride a bike? Now imagine how fun it would be with cocktails! Every Thursday night, a few friends and I join hundreds of cyclist for a nearby ‘Taco Ride’. Could sound a little dirty depending on where your mind is, but I’ll explain.

We all set off at whatever time we please and meet 10 miles down the trail at a tiny little steak house in a tiny litte town. That’s where you rest your legs and start workin’ your liver. The special here on Thursday nights is six tacos and a pitcher of (very

But when a chic former fashion model from the Czech Tourism office invited me to come along on a roadtrip 3.5 hours from Prague into the Moravia region to visit tiny Luhačovice — a sleepy town of 6,000, full of medical spas, dollhouse architecture, and evergreen trees — I was intrigued. Not only because I’d never been outside Prague, but because it’s quite common for Czechs to visit this ‘spa town’, and because my regionally-traditional spa treatment would be overseen by a bonafide neurologist.

Plus, it meant I’d spend about a half an hour in a dry bath of carbon dioxide. Whatever that meant.

Typical architecture around Luhačovice, in the Moravia region of Czech Republic / photo by Kim Mance

A sign in the medical spa sanatorium points the way to CO2 dry bath bags / photo by Kim Mance

Upon arriving at the Spa Hotel Miramare, which indeed had hotel rooms and package deals, it definitely looked and felt

As I reached my local train station early Friday morning to head into central London, a couple and their young son were waiting on the platform next to me. The boy tugged at the sleeve of his mother’s coat, asking, “Mummy, can I see the binoculars please? I want to watch for the train.” We were both there for the same reason, to get as close to the action for the Royal Wedding as possible, but they’d brought their own fold-up silver step ladders, one for each parent, and a camera whose telephoto lens was long enough to rival that of the paparazzi. I’d brought chocolate chip muffins and cans of cloudy lemonade.

I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I’d got my priorities wrong.