selling camera to help finance trip, and travel advice please

FrankS

FrankS

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Well, our family driving vacation to Canada's west coast this summer has evolved into a possible European vacation! A few days in London, a week and a bit with relatives near Hastings (day trips from there), cross on the ferry to Calis for a day, a few days in Paris, and then home from there. Any local travel advice is appreciated, either here or by email.

To help finance the trip, I'll sell some cameras, beginning with the Bronica RF645 in the RFF classifieds. http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost-classifieds/showproduct.php?product=8639&cat=4

A small splash relative to the total cost a family of 4 vacation, but every little bit helps.

As for gear, I'll take the M6 and Hexar RF, along with 50, 40, 28, 21mm lenses. I think I'll even take along a MF camera for its big negative.
 
The only location I can address is London, which I've visited several times and lived near for a few years. Great city, but not cheap.

If you don't already know about it, check out tripadvisor.com. Great reviews from travelers, and very good forums about every travel destination on the planet. The London forum is, I think, especially good and very helpful. A good place to get questions answered.
 
Just around the corner from paddington station is a wonderful little fish and chips place that makes great mushy peas. The Salisbury Cathedral is really quite beautiful, and if you're in that neighboorhood (sort of), check out the standing stones at Avebury, very cool.
 
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, we live in Australia

, we live in Australia

Hello everyone, we live in Australia. My wife and I are planning a trip to India, and were wondering if it’s better to take a tour package or to go alone, without tour guides? Need we worry about safety? Also, what are the best places to see? Is it safe to travel to India without a tour guide? Please help us. Any helpful information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
 
Frank,

if you plan to visit Belgium I would be happy to guide you or give you all the info you need.
Antwerp is my hometown, Brussels and Bruges and all the rest are only a step away in our little country.
Just give a sign and tell me what you and your family like to do.

Kind regards,

Wim

Kind regards, Wim.
 
MADONA said:
Hello everyone, we live in Australia. My wife and I are planning a trip to India, and were wondering if it’s better to take a tour package or to go alone, without tour guides? Need we worry about safety? Also, what are the best places to see? Is it safe to travel to India without a tour guide? Please help us. Any helpful information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

India is an enormous country.
So in advance think about wich part you want to visit or be prepared to spend a big amount of time on transport only to see the touristic highlights.

Guides or not?
Depends on your travel experience, budget, and the time you have to prepare the trip and the time you want to spend there in arranging and negotiating things.

If you opt for a local guide, like for a trek in the mountains, make very sure you get references to check if they are trustworthy and know the way. This last thing seems silly but I once went up with a guide who followed the tracks and was completly lost when it snowed .

There are good travelagencies, no doubt in Australia to, who propose different
trips but they all have a price and you are obliged to follow the tour they make. On the other hand everyting gets taken care of, wich if you go for a short periode makes a great difference.

I never felt unsafe but I was only in the north. You have to be prepared to accept the local customs, it can be a (culture)shock.

Feel free to PM me.
kind regards,
Wim
 
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Frank, if you'll touch Hastings you won't be far from Brighton and Lewes and the quite scenic South Downs area.

Madona, it's quite safe to travel in India so long as you make your bookings well in advance and keep away from shady deals. Guided tours have their advantages, but there are also good reasons to go solo.
 
Hello everyone, we live in Australia. My wife and I are planning a trip to India, and were wondering if it’s better to take a tour package or to go alone, without tour guides? Need we worry about safety? Also, what are the best places to see? Is it safe to travel to India without a tour guide? Please help us. Any helpful information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much
Click to expand...
I'd say it really depends on the individual. I spent a couple of months there on my own with a small backpack and had no trouble at all. But then, I'm a seasoned traveler and well used to dealing with crowds, hassle, logistics, haggling, being ripped off, getting sick, etc - I've traveled a lot in Asia, and India could easily have been the most stressful place I've been had I not previously had lots of experience. Then at the other end of the scale, there are people who I think should never leave home without a guide.

Only you can tell where along the scale you belong, and it might help to consider the following questions (amongst others)...

* How confident are you on your own?
* How good are you at handling unexpected problems?
* Have you ever traveled independently in the past?
* Have you ever traveled in Asia before?
* Are you laid-back in the face of minor adversity?
* What minimum level of comfort to you require?
etc
 
For London, talk to Manolo. He was a very excellent host and photo tour guide for us when we were there, although I imagine your trip will be somewhat different with the kids. If you have a chance to hit Speaker's Corner, do so; it's an electrifying experience. Camden Town is cool, and there's a decent pie & eel shop. Yum!

For family experiences in London I can stronly suggest the British Museum and the Natural History Museum. There are of course millions of outdoor sights in the city (Parliament, Big Ben, The Eye, the Mall, etc etc etc). Keep a close eye on your kids, because it's such a busy place that it would be easy to get separated in the crowd.

What I remember about Paris is that it is a huge place and that three days wasn't enough to see everything I wanted, yet I was exhausted and overloaded when I left. It feels somewhat magical and romantic like we all imagine it, but it's also a busy and modern city. Go to the Louvre, maybe take a day trip to a big chateau like Versailles. I'm sure others will have better advice to offer than I do.
 
Be careful with the trains in the UK. Don't know if u plan to use them or u rent a car or what the plan is.
Train tickets can vary in price a lot, depending on how much in advance you buy them, and what period of the day you are traveling. They can be extremely expensive. Just an example, I payed over 70 pounds from york to edinburgh, that is, about 300 km, because i bought the ticket ten minutes before departure and i traveled at three in the afternoon. Same would have cost me under 20 pounds with more careful planning. That's like five hundred bucks difference for a family of four.
OTOH, train service in France is relatively cheap and efficient.
At the Eiffel, don't take the elevators from ground floor only from higher, if you can walk up the stairs a bit - you can avoid the extreme queues.
In Paris NEVER start discussing with the sellers of funny small things on the street - difficult to get rid of them without paying/buying some useless "souvenir".
Be extremely careful if you go to the Pigalle/Moulin Rouge etc area. It is loaded with robbers and thieves ready to run away with your stuff.
Try to eat at some of the nice small "bistro"s. They have usually very good local food.
If u go to the Louvre and wanna see the Mona Lisa, be prepared to be put in a long slow queue and moved around like sheep by the museum people, together with other seven thousand people. But the Louvre has a lot of nice more silent corners with excellent work displayed where nobody bugs you.
 
MADONA said:
Hello everyone, we live in Australia. My wife and I are planning a trip to India, and were wondering if it’s better to take a tour package or to go alone, without tour guides? Need we worry about safety? Also, what are the best places to see? Is it safe to travel to India without a tour guide? Please help us. Any helpful information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

How long are you going for? What do you want to get out of your visit?

If you are looking for the "hot-spots" such as the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, etc. etc. you can get some good packages which include travel/hotels etc. etc. - these come at a price and can be a bit regimented, but you are always in safe hands.

I did the "golden triangle" Delhi, Jaipur, Agra with my wife a while back & left everything (almost) to chance. Flew into Delhi with a hotel booked for the first night, a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to India in my bags & went from there. We hired a car & driver for 8 days & saw the lot at our own pace. We then sorted out flights to various destinations in the south and used local taxis to run round Kerala, Goa and the Bangalore area, flew back for a couple of days in Bombay, then home.

THIS WAS MUCH CHEAPER THAN BUYING A PACKAGE.

There's alot more to India than that. IMHO you need to decide where you want to go on this first trip (there will be more) and balance convenience against flexibility.

ALL the people I dealt with in India were fine. Some of the street hawkers & beggars can be intimidating, but you soon get the feel for how to handle them.
 
Dear Frank,
I am sure you will enjoy the Hastings area, a great place for taking pictures of the Sussex downs and coast: I spent several summer vacations there, and I still have wonderful memories. Visit the old town of Hastings, it is lovely!
By the way, if you decide to spend few days in Milano before flying home, I will be happy to help you discovering this town.
Ciao!
 
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