The Royal International Air Tattoo 2007 is taking place in Gloucestershire this weekend. The event is held each year at RAF Fairford. Aircraft featured in this years show include the B-52, C-17 and B-1B bombers as well as F-15's and the P-51 Mustang. The highlights of the show are expected to be appearances by the F-117A stealth fighter and the USAF Thunderbirds aerobatics display team who have never appeared at the event before. The Red Arrows are also scheduled to appear, so it should be an exciting event.

If you are planning a vacation in the UK, you might want to try St Ives in Cornwall. It has recently been named Britain's best seaside town of 2007. You can visit Paradise Park and see the rare red squirrels as well as otters, the parrot jungle and many other species of rare birds. You can also see the Tate Gallery in St Ives and visit some of the many craft markets. An interactive guide is available here.

The second national postal strike starts today at 19.00. All PC2Paper mail will be processed as usual; however customers should be advised there are no collections or deliveries on Friday 13th of July. Any mail received on this day will be sent on the following working day. Delays are expected for several days after the strike, as Royal Mail staff work to clear the backlog. During this time PC2Paper cannot guarantee delivery times of mail. Mail sent via our USA, Canadian and European printing stations is unaffected.

This week's travel blog is gobudgettravel.com. This blog is a mine of useful information for backpackers and those travelling on a tight budget. One article I found particularly interesting on this blog was The 5 Fundamentals of Budget Travel in the Developing World.

The article looks at regions such as Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America which are much cheaper to visit than Europe or North America. The downside as this article points out is that there are few guidebooks to help someone who is planning to travel the less chartered countries.

The article has five important tips for travellers planning to visit developing countries. The first tip is that if you book with a local company rather than a tour operator you can not only support local businesses but also pay about half what a tour operator would charge you for the same deal. Other valuable tips include eating the local food which surprisingly can make a real difference to your holiday spend and taking advice from the locals about how best to travel once you are there can also mean you can save you hard earned cash.

The Tour de France is due to open in London this weekend. Around 189 riders will compete in the race. The opening ceremony starts at 18:00 today in Trafalgar Square. The riders will race past Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and through Hyde Park. The route goes through Greenwich, Woolwich and Erith before heading towards Kent. It will then go through Maidstone, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells before finishing in Canterbury on the 8th July. Afterwards it crosses to Belgium and then France.

The Communication Workers Union have announced today that further strike action is planned for 12th July. The strike will begin at 19:00 on the 12th July and will end 24 hours later. The strike will mean that no mail will be sorted on the night of the 12 July and there will be no collections or deliveries on the 13th July.

The Communications Workers Union met yesterday and agreed they would make an announcement on Thursday 5th July as to whether there will be further strike action. Watch this space for details.

Our travel blog this week is Brave New Traveler, launched in 2006 it includes original and entertaining articles written by the authors and contributors. They focus on topics such as green travel, photography, writing, politics and culture instead of the destination style articles popular on travel blogs.

The article I found the most entertaining was "What's The Worst Thing That's Attacked You?" while scorpion bites can be serious (depending on the type of Scorpion that bites you) our writers bite was not that serious although painful and on his honeymoon! Even after being bitten he asked his wife to take a picture of the culprit for this article!

I've been in some pretty bad places myself when traveling and one of the things I can never get used to is spiders and scorpions. As long as they stay out of my tent, sleeping bag or bungalow I'm happy!

If you are worried about scorpion stings take a look at this informative article on Wikipedia, remember not all scorpions are poisonous but you should seek advice as soon as possible if you are stung.