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# Saturday, 28 July 2007

Barclays has just launched a pre-pay travel card called “Travel Money” Customers load the card with between £100 and £2,500 in either Sterling, Dollars or Euros. The card is free to obtain, so you just pay for the loading the currency. There are, however, a few charges to consider. They charge a 2% fee when you use the card at a cash machine. The card also has a minimum payment of £1.50 and there is a currency conversion charge of 2.75%. These kinds of cards can be useful if you don’t want to take your regular cash cards abroad for security reasons. Other companies who already offer a similar type of card are Travelex and the Post Office, both of which charge a fee to load money onto the card.

posted on Saturday, 28 July 2007 11:21:57 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Friday, 27 July 2007

Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland is hosting its clash of the champion;s event this weekend. The champions will go head to head at archery, quarterstaff, wrestling, spear catching and swordplay. There will also be some bird of prey demonstrations and a medieval village where you can try your hand at archery and other crafts.

posted on Friday, 27 July 2007 14:19:52 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback

Counter staff in Northern Ireland are due to strike today. The strike will start at 14.30 and will affect Newtownards, Bangor, Antrim, Coleraine, Londonderry, Lisburn and Belfast.

posted on Friday, 27 July 2007 13:58:07 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Thursday, 26 July 2007

Postal staff in Scotland have joined the strike already happening in the Britain. They walked out at 19.00 on Wednesday night. This will cause delays to any mail posted today.

posted on Thursday, 26 July 2007 14:19:01 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Tuesday, 24 July 2007

The next two weeks will see more disruption to postal services as strike action escalates. On Wednesday 25th to Thursday 26th of July mail centres and cash handling staff will strike. On Thursday 26th of July to Friday 27th July MDECs (data entry staff) will strike. From Friday 27th July to Saturday 28th International/HWDC staff will strike as well as delivery and collection staff. The strike action will repeated the following week. During this time PC2Paper will continue to send all letters we receive but regret we are unable to guarantee any delivery times within the UK. Mail will take longer to arrive than usual.

posted on Tuesday, 24 July 2007 16:02:08 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback

Westminster City Council are holding talks with Post Office bosses about taking over local Post Offices and perhaps running them within local authority buildings. It will be interesting to see whether this gets the go ahead and it’s certainly good to see the council appreciates how important the Post Office is to the local community.

posted on Tuesday, 24 July 2007 15:23:11 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Monday, 23 July 2007

Hong Kong, a former British colony is now one of the major cities of the Far East and an international business centre as well as a major travel destination for tourists. The city boosts vibrant shopping centres and a wealth of restaurants as well as some educational museums and interesting temples that you can visit. As always with any travel destination it’s a good idea to do your research before you go, in order to make the most of your stay. Asia Hotels is a site which not only has detailed information on Hong Kong hotels but is also a definitive travel guide. Using their search facility you can search for hotels in Hong Kong to bring up results to match your arrival, departure dates, length of stay and star rating.

The website also provides good background information on Hong Kong and what you can expect when you arrive. It includes information on the local weather so you know what sort of temperatures to expect and also contains information about possible seasonal problems such as typhoons and black rainstorms which can occur this time of year. It also has a travel tips section that includes useful pointers from people who have already visited the city, including tips on what restaurants are good or what a certain hotel is like. It’s certainly worth checking out this wealth of information when planning your trip.

posted on Monday, 23 July 2007 14:39:21 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback

Heathrow airport is planning to introduce fingerprint checks next year. The new checks will be introduced when Terminal 5 opens in March. The checks are as part of a scheme to stop passengers evading immigration control. They are necessary because a passenger is currently able to arrive on a foreign flight and board a domestic flight form the same terminal, thus avoiding immigration.

posted on Monday, 23 July 2007 13:40:34 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 22 July 2007

blogoftheweek There has been a big emphasis in the news recently about reducing your carbon footprint and as we all know, travelling causes a great deal of carbon emissions. This week's travel blog is Great Green Travel. The blog is aimed at the environmentally conscious traveller and concentrates on eco-friendly destinations.

One really interesting way of being green whilst travelling is to spend a week working with the US Forest Service. For only $395 which includes all your meals you can work with them to help improve eroded forest trails by clearing brush to help prevent fires.

Another article looks at volunteer programs where you can spend your time helping important projects such as working with people affected by HIV or teaching English in a school. Other articles concentrate on green accommodation such as hotels that have been awarded the Green Globe award for being environmentally friendly.

posted on Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:07:46 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Friday, 20 July 2007

I was thinking of visiting Amsterdam for a long weekend and was just doing a bit of research before I went to see if I could save myself a bit of money. I started looking at Netherlands accommodation to see what sort of prices to expect and found some quite reasonable prices on Amsterdam accommodation for a stay of four nights. Finding cheap accommodation is always a primary concern for me as I am usually travelling on a tight budget, so I don’t want to spend all my money on a room I will probably spend little time in.

I found this website that offers some good last minute deals on hotels and the prices are inclusive of all taxes. You can search by check in and check out dates and get a range of accommodation. I was looking for something easily accessible by public transport, so this website was useful from the point of view that it tells you about the local transport links and provides a map showing you exactly where the hotel is located. It also gave a clear indication of what facilities to expect from the hotel and from the room itself.

With my hotel found I started to look at other money saving ideas and found that you can get what is called the I Amsterdam Card which you can order online. It covers you for one, two or three days and entitles you to over 30 free offers and reductions including admission to the Rijks Museum, the Van Gogh Museum and Madame Tussauds as well as some reduction on local meals and events.

posted on Friday, 20 July 2007 14:36:59 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Wednesday, 18 July 2007

You will soon be able spend your Euros in Malta and Cyprus. They are due to adopt the Euro on the 1st of January 2008 pending the final approval by EU ministers. Other recent countries to adopt the Euro as their currencies include Slovenia who started are using it at the beginning of 2007. Lithuania and Slovakia are also hoping to follow suit pending approval from the EU.

posted on Wednesday, 18 July 2007 16:56:00 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback