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I recently heard of someone who visited 3 countries in the same minute.  Huh?  How could someone do this? 

Well, it's quite easy in fact. You just have to know where to go! 

That place would be the Vaals Drielandenpunt Monument near the town of Vaals, Netherlands. (Drielandenpunt means "three-country point") 

The monument is significant, in that it marks the border between the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.  You can walk in all three countries, at the same moment. (I recommend putting your left foot in Netherlands, your right foot in Belgium, and placing your hands in Germany)

The Vaalserberg (Mount Vaals) is also the highest point in the Netherlands, at about 322 metres. It's in the most south-easternmost corner of the country within the town of Vaals. 

Historically, this was actually a four-country point from 1830 to 1919, and in a brief period from 1917-1920, when the border situation was being disputed, it was a five-country point. In fact, today if you access Vaalserberg from the Dutch side, you will traverse on four borders road. 

The area is known for its beautiful sorrounding landscape, and is a popular attraction with tourists to the area, regardless of which country you access from. 

Do you know of any other similar places?

(Photo of Vaals Drielandenpunt Monument courtesy of Inoue-hiro)

Love cars? Love history? Then the Franschoek Motor Museum with its car collection of the past 100 years is a must see.

The collection includes exotics like Bentley, Aston Martin and Porsche and old Wolseley, Mercedes, Cord, Studebaker, Nash, Mars, and many more cars that you only see in black and white movies.

The museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays (closed on Mondays). Visit: www.fmm.co.za for contact details and opening times.

Picture by The Pug Father

(photo courtesy of TheCureMX)

For the past three years, an outdoor skating rink has been built each winter in Mexico City's Zocalo, or Main Square. Average temperatures in the city range from 7-23 celsius this time of year. 

This novelty is ridiculously popular with locals, and a queue can be found from opening to closing every day. (10am to 10pm)  Due to popularity, skaters are given a 45 minute time limit.

The ice surface is known as one of the largest in the world, and is most likely the largest ice surface close to the equator. 

Skating here is free of charge, a project sponsored by the local government to make Mexico City "more fun." Mexico is of course not known for its winter sport activities. In fact, Mexico is North American's most popular winter vacation spot, a place to get away from the cold winters in the North. 

The Zocalo rink is open for one month per year - from December 7 to January 7.  It can accommodate more than 1,200 skaters at one time.  

(photos courtesy of harryalverson)

Ever heard of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival?  Well, it's a remarkable event that takes place each January in northeastern China. 

The highlight each year are the ice sculptures, with many marvelous creations every year. 

The festival begins each year on January 5th, and lasts for one month. The original festival was held in 1963. Harbin is the host city, located in the Northeast of China. It's average winter temperature is a very chilly -16.8 degrees Celsius. (brrrrr!)

The Harbin festival is one of the world's largest ice and snow festivals - others include Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, and Norway's Ski Festival. 

In 2007, a 250 metre long snow sculpture was produced at Harbin. 

If you travel often, it's highly probable that at some point in time, you've forgotten to pack your mobile phone charger.  

If you are like me, then you've probably forgot to pack it several times, and you now own multiple phone chargers, that are collecting dust in your home. (like these 3 to the left collect dust in my home)

Well, good news has come to the forgetful traveller.... This week, the International Telecommunication Union announced that they had approved a "universal phone charger standard."  To make a long story short, a universal industry standard will be developed for all handsets. 

This is a huge win for both the forgetful traveller, and the environment. The union predicts "a 50 percent reduction in standby energy consumption, elimiation of 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers, and a subsequent reduction of 13.6 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions each year."

Cool. 

In the meantime, don't forget to pack your phone charger for your next trip. And be thankful that pretty soon, you'll be able to borrow a charger from anyone.  

 

The Pretoria Zoo is big, really, really big... 85-hectares with over 3000 specimens of mammals, birds, fishes, invertebrate, reptiles and amphibians - and trying to see all in just a day really takes a toll on your feet. (I would recommend hiring a golf cart for the day.)  I have seen animals in there I forgot even existed.

I also took a ride on their cable car track – this is something I would not recommend to the faint of heart. It was the most terrifying experience ever (counting that I stood at the top of the Eiffel and walked down the stairs of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona). The cars are very small and the wind just swings it around as if it is nothing!

You can also visit their Aquarium (very nice specimens to be seen here) and Reptile Park that are part of the Zoo facility. They claim their Aquarium is the largest inland marine aquarium in South Africa but I think Ushaka Marine is (don't quote me on that though!).

Tree huggers and eco fanatics will love the Pretoria Zoo as it boasts a large collection of exotic trees.

 
Along Herbert Chitepo Avenue in central Harare there is a large park. On weekdays it serves as a training ground for recruitment of security guards and on weekends it is a tivoli. The attractions are colorful and it costs one to three U.S. Dollars for a ride. Happy children are running around with ice cream in their hands looking for the next adventure.

I tried to find a ride that looked least scary and decided to try "the Shell". I sat in a giant red and yellow striped shell that started to spin around at high speed. It was all fun at first, but after a while I began to feel dizzy. Damn, am I getting too old for fun stuff?

However, I had a great day watching the kids having fun!

Jakob, Travelstart's media manager, got married in August (congrats again Jake!). Below you can read about his honeymoon adventures in the Maldives. Drop a comment if you have questions for Jake or just want to wish him good luck!

My wife and I got married a month ago and decided  to do the trip of our lives. We both like action sports and to be active on our holidays, rather than just laying on a tropical beach and drink cocktails all day.. That can be nice too, but we decided to go on a surf trip!  

When surfing becomes the main purpose for the trip the criteria differ a bit from what a normal holiday would do, and factors such as wave quality, crowd (number of surfers) and distance to local surf spots becomes the most important values.   However, we did also want a bit of the traditional values such as nice weather, blue skies and a feeling of luxury (this was our honeymoon after all).   

We found this awesome five star yacht called Ocean Dancer that focus on surf and diving in the Maldives. We stayed on the boat for one week and scored the best waves in our life at famous reef breaks such as Jail breaks, Chickens, Sultans and many other well known Maldivian wave spots. We spent the second week at a resort called Anantara that is absolutely idyllic. They have seven restaurants with fantastic food from different parts of the world. They also have a sport centre where they arrange surf, dive and snorkel trips. You can also rent jetskies and do wakeboard/waterskis and much more.  

I loved Maldives with its crystal clear water that holds 28 C year round and perfect waves May through October. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.  

For more info, visit:

Ocean Dancer

Anantara Dhigu Resort

 

For more images check out our Flickr

Wild Horizons has started whitewater rafting again on the mighty Zambezi River in Zimbabwe / Zambia, after they were closed for four-months. Now you can once more ride the high water at rapid number 12, “The Washing Machine”.

During your rafting experience you will run through rapids like: “The Terminators I and II”, “Double Trouble”, and “Oblivion” - so be prepared for the thrill of your life.

For the faint of heart the low-water rafting is expected to start in September. You will have the chance to experience white water rafting daily (that includes lunch, tea and coffee, transfers and photo and DVD coverage).

Photo: whatleydude

With all proceeds going to the charity looking out for people with disabilities, the Travelstart team took part in Casual Day... with a difference.

Check out our amazing photos from our Flickr page & see how much fun we had!

Here's me in my partner's London Metropolitan Police uniform & our Travelbar Soul Sistas.