I recently flew from London to Dubai (in my case Stansted, which also involved Ryanair flights) with Wizz Air, a relatively new Hungarian airline who offer very cheap flights to Dubai as well as other locations. As I know people are interested in what the cheap flights to Dubai are like, I thought it worth writing a review. Continue reading Wizz Air to Dubai Review
Category Archives: Travel
What is the MPG for the Honda Jazz Hybrid?
I bought a Honda Jazz Hybrid about 4 months ago having owned a string of Jazz cars over the last 17 years. Even the standard Jazz was reasonably economical but I had the chance to buy a 2 years old Jazz Hybrid and was wondering what is the MPG for the Honda jazz Hybrid, as I was eagerly anticipating getting a good rate with the hybrid functionality. Continue reading What is the MPG for the Honda Jazz Hybrid?
How to Create a Custom Map with Multiple Pins
Are you trying to create a custom map or trail with multiple points so that you can post it to other people to see?
If you are trying to create a custom map in Google maps that has multiple pins then you may have found some tutorials that don’t really help of you may have just gone to Google maps and not found any menu items that allow you to do this, in which case I can give you a pointer to the easiest way to create a custom map.
If you want a map that has multiple pins, but the previous pin disappears when you add a new one then basically you need to go to a different Google maps location.
If you go to Google- My Maps then that enables you to create your own custom maps and to save them so that you can either just view them yourself or enable them to be viewed by anyone.
The easiest way to add the pins is to create an excel spreadsheet with 2 headings – Name (this will be the name that appears on the pin) and location (this can be address, postcode, co-ordinates or whatever is recognised in Google Maps).
You can then easily import this spreadsheet and it will add all the pins for you.
Alternatively, perhaps if you only want a couple of pins, you can add the pins manually by using the tools at the top of the page. You can add a title and description to each pin (and it doesn’t need to be an address as you can just drop the pin where you choose to).
You can also change the icons and the color of the pins that are showing for each location by clicking on the edit button for each location. you can add driving or walking routes between 2 places as well by using the inbuilt tools.
In fact there are a lot of functions you can add and once you are done you need to decide whether you want the map to be private or whether you want to share it with the outside word. Click on the share button to see these options.
London Sightseeing – Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge in London has to be a must see place for tourists. This is the most beautiful bridge and the one that lifts up to let the boats through, a must see!
Tower Bridge is in the east side of London next to the Tower of London. Quite often people who have not visited London before think that this is actually London Bridge, but London Bridge is a very plain old bridge a bit further along the river. Actually I think the original London Bridge was sent over to somewhere in the US hundreds of years ago, brick by brick, but I digress!
The main point of interest of Tower Bridge (apart from the fact that it is a spectacular looking bridge) is that the two sides of the bridge open up to let large ships through. If you are around to see it do this then you are lucky. You can see a twitter feed of the when the bridge opens and closes here. It opens and closes approximately 1000 times a year so you may well catch it.
The bridge took 8 years to build and was finished at the end of the 19th century. The design was open to a public competition which elicited 50 submissions, with the winning design being submitted by Horace Jones (who was also one of the judges!).
Tower Bridge – How and When to Go There
The nearest tube station to Tower Bridge is Tower Hill which is on the district and circle lines and from there you can visit the bridge as well as the Tower of London which holds the Crown Jewels. Also while you are in the area, have a walk along the banks of the Thames – there are other attractions in this are that are worth a visit like HMS Belfast and the Royal Armouries.
The best time of year to visit London is in the Summer (May-Sept) but also the spring can have lovely days and you might also see some nice days in autumn. Whenever you go though, make sure that you take an umbrella as any time of the year there could be rain!
The best way to travel around London is to get an Oyster card which you can use on the buses and the underground system (the Tube). If you buy an oyster card rather than getting individual tickets you can save yourself a lot of money. Tubes and trains are frequent and cover the whole of London so you will have no trouble getting anywhere. There are also some nice boat tours that you can take along the river Thames.
Seeing the Workings of Tower Bridge
If you want to see how Tower Bridge works and the history of it’s construction then you can go to the Tower Bridge Exhibition. You can also access the Victorian engine rooms and have access to the high level walkways which give amazing views over the Thames. Entrance to the exhibition is £8 for adults or you can buy a London Pass which gives you free access to a whole host of places for one fixed price.
Other places you can visit nearby with the London Pass include HMS Belfast and the Tower of London – another must see for all London visitors!
How to Stop Motion Sickness
My Experiences of Travel/Motion Sickness
There are many theories about the cause of travel sickness, and as someone who has suffered pretty badly from it from the moment they were put in a car as a baby, I can testify that if you suffer from travel or motion sickness then it can really affect your life.
Some say it is psychological (say this to me and my hackles rise whilst I think of as many ways to inflict pain on you as I can!), others that it is an imbalance in the inner ear. I am not a medical person, all I know is that I have tried most things out there to help prevent motion sickness and some work better than others.
I personally suffer from travel sickness in pretty much any mode of transport that you can name, be it cars, buses, planes, boats, trains to the slightly more obscure lifts (elevators), rides in waterparks and in the IMAX screen at the cinema! I also had a problem when I once went in a Formula 1 simulator car and had to get out after about 30 seconds as I thought I would throw up!
I don’t know whether travel sickness is hereditary but I do know that my Dad also suffers very badly and cannot be driven anywhere so he is even worse off than me. People say that you grow out of it but I haven’t really found this to be the case – perhaps it has got a bit better or maybe more manageable with age as I am no longer as sick as I used to be as a child – I remember pretty much every holiday that we had I would have to stop on the way to be sick.
Anyway, the truth is there doesn’t seem to be any magic cure so us sufferers just have to do what we can to manage it.
Different Methods of Motion Sickness Prevention
So here are some of the methods I have found and tried to help prevent motion sickness:
Before You Travel
Try not to eat a really heavy meal before travelling, particularly greasy or friend foods. Have something light and have some water to take with you.
When Travelling
Make sure if it is at all possible, that you have plenty of fresh air when travelling. Wind down the window slightly in a car, go up on deck in a boat and make sure the air vent director is turned on and pointing towards you on a plane. Also if you are in a car or a bus then try and sit somewhere you can see where you are going and can see the horizon. Focusing in front of you and watching where you are going really helps to stop motion sickness.
When trying to prevent motion sickness, make sure that you do not read anything, or in extreme cases don’t even look down when you are travelling. As soon as you do this (for example to send or receive a text message) and your focus is taken off the horizon, you will probably start to feel worse and motion sickness will kick in. Trying to keep your head still and going with the motion of the vehicle helps so if you can, lean your head against a headrest. I have also found on a boat that when i felt bad, if I actually lad flat on the deck I felt better but this was a last resort!
One other thing that I have found to help prevent motion sickness is to chew gum whilst you are travelling. Whilst unfortunately this may be banned on some forms of public transport I have found that it really helps on things like short car journeys where I don’t want to take a travel sickness tablet.
Motion Sickness Tablets
I tend to take a motion sickness tablet only if I am going on a long journey or a particularly rough one – for example by sea. I have tried many types of motion sickness prevention tablets and most of them work pretty well but they do tend to have some side effects so it is worth trying different ones to see what suits you. I find a lot of travel sickness tablets give me a dry mouth and pretty much all of them make me drowsy, which is fine if I am getting on a long flight but not good if I only have a short trip and need to be alert at the end of it. Once I took a tablet and fell asleep at my boarding gate which was not a good idea!
Travel Sickness Wristbands
These can be bought from health shops and often from airports and chemists. The way that travel wristbands work is based on acupressure points on the inside of your wrists. Each band has a semi-spherical type bead that puts pressure on this point in your wrist and so is supposed to help prevent motion sickness. I use these wristbands quite often when I am travelling in a car and also combine these with tablets when on a boat or plane. I feel that they can help a little bit but if the motion gets extreme then only the tablets can help. They do have the obvious advantage though of not making you feel drowsy or to suffer from any other side effects.
Motion Sickness Patches
OK so this is one thing that I just discovered when researching this article. I have to admit I hadn’t heard of these motion sickness patches before. However, at present I am not able to try then out as they appear to only be available in the US and I am in the UK. So if anyone has tried these out it would be interesting to hear from you. They say they are 100% natural so this may mean that they don’t make you drowsy like the tablets do, although they do appear to have some side effects. there are a few good reviews for them but when there are less than a dozen reviews I guess you have to take them with a pinch of salt.
Ginger Tablets
Ginger has for a long time been known to have properties that help with stomach upsets. For this reason I find that they are good to take if motion sickness has already set in – they can settle your stomach and prevent the nausea. I have used these on boats and planes and they have worked for me.
You can also take them before travelling which I recommend if you think it is going to come over you suddenly as sometimes I find I am too sick to take anything so it’s too late.
Hypnosis and Subliminal Suggestion
This is something that I have not tried and I would be interested to hear from others who have tried this – feel free to leave your comments below as to whether it has worked or not. I know that there are subliminal albums available that you should listen to for at least a few weeks, but again I have not experienced these yet, although think I might well try this soon, as I feel like I have tried everything else!
