Sydney is lucky to have so many interesting and attractive regions within close proximity for a weekend trip. You’ll surely want to visit them all. A dream trip away usually goes according to plan, but at least there’s travel insurance should something unfortunate occur. 

The following great locations are all different, but similar in their ability to be easily reached for a short trip away from Sydney.  

Blue Mountains

While Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth succeeded in crossing the Blue Mountains in 1813, after many other white explorers had failed, today the trip to the Blue Mountains is a much easier one. Acknowledgement of these early pioneers, however, is seen in the naming of Blue Mountains suburbs, namely Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth Falls. Loads of bushwalking options make the Blue Mountains a great escape, although the Katoomba Scenic Railway, Zig Zag railway, Jenolan Caves and panoramic Edge Cinema ensure that there’s plenty of attractions to fill out a weekend. The natural beauty of the Blue Mountains has led to the region being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Area. 

Hunter Valley 

Australia produces many world class wines, and the Hunter Valley is one of Australia’s premier wine growing regions. How fortunate is Sydney to have such a place, right on her doorstep? Naturally, this proximity lends itself favourably to weekends away amongst the vineyards. Indeed, around two and a half million people visit the area annually. Most wineries open their doors for wine tastings, with some wine varieties available exclusively here at the source. There are also cheese tastings, and for those looking to add a sporting slant to their weekend away, great golf courses and accompanying resorts.

 Newcastle 

A pleasant city break away without the Sydney crowds, Newcastle has grown out of its former image as an industrial city, however its colourful past may enthuse this history buffs. The steelworks may have closed, but Newcastle remains the biggest coal exporting port in the world. Newcastle, however, is much more than this, with beautiful beaches, good dining, a jazz festival and a solid live music scene that has spawned popular acts like Silverchair and the Screaming Jets. Sports fans may want to take in the strong feelings of local pride at a Newcastle Knights rugby league game. Take the train up from Sydney, for a pleasant journey that crosses the Hawkesbury river and winds along next to the water for part of the trip. 

Central Coast

Wedged between Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and Sydney is the Central Coast. The main town in the region is Gosford, a pleasant spot for a lunch on the attractive lake. Boat cruises also run on certain days, including weekends. The Central Coast also has magnificent beaches. Avoca beach has long been a popular getaway for Sydneysiders. Reasonable surf and a pleasant family atmosphere make it a good choice. Further north, The Entrance also has a lovely beach. Not only this, but behind the beach is a large lagoon, home to scores and scores of pelicans. Don’t miss the daily feeding times, when staff from the fish shop across the road bring across plenty of tucker for the eagerly awaiting birds.

The honeymoon is the perfect time for a new couple to relax and enjoy each other’s company, especially after months spent planning the wedding. There is no longer any planning to worry about and you can use this vacation as way to unwind from stress of planning the wedding celebration. Honeymoons are usually spent in a secluded destination at a private resort. If you are unfamiliar with any destinations that you are considering, it may be best to speak with a travel agent. There are many excellent travel agencies, which include Liberty Travel, Expedia, and AAA. A honeymoon can be enjoyed almost anywhere, but below are five destinations that I enjoy the most.

Mexico

Cancun is an excellent choice with many beautiful beaches. The town of Cancun also offers activities such as horseback riding, scuba diving and para-sailing. It is a popular honeymoon destination with many resorts to choose from. There are many hotel chains available along with lodging unique to Cancun. Along with the beaches, you can experience Mayan culture by visiting the archaeological sites such as Chichen Itza, Tulum and Coba.

Jamaica

Jamaica is a wonderful honeymoon destination because of its sunsets, white beaches, green mountains, and stunning waterfalls. There are a variety of hotels and resorts available, but some hotels are more for families rather than couples on their honeymoon. The Sandals Dunn’s River Villaggio Golf Resort and Spa or Sandals Montego Bay are two excellent hotel choices that are perfect for a honeymoon. Another excellent hotel is The Sandals Grande Ocho Rios Beach & Villa Resort, which has over 110 acres of property along with championship golf and scuba diving. You could also choose a classic Jamaican hotel by staying at the Jamaica Inn, which has a 700-foot private beach, and every suite has a view of the ocean.

Maui

Hawaii is an amazing location for couples on their honeymoon. Maui is a large island with many sightseeing opportunities like snorkeling, helicopter tours, and you can even tour a volcano. The Four Seasons Maui Resort is the only 5-Star Resort in Hawaii and it provides couples with an amazing experience. If you want to get even farther away, then check out Hotel Hana Maui and Honua Spa. Another interesting choice is the ka’anapali beach hotel, which stays true to Hawaiian culture.

St. Lucia

St Lucia is located in the Lesser Antilles and it is perfect for couples who want to relax in a secluded location that is not overcrowded with tourists. This island is known for its hiking and cycling trails, gardens, and fishing. St. Lucia is rich is French culture and it is a small, lush island that remains less developed when compared to other Islands in the Caribbean.

Bahamas

If you are interested in diving and snorkeling in clear blue water or relaxing in the sun, the Bahamas may be the destination for you. It is in close proximity to the United States and the flight would not be very long. The two largest resorts are The Reef Atlantis and the Cove Atlantis, but there are also more private resorts like Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort and Offshore Island.

Guest authored by Josh Brown

Often what we hear about Africa from the media is about conflict, HIV-AIDS, famine, and disease. As a result most of us are aware of the problems, but feel powerless to do anything about them. We are made to feel that Africa is a lost cause, a place that will always be the way it is. Worse yet, many of us don’t travel there, worried about their safety, scared of what we might see.

While some of us will travel here to see the World Cup or head on a safari, a lot of these packaged vacations are tightly controlled, bringing you a very sanitized experience. So we embarked on a journey to visit nearly every country on the continent because we wanted to see it for ourselves. We also want to write about things going right, or so called “good news,” stories about hope and success, visiting projects led by Africans working to alleviate hunger, poverty, and protecting the environment. We are meeting with farmers, workers, organizations, NGO’s, media and even governments wherever we go, learning as much as we can, and sharing what we see.

After seventeen countries and one hundred and thirty projects so far, here are five people and organizations we thought are doing incredible work in the field.

1. Project DISC (Slow Food International), Kampala, Uganda:

We visited the Mukono District, about an hour outside of Kampala, Uganda, where we met up with Edward Mukiibi and Roger Serunjogi, coordinators of the Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) project. Edward, 23, and Roger, 22 started the project in 2006 as a way to improve nutrition, environmental awareness, and food traditions and culture in Mukono by establishing school gardens at 15 preschool, day and boarding schools. And over the last year, DISC has received global attention for its work—DISC is now partly funded by Slow Food International.

They started with Sunrise School, a preschool taking care of children between the ages of 3 and 6. By teaching these kids early about growing, preparing, and eating food they hope to cultivate the next generation of farmers and eaters who can preserve Uganda’s culinary traditions. In addition to teaching the children about planting indigenous and traditional vegetables and fruit trees, DISC puts a big emphasis on food preparation and processing. “If a person doesn’t know how to cook or prepare food, they don’t know how to eat,” says Edward. The kids at Sunrise—and the other schools working with DISC—know how to grow, how to prepare, and how to eat food, as well as its nutritional content.

As a result, these students grow up with more respect—and excitement—about farming. At Sirapollo Kaggwass Secondary School, we met 19 year-old Mary Naku, who is learning farming skills from DISC. This was her school’s first year with the project and Mary has gained leadership and farming skills. “As youth we have learned to grow fruits and vegetables,” she says, “to support our lives.”

Thanks to DISC, students no longer see agriculture as an option of last resort, but rather as a way to make money, help their communities, and preserve biodiversity.

2. Heifer International, Kigali, Rwanda:

Traveling in the countryside we saw many success stories, including the work of Heifer International Rwanda who are training farmers and increasing food security. “Heifer is helping a recovery process,” explained Dr. Dennis Karamuzi, a veterinarian and the Programs Manager for Heifer. Heifer started its projects in Rwanda in 2000 in a community in Gicumbi District, about an hour outside of Kigali, the capital. This community was especially hard hit by the genocide because it’s close to the border with Uganda. Residents who weren’t killed fled to Kigali for safety.

In the years following the genocide, Gicumbi District is making a comeback thanks, in part, to Heifer International. Heifer International works with farmers all over the world, helping them develop sustainable agriculture practices, including providing livestock and training farmers how raise them.

Heifer began working in Rwanda in 2000, but their start was a little rocky. At first the community was suspicious of the group—because they were giving farmers “very expensive cows,” says Holimdintwoli Cyprien, one of the farmers trained by Heifer to raise dairy cows; they didn’t understand how the group could just give them away. Many community members thought that it was a plot by the government to have them raise livestock and then take them away, a remnant of the ethnic rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis that started the conflict there in the 1990s. And Heifer has certain conditions for receiving cows—including that farmers build a pen and dedicate part of their land to growing pasture—which made people skeptical, especially when they were used to letting animals roam freely to graze on grass. But as people began seeing the results of Heifer’s training, they become less suspicious and more interested in working with the group.

Heifer introduced a South African dairy breed, known for its high milk production, because, according to Dr. Karamuzi, “no stock of good [dairy cow] genes” was left in the country after the genocide. And he says that these animals help prove “that even poor farmers can take care of high producing cows.”

And these animals don’t only provide milk—which can be an important source of protein for the hungry—and income to families. They also provide manure, which provides not only fertilizer for crops, but also is now helping provide biogas for cooking to households raising cows in the country as part of a the National Biogas Program.

We were very inspired as we met with several farmers all over the countryside, who were lifting themselves out of poverty using help provided to them by Heifer.

Several of the farmers became teachers in their own communities, helping their neighbors learn new skills and techniques that they were benefiting from, and working with them to implement them.

3. Nairobi, Kenya; Urban Harvest:

Nowhere is it more apparent that women feed the world than in the largest slum in Kenya. Packed full of people, Kibera slum in Nairobi is populated by anywhere from 700,000 to a million people. In an area of of about 225 hectares, the equivalent of just over half the size of Central Park in Manhattan, the women we met are growing food not just to feed their families, but to also to generate income.

Some of the women we met earlier this month are raising vegetables on what they call “vertical farms.” Instead of skyscrapers, however, these farms are contained in tall sacks, filled with dirt. The women received training from the French NGO Soladarites to start their sack gardens and now grow a variety of vegetables, including greens like spinach and kale.

And more than 1,000 of their neighbors are doing the same thing. A skill that came in handy over the last few years as election violence spread through the slum in 2007 and 2008 when there was conflict in the slums of Nairobi. No food could come into these areas, but most residents didn’t go hungry because so many of them were growing crops—in sacks, vacant land, or elsewhere.

With the help of the organization, Urban Harvest, the farmers are not only growing food to eat and sell, but, perhaps surprisingly, becoming a source of seed for rural farmers. Kibera’s farmers have always grown fodder for livestock feed for both urban and rural farmers, but by establishing a continual source of seed for traditional African vegetables, they’re helping dispel the myth that urban agriculture only benefits poor people living in cities.

4. Accra, Ghana: Ecasard

In Abokobi, just outside of Accra, traveling with the Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (ECASARD), we met with women who are using dairy cows donated to make yogurt to sell to local businesses and schools. These woman are working collaboratively on diary cow rearing, honey processing, and in milk processing. In the village of Akimoda, we met the “King” of the village who is working with farmers to grow and market moringa, a plant known as the green gold of Ghana because of its health benefits for people and livestock.

In Kasoa we met small-scale livestock farmers who are helping prevent slash-and-burn agriculture by raising grasscutters – large rodents which, to the locals at least, are considered a delicacy. And in Cape Coast we met with a group of women fishmongers who are working together to process and sell fish. There we also met Mr. Emmanuel Akai-Taylor who is a farmer-innovator that developed a local vaccine distribution program for poultry.

Ecasard is helping to train, connect, and support farmers in practicing more sustainable agriculture.

5. Arusha, Tanzania: World Vegetable Center

As hunger and drought spread across Africa, there’s a huge focus on increasing yields of staple crops, such as maize, wheat, cassava, and rice. And while these crops are important for food security, providing much needed calories, they don’t provide much protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium, iron, riboflavin, thiamin, niacin, other important vitamins and micronutrients—or much taste. “None of the staple crops,” says Dr. Abdou Tenkouano, the World Vegetable Center’s Regional Director for Africa, “would be palatable without vegetables.” And vegetables, he says, “are less risk prone” than staple crops that stay in the field for longer periods of time.

Because vegetables typically have a shorter growing time, they can maximize often scarce water supplies and soil nutrients better than crops such as maize which need a lot of water and fertilizer.

Unfortunately no country in Africa, according to Dr. Tenkouano, has a big focus on vegetable production. But that’s where the Center steps in. Since the 1990s, the Center (which is a part of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center based in Taiwan) has been working in Africa to breed cultivars that best suit farmers’ needs.

Despite the focus on staple crops, vegetable production generates more income on and off the farm than most other agricultural enterprises, according to the Center’s website. And unlike staple crops, vegetable production is something that benefits urban and rural farmers alike (See our posts on urban farmers in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya).

In addition, vegetable production is the most sustainable and affordable way of alleviating micronutrient deficiencies among the poor. Often referred to as “hidden hunger,” micronutrient deficiencies—including lack of Vitamin A, iron, and iodine—affect some 1 billion people worldwide. They lead to poor mental and physical development, especially among children, and cause poor performance in work and in school, further crippling communities already facing poverty and other health problems.

But by listening to farmers and including them in breeding research, the Center is helping to alleviate these problems.

About the Author

Contributed by: Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack, who are currently travelling across Africa. Nierenberg is co-director of the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project (http://www.nourishingtheplanet.org). Pollack is an expert on local labor movements and in communications, and his travel writing has also been featured in several newspapers. You can learn more about the pair and their adventures and work in Africa on their own blog, Border Jumpers (http://borderjumpers.org).

Priority Club, the loyalty points program from IHG Hotels (Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza etc.) has released this simple, yet fun and slightly addictive game called Suitcase Skittles. The object of the game is to knock down baggage handlers at the airport using suitcases. It is an easy way to kill some time and have a go at the chance to win free nights at IHG Hotels worldwide.

Darn Good Digs launched its 2nd Nominate-a-thon this weekend, and are giving away either a Rough Guide of your choice or the Rough Guide’s new Earth Bound photography book to two lucky winners. The entire concept behind the site is that budget-minded travelers nominate their all-time favorite places to stay, and their editors select the best of the best to post on darngoodidgs.com. Nominate your favorite digs or simply sign up for the quarterly newsletter and you have a chance to win the Rough Guide of your choice. Which Rough Guide would you choose?

Zuzabed and Breakfast in Lisbon

The Roxbury Motel in the Catskills, NY

The first Nominate-a-thon earlier this year was a huge success, and they encourage even more in-the-know travelers to check out their site and paticipate by sharing their favorite places. Signing up for the contest is free and does not have to take more than a few seconds. So be sure to nominate your favorite digs and have a chance to win a Rough Guide of your choice! The current Nominate-a-thon is running until December 17, 2009.

My current trip to Europe started off vasty different than my previous trip. You see this time, I am flying to Lisbon first, then I will travel through the rest of my itinerary in Europe. As you may or may not know, getting a direct flight from Los Angeles to Lisbon is not possible. In fact, most European destinations are not accessible via a direct flight from Los Angeles. In any case, last year, I flew direct to London and started my trip there. But even more importantly, I flew Air New Zealand versus this time when I flew US Airways.

Let me just say, the difference between the two carriers is night and day. Now. Don’t know how Air NZ’s local flights within Kiwiland are, but I am comparing my international Los Angeles to Europe experience.

Basic differences:

1) Air NZ was a Boeing 777 compared to US Airways smaller Boeing 757.

2) NZ had a personal TV for each passenger. US had no TV on the first leg from LA to Philly and a cental TV or the second leg to Lisbon. The entertainment? Try the worst movie I have seen this year; Duplicity!

3) Meals – sigh. NZ had gourmet meals served free of charge. US charged for meals during the first leg, and the complimentary meal on the second was worse than stale fast food. I mean surely they try this food before signing on the contract chef? It would be cheaper for them to serve McDonalds. And I promise you, that would have tasted better even if you are not a fan of McDobalds. So why the faccad with a lame excuse for gourmet food. Spare me the tray and the butter.

4) Every international airline I have traveled in the past has provided at least free wine with and after dinner. Not this US carrier. $7 for a small cheap bottle of local wine. And I am not even a wine snob.

5) NZ had much more leg room. These guys did not.

Now why did I take this flight? Well it not like they were cheaper than the BA flight I almost booked a couple of days before, but it had the dates of travel I preferred. Knowing what I know now, I can promise you one thing. My future international trips will not involve an American carrier. And I dont think this is just a US Airways problem. I think it’s more of a culture thing that all US carriers have gone through and while the stingy attitude is acceptable on kcal flights, they need to do a much better job on international flights if they want to compete with any of their international peers.

Avoid all US carriers for international routes. Lesson learnt!

1,500 kilometers off the coast of Africa lives an archipelago of 155 islands known as Seychelles. The least populated African country, there is nothing to be found here but crystal clear blue waters, peace, and tranquility. If “quiet, yet exotic location” is at the top of your wishlist for your dream vacation, time in Seychelles could easily fit the bill.

The Seychelles government is very conscience about the land, and all resorts and other destinations must undergo strict environmental audits. Want to ensure that your trip is as sustainable as possible? Seychelles is at the forefront. The islands are home to some of the most unique plant and animal species on the planet, some that only exist within it’s borders. It was once believed that the island of Praslin Vallee de Mai was the original site of the Garden of Eden, and the Coco de mer palm tree that only grows on two of the islands. If exploring one of a kind flora and fauna is appealing to you, you could spend your days doing just that.

You could also spend your entire time on the islands just laying in a hammock or on the white sand beaches reading a book, or you could partake in many of the activities across the different destinations. But it’s not just all outdoor fun either, there are plenty of art galleries and fantastic restaurants in the area. French creole cooking seems to be the favored cuisine, but there are many world flavors to be had such as Chinese, Thai, and Indian. But if you did indeed want to spend your time exploring the beaches and relaxing, there is plenty of that to be had as well. Fishing, snorkeling, and scuba diving are popular activities and provide you with glimpses of wildlife you won’t see anywhere else in the world.

With the world’s population quickly escalating and seemingly every corner of the globe becoming over populated, the gorgeous and vastly uninhabited Seychelles could be one of the last places of true relaxation left. If you’re looking for that once in a lifetime experience of truly “getting away from it all”, consider an adventure to Seychelles. You may never have heard of it, but that is a good thing!

Ker & Downey is a luxury travel company servicing not only Seychelles, but other exotic locations around the world. For more information visit http://kerdowney.com/