Heather on her travels Podcasts

In this Travel Podcast Episode 28, you’ll hear about the Rhine River cruise that I took in May with my husband Guy with Lüftner Cruises.  I talk about the pretty riverside towns we visited on our cruise from Basel to Cologne, about the food, the wine and above all the history of this fascinating river. You’ll find out what the experience of cruising down the Rhine is like, so you can decide whether you might enjoy this style of travel, where you can see four countries in a week and but sleep in comfort and only unpack once. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive Day 1 – Basel We flew to Basel from London to meet our river cruise ship, and were very much looking forward to our first cruise. There was a time a few years ago when I thought of cruising as something that my parents would do, but as I’ve got older the idea of only unpacking once, being very comfortable and yet seeing lots of interesting places in Europe has started to appeal. On […]

In Travel Podcast Episode 27, I talk to La Carmina; fashion blogger, TV host and expert in Japanese street style, about Tokyo. We find out where to shop if you’d like to dress in Gothic style or as an antique doll from the forest. Hear about the Tokyo theme restaurants that will give you a night out you’ll never forget and some of the more extreme body modifications like snake tongues and bagel heads, as well as hanging out in Cat Cafes and finding things that you can enjoy in Tokyo with the family. Even if you’ve never thought of Japan as a place to visit, you’ll be fascinated by all the cool and quirky things that La Carmina recommends in Tokyo. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive An Introduction to La Carmina La Carmina lives in Vancouver in Canada, although her family is originally from Hong Kong. As a child, she travelled widely in Asia with her family and started to fall in love with Japanese street style, the cute Hello Kitty culture, the punk […]

In Podcast 26 I spend a week in India, visiting a charity project that I support through my church here in Bristol. From Hyderabad we travelled to Kurnool with our contact Father Pratap Reddy and visited some of the villages where he is supporting the education of the poorest children and developing community projects to help the people there. You’ll hear about our visits to schools, hostels and rural villages seeing for ourselves how donations from overseas were being used and making a big difference to people’s lives. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive Day 1 – Shopping and sightseeing in Hyderabad In Hyderabad we stayed at the lovely Mercure Abids Hotel that was booked through AsiaRooms.com in a neighbourhood that has plenty of small local shops, selling clothes and jewellery. We took a tuk tuk across the river to the Charminar district which is one of the older districts of Hyderabad where we climbed up the famous Charminar monument, to get a view over the city. I soon realised that not many European tourists visit Hyderabad, when […]

In Episode 25 in my travel podcast series, I talk to travel blogger and podcaster Gary Bembridge about cruises: everything you might need to know if you’re planning a cruise for the first time. We cover booking and planning your cruise, the different types of cruise you might consider, what your typical activities on a cruise might look like, as well as what to wear and how to budget for extras like excursions and tips. Gary’s a real cruise enthusiast and he’s now been on over 20 cruises so he really has some great tips and advice to help you get the most from your first cruise. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive Gary’s first cruise was through work when he attended a marketing conference that was held on a cruise ship and enjoyed it so much that since then he has been on 20 cruises. For those of you who prefer to read rather than listen to the podcast, you’ll find the tips for first time cruisers that Gary gave me below; What are the […]

In Episode 24 in my travel podcast series, I’m taking you on on a road trip through Texas, where I spent ten days with my family in the spring. We did so much on that holiday that I’m splitting the podcast into two episodes and this first episode covers everything we did in Houston and San Antonio. You’ll hear all about the Houston space centre where we took the tram tour to see the giant spaceship workshop and learned about the NASA Space Programme. From Houston we drove down to San Antonio where we visited the Alamo, cycled along the river to see the Spanish Missions and took a night time stroll along the buzzing River Walk. We also spent a very enjoyable day on Picosa Ranch which was was once the home of Texas Governor John Connally, and has now been turned into a luxury ranch where we enjoyed pretending we were cowboys for a day. Link to audio file First stop – Space Center Houston The Space Center Houston is one of the major attractions of Houston and an easy drive around the ring road from the Park Inn Hotel, near the aiport, where we had stayed the night before. […]

In episode 23 in my travel podcast series, I talk to travel blogger and journalist Leyla Giray about her experiences travelling solo all around the world and the book she’s recently written called Women on the Road. We discuss the barriers that women in their 40 and 50s feel that prevent them from travelling solo and how they can overcome their fears. We talk about how to stay safe on the road, what to wear, the best places to stay and the destinations that work best for women travelling on their own. And as Leyla says, there’ll never be a better time to travel, so if you’ve been thinking about it, that time is now! Link to Audio File About the author, Leyla Giray Leyla has been travelling since she was five weeks old, when her parents took her on the Orient Express to Turkey and she has been travelling ever since. In her 40s, Leyla left everything behind and made an overland journey through Africa starting from Cape Town and travelling back towards Europe. Her plan was to travel for 6 months but she had such a great time that it was 4 years before she eventually came home. […]

Visiting Guernsey in springtime for a weekend break with the family, we walked the cliff paths and stopped at beach cafes for a crab sandwich or a slice of Guernsey Gâche. We discovered how the German Occupation of the island during World War Two led to great hardship and about the film that’s due to be made of the best-selling novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie society. Taking ferry to the Isle of Sark, where there are no cars, we cycled around the island for the day, enjoying locally caught lobster for lunch and visiting the Seigneurie Gardens. On our final day we joined the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations at Castle Cornet for a 21 gun salute and visited Hauteville House, the amazingly decorated  home of the 19th century French novelist Victor Hugo. We found that Guernsey has a flavour of both French and English but a character that’s all it’s own. Listen to Episode 22 of my travel podcasts or read on to discover what the Channel island of Guernsey has to offer for a spring break. Link to audio file If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive Day 1 – Our arrival on […]

In Travel Podcast 21 I’m walking the Tour de Mont Blanc with my friend Julia. The TMB, as it’s known, is a long distance mountain trail that takes a circular route through France, Switzerland and Italy, but rather than take 12 days to walk the whole thing we decided to walk it a few days at a time each year  and this was our second year on the trail. In the podcast you’ll hear about the highs and lows of walking the trail, the pretty hamlets we passed through, the wonderful mountain scenery, the rather basic mountain refuges where we stayed and our encounter with a herd of mountain cattle with very sharp horns. Although my friend Julia had some problems with altitude which meant that we couldn’t walk as long or as far as we wished, thanks to the kindness of strangers,we made it to our end point in good spirits, ready to come back for more mountain walking next year. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive The Ultra Trail in Chamonix After we’d settled […]

In Episode 20 in my travel podcast series I’m taking a winter break in Gothenburg on the West Coast of Sweden. We tasted our way through plenty of delicious food in between visiting Christmas markets and popping into the odd museum. We enjoyed our fika, the Swedish for coffee break, in several of the cosy cafes around town and tried the Gothenburg truffle topped with sea salt. We met Camilla Parkner, the head chef at Basement, one of the 5 Michelin star restaurants in the city and at restaurant Gabriel in the Fish market we learned how to get the best taste of oysters from the owner and oyster opening champion Johan Malm. And to prove that eating out in Sweden needn’t break the bank, we took a budget lunch at Sjöbaren – the Sea Bar in Haga and heard the drinking song that encourages you to knock back the snaps with a Swedish toast – Skol! Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive We flew with SAS to Gothenburg from Heathrow and arrived to find snow […]

In Travel Podcast Episode 19 I visit Egypt where I spent a week travelling with a friend who lives in Alexandria. I took a walking tour of the city where many of the houses are crumbling away and where we bumped into a wedding procession hooting horns and letting off fireworks. We drove west to the popular holiday resort of Marsa Matrouh and turned south-west to the desert oasis of Siwa near the Libyan border. I found Siwa to be a truly magical place and we explored the old mud brick fortress of the Shali, visited the ancient tombs at Gebel al-Mawta or the Mountain of the dead and watched the sun set over the lake at Fatnas island. Link to audio file To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here If you enjoyed this podcast, check out all my other Travel Podcasts in my Podcast Archive On my first day in Alexandria, I drove along the corniche that stretches along the coastline, past the Alexandria library which surprised me for being a modern building, not ancient as I had imagined. My new friend Gordon, an Englishman who lives in Alexandria took me on a walking tour of […]