Top Travel Leads

Sat Nav 1 Chelsea 0

Once upon a time, Earl Spencer’s daughter had tickets to go and watch the London Derby, Chelsea v Arsenal. Her taxi arrived and her driver typed ‘Stamford Bridge’ into his sat nav and off they went. The journey was taking a little longer than expected, and after much deliberation they arrived in a small village outside York- 230 miles away from the real Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea were playing. Needless to say, they missed the match.

Ho Ho Ho… All the way to Lille

A group of Christmas shoppers from Gloucester decided that Lille (France) was the ideal place to find their loved ones perfect gifts for Christmas. A coach load of them headed to Lille, but started to have concerns when they saw road signs for Eindhoven, which is in the Netherlands. The coach driver insisted he was on the right tracks, but unfortunately he’d picked the wrong one of two ‘Lilles’ that had shown up on his sat nav. The shoppers only managed to get 2 hours shopping time in before they had to return to the UK. Shame it cost them £150 each to get there…

£96,000 Down the Drain (or Swollen River)

On her way home from a Christening, this woman got more than she bargained for while following instructions from her sat nav. The sat nav instructed her to follow some pretty dodgy country roads, only used by farmers in their 4×4’s. Instead of turning back, the woman kept on driving in the same direction until her £96,000 Mercedes sports car got caught up in a swollen river due to heavy rain on the previous days. The electric soon blew, forcing the windows to open and creating a dangerous scenario for the driver who couldn’t get out. A local villager came to her rescue. Unfortunately, the car was written off. Lesson to be learned: Always use common sense when using a sat nav!

Long and Winding Road

A Swiss man learned to use common sense when using his sat nav the hard way- he followed directions from his trusty GPS system all the way up a goat track, half way up a mountain. His van then got stuck on a tricky corner and had to be rescued by helicopters. Although he realized he was lost, he continued up the goat track until he realized there was no way forward (or backwards). He was later applauded for being able to get that far up the mountain via a goat’s footpath.

Choo Choo

A 20 year old student had a near miss when her sat sav directed her to a metal gate. Convinced that her sat nav was giving her the correct route, she opened the gate and drove onto a railway line. To her horror, her Renault Clio got stuck right in the middle of the track and couldn’t be moved in time. The student had to stand back and watch as a train smashed into her pride and joy, which couldn’t be saved from the brutality of the passing train. Realizing that sat navs can actually make mistakes, the student from Redditch told the Daily Telegraph, ‘I’ll never use a sat-nav again’. The phone call to moneysupermarket.com must have been an interesting one.

Drive like a Royal

One lucky person who bought a Jaguar from an auction ended up with more than they bargained for. The Jaguar happened to be previously owned by the Duchess of York, complete with a sat nav. The Duchess obviously isn’t as safety conscious as she should be as she left the address of her and her two daughters in the sat nav, as well as the post codes of their favourite places to go. Note to ones self- always clear your sat nav history before selling ones sat nav!

Tips for using Sat Navs

1. Check what you type- it’s so easy to put a ‘0’ instead of an ‘o’, or an ‘I’ instead of a ‘1’. Like our taxi driver friend who ended up in York, you could end up 100’s of miles away from your destination.
2. Keep your sat nav updated. By hooking your sat nav up to your PC you can update the GPS data to make sure you have the most current information. Buildings and roads change all the time, so don’t be caught out.
3. Don’t make the same mistake that the Duchess of York made- never type in your home address as a destination. If you sat nav were to be stolen it would make it easy for thieves to track you down.
4. Never leave your sat nav in your car. Sat navs are appealing to thieves because of their price tags. Always take store your sat nav out of the car when you’re not using it.

It’s a common misconception, from the new holidaymaker to the vacation veteran, that booking direct with a hotel will guarantee cheaper prices. However, recent research shows that by booking via a third party instead can save you up to an overwhelming 45%.

Research carried out by travelsupermarket.com has shown that an average saving of 14% can be made by simply booking a hotel via a third party. By using hotel brokers such as Laterooms.com and online agents such as Lastminute.com or Expedia, as well as checking the prices with the hotel itself, people can see the discrepancy first hand, which in particular instances can be more than 40%.

Take a city break in the Apex City Hotel in this occurrence, from the 13th July; this night stay in Edinburgh will set you back a jaw dropping £234.50 if booked directly with the hotel. When you compare this price to booking with a third party online, you’ll be pleased to find an astonishing saving of 45%, with the same hotel, same weekend costing only £129.37.

And it’s not only Edinburgh this is true for. From the 11th of September, a weekend break in the Catalonia Barcelona Plaza will charge £123.61 directly, while a noteworthy online agent will be looking to charge £77.45, an exceptional £46.16 saving. European destinations aren’t the only ones to benefit; the same can be seen with a week break in the Millennium Hilton, New York, where you can find a £59.55 reduction via online brokers or agents.

Top Deals 

 Top 5 money saving tips for your hotel:

• Using online brokers or agents instead of booking directly with the hotel, won’t just give you a great deal, but will also expose you to a wide range of different hotels, including ones you may never have heard of.
• If you have a familiarity with the name of the hotel you wish to stay at, try searching for it with a leading site. You’ll be able to get a variety of different quotes for the same room depending on your needs. Searching by name will also bring back a host of different providers with different prices to compete for your business.
• If you’re travelling with your children, consider opting for a family room for additional discounts.
• For weekend bookings, try an early reservation rather than last minute in order to obtain early booking offers, and book earlier on for recreation rates.
• For the best offers on late deals, book during the week. Book late when it comes to business nights, to give you a better chance of a last minute deal.

Guest post by Michael Wade of the city breaks team at travelsupermarket.com.

Information sourced on 02.07.2010 taking 13 popular cities and resorts at random from the top 30 most searched hotel destinations. Searches completed on travelsupermarket.com and on the hotel’s own booking website at same time.

Don’t bring too much! When packing, I make a pile then eliminate, and I always discard any packaging at home rather than carrying trash into areas where it could pose a problem. I also consider the locals and what they need in their remote high-altitude world where weather and environment are challenging.

My pack always contains adequate clothing for fast-changing conditions. I also carry hard candy to ward off the coughing that leads to high-altitude pulmonary edema–enough candy to share with porters who do double duty carrying huge loads. I do not distribute candy (or pens) randomly in villages, a practice which can cultivate begging and worse, a riot if you run out before everyone receives something.

Pens and candy are not what villagers need. Clothing, hats, gloves and socks help them survive and perform physically-demanding jobs. Water bottles that tolerate high temperatures are another thing I leave behind because they allow locals to have and carry their own supply of water purified by boiling. Whatever keep everyone well can ensure the success of any trip.

The extreme light at high altitude and on snow can cause temporary blindness, as in snow blindness, or lead to long-term damage. For the past twenty years I’ve given high-quality sun glasses to village elders and porters, guides and animal herders. They are always appreciated.

Under the British Raj you could had ridden a train into India from Lahore in present day Pakistan. Since India’s independence you have to walk across the Wagha border between Pakistan and India, take bus to Amritsar and ride all over India from there. But now, Indian Railways has announced that it plans to establish rail links with Nepal, Bhutan and apparently concrete plans have been also drawn to connect the Indian rail network all the way with the Chinese railways.
With trade and tourism having reached large scale proportions in Kunming and Yunnan province of south-western China, the Chinese have already connected its rail system with that of Myanmar and plans are underway to extend it from there to Bangladesh with Dhaka being only a step from Kolkata, the eastern gateway to India. Once the network is fully in place and operational you’ll be able to tour Assam and Meghalaya from Kolkata and continue all the way to tour Yunnan in China.

With now being able to ride the iron rooster across China to Lhasa in Tibet, Chinese already started on extending the line across the High Himalaya down to Kathmandu in Nepal. Thus obviously after China you’ll be able to tour Nepal and then hop on a train and ride down into the plains of India. Of course this line will cost pretty penny as the road down from Kathmandu to Indian border is not an easy ride but the Chinese engineers have already blasted their way through much worse in Sichuan.

The third route in the works is to link southern Xinjiang Province of Western China with Pakistan. There is indeed another major obstacle in the way there and that’s the Karakoram. But never mind, just imagine, you could ride a train along the legendary Silk Road from Beijing via Kashgar over Kunjerab Pass, and along Karakoram Highway all the way to Deli and Mumbai!

Few years ago this Italian tourist asked me if I could arrange for her to take a taxi from Kathmandu to Mount Everest Base Camp! Now I wonder how soon will this really become possible.