Cost: 80 euros/day To the casual wine aficiando it may come as a surprise to learn that that most elegant of all wine regions, Champagne, lies only a hour train ride from the Paris city center. In what Hemingway described as "grace under pressure" I took this staggering news in stride, pulled myself together and...

Cost: $20 a day What's the strangest thing you've seen recently? Volcano boarding down the slopes of Cerro Negro, outside of León, Nicaragua has become a popular activity with travelers, especially since making number two on CNN Go's Thrill Seeker's Bucket List . Ignorant as to what was involved in this new sport I had...

Cost/day: $15 What ’ s the strangest thing you ’ ve seen lately? Hundreds of llama foetuses at the witches market in the centre of La Paz. People buy them and bury them under their porches to bring luck and prosperity to their families. It wasn't the most pleasing sight for a vegetarian, although I'm...

Cost/day: $50 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? As we were standing around pondering the fate of the inhabitants of the Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) in Sierra Nevada, Colombia, a butterfly caught our group's attention. The butterfly is nicknamed "Butterfly 89". From the photo, you can see why. Describe a typical day: Hiking...

Cost: $50-60 a day What's the strangest thing you've seen recently? Immediately after learning to scuba dive in Utila, I hopped on over to nearby Cayos Cochinos (Hog Islands). Some of the small islands and cayes that make up Cayos Cochinos resemble one of those 'paradise island' posters that bored office workers paste on their...

Cost/day: The three-day trip cost £100 including meals and accommodation . What ’ s the strangest thing you ’ ve seen lately? Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni. The salt flats are over 10,500 square kilometers and stretch as far as the horizon. It's a dazzling, brilliant white landscape, made more spectacular by being the remains of...

Cost/day: $150/day What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? It is a toss-up between me eating a scorpion and some of the “characters” I saw on Bourbon Street. Describe a typical day: Start the morning off in the French Quarter at Café du Monde to try their famous beignets and coffee. Walk over to the...

Cost/day: $50 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? Returning home means that "strangeness" is more in the unfamiliar than in the bizarre. Having been on the road for the past eight months, returning home presented a lot of familiar sights which masked themselves in the unfamiliar. Even before I left, Toronto had been undergoing...

Cost: $20/day For those unwilling to travel all the way to Scotland to see a famed lake monster, Lake Tahoe should be the top of your end of summer travel plans. Although most come for the hiking and the lake, the rumors of Tahoe Tessie persist around the world's second deepest lake. I once even...

The 10 day silent meditation retreat I attended last July in Wat Khao Tham , a monastery in Ko Phangan, Thailand, was my 4th experience of this sort, all but one of them in the land of smiles, each of them in a different temple. In this website there is already a guide to Meditation...

Cost/day: FREE (airfare not included - ha!) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? As I write this, it is now 3:40am and I'm bunking in the San Francisco Airport after 16 hours of flight changes, delays and one emergency turn-around. Some of the things I've seen tonight include: Watching the pilots pack their bags...

Cost: $50 a day What's the strangest thing you've seen lately? Two days of trekking through muddy paths deep into the mosquito infested jungle of Northern Guatemala's Peten region brought me and nine other adventurous travelers to the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador. Upon first viewing the ruins I was struck by how thoroughly...

Cost/day: £20 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? Cowboys, everywhere – or gauchos as they are called here. It isn't a daily occurrence, but every now and then a whole bunch will sweep into town and ride around, dressed up to the nines complete with fancy hats and tassels. They look spectacular. Describe a...

Cost/day: $30/day What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? After spending several months in Africa, I have seen a lot of strange things and it has all begun to be quite normal. Therefore, the contrast of Kigali, Rwanda was actually the strangest thing I have seen in a while https://mirziamov.ru/zaym-bez-otkaza . The streets were impeccably...

Cost/day: $50-75 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? In Malawi I was introduced to the water spirit Tokoloshe . It resembles a human figure - two hands and two feet - but with extremely exaggerated features like the massive belly and enormous mouth and tongue. I have never seen anything quite like it and...

Cost/day: $60 I thought the ingredients for a great time at the beach were sun, sand, water and maybe a little mariachi music. That was before I saw the pirate ship in all its glory. It was full-size, fully beached, and had a water slide running through the middle of it. The pirate ship slide...

With over 20 million people, Seoul is the second largest urban agglomeration in the world, far behind the endless tentacles of that postmodern monster commonly known as Tokyo. But Korea beat Japan in something his neighbour is famous: in fact Korea is the most ethnically and linguistic homogeneous country in this planet , even with...

Cost: $25 a day The strangest thing I’ve seen lately Few people outside of the small town of San Pedro la Laguna on the shore of Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands have heard of the San Pedro Celtics basketball team. With a population of approximately thirteen thousand people, mostly of Mayan descent, one could...

Cost/day: $200 Chartering a boat isn’t cheap. If you are lucky and know the right people you could however, get a job as crew, stewarding, cooking or being a deck hand if you don’t have sailing qualifications. If you are not working then watch out for hidden costs such as moorings, docking, water and tips...

Cost/day: $35/day What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? In South Africa, seeing a lion eat an impala, a family of elephants cross the road, two giraffes fight, rhinos hanging out, a leopard chase its prey and a handful of other breathtaking scenes at Kruger National Park was definitely “strange.” It honestly didn’t feel like...