Indie Travel Podcast (enhanced)

As we travelled using the Eurorail/Eurail Global Pass, we took note of what we would have spent buying point-to-point tickets. Is a Eurail Pass worthwhile, or is it too expensive? Eurorail or Eurail? There's a little confusion over the terms Eurorail and Eurail. Basically, they're two terms for the same thing! The term Eurorail was replaced with Eurail a few years ago, so we're going to stick with that from now on. Our Europe train travel We had a 15-day Global Eurail Pass each, which meant we could travel in any of the countries covered by Eurail on fifteen individual days spread across the two-month validity of the pass. Every day that we wanted to use the pass, we wrote the date in the space provided. Our passes were checked every day that we used them, and usually stamped by the conductor - we'd heard stories of people trying to cheat the system using removable ink on their passes - this isn't going to work anymore.

Jane Meighan set off on her first big adventure at the age of 17, heading to Australia to spend three months there. Her family hadn't travelled a lot, so it was an eye-opening experience for her, and laid the foundations of her love for travel. Since then, she's spent a fair bit of time in Western Europe, visiting friends and enjoying the art - especially the Gaudi museum in Barcelona. As an environmentally conscious person, a comment made by a friend about her carbon footprint made Jane realise how much flying she was doing, and what that was doing to the environment. So she's decided to travel around the world by land and sea. She'll start in Edinburgh, and travel down the UK to catch a boat to Amsterdam before travelling slowly through Eastern Europe. The Trans-Siberian train will take her across Russia, and she'll travel by cargo ship from Shanghai to the States and from the other side of the States back to the UK after cross-country trip. Although Jane has got the big picture sorted out, she plans to

La Tomatina is a giant tomato fight that’s held every year in Buñol, Spain, on the last Wednesday of August. There’s celebrations all week, but most people go just to throw tomatoes at each other, and this year we joined in the fun. We had a great time, but as always we learned a fair bit about what we could have done better. What we did right Arrived early Although the fight starts at 11am, you can’t get there at 10am and hope to be part of the action. The smart people are in the main square at 8am – we didn’t make it that early but we were there by nine. Didn’t prepare too much but knew where we were going We travelled by train, and we knew that the train we wanted left from San Isidre station and not from Valencia Nord, the main station in the centre of town. The night before, we worked out how to get to that station (by metro) and we got there as soon as we could. We’d tried to find out about train times, but couldn’t – which didn’t matter anyway, since there was a crowd waiting at the station and ever

Whether you call it a career break, gap year, or a sabatical, the movie Eat, Pray, Love has certainly created a lot of buzz around the idea of taking extended time off to travel the world. And, of course, that's something we approve of! One person fomenting the career break discussion is Sherry Ott from Briefcase to Backpack and one of the leading figures behind Meet, Plan, Go - a North American event with meetings around the US and Canada to help people find career break opportunities themselves. In this interview we talk with Sherry Ott about her own journey, about career break travel, and about Meet, Plan, Go. For more information and links, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

Buenos Aires is located on the Rio de la Plata (the silver river). Most of the transport hubs are located on or near the river, and the city is laid out on a rough grid stretching away from the river. The city centre is centred around where Avenida 9 de Julio (which runs up from the river) crosses Avenida Corrientes, and that's where the Obelisk is located. The other principal street, Avenida 25 de Mayo, runs parallel with Av. Corrientes. Buenos Aires is divided into 48 barrios (neighbourhoods) but docsmost are residential - posh Recoleta is in the north near the bus station, and edgy La Boca is in the south near the river. In the city grid, the blocks are numbered by the hundreds, so each street you cross will take the numbers up 100, even though there aren't that many buildings in each block. This makes finding an address really easy! You aren't going to go hungry in Buenos Aires. There's everything from budget options like hot dogs on the street, to the lushest meal in a five-star restaurant. Don't miss

Berlin is a vibrant city full of art, history, and fantastic people doing interesting things. We speak with Paul Sullivan from Slow Travel Berlin and try to get to grips with the best clubs, best restaurants and most interesting things to do in the city. For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/berlin-travel/

Trains are the best way to get around Europe and a Eurail Pass, also known as a Eurorail Pass, might be a good solution for you. Although budget flights have made air travel more affordable, if you want to explore, trains are your best option. And for short journeys or trips with good connections, taking a train can be faster than going by plane - not to mention that you don't have to go through airport security! If you're just taking one or two long train trips during your European vacation, you're probably best to just buy point-to-point tickets. But if you want to see more of the continent, a Eurail pass is a good option. A Eurail pass (also known as a Eurorail pass) is a ticket which allows you unlimited train travel in Europe. It comes in many different forms - you need to decide which region you'll be travelling in, how long you want the pass to last, how many days you'll actually be travelling within that time frame, and if you want a first or second-class ticket. For more information on Eurail/Eur

Victoria Brewood was the winner of WorldNomads Vantastic South Australia, which means she got to spend six weeks travelling the state in a campervan called Geoff. We talk with Victoria about her South Australia road trip and look at things to do in South Australia. For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/road-trip-south-australia/

Ever wanted to travel to China? This week we speak with Coley Dale who has been living and travelling in China for seven years. Coley describes a China of amazing diversity, both physically and culturally. We talk about China's most well-known cities, then head west to get away from the big smoke and into the countryside. We discuss Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan and Xianjing as well as budgets for travel in China and visas for China travel. Coley Dale is the Senior Manager of cTrip's English website and has offered his advice with your China travel planning. All photos are from Coley's Flickr account. For more visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/travel-china-interview-independent-travel-china

Travel to Bath, England and you will be rewarded for your effort with Roman Baths, Georgian architecture and gorgeous parks ... all in a World Heritage site. For more visit: http://indietravelpodcast.com

New York is an incredible city - we’ve just discovered that six days is in no way enough. We caught a lot of the highlights though, such as the Empire State Building, MOMA, the Met, and the Circle Line. For more information on travel in New York City, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/things-to-do-in-new-york-city/

Wine and football aren't the most obvious of combinations, but today we talk with Tara O'Leary, the Wine Passionista, about South Africa and wine travel. For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

It's our last week in South America, travelling with our friends Angela and Janine. It's been an amazing trip and we're sad that it's coming to an end. In this episode, we talk about some of our experiences in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. For show notes, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

We're coming to the end of our four-month trip in South America, and we've had an awesome time. In this episode we talk about our time in Peru and Bolivia, travelling with our friends Angela and Janine. Peru After being delayed by the Chilean earthquake, we arrived a little late in Lima, but managed to meet Ange and Mark on the day they arrived in the country. We headed north and spent too little time in the northern cities of Trujillo, Chiclayo and Chachapoyas, which were amazing. We all really enjoyed our time in Arequipa and Cusco - especially the language lessons. For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

We're just days away from launching our new ebook, The Art of Solo Travel: A Girls' Guide by Stephanie Lee. Today we wanted to introduce Stephanie and her take on travel. For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/girlsguide or http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/153-interview-art-solo-travel-author-stephanie-lee

A visit to the Iguaçu Falls is a must on many travellers' itinerary of South America. And for good reason - they are incredible. You can view the falls from both Brazil and Argentina, and each side provides quite a different experience. We were staying in Puerto Iguazu, which is in Argentina, and we visited both sides from this point. It's equally easy to base yourself in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, which is a much bigger city. Brazil: getting there The border crossing between Argentina and Brazil was very straightforward. We decided to use the hostel-organised transfer instead of going independently, which would have meant three buses and a lot of time-wasting. So we crossed by car and didn't even have to get out - we passed our passports to our driver Susanna, who gave them to the border guards. They were stamped and we were in - possibly the easiest border crossing ever, although the Brazilian stamps are incredibly boring. Brazil: Pros and cons When we arrived, we realised that we didn't have any real, and a

Tim Ackroyd spent six weeks touring Victoria, one of our favourite Australian states, as part of the WorldNomads Vantastic Adventure. We caught up with Tim to talk about his experiences and help you plan your own Australian road trip. Tim says... I have been making the video podcast 'Snowfix' for the last 5 years. It basically came about when a friend and I did our first ski season, we decided we wanted to keep skiing but didn't want to do the horrible resort jobs, so we started making videos. Within one year we had created the world's most popular skiing/snowboarding podcast and also turned it into a TV show on the Extreme Sports Channel on sky all across Europe. When I am not making the show, in the summer I move back to London and due to the short amount of time I am around for, generally live with Aussies that are over here travelling. Subsequently I have been saying for years that I was going to do a big trip and visit all those guys I lived with, and the Vantastic tour seems the perfect chance. This

We've spent the last ten days in Bolivia, which isn't really enough to do it justice. But we've had a great time and have learned a lot about travel in this beautiful South American country. Border crossing The border between Peru and Bolivia is easy to cross. We went by bus, and the bus stopped outside the police station to allow us to hand in our tourist cards - it's really important that you don't lose this little piece of paper! You'll get it when you enter Peru. After the police station, we went to immigration for our exit stamp, then walked about 200m up the road to the Bolivian offices, where we filled in forms and got our entry stamps. Despite the fact that as Kiwis we can stay for up to 90 days, they only gave us 30-day visas ... apparently we can extend them in La Paz, but we didn't get the full quota automatically. And the border crossing wasn't easy for all of us. Ange's passport had been stolen in Cusco, and though she'd got a replacement travel document and had a full police report of what had

We've spent the last three weeks in Cusco, studying Spanish, enjoying the history, and being frustrated with problems here on the site. we haven't done all the touristy things, but we've been enjoying relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere. Cusco Cusco is incredible. It's supposed to be laid out like a puma, but we haven't really seen it. It's in a valley, with the centre of action as the Plaza de Armas. Up one side of the valley is the hippy district of San Blas, with the head of the puma at the top. That's where the iconic White Christ is situated, with the Sacsaywaman fortress nearby. Food One thing that we love about travel is the food. And Cusco has a lot of it. We enjoyed juice and beer milkshake in the market, lots and lots of menus del dia, and the street food was varied and interesting. It was just sad that we only found that empanada vendor near our school in our last week. Things to do There's heaps to do around Cusco. It's the jumping-off point for Machu Picchu, and if you don't want to pay thr

I find it strange that concerns about safety are some of the main reasons people don't like to travel. Demolishing those fears is one of the things we like to do around here. Today we speak with travel security expert Craig Bidois, who covers travel safety strategies before leaving home, during transit times and while you are in foreign lands. For more, see http://indietravelpodcast.com