Apart from being a South East Asian and an Australasian tourists destination, with a totally different culture, weather and religion, Phuket and Gold Coast do have something in common. Both of them have beautiful long, white sandy beaches, beautiful sunshine, and friendly people. Also they are both very popular destinations among travelers around the world.

Why travelers around the world, including Australians love to visit Phuket while Thai and South East Asians love the beaches and sun in Gold Coast? Here are the top 5 travel experience travelers can have either in Phuket or Gold Coast and tourists should travel to these 2 hot tourists spot with 2 different approaches to have 2 separate travel experience:

1. Phuket is best for singles while Gold Coast is best for family. You can stay up late until even next morning in Phuket for endless and lively night life. Bars, dance clubs and restaurants are open until late at night especially in Patong Beach. If  you feel hungry in the middle of the night, you can always find something to fill. On the other hand, Gold Coast’s lifestyle is more relax and ‘healthier’. Most shops and restaurants close very early at night. Nightlife in Gold Coast is very limited. However, if you visit if your family, there are so many themes park for family and your children in Gold Coast. Being the Theme parks capital city of Australia, your family would love to visit either Warner Bros’ Movie World, Sea World,
2. Gold Coast is best to drive around while Phuket is best to hike a Tuk-tuk. Perhaps it’s just my perception, I feel much safer and easier to drive in Gold Coast than in Phuket. Motorways are more systematic and motorists are more behaved (though not necessary at weekend night) in Gold Coast. The best part of driving in Gold Coast is to be able to drive up to the Hinterland and soak with the beautiful mountain scenes and vineyards. On the other hand, Phuket’s taxi or Tuk-tuk are so convenient that you better don’t risk yourself driving through all the trunk roads;
3. Phuket’s food is cheap while Gold Coast’s wine is cheap. Quite a straight forward calculation. Aussie Dollars is much stronger than Thai Baht. Living standard in Australia is much higher. Thailand holidays is famous of its cheap but fantastic local cuisine. However, if you are a wine drinker, drink a lot of Australian wine in Gold Coast where they are cheaper than a Coke in Phuket!
4. Gold Coast is best to stay higher. Phuket is best to stay lower. Why? Gold Coast has many high rise apartment along its 57Km long beaches. Staying higher at one of those apartment can have a wider and better view over the vibrant city. There isn’t many high rise apartment in Phuket and their best accommodation type is beach resort (perhaps it would be better for a city which experienced Tsunami attack before);
5. Gold Coast is cool and windy while Phuket is hot and stuffy. My favorite time to visit Gold Coast is in March or Autumn when the weather is cool in the region of 18°C but still have plenty of beautiful sunlight. What about Phuket? Gosh. When I was there in October last year, it was really hot at day and stuffy at night. Without any wind blow, it felt even warmer than in Malaysia!

So be prepare when you travel to one of these 2 popular beach destinations in the world. They should be explored differently in different approach and travel experience you are going to have in both places are simply unforgettable. Good travel! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

Perfect! Put aside the re-opening of Europe airports just a week before our flight to London and re-closing of London airports few days after our flight back to where I’m now, due to the Iceland’s volcanic ash, all my hard works in planning for my Europe trip have been paid off perfectly!

All planned and booked domestic air and train travels were as scheduled. Conditions of all pre-booked accommodations were as expected and safe. No single one of us (a group of 5) experienced any theft and loss of important travel documents. Not a single one of us fell sick during the period. No one from us gonna break the bank from this trip. What could I say! I shall call this an immaculate Europe sight-seeing self-travel trip! Hooray!!

Why planning was so important to ‘this trip‘ to central Europe? Off course, many backpackers may prefer to travel as they go, to plan as they travel. This is great when you have plenty of time and travel by yourself or with your couple. You can take your sweet time to relax and plan for your next stop. But not in our case. I had only 14 days and I’m bringing a group who haven’t been there, couldn’t speak English very well and hadn’t got enough self-travelling experience. For them, visiting as many travel sites as they could during these 14 days was their priority objectives. What could I do? I had to plan everything well ahead so we would not waste much time in sourcing cheap accommodations and transportation.

What’s more? We had limited budget. Planning ahead saved us lots of monies especially where London hotels are generally expensive especially in the city centre. Out of my expectation, this happened to domestic train and air tickets as well. The earlier you book them online, the cheaper you can get the tickets!

Furthermore, pick-pockets are getting more serious in Europe travel destinations and in public transports. Planning ahead means we were well prepared to take care of our belongings especially our travel documents. Less acting like tourists asking around for help made us less ‘attractive‘ to be others ‘target‘!

Lastly, because I planned for our complete travel itineraries, I had planned such a way that we always stayed where were convenient for our next stop. We stayed nearby St. Pancras International train station as we took Eurostar to Paris. I chose one of those Paris hotels near the Gard Du Nord train station so we didn’t have to carry our heavy luggage and walked too far to catch our next train to Amsterdam.

These planning was essential for such a tight travel schedule. We traveled to central Europe as scheduled and most things, if not all, turned out perfectly, except some of those little hiccup and unpleasant experiences….err… what…  SHHH. Subscribe to this blog feed via RSS or Email to receive upcoming stories on my Europe travel. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog

First let’s turn back in time to about 2 years ago when I started blogging travel. I started to write stories of my travel experience and also articles on many travel tips and guides. Because of my great interest in blogging travel, I started to travel more, and more. To further enrich the contents of my travel blog, I’m getting passionate to travel more to other countries.

Thanks to all the supports from readers all over the world, my travel blog has gradually gained some popularity and more and more bodies are sponsoring me and motivate me to keep adding useful contents to this travel blog. Money were also coming in. With this income, I can now thinking of traveling to some my favourite countries such as planning a New Zealand holidays in the short future!

I can’t live without travel now. My mind is flying even though my feet are still set on my home ground. So what am I missing out on if I did not travel and had never wanted to? Here are the reaction chained consequences:

1. I would never know the world out there is so much fun, full of fascinating experiences and full of photography opportunities. Holidays to Asia and tour to Europe can both open up your eyes as well as your mind;
2. I would not pick up the hobby of photography. I lost most of the breathtaking scenes in other parts of the world and I will never inspired by taking the same scenes here over and over and over again! Without knowing the world out there is so huge, you will never like to shoot.
3. I would miss out on those unforgettable travel experiences and I would not have much stories and photos to share on my blog!
4. Then I will ask myself this question repeatedly everyday: “What else can I write or share on my blog?” Eventually, I would give up blogging all together! and then
5. I will ever never think of traveling, photographing, blogging and I’m going to lose all my incomes in blogging travel!

If I don’t travel at all, I don’t even exist here. Nobody will know Cecil Lee. Nobody will share all these to you… – Travel Feeder.

Traveling is fun. Why it is so much fun because we could see new things and new places and faces from where we are living. It is even better to travel to experience the different culture and preference of the country. Meaning to say that the more you explore on the travel destination, the more fun you will be able to experience.

How could we experience more on travel? You have to be more adventurous in this case. Try going off the beaten track to do something different from others. Why do what other Holiday makers are planning for you? You will get the same travel stories as every other travelers. Be more adventurous to try new things and to do something differently and you will be rewarded with some unforgettable travel experience which no other travel blogger will tell you online.

Here are the Top 5 ways on how travelers could be more adventurous on their travel:

1. Engage a specialist. Get someone experienced to plan for an adventure holidays for you. This travel niche will open your perspective on travel. This is the safest way to be adventurous where your adventure travels are  planned. Peru holidays for example is itself adventurous to explore where the specialist will guide you to the adventurous tour to the Empire of Inca ;
2. Get out of tourists spot! Wherever places or cities you are visiting, apart from those ‘must-see‘ sights and ‘must-do‘ things in there, throw away those travel guides and start traveling away from there to somewhere unknown to the guides and other travelers. Either a town in the suburbs or a jungle on the mountain, you will experience some precious moment which are just fun! Off course, make sure they are safe for travelers.
3. Eat what locals eat. Don’t follow the guides. They will lead you to somewhere touristic. Make use of your eyes and senses to follow what the local people are eating everyday! You must be adventurous enough to go a little further to those restaurants or cafes with mostly local patrons. Others may look at you strangely when you step in there, but only then you can eat like the locals! Those foods may not suit your appetite, but at least you could be the highlights of the other local people!
4. Get lost in town. Adventure holidays involve getting lost in town! Ever remember the last time you got lost in a foreign country? What could you experience from there? I got lost in Brisbane. I also lost my way in Scotland. Who cares? I got the best guesthouse in a local farm in Loch Ness and I can read all the roadsigns in Brisbane now!
5. Pick up photography. Be a photography hobbyist and your passion in photography will lead you closer to the local people and some unique scenes of the city. To capture some beautiful images, you will start being adventurous to get closer to things and places where travelers without a camera will not. I will not go to any gardens on travel if I’m not shooting flowers as my hobby. I would not climb up the mountain if I’m not shooting sunset of the city of Florence. I would not be adventurous enough to eat those street foods if I’m not taking any photos for my blog.

Without the adventurous mind, I would miss some of the most beautiful scenes, people, foods and culture of those travel destinations that I’ve been to. Without those unforgettable travel experiences, I would not get as much fun on travel and travel as much as I do now. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog.

Something popped out in my mind last night. When we travel to a completely unfamiliar country, what should we see in the country? How close do you see things in that country or travel destination? With a short period of your time there, do you really look at things in detail on every aspect of their culture, people, attractions and their local foods? Is your travel perception towards the country influenced by the distance you are from there?

As a traveler first visiting a completely new place, for a short duration, maybe 1 day or the most 1 week, one could not (or should not?) really spend much time to explore every single detail of things. I might be able to explore one of the travel sites out there fully, but definitely not the local cultures or foods.

This is the problem when travelers start to judge a travel destination with their own perception towards the country by only a short stay there. They may feel disappointed after seeing the ‘magazine recommended’ scenes in real, in a glimpse of an eye. But if they step forward and look at it much closer, they may be surprised to find the ‘real gem’ within.

On the other hand, there are moments when you couldn’t get a clue how beautiful they are in close distance. You have to step away from the scene to be able to appreciate the beauty of it. Try looking at the above close-up photo. Do you know what is that? From this perspective view, do you think it is beautiful? Apparently not, right? But I can tell you that it looks marvelous when you step further away to look at it in whole.

What’s the conclusion? Sorry, I couldn’t find one. How close you see things on your travel will influence your conclusions towards the travel destinations. That is why different people with different travel perception would rate a travel destination so differently. The best solution is to see it yourself in that country. You may love it or you may not. You are the one who can tell yourselves the conclusion. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog