Mergui Archipelago Welcomes A New Dive Center
Sam Helmy (a TDI/SDI Instructor Trainer, and PADI Staff and Trimix Instructor) reports that a new dive resort has opened on the idyllic Mergui Archipelago off the coast of Myanmar.
The Awei Pila Resort offers a variety of courses from Discover Scuba Diving to Dive Master. Courses and guided dives can be conducted in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German or Italian.
The area around the resort features 12 different dive sites that range in depth from 12m/~37ft to 30m/100ft. Two of the island’s site are fast gaining fame for their outstanding beauty: Shark Cave and Rocky Island.
The dive center and resort features:
- Air-conditioned tented villas.
- Spa
- 24-hour service restaurant.
- 27ft/8m RIB with space for six divers and instructor.
- Brand new diving equipment including Aqualung regulators.
- Bauer Compressor.
Read more at DeepBlue.com
The Best European Sleeper Trains
If you love train travel as much as I do, then this news is like the sound of metal wheels on a steel track…
As the train pulls out of the station, you slowly drift off to sleep. Several hours later, you wake up in another country, exciting new scenes speeding past the windows.
A world away from the experience of a stressful budget flight, you arrive refreshed and ready to discover a new destination.
Welcome on board the sleeper train service. Once a stalwart of international travel, sleeper trains were the go-to for travellers crisscrossing Europe in the mid to late 20th century.
In more recent years, thanks to the ease and price of air travel, there have been far fewer trains whisking sleeping passengers from country to country through the night. But things are changing — for one, sleeper train travel comes hand-in-hand with connotations of romance and adventure — and we live in an era where collecting experiences are covetable travel currency.
Plus, there’s the eco-impact — carbon footprints of train travel are way lower than flying. “They’ve always had a romance,” says train travel expert Mark Smith, founder of popular train website The Man in Seat 61. “Sometimes the romance is built up — even the romance of the Orient Express has been exaggerated beyond the reality.
Read the full CNN TRAVEL article.
These Are The Best And Worst Travel Apps
You love travel apps… then read this by J.D. Power:
Every travel brand has an app these days, but that doesn’t mean travelers are embracing them with equal enthusiasm, according to the inaugural The J.D. Power U.S. Travel App Satisfaction Study, which measures user satisfaction with apps made by airlines, hotels, booking sites and rental car companies.
The study explores the key variables that influence customer choice, satisfaction and loyalty based on four factors: clarity of information provided; ease of navigation; overall appearance and speed of screens loading; and range of services and activities.
Even as travel apps rapidly replace everything from boarding passes to rental car and hotel room keys, many such apps are falling short of user expectations.
One key takeaway is that apps created by travel brands are viewed less favourably than apps created by financial institutions. On a 1,000-point scale, apps for hotels, online travel agencies and rental cars scored an average of 849. Airline apps fared worse, with an average score of 840. These scores are lower than the average customer satisfaction scores of 874 and 867 for credit card and retail banking apps, respectively.
Read the full FORBES article.
12 Places Around The World That Are Weirdly Popular On TripAdvisor
While I am not a fan of TripAdvisor at all, you may find this article quite weird…
We’re talking about places that make you look at their high ratings and think, “Really? There?”
For example, one of the highest-rated tourist attractions in Cornwall, England is a tunnel leading to a supermarket. Another highly-rated attraction, this time in California, is an alley where people have stuck used gum over the years. Or, there’s the Prada store that’s literally in the middle of nowhere. Even better, there’s a room full of dirt in New York City that people apparently really enjoy.
These places may not have obvious appeal to the casual TripAdvisor user. But for those who’ve gone to these places, it’s easy to see why they’re so special. Just take a look at the reviews and you’ll see that there are people in the world who go gaga for the seemingly everyday, mundane, or just plain odd attractions that you may not even have bothered to stop for.
They may not be world-renowned restaurants, important, historical landmarks, or prestigious museums filled with fine art, but these places might be good to put on your travel bucket list. Especially if you’d like to go off the beaten path once in a while.
Don’t take our word for it, check out the reviews.
Read Andrea Romano’s full article on TRAVEL + LEISURE.
That’s all travel news for now.
You are now updated on the latest useless travel news. 🙂
Blog post and photos by Peter who has been travelling almost full-time since 2005 and has been to over 122 countries. He visited several countries, such as Japan, more than 20 times. Peter is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of GlobeRovers Magazine, an independent travel magazine focused on intrepid destinations.