BEST TRAVEL EXPERIENCES
MY TOP 5 FAVOURITES
WHAT MAKE THE BEST TRAVEL EXPERIENCES?
The answer to what make the best travel experiences is “You!” Being there, in the moment and immersing yourself in it.
That might seem a bit of a random answer. To be honest everything else is very subjective.
It doesn’t matter which exotic destination you visit, or what amazing adventure you have. Only you can enjoy it.
If its not your thing and you don’t feel like putting your heart into it, then the most wonderful place on Earth will do nothing for you.
But when you do something that ticks all of your boxes and throw yourself into it….
You have probably gathered by now that I think there are some awesome things to see and do in this World.
So if you are after some inspiration here are my Top 5 best travel experiences.
1. HELICOPTER TO THE GRAND CANYON
Number one
My number one best travel experience is possibly no surprise. Its not very original. That doesn’t make it any less worth doing.
The Grand Canyon is arguably the greatest Natural Wonder of the World. Seeing it is one of those things that appears on many people’s bucket list.
What is so good about it? Well this was not designed as a theme park, or built by a mega corporation. Nature has done all the work. It is beautiful and majestic and awe inspiring.
And it is huge. I remember being stood on a spot about halfway down, looking at the Colorado River, which winds its way through the Canyon. I wondered what the black dots were floating on the water. As they came closer I realised the black dots were rafts. They were being paddled by groups of people. The scenery surrounding us dwarfed them.
There are lots of ways to see the Grand Canyon. Hiking. Bus tours. Speed boats. Apparently river rafting does it for some!
I was staying in Las Vegas and from here the tours were advertised by helicopter.
What better way to see this feat of nature than from the air.
Plus it was, and to date still is, my first ride in a helicopter. That was a bit nerve racking, which made it all the more exciting.
Helicopter tour
A tour bus picked up at the hotels on the Las Vegas strip and drove us out to the heliport at Boulder City.
We boarded the helicopter. Ours took five passengers. The weight is balanced. I had a back corner seat, with a great side view from the window. One of the others I shared with had the front seat, looking straight ahead.
We put on our headphones, complete with microphones so we could hear and speak to the pilot above the noise of the helicopter blades.
And then with an awesome (I do not use that word lightly) burst of speed, the nose pointed down and we zoomed across the landscape below us.
From there we flew from the state of Nevada into neighbouring Arizona.
The flight took us past Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. I’ve been told that’s well worth a visit by land. Maybe an experience for another day.
Into the Grand Canyon
Then, after enjoying the flight for a while, we approached the rim of the Canyon. And in a heartbeat we were over the edge and inside the Grand Canyon.
You could see the twisting rock walls, formed by the Colorado River’s movements over millennia.
Layers of colourful sediment, from when the original bedrock was formed millions of years before that.
There are tourist attractions. The Grand Canyon Skywalk allowed you to walk over the edge of the canyon. It looked tiny from our viewpoint above.
We landed above the river, for a champagne lunch. Well, a bottle of fizz for one and a cling film wrapped ham sandwich. It was perfectly adequate. Food was not the main thing on my mind.
We had time to walk and explore our landing site. The land is owned by native American peoples, and you are asked to respect it. There was no litter left at this picnic site.
All too soon it was time to fly back. Crossing the Colorado again, along the line where the two states meet.
This is not the cheapest tour you will ever do. But, if you are heading out to Vegas, it is worth saving up for if you can.
I say it again. Awesome!
Watch my flight over the Grand Canyon on my YouTube Channel
2. FLYING OVER THE NAZCA LINES
Archaeological wonder
Those scared of flying might consider skipping to number three. Actually if that fear includes heights make it four!
No, don’t! They are still great stories, but as I say your idea of a best travel experience may be entirely different to mine.
Next up are the Nazca Lines of Peru.
This is an archaeological site located near the town of Nazca, just over 250 miles or 400 kilometres south of the capital Lima.
It is located in a desert. To the untrained eye the dusty beige ground is just littered with rocks and pebbles.
Except these rocks and pebbles include some that were put there by human beings. Google it and a number of dates appear, generally ranging between 1,500 and 2,500 years ago.
They are attributed to the Nasca people and their predecessors.
But this is where the interesting bit comes in. From the ground they appear to be nothing but stones.
Walk to some of the higher hills and apparently you can see some of the patterns. There is a platform near the road that can be climbed for a bit of a view. Straight lines. Interesting.
The World really found about the Nazca Lines in the 1930s, once we had discovered flight, and could fly over them.
Ninety years or so later I boarded a 14 seater plane, along with some of my travel buddies on a tour of Peru, to recreate that experience.
Somehow these ancient people, walking on flat ground, in continuous lines, had drawn pictures.
The Nazca Lines
A whale. A monkey. A flower. A hummingbird, condor, heron, spider, dog and parrot. They are still discovering more.
One humanoid form is called the Astronaut. The fact that you can barely see these patterns from the ground has led to lots of interest from the Ancient Alien community. Were they built for Alien visitors to see from their spaceships?
Added to these are straight lines and geometric patterns. You can understand the interpretation as an alien runway. No one else was flying 1,500 years ago!
The best way to see them is definitely from the air.
The flight tilted from side to side and looped around the site, so everyone got a view of everything. Thankfully the sick bags were not required by anyone on my flight. The half hour literally flew by!
I don’t know the price of this one as it was built into our tour. However there are numerous flights per day from the small airport, weather permitting.
This one earned it place in the Best Travel Experience list easily.
I wrote in my diary “It has been an awesome day!”
3. SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE CLIMB
Travel experiences
I knew I was heading to Australia in early 2020, just after my birthday. So I asked for Australian dollars as my combined Christmas and birthday presents from my family.
This went into a pot to pay for experiences on my travel adventures. Its a good habit I have started with any other windfalls I receive.
The first trip this fund paid for was the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. Its not cheap, but it is affordable.
This was another one that had me nervous with anticipation. Well, we’ve all seen the Sydney Harbour Bridge on TV. Its not small. I was going to be walking to the top of it.
Something my first three Best Travel Experiences have in common is that they all take place at UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
That probably says a lot about me. I haven’t started my own list of UNESCO sites visited as there are over a thousand. Its something I have thought about!
I have certainly been to a few. As the name says they represent the World’s heritage and being a lover of history I want to see them all.
Getting ready
Check in begins with the usual disclaimer forms. A basic level of mobility is obviously required. With hindsight its not quite as onerous as you would imagine. If the people scared of heights are still reading there were more than a couple using the experience to overcome their fears in my group.
While you wait you learn you are in the company of celebrities who have climbed it before you. Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith had all notably climbed before me.
Its an interesting thought that if you drop something from a great height it can do a lot of damage if it hits anything below.
So for the Instagram generation (which even includes oldies like me) you have to leave your phone in your locker. More scary than the heights for some!
You are given a jumpsuit to wear. And then everything else is attached to it.
Your souvenir cap, to protect from the Aussie sunshine, has a cable and clips to the back of your neck. I was glad of it. Mine flew off my head in the wind.
There are glasses strings for your sunglasses. You get a hanky, clipped to you. Even your headphones and radio to hear the tour guide are fastened to your suit.
No water bottles allowed, but there are fountains en route.
Most importantly you have a harness and clips that connect you to a cable that follows the route of the tour. Much like my cap, I wasn’t going anywhere in a gust of wind.
Climbing the bridge
I’m not sure how lucky I was, but our group of about ten or so, had a fabulous young guide.
He told us the history and stories of the building of Sydney Harbour Bridge as we walked up it.
You look down on the Rocks, where the existing residents were evicted to make way for the bridge’s towers and anchors.
Then it was up a ladder (yep, what it sounds like!) onto the bridge itself.
You are hooked onto the cable as in short bursts you walk a bit and then hear another story.
The one that sticks in my mind was the story of the riveters. Its another tale from the 1930s. In those days there was no health and safety gone mad. In fact there was little health and safety full stop.
To fix a rivet in those day you heated it until it was red hot, then whacked it with a hammer. But you can’t really dangle a furnace over Sydney Harbour. So they secured that at the side and heated the rivets. Someone had the job to throw the red hot lumps of metal across to the riveters, who had to catch and hammer them. They were dangling over Sydney Harbour.
There are 6 million rivets in Sydney Harbour Bridge!
For added effect we did hear about the people who fell off!
On the way up we had a few stops where we had photos taken. You can buy these later. Instagrammers, you can breathe. Its the photo of me halfway up, with the Sydney Opera House in the background, that made it onto my travel wall at home.
At the top
We made it all the way to the top, beneath the flagpoles.
The reward is a view in every direction of the most famous city in Australia.
You actually cross the bridge at that point and can see through the girders to the cars and trains passing obliviously below. Its worth looking down.
Then its back down the other side to end the day.
If climbing the bridge is really not your thing there are some interesting exhibits in one of the towers. These are much lower, but still have pretty good views from the top.
I saw Sydney Harbour Bridge from across the harbour. Sailed under it. Walked across it. But without doubt my best memory was from climbing over it.
4. SWIMMING WITH STINGRAYS
Caribbean blue
Next on my list of Best Travel Experiences we head to the Caribbean.
I had headed there on a cruise ship. How else!
On this itinerary one of our ports of call was Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands.
The ship, Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas, offered a shore excursion to Stingray City.
The tour included a catamaran sail in the stunningly beautiful blue waters of the Caribbean surrounding the island. You know that crystal clear azure blue you always imagine? It was exactly like that.
The catamaran could hold 60 passengers. There were 11 of us booked. It was like a private tour. Thankfully there must have been enough of us to cover the cost.
In fairness I think this could have made my Best Travel Experience list purely from the sail. Lounging on the front of the catamaran, watching the sea go by.
We got a good look at Grand Cayman as we pulled away from it.
And then we reached “Stingray City” itself.
Stingray City
In days gone by local fishermen caught their catch of the day. They met at a point by the islands to clean their fish. The leftovers went overboard.
Opportunistic stingray, came and had an easy meal.
Now many of the creatures we share our planet with are not stupid. The same can even be said for some humans. As the fishermen repeated this daily ritual, the stingray came for the leftovers.
Tourists being what they are wanted to see this fascinating spectacle and so the fishing boats gave way to tourist boats. Albeit with their own supplies of food. The stingray kept coming.
And so we sailed into Stingray City.
Much like my tale from Sydney, the benefit of a good tour guide cannot be overestimated.
Here our guide first gave us safety instructions. We’ve all heard the horror stories. Stingray have a barbed tail. If that stabs you its at best painful. At worst fatal.
Those horror stories are generally accidental. Stingray do not treat us as a threat or prey.
Shuffle your feet in the sand, so you don’t accidentally get skewered. If you do get skewered don’t panic and whatever you do don’t pull out the sting! They are barbed and make a mess.
Okay. No pressure. Enjoy yourselves.
We climbed down the catamaran’s ladder into the, warm as bath water, Caribbean Sea.
There are stingray everywhere.
Meeting the stingrays
Our guide, who did this tour daily, had a friendly stingray which had lost its tail. He grabbed hold and it stayed put.
Firstly food. From memory we were feeding them squid. Hold the squid in your hand in a fist, thumb tucked in. Hold it under the “fish?”. Whoosh. It is sucked up like a vacuum.
I have to say we were all a bit wary at first.
By the end it was me with my arms outstretched holding the stingray. Their texture reminded me of mushrooms. A couple of little girls who had not been up for getting in the water at the start were now patting and feeding it.
Was the stingray being exploited? I think it was exploiting us.
All around us were tour boats. The larger parties were in a huge circle by their boats, collecting their piece of fish for a one time feed.
None of them were giving a stingray a hug.
It is one of the most wonderful and rewarding experiences of my life.
If you ever go, book a small tour!
5. SINGAPORE SLINGS AT RAFFLES
Raffles Hotel
This might seem like an odd one for a list of Best Travel Experiences.
Going to a bar for overpriced drinks. It happens more than you would think.
But here I was at the World famous Raffles Hotel, in Singapore.
Although I did wander around the grounds, I didn’t get much of a look inside the hotel itself.
Raffles Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in the World. It dates back to the days of British Colonialism and is named for the modern founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles.
One of the things I like about Singapore, and neighbouring Malaysia (stories for another day!), is that they don’t rewrite their history. Colonialism happened. They accept it as a part of their history. Tell you the pros and cons. They just don’t do it now.
That colonial era coincided with a time when there was no such thing as “Women’s Lib”. Or was there?
The ladies of Singapore were not supposed to drink alcohol in public. It wasn’t seemly. But in 1915 a bartender, called Ngiam Tong Boon, created an innocent looking, fruity pink cocktail. It was, of course, spliced with gin, grenadine and cherry liqueur.
The Singapore Sling was born.
It became an instant hit and is now widely regarded as Singapore’s national drink.
The Long Bar
The Long Bar is now a tourist attraction.
On the edge of the hotel grounds are not one, but three levels, each with a recreation of the Long Bar. You are instantly transported to colonial Singapore with its long (!) bar and ceiling fans.
Stand in the queue to get in, and go to whichever floor they send you. The atmosphere is the same on each. I went up to level three, so passed through them all.
They give you a large canvas bag of peanuts to munch on as you drink your tall pink cocktail. The shells are thrown on the black and white tiled floor by tradition.
It would be rude not to join in. Where else is making a mess part of the fun.
The reason this made my list of Best Travel Experiences is that I did the thing I told you right at the start.
I immersed myself in the experience. I took in the ambience. I drank the drink, ate the nuts and threw the shells on the floor. I was in the moment.
We are not talking cheap drinks here. Alcohol in Singapore is really expensive anyway, at least compared to here in the UK. This is another level. If you are the sort of person who complains when the landlord puts a pint up by 10p, or think in terms of expensive London prices, take a deep breath.
Was it worth the money?
Well I stayed for seconds!
Another on the day diary comment.
“Fabulous.”
