Lanzarote Guidebook is the comprehensive guide to the popular holiday island of Lanzarote.  The small Canary Island that is a hot favourite with British and Irish tourists.  Who last year collectively accounted for over 50% of the islands 1.37 million foreign tourist arrivals

The Spring 2010 edition is packed with all of the information tourists need to make the most of their holiday on the Island of Fire. Encompassing in depth guides to all of Lanzarote´s resorts, beaches, museums and attractions, island maps, an introduction to the work of the famous local artist César Manrique and a handy Essentials section covering all of the holiday basics, such as shop and bank opening hours and emergency telephone numbers.

Copies of the Spring edition of Lanzarote Guidebook can be downloaded free of charge by visiting www.lanzaroteguidebook.com.  Whilst a further 10,000 copies are distributed direct to holidaymakers on the island entirely free of charge via car hire companies, private villas, hotels and official tourist information offices.

This indispensable, 96 guide is published quarterly so all of the information is up to date and is researched and written by locals, so providing tourists with the inside track to the real Lanzarote.  Featuring some fantastic pictures of the islands dramatic scenery courtesy of photographer James Mitchell.

The Spring edition also offers readers the chance to win a fantastic holiday at Villa Mirador in Matagorda.  A prize provided by the island villa specialists Lanzarote1, who offer a range of top quality rental properties in key locations across the island, such as the most popular resort of Puerto del Carmen.

The competition can also be entered online by visiting the Lanzarote Guidebook website.  Where visitors will find a wealth of information about the island, interactive maps, the latest weather reports and a wide array of flight, car hire and accommodation options.
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More information
Nick Ball
nick@lanzaroteguidebook.com
0034 660121717

As I have earlier been informing about the situation in Dubai with the focus on Dubai Islands (The Palm Islands etc.) I cannot avoid show a little about the amazing things going on in Dubai even it isn’t directly related to island vacation but at least related to island vacation activities if you go to spend the holyday in Dubai Islands. The Burj Dubai will for certain be visible from the Gulf and from the Palm Islands as Burj Dubai is over 800 meters tall.

Experience the view on Dubai when Dubai is viewed from the top of this 826 meter high Burj Dubai by a rather nervous cameraman:

And here more about the building process – now all history, as well as my pictures of Dubai that I created a year ago when I had vacation in Dubai with my wife. So get an impression of the building of Burj Dubai in this short video:

More Burj Dubai – Burj Khalifa facts and figures, numbers and records.

That’s why I want you to see this remarkable presentation of Frans Lanting’s photography project Journey of Life through Time. I have seen the big exhibition of his amazing photos in poster size in Berlin, and they are really great and the work of Frans Lanting is a great achievement of photography.

I really hope you can take your time to see and listen to this video record of the presentation of Frans Lanting. Don’t feel annoyed by his voice, listen carefully and enjoy the remarkable pictures of our living earth and try to bring this insight with you when you next time go on vacation somewhere in the world. Or when you just browse for travel ideas at the website of Island Vacation Tips.

For example remark that Hawaii is playing a special role in the pictures of Frans Lanting – and in fact many other islands.

Sailing on the Icefjord in Svalbard in beautiful weather, towards the glacier giving fine Svalbard photos. Photo Copyright

To travel to Svalbard has been a big wish for me and my wife for several years. To refresh your memory of Svalbard it is the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago lying up in the Arctic far north of Norway (74° to 81° North,).

Svalbard is a rough country with much of the land surface covered by glaciers, see Svalbard map below. Other parts of Svalbard is lying as barren slopes and hillsides with very little vegetation at all. The artic climate here is far too cold or at least the summers are too short to give trees a chance to live.

We had our travel to Svalbard just recently with a cheap travel possibility as we could use some SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) bonus points that otherwise would be lost. The beauty of this travel arrangement was that you only use a minimum of SAS bonus point when you as we travel from Denmark to other Scandinavian countries.

Svalbard map showing the full Svalbard Archipelago with glaciers and fjords and straits in the Artic Ocean.

In fact the drain in our stock of bonus points was very little as a SAS bonus travel from Copenhagen to Svalbard is only the same as a bonus travel from Copenhagen to Oslo. Oslo (the capital of Norway) is situated in the southern part of Norway, and Svalbard is as said far north to Norway in the Arctic Ocean. As SAS is a member of The Star Alliance cooperation you might be able to combine such a cheap artic adventure to one of your more traditional flights to one of the Scandinavian countries, for example from Germany, France, Italy or The Netherlands.

Just to finish these travel tips I should also mention that it was possible for us to go for a fine travel to Svalbard just with an extended weekend. We left Copenhagen (Kastrup airport) on Tuesday evening the 18. June and returned from Svalbard Sunday evening the 21. June.

Part of the island Spitzbergen of the Svalbard Archipelargo in the Arctic Ocean with the Icefjord.

We thought that we would be regarded as crazy travellers to go to Svalbard just for a weekend, but we learned in Svalbard that a lot of other visitors were going there in a similar way.

What we had expected though was that many people go to Svalbard for several weeks of discovery, by boat, hiking or otherwise. As you can see from the map the countryside of Svalbard isn’t that easy to around, and ships and boat cruises are the most convenient way of travel in this arctic archipelago.

As we stayed in Svalbard over the Midsummer days we had bright sunshine all night long and extremely wonderful sunshine during the days. The weather forecast for Svalbard isn’t really trustworthy, the locals underlined, but in our case the fine weather forecast I had found from home online kept its promise.

As you can see from my photos a sunny day in a ship on a calm day sailing at the Icefjord delivers unmatched beautiful views of the artic natural scenery.

When you arrive to Svalbard you will arrive to Longyearbyen with the international airport just nearby. Longyearbyen is the main settlement from old time and where most tourists will stay for a shorter or longer period. Longyearbyen has a number of hotels in all price categories; even the general price level isn’t cheap, dispite the fact that Svalbard is a tax-free zone of Norway. Due to the high transportation costs far out to Svalbard and probably low demand; the prices are as they are.

Snow schooters lined up for the summer in Longyearbyen in Svalbard

Svalbard is a magnet for bird watchers and other nature lovers, not to mention that Svalbard is one of the best places in the world to experience polar bears in true natural surroundings.

I should also mention tha Svalbard has an interesting history about miners, whalers and internatinal politics.

Find travel guides and travel book among many other books about Svalbard /Spitzbergen here.

In future posts I will go through many of our fantastic experiences during our short stay in Svalbard.

At our trip we didn’t see and experience everything shown in this video, but this is what you can manage to see in iceland in a two weeks trip with travel around on Iceland, and dwelling in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik. Hope you can make a trip to Iceland this summer as Iceland is a cheap travel destination at the moment due to the financial crisis in Iceland.

Read more about Iceland (in Nordic languages ‘Island’) here.

Birdwatchers come from far away countries to enjoy the special birds of Iceland and the impressive landscape. You don’t need to leave the capital of Iceland Reykjavik to experience some interesting birds. The lake in the city, Tjörnin, is a good starting point for birding. In Tjörnin you will find a number of bird species you might not be used to observe in your own country.

For me, I have always enjoyed observing the yellow billed swan the Whooper Swan (Cygnus Cygnus) very close at this city lake. The lake holds plenty of whooper swans and you can easily observe their courtship behaviour and other aspects of their behaviour at the springtime.

When I visited Iceland last time in early spring (3.-7. April) the Tjörnin lake was full of wildfowls: swans, ducks, cormorants and gulls, all to be seen easily. I have during earlier visits enjoyed seeing the Icelandic speciality (a speciality from an European perspective) the diving duck Barro’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) but I wasn’t lucky to see it this time.

You are well helped to go to different birding localities if you buy the ‘Birdwatchers’s Map’, ‘Fuglakort’. This Birdwatchers’s Map’ is an overview of the birds of Iceland and includes some oversight maps of the best bird localities. The price of this birding in Island map was 1.290 Icelandic kroner.

I also bought the very detailed topographic map of Iceland ‘Naturturufarskort’, called ‘Gródurkort 1:500.000 that is also a vegetation map and therefore very useful for bird tours, too. The price of this Island map was 1.290 Icelandic kroner, too.

Birding in Iceland is really rewarding and I will post more about where to go bird watching near Reykjavik in future posts at IslandVacationTips.com .

You can buy these Icelandic maps at the rather large bookshop in the centre of Reykjavik.

Here, I also bought:

Icelandic Birds Guide of J´0hann Óli Hilmarsson with color photos of the Icelandic birds. Price 3.990 Icelandic kroner.
And
Birdwatching, in the series of books Iceland Nature Guides. By Helgi Gudmundsson and Jón Baldur Hlidberg. A fine little book, called a concise guide to the areas of Iceland of interest to the birdwatchers with brief descriptions of all Icelandic breeding birds. Price just 460 Icelandic kroner.

PS

Remember the Icelandic currency is very cheap at the moment – take advantage of it going to Iceland this spring and summer.

In Icelandic language the name of Iceland is ‘Island’ and it is the same in Danish language. When I was a boy in Denmark in the late 50ties and early 60ties I liked to collect stamps like many other boys were doing.

As Denmark had a long connection to Iceland the stamps from Iceland were of cause much in my mind. From older collectors of stamps I was told that especially stamps from Iceland were valuable, like stamps from Greenland and the Faeroe Islands. These all came from countries and territories with very small populations.

On the stamps from Iceland the name of the nation was named ISLAND – of cause in their own Icelandic language. So for me ‘Island’ became the signal word for me when I was browsing through piles of used stamps from different sources.

It took me some time to learn and be acquainted with the reality that I found many other stamps from different parts of the world with ‘Island’ printed on the stamp – simply from some of the many other countries and territories that were ‘islands’. – And funny enough I still have these associations in my mind with ISLAND.

The meaning of Iceland and Island is exactly the same, the land of ice – even this isn’t any good description of Iceland, as the winter climate of Iceland is rather mild due to the passage of the Gulf current bringing warmer water up to the Northern Atlantic Ocean.

The old stamps from Iceland were quite boring to look at, but they are expensive now. The modern stamps from Iceland are of the kind of modern stamps we know from most other countries of the world, they are in a commercial marketplace for attractive stamps with specific motives to attract stamp collectors like the dog stamp here.

Their value for collectors is low, but the information value of such stamps can be rather high. Even I stopped collecting stamps long, long time ago; I still have to control myself when I find attractive and informative stamps when I visit islands and other countries of the world today.

More Icelandic dog stamps here at http://www.dogstamps.dk/iceland.htm

Read more about Island / Iceland here.

Gullfoss is a most spectacular waterfall, not that far from the capital Reykjavik of Iceland. The river Hvítá sends during some periods 200-300 cubic metres per second of water over the rocks and down at this must see tourist destination of Iceland. The height is 34 metres, not a fall competing with some of the highest water falls of the world, but high enough to be really worthwhile seeing.

For good reasons tourists are coming to Gullfoss not only in the light summer season, but also during winter when ice makes Gullfoss to a very special view. Gullfoss is also known as the Golden Waterfall and many tourist agencies offer coaches to visit Gullfoss waterfall all through the year.

The tour packages are often including a number of sights from daytrips from Reykjavik, as the following tourist destinations can be on the way when tourists visit Gullfoss: Geysir, Þingvellir National Park, tectonic rifting at Thingvellir and other interesting tourist attractions.

My wife and I visited Gullfoss waterfall in a hired car from the airport of Reykjavik without any problems.

But the history of Iceland and Icelanders is as fascinating and unique as anything else. Did you know that Iceland hosted the first parliament of the world, Althing, that was established in year 930 in a beautiful area not far from the modern capital of Iceland Reykjavik with the name Þingvellir and now saved for the future as Þingvellir National Park – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Remark the special Icelandic letter Þ, expressed ‘th’. Icelandic language is a very original version of the Nordic language family that has been preserved on Iceland as a rather isolated island far out in the Atlantic Ocean. The Althing was an annual functioning judiciary and legislative parliament, founded as the political hub of the Icelandic Commonwealth.

During our short travel to Iceland in April my wife and I visited the Þingvellir National Park in a hired car.  The Þingvellir National Parkthat has many interesting attractions for the tourist. Besides the historical sites nature is showing some impressive signs of the moving geology as Iceland is situated on the moveable zone between the two huge continental tectonic plates of the North Atlantic Ocean. See the location of the Þingvellir National Park at the map below:

More information about Iceland – a cheap travel destination at the moment because of the drop of the icelandic economy linked to the international recession in the economy.