Cailin’s Copenhagen on “Do It While You’re Young”

Cailin traveled to Copenhagen with Chris from The Aussienomad back in May and this month Cailin has a featured article about it on Do It While You’re Young that you can read here. And if you haven’t seen it yet here is the video that Cailin and Chris made on their travels.

Travels from the past

My Grandmother (my last surviving grandparent) passed away in November 2009 and now a few months short of a year later my family is still going through her things. This pass weekend at her house I came across some old photographs of her and my Grandfather in the early 70′s on vacation in the Barbados.

It’s interesting to look at their photos and compare them to the travel photos of today. These were obviously taken on some kind of point and shoot camera, and not an SLR. There isn’t a single self taken photo. This type of photo has spread like wildfire on the internet since facebook and the invention of the digital camera. However they are still generally the same as any photo you or I might take. They are each in them, and they are of colorful things they saw, the people that live there and the activities they did on their trip.

Had I not taken these photos that day they may have been tossed out, but as I looked through them they intrigued me and made me ask questions. Where exactly were they on their trip? Who did they meet? What did they do? How long were they gone? and more. I plan on framing these pictures now and hanging them on the wallwith my travel photos. These I think will be my new kind of antique and hopefully we will find more.

I hope you like these photos too. Let me know what you think and if you have any similar photos.

Both looking very hip in their Island wear. My awesome Grandfather – Big Eric. My lovely Grandmother – Nanny Joy

The Jolly Roger Sailboat up close – can you spot the full moon?I can only assume they too went on the Jolly Roger and a did a little partying, but those photos have yet to surface.

My mother remembers hearing stories about them meeting a local lady named BeeBee who invited them into her house and had a big party. Apparently my grandparents became good friends with her and visited her again on other trips. Maybe that is her in the photo on the left? And next to it I can only assume is taken at some kind of parade in the center of the city?

Typical beach photo. Some things never change. Like the ocean with waves crashing on a beach. As long as there is a Barbados, that will always happen there.

“La Tomatina – What to wear, what to bring, what to do “

New Post on Cailin Travels! This week in Bunol, Spain is the famous La Tomatina festival. I was there last year and brought back lots of tips and advice with me to help other people have the best time there possible! Check it out HERE cailintravels.blogspot.com

Travel Yourself – A year later

Exactly a year ago today Cailin jumped on a plane with her camera man Cam Erais for Spain to begin her dream that is Travel Yourself. We want to give a big thank you to all of our loyal followers new and old and hope that you stay tuned! During these next few months a lot of exciting things will be happening with this site and the show. Please tell all of your friends and drop by our Facebook page  www.facebook.com/travelyourself and Twitter @TravelYourself to stay up to date.

Why not watch the trailer for the show again while you are here?

Swedish people like bubbles

“Vill du sätta igång spat?”
“Huh?”
“Vill du sätta igång spat?”
“What? Oh sorry I don’t speak Swedish.”
“Ummm would you like zee bubles turned on?”
“Bubbles? Oh there are bubbles? I didn’t even realize! Yes please.”

(I swear he said “zee” I’m not making that up.)

I’m sitting in a hot bath at the Varberg Comwell Hotel in Varberg, Sweden. After a swim and a sit in the steam room then sauna I am now starring into space, soaking. An older Swedish man has just hopped into the hot bath and sits next to me wondering why I don’t have the bubbles turned on. The answer to that is that I quite simply have never been in a “hot bath” so I didn’t realize there were bubbles, but the bubbles made it so much better, as if it wasn’t great to begin with.

I’ve found myself in the small 50,000 person town of Varberg, Sweden to visit a Swedish friend whom I had met months before in Fiji. Before I’ve even made it to my hotel I can already tell that not many English speaking people visit here.

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Travel Yourself in New York City

At the end of June 2010, Cailin traveled to New York for the Travel Bloggers Exchange Conference (tbex10). There was lots of partying, meeting up with twitter and travel friends and exploring some of the top tourist attractions the city has to offer with the help of the great New York City Pass given to her from NYCGO. Watch the video of her most recent trip here. Stay tuned for more coming soon!

Travel Yourself – New York from Cailin O'Neil on Vimeo.

Travel Yourself now on itunes

Travel Yourself, the trailer for the show and all of Cailin’s travel videos have now been uploaded to itunes as a podcast that you can download and watch for free. Check it out here and spread the word, stay tuned for more videos!

New York gives me the spins.

This past weekend I visited New York for the 2nd Annual Travel Bloggers Exchange conference (or more commonly known as the twitter hash tag #tbex or #tbex10). I did a lot of partying, I met a few hundred people and attended a two day conference full of information to help make my site better, my online presence better and more. Lets just say I was doing and consuming so many things and information that when it was all over my head was spinning, literally. As a tribute to the weekend I’ve made the following video. Stay tuned for New York video number 2 – coming soon!!

(Note: I find this video amusing – however I am hopped up on antibiotics due to an odd allergic reaction that New York also gave me)

New York gives me the spins. Travel Yourself from Cailin O’Neil on Vimeo.

Travel Blog Exchange ’10 ( #tbex10 )

This weekend Cailin is headed to New York City for a big travel bloggers conference affectionately known on twitter as #tbex or #tbex10. Cailin will be taking on the Big Apple with Candice from Candice Does the World and Pam from Spunky Girl Monologues along with 300+ other travel bloggers, PR personel, writers, vloggers, podcasters and more! To find out more about what it is check out a list of the events ( @rtwdave has a great list HERE too ) that are taking place here, see what it’s all about and maybe she will see you at #tbex11 !

Of course while in the big city Cailin will also be filming a new travel video – so stayed tuned in the next couple of weeks for that. There may be too much footage for just one video, but you will have to wait and see!

Small World Moments

I have been traveling quite a bit in the last few years and it seems as if the world has been getting “smaller”.  I find myself constantly

CC by Jason Rogers

having “small world moments”. You know that moment when you are sitting in a hostel with a fellow Canadian and you realize you have the same friend?  It has been happening to me so much so lately that I have decided to start making a list and writing it all down. Each time it happens (or when I remember one I forgot) I’ll add it to the list. Feel free to comment below to tell me about yours!

• In August 2009 I was fairly new to the twitter scene and had been following @nomadicmatt. We had written back and forth to each other a few times but that was about it. At the end of the month I was heading to Spain for La Tomatina and I knew he was too but that was all.

I arrived in Valencia on a Monday afternoon and that night I was in the hostel partying at the bar when I turned around and thought I saw a familiar face. I looked at the guy and said “Matt?” and he looked at me and said “Cailin O’Neil!” In all the hostels and hotels in all of Valencia during one of their busiest weeks of the year where 40,000+ people visit for La Tomatina Festival not only had I ran into this traveling American I randomly met online but he was staying at the same hostel as me! Then again 2 days later in the middle of the largest food fight in the world amongst the 40,000+ people squeezed in the small town of Buñol streets we saw each other again.

• In February 2010 I traveled to Fiji where I met Hanna from Sweden who was also traveling around. Later that March Hanna traveled through Australia and finally returned home to Sweden in April. In May I visited her in Sweden and while visiting her she said to me “You said you were from Halifax right? I think I met a girl from there when I was in Australia.” I didn’t know her but we pulled her up on facebook and I had 10 friends in common with her.

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