Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown's beach (Irene Caselli)

Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of the world – that is what the tourist board will tell you, and that is how it feels like when you walk down its streets. There are dozens of outdoors shops and athletic people sporting the trendiest trekking gear. Skydiving and bungee jumping are a common topic of conversation. And in the distance you can see paragliders descending nearby peaks.

• Related article: Falling into New Zealand, from 10,000 feet

But adventure sports are not all there is to do in Queenstown. Great food, beautiful scenery and relaxing walks make this town a worthwhile destination even if you are not an adventure junkie, or you have already had an adventure overdose and need a day to totally relax.

Start by setting yourself up away from the town's hustle and bustle. Choose a location by Lake Wakatipu, which offers the perfect backdrop for the city. Options vary hugely, and you can find anything from the large and upscale Rydges Hotel to the basic YHA youth hostel. The hotels are only a 10 minute walk from the centre of town, and the lakeside path makes for great photography, a long jog or a nice stroll into town.

After a quiet and relaxing night of sleep, start your day by hiking up Ben Lomond. It is a five-hour trek roundtrip from the town's cemetery, and it is worth the initial steep climb. The views from the summit, at 1,748 metres, are stunning: you can see the whole lake, as well as the Remarkables mountain range. Start the walk early in the morning and have warm clothes and sunscreen with you - it might be very sunny yet chilly.

Walk down and stop for a drink and a snack at the café restaurant at the Skyline (if you can time it, a cocktail at sunset is unbeatable), and then hop on the gondola and you will be back in town in five minutes.

Back in Queenstown, there are plenty of options for an early dinner. If you are after a beer and a burger, Fergburger is the place for you. The meat is superb, and it also offers great fish 'n' chips or vegetarian options such as falafel. Otherwise, you can have a seafood-based dinner at a waterfront location such as Finz. There is a good wine list, the prices are reasonable, and the view of the lake is great.

Whatever you eat, leave space for ice cream. Argentine-owned Patagonia has incredible ice cream, summer fruit sorbets and spectacular chocolates. Take a stroll with your ice cream and you might be able to catch some young artists in the streets. If it is not too cold, the beach is a nice place to sit, relax and even sunbathe in the summer.

If you book ahead, Onsen Hot Pools after dinner is the perfect end to any day. You get access to a private hot tub for a reasonable price (going in a larger group is cheaper), and you even have the option to open the roof and the walls around you while soaking in hot water. Pools are conveniently south-facing, which means that on a starry night you can spot the Southern Cross and other constellations while soaking in the tub.

While Google Maps was probably hoping that Internet users would enjoy the practical side of their new satellite image technology, it was also likely that they expected people to have a little bit of fun with it. Sure enough, two Scottish brothers and one of their co-workers have banded together to launch a Blog devoted to all the fun places you can "visit" via Google Maps.

Earlier this month, we ran an article that explored the integration of the Keyhole satellite technology into Google Maps, (read: Google Maps Integrates Keyhole Satellite View) and how it could be used for local search. The Scottish trio latched on to the idea and decided to tour the world from the comfort of their cubicles.

Google Sightseeing, as the blog is called, works off of the trio's motto: "Why Bother Seeing the World for Real?" I can understand their logic... When Keyhole first came out, my husband literally spent hours on it looking up every landmark and vacation spot he could think of. My brother-in-law, a coaster-nut, looked up every single amusement park he could think of. They would fit right in with the bunch at the Google Sightseeing blog.

The concept is simple enough. Users visit the Google Maps site and type in an address. Once a map pops up, users select the "satellite" link from the top right corner of the screen and they can get an aerial photograph of the location they've searched for. This allows them to locate images of popular landmarks like the Sears Tower, Yankee Stadium or the home of The Ohio State Buckeyes.

According to an interview with Newsweek, the site came about after Alex Turnbull used the tool to take a virtual tour of the United States. Turnbull looked up popular spots like Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. From there, the idea expanded and the trio set up a blog site that allowed reader to submit their own unique finds. The site has picked up attention around the blogosphere with Google itself linking to the site from its own corporate blog. Now readers send in their own discoveries, from Area 51 to New England cranberry bogs. (No images of crop circles have popped up yet.)

The site is worth a visit for anyone that's a big fan of maps and traveling. I can already picture my husband seeking out cool locations worth submitting. Sure, there's no practical value to this search site, but every now and then, you've got to have a little bit of fun.

Check out Google Maps at: http://www.google.com/maps
Check out Google Sightseeing at: http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

Paris is the greatest city on earth – who would argue? Londoners and New Yorkers put up a fight, but in terms of architectural beauty, art history, gastronomy and sheer extravagance, it’s Paris that wins. And that is reflected in its visitors – there are more than any other city.
It’s more than the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre of course. Spending a few days in Paris can serve as a crash course in how to live. When you walk along the River Seine or take a seat in a corner café, it’s evident the finer things in life are appreciated. People don’t rush lunch. Children are doted upon. Hairdressers are always busy. And although you can’t take Paris with you, when you return home, that sense of pride will linger.
You can’t come to Paris and not indulge in culinary ecstasy. From light and flaky croissants in the morning to a rich slab of foie gras in the evening, Parisians love food. From the neighbourhood bistro to the Michelin-starred restaurant, dining out in Paris is a joy.
For the genuine foodie, Paris is the Holy City. For the art lover, Paris is the Holy City. For the lover, Paris is the Holy City.


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Situated in the Pacific some 1,000 km from the South American continent, these islands and the surrounding marine reserve have been called a unique 'living museum and showcase of evolution'. Located at the confluence of three ocean currents, the Galápagos are a 'melting pot' of marine species. Ongoing seismic and volcanic activity reflect the processes that formed the islands. These processes, together with the extreme isolation of the islands, led to the development of unusual animal life such as the land iguana, the giant tortoise and the many species of finch that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution following his visit in 1835.
The site is situated on the Galápagos Submarine Platform, and consists of about 120 islands. The larger islands are Isabela, Santa Cruz, Fernandina, Santiago and San Cristobal. The islands were formed by volcanic processes and most represent the summit of a volcano, some of which rise over 3,000 m from the Pacific floor. The western part of the archipelago experiences intense volcanic and seismic activity. The larger islands typically comprise one or more gently sloping shield volcano, culminating in collapsed craters or calderas. Long stretches of shoreline are only slightly eroded, but in many places faulting and marine erosion have produced steep cliffs and lava, coral or shell sand beaches. Other noteworthy landscape features include crater lakes, fumaroles, lava tubes, sulphur fields and a great variety of lava and other ejects such as pumice, ash and tuff.
The marine environments are highly varied and are associated with water temperature regimes reflecting differences in nutrient and light levels. These range from warm temperate conditions brought on by vigorous upwelling (Equatorial Undercurrent) and a moderately cool, warm temperate-subtropical influence (Peru Flow).
There is considerable variation in altitude, area and orientation between the islands which when combined with their physical separation, has contributed towards the species diversity and endemism on particular islands. Coastal vegetation occurs along beaches, salt-water lagoons and low, broken, boulder-strewn shores. Protected coves and lagoons are dominated by mangrove swamps. The arid zone is found immediately inland from the coastal zone, and is the most widespread formation in the islands. The humid zone emerges above the arid zone through a transition belt in which elements of the two are combined. It is a very damp zone maintained in the dry season by thick, garua fogs which accumulate through most of the night and last well into each day. A fern-grass-sedge zone covers the summit areas of the larger islands where moisture is retained in temporary pools.
The endemic fauna includes invertebrate, reptile and bird species. There are a few indigenous mammals. All the reptiles, except for two marine tortoises, are endemic. These include the Galápagos giant tortoise, with 11 subspecies on different islands, all of which are endangered, terrestrial iguanas, marine iguana, three racer species, numerous lizards of the genus and geckos. The native avifauna includes 57 residents, of which 26 (46%) are endemic and 31 are regular migrants. Endemic taxa include 13 species of Darwin's finches, including Floreana tree finch and mangrove finch. Other noteworthy species include dark-rumped petrel, Galápagos flightless cormorant, Galápagos penguin, lava gull, Floreana mockingbird, Galápagos hawk, lava heron, nocturnal swallow-tailed gull, Galápagos rail, thick-billed flycatcher, Galápagos martin and Galápagos dove. The native mammalian fauna includes six species: Galápagos fur seal, Galápagos sea lion, two species of rice rat, bat and hoary bat. Marine fauna includes several species of sharks, rays and Cetaceans. Green turtle and hawksbill turtle are common in surrounding waters, with the former nesting on sandy beaches.

Super Diego, the Second-Most Famous 

Tortoise in Galapagos 

Everyone knows Lonesome George. He's the last of his kind, the sole surviving member of his species, the only remaining Pinta Island Giant Tortoise. George is the one who gets on all the Galápagos calendars, t-shirts, post cards and coffee mugs. He's the one with an enclosure for himself (and his girlfriends) at the Charles Darwin Research Station. But right next to George, in the enclosure reserved for the tortoises from Española, is "Super Diego."

Super Diego, another Galapagos Giant Tortoise, has traveled more than George, done more to assure the survival of his species and is still going strong at the ripe old age of 130!

The Española Tortoises

Anyone who does a little bit of reading on the subject of Galapagos Giant Tortoises soon learns that the Floreana subspecies is extinct, the Pinta subspecies is only represented by George, and the rest of them are still around. What some people do not realize is how close a call it was for some of the other species! The Española tortoises were in critical danger in the 1960's, when all living Española tortoises, 2 males and 12 females, were brought to the Charles Darwin Research Station for protection.

Diego in San Diego

Meanwhile, the search was on for other Española tortoises worldwide. It was known that a group of 13 Española tortoises had gone to the San Diego zoo in the 1930's, and it turned out that one was still alive: Diego. Diego was sent back to the Galapagos in 1977, where he rejoined his fellow Española tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Diego had been well cared for at the San Diego zoo, which had actually managed to hatch Galapagos tortoise eggs in 1959.

Papa Diego

Since returning to Galapagos Diego has dedicated himself to the survival of his species. It is estimated that he has about 1,700 children! Diego and the other Española tortoises have been allowed to breed away from predators and hunters. Many of the young tortoises have been returned to Española, where the tortoise population is thriving once again: In 1994, descendants of tortoises sent over from Charles Darwin Research Station were discovered on Española Island.

A trip to the Galapagos Islands will be the journey of your lifetime. Located 1,000 km from the Ecuadorian mainland, the archipelago consist of 13 major islands, of which 5 are inhabited. This geographical isolation enabled Galapagos Island creatures to slowly change into new versions of themselves, ones that are found nowhere else on earth. Famous examples include the marine iguana and giant tortoise. The islands were the catalyst for the evolution theory developed by Charles Darwin in the early 1800s.

The archipelago has been known by many different names, including the “Enchanted Islands” because of the way in which the strong and swift currents made navigation difficult. The first crude navigation chart of the islands was done by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley in 1684, and in those charts he named the islands after some of his fellow pirates or after the English noblemen who helped the pirates’ cause. The term “Galápagos” refers to the Spanish name given to the Giant Land Tortoises known to inhabit the islands.

* Baltra (South Seymour)
* Bartolomé
* Darwin (Culpepper)
* Española (Hood)
* Fernandina (Narborough)
* Floreana (Charles or Santa María)
* Genovesa Island (Tower)
* Isabela (Albemarle)
* Marchena (Bindloe)
* North Seymour
* Pinta (Abingdon)
* Pinzón (Duncan)
* Rábida (Jervis)
* San Cristóbal (Chatham)
* Santa Cruz (Indefatigable)
* Santa Fe (Barrington)
* Santiago (San Salvador, James)
* South Plaza
* Wolf (Wenman)

The Island’s interesting volcanic geology, as well as its rich flora and fauna have been admired and studied by numerous travelers, scientist, and nature-lovers. Scientist are still faced with a mystery how such a large diversity of species could develop in a remote location like the Galapagos Islands. On the Islands, a multitude of animals, by most people only known from the Discovery Channel, are romping about: the main reason for tourists and nature lovers to pay the Galapagos Islands a visit.

Everyone who has visited the islands has his own personal list. This is survey about Galapagos Islands travelers for their opinions on which wildlife creatures thrilled them the most. The consensus results:

1 Marine iguana
2 Giant tortoise
3 Blue footed booby
4 Land iguana
5 Penguin
6 Sea lion
7 Sally lightfoot crab
8 Waved albatross
9 Flamingo
10 Frigate bird

The Galapagos islands are ideal for adventure activities, whether your favourite adventure activities be snorkelling, kayaking, hiking or other adventures the Galapagos has activities for everyone.

The lure of the Galapagos Islands Cruise

Giant Galapagos tortoises meander distant highlands, and prehistoric marine iguanas sun themselves on black lava rocks along the shore. Flightless cormorants and tiny penguins dart through the waters while graceful red-billed tropicbirds screech across the sky. In the company of a Galapagos naturalist guide aboard a luxury Galapagos cruise, you set out to explore remarkable island ecosystems as you inch past lounging sea lions, scout for breaching whales offshore and pink flamingos in hidden lagoons. The volcanic Galapagos islands sit about 650 miles west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. At first, they appear to be desolate. Yet, these rough and rocky isles are home to wonderfully strange and abundant wildlife. As Charles Darwin some 200 years before us, we marvel at the highly adapted creatures found nowhere else on earth.

When it comes to arranging distinctive Galapagos tours and Galapagos cruises, there is no substitute for the in-depth knowledge offered by the experienced staff at Big Five Tours & Expeditions. Galapagos tours and cruises begin right here, at Galapagos.com. Learn more about this remote yet surprisingly easy-to-reach destination from the comfort of our luxury Galapagos cruises.

Welcome to Galapagos.com, powered by Big Five Tours & Expeditions, awarded a "World's Best Tour Operators & Safari Outfitters" by Travel+Leisure since 1999.

At one with the terrain, 

the horse is the main mode 

of transport. (Eric Lafforgue)

It is sunrise in the high mountain pastures surrounding Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Song-Köl, and Urmat Bekkaziev emerges from the small felt yurt where he lives with his wife and baby son, and crosses the still-frozen ground to the pen containing his sheep. He waters and milks them, along with his cows and mares, and then sits down to the tedious work of separating the cream.

• Related article: New horizons in Kazakhstan

Meanwhile, his wife, Asel, lights the iron stove inside the yurt, feeding it with bricks of dried cow dung, and prepares dough to bake the day’s bread. The nomadic tradition they follow, of tending livestock in the mountain pastures, known as jailoos, and returning to the plains in winter, has been going on since time immemorial. In the winter they return to the small market town of Kochkor, three hours away by car over unpaved and often impassable roads. But even in summer, at an altitude of more than 3,000 metres, the winds are fierce and frequent, the weather is changeable, and the nights are bitterly cold.

The nomadic way of life has disappeared almost everywhere else in the world but remains alive in Kyrgyzstan partly because of extreme economic hardship. But 32-year-old Urmat is quite content. ‘It’s hard I suppose, but it has always been like this. I find the town in winter so noisy – so many people. It’s peaceful up here. And beautiful.’

The mountain and lake landscape is certainly peaceful, like stepping back hundreds of years in time, and is pristine in its beauty. The charming and bashful claim of Kyrgyzstan is that it is the least known country in the world. A Chinese monk passing through in the 7th century spoke of mountain peaks that reached the sky and warned travellers of harassment by dragons. Most people today know so little about the place that the advice could still stand.

But the country is on the economic ropes. Its only assets are gold, an American military base, and sheep. The country’s economy further suffered in 2010 after violent political protest in the capital, Bishkek, and in the south forced an unpopular and corrupt president out of office and into exile. Things are now back to normal, but the small and fledgling tourist industry has yet to recover.

Almost everyone I meet expresses nostalgia for the settled times of the good old Soviet Union. Unlike most other post-Soviet countries, Kyrgyzstan has not cleared away its statues of Lenin, but merely moved them discreetly to less prominent positions.

The hammer-and-sickle mosaics decorating the bus shelters remain, incongruously flanked by posters advertising Nescafé. The National Museum in the capital Bishkek continues to display a treasure trove of Soviet memorabilia, including a mural on its ceiling depicting a satanic President Reagan in a cowboy hat, establishing it as the Sistine Chapel of Cold War propaganda.

A small light at the end of the financial tunnel may come in the form of community based tourism (CBT). Families offer homestays, while shepherds in remote mountain pastures put up guests in yurts – a sort of wigwam b&b on the Silk Road. The idea has flourished and spread all over the country with guides, translators and transport on tap – the Kyrgyz Community Based Tourism Association’s webpage for the Kochkor region promises ‘Kyrgyz hospitality in all its muttony glory.’

I had been looking forward to going out with Urmat to herd the sheep at sundown, so I am disappointed when he merely stands outside his yurt making clucking, yodelling sounds through cupped hands. Sure enough, after several minutes, hundreds of sheep appear over the brow of the hill and obediently make their way into the pen. I ask Urmat how he did it. He shrugs: ‘That’s what I’ve always done. It’s easy.’

New York's Empire State Building, 

see from an observation deck

at Rockefeller Plaza. (BBC)

It is so obvious, so cliché and so visible that visiting the Empire State Building gets, ironically, overlooked. Like the single slice meal, blue Yankee cap and yellow cab, the skyscraper is in the city’s DNA, so familiar you feel as if you have been there even if you have never stepped foot on the observation deck. Or maybe you have written it off as an over-priced tourist trap, which is not entirely off-base. But as the gray monolith turns 80 years old on May 1, it is worth giving it a second — or first — try.

The Empire State Building inspires the imagination, its views are the highest and best in the city, its history revelatory, and makeovers to the lobby and observatories deserve a fresh look. All you need to do is avoid the headaches and traps of a visit so that nothing detracts from the marvel.

Avoiding the lines
There are four famously-lengthy lines (tickets, security, elevator up, elevator down) but there are just as many ways to avoid them. You can visit during more predictably crowd-free times, particularly between the 8 am opening and the pre-lunch rush, and after midnight until the 2 am close. For other times, call ahead. I scored a lineless visit on a Wednesday just before sunset by calling 212-736-3100 and asking for the wait time. If the estimate exceeds your patience you can purchase an Express Ticket for $24 extra and get the velvet rope treatment at the front of each line. Or, for only a $2 online fee, you can at least buy and print out the normal ticket in advance and avoid the ticket line, which is often the longest.

With those hurdles leapt you are free to enjoy the gleaming lobby, nearly half a block of prime Art Deco design. The illuminated celestial-meets-industrial scene of gold and aluminium leaf spheres and lines, modern by 1930s standards, had been obscured for decades by florescent lights that were modern by '60s standards. Its recreated glory, accomplished by historical architects and artisans, is classic Gotham. It left me feeling woefully underdressed without a fedora and pinstripe suit.

The bar
The Empire Room, an old-school-styled cocktail lounge of mohair, velvet, ebony and embossed leather that opened last year, extends that retro feel. The vibe is reminiscent of the early '60s-set television show Mad Men, though the soundtrack alternated between appropriate Harry Connick Jr tunes and mood-shattering Sade and Queen remixes. The cocktail menu includes classics such as the Ramon Gin Fizz, Waldorf and Martinique Daisy, all elaborately and proficiently executed.

The bar's signature drink is a sweet, bubbly variation on the Empire State Cocktail -- gin, vermouth, Royal Combier Liqueur, lemon juice and raspberry-orange marmalade crowned tableside in a chilled martini glass with Moet & Chandon champagne. As an aside to the bartender shaking mine out, one pearl-necklaced hostess characterized the concoction as "stupid". And while it is an admittedly convoluted, fruity concoction Don Draper would not be caught dead sipping, the champagne was a nice addition to the classic recipe. It gave me a fizzy rush that aped the ascent of the building's dizzying height.

History
When you are ready to head up the city's tallest building (and the world's tallest for about half of its 80 years), move quickly through the photo booth, past the Kevin Bacon-voiced virtual "Skyride", and hop into the marble elevators up, up and away. As you soar 1,050 feet to the observatory deck on the 86th floor, consider the giant office building's unlikely history.

"How high can you make so it won't fall down?" John Jacob Raskob, Empire's builder, asked its architect, William Lamb, as the story goes. This would have been around the peak  of the stock market in the late 1920s when everything must have seemed possible. But construction (on the site of what was once the fabled Waldorf-Astoria hotel) began just months after the 1929 crash. Counter-intuitively, this aided its construction. The lucky-to-be-employed workforce efficiently built it in a little more than a year (at times as rapidly as a floor a day), with steel girders still hot from Pennsylvania mills, riveted together 15 to 20 hours after they were forged.