Sharing Travel Experiences

Great Travel Tips from the TravelDudes

by Andy Hayes

If it’s great travel tips and travel deals that you’re after, we’ve got ‘em served up hot and fresh today with our interviewee guest.  He’s based in Germany but well versed on the secret travel recommendations from all continents.  Without further ado, I welcome Melvin from TravelDudes…

Let’s start with a brief introduction.

Hi, my name is Melvin and I live in Köln (Cologne), Germany. Originally I am a travel agent, but I quit my job to travel through Australia and New Zealand. I used also this time to further built up Traveldudes and to produce some travel videos. Traveldudes was first a private site, which my friend Olivier and me used as an online travel diary for our trip through Indochina. After our trip we opened the site for travel tips and also for other travelers to share their experiences. Since I’m back from Down Under I worked at a complete new version and bringing it always a step further. My dream is to have free and great online guide written For Travelers, By Travelers.

Since you’re based in Germany, any tips for Germany? It is one of my favourite European countries – there’s so much to see and do.

Yes, for sure! Ok, many travelers visit Munich, Berlin and Hamburg and stay perhaps just a few days in Germany. Many travelers also don’t expect too much when visiting Germany, as the country itself doesn’t do a good job of presenting itself in the tourism branch abroad. So most travelers are surprised how nice Germany is and how guest friendly we are. But to get to your question… Karneval in Köln. The biggest festivity in Cologne is the Winter carnival (or Fastelovend) in February. According to the official Cologne tourism website: “Its highlight is the street carnival taking place from Weiberfastnacht (the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, traditionally the day on which women take control of the city) to Karnevalsdienstag (Shrove Tuesday). On Rosenmontag (Shrove Monday) more than one and a half million people line Cologne’s streets to watch the parade with the mad triad – the prince, farmer, and virgin – every year.” Dates for Carneval: 2010 Feb 11th to Feb 16th.

I’m always telling friends, that the Cologne Carneval might be the best carneval of the world. Ok, I know it’s quite something to say that, as there are many great places out there with great carneval experience. But Cologne carneval is unique! Everyone… really! Everyone gets dressed up! People run around as clowns, cowboys, indians, selfmade costums & whatever you like to be!
The songs you’ll hear are all on “Kölsch”, the dialect & most of them are about carneval & about the city & its people.

If you visit Cologne alone, you won’t stay alone for long (any time of the year). You just have to visit a pub and it won’t be long, someone will invite you for a beer!

Andy’s Note:  Wow – a fantastic tip.  I’ve been to Cologne many times and can confirm it is a *wonderful* stop for many reasons.  My favourite time of year to visit is Christmas for the Christmas markets, but now I have yet-another-reason to go back.

With all those tips, you must be a well informed traveller! What’s been the absolutely best tip?

That is a tough one! My personal favourite would be the spider walk in the Karijini National Park. You’ll find many spiders, but that’s not why it’s called like it. At some points, the walls get so close, that you can only pass it like a spider, with your legs and hands left and right and the water beneath you. Really great! There are even more and similar gorges right next to it.

But as Traveldudes is not just about my travel tips, I would add one I haven’t done myself, but would love to do, too. That would be to swim in the devil’s pool in the Zambezi river. Just about 2, 3 feet away would be the drop of the Victoria Falls… crazy! Or I would love to ride the worlds’ most dangerous road in Bolivia.

What other resources do you use in your travel information arsenal?

That’s completely wide spread. Many things are personal experiences from other travelers or from myself. There it helped that I was a travel agent and that I spent most of my money on trips.
But I also use informations of books and of the world wide web. I got many good contacts with owners of accommodations (mostly hostels). They love to travel themselves and share my idea of Traveldudes.

Armed with those tips…what’s been your most inspirational travel experience?

There were so many. When we traveled for 6 months through Australia and New Zealand, I wouldn’t want to cancel one single day. Each day something special happened. That’s what I love about traveling.
Ok, we stayed 11 days in a parking garage in Sydney to sell our 4×4. Most of these days were fun, too. But I could cancel maybe 3 or 4 of these.
Back in everydays life… at work… I could cancel many days. That sounds as I wouldn’t like my everydays life. That’s wrong, but many days are very similar and nothing extraordinary happens. I guess that would be different, if I would be a Safari guide. I was thinking of that one, but in Germany it’s a hard task.

Anything interesting coming up on your travel itinerary?

No, not right now. But if someone got a good travel tip and will post it on Traveldudes, I might go there next. I really loved our trip through Tanzania last year. The adventures we had there and also back in Australia really fascinated me. I would love to get more of that. So perhaps I’ll discover more of Africa. But I would also love to discover areas like Siberia or Alaska. Then there is still South America, where I haven’t seen most of it. I loved Havana and want to get back there, to play Domino with the guys on the street. You see, this question completely confuses me. I have no plans and will be completely open to where it will take me next.

Andy’s Note: Alaska is on my list too now after our recent feature from a Location Independent Professional about her things to do in Alaska. Looks great!

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Melvin, thanks for all the juicy tips and tidbits – I can hear readers scrabbling down ideas in their notebooks already! If you want to check out more info, visit the TravelDudes website or follow them on Twitter.

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