Airport immigration and security is still an embarrassing shambles
In July, as I was meeting my family in Port Douglas as part of my 70th birthday celebration, I decided to recreate my rail journey by travelling on the Spirit of Queensland train from Brisbane to Cairns. There are no longer sleeper cars on this train, having been replaced by the wonderful RailBed seat – the seat converts to a full-length bed, complete with crisp linen, doona and two pillows and the seat/bed head surround allows for undisturbed sleep by blocking fellow travellers' reading lights.
Three substantial and appetising meals (which compared favourably to the airline equivalent) are prepared in the adjacent cafe car and were brought to my seat during the 25-hour trip, along with wine, tea and coffee. Showers and clean toilets are easily accessible at each end of the Rail Bed carriages. Thank you, Queensland Rail for this very comfortable and enjoyable trip down memory lane.
Patricia Sandell, Mildura, Vic
Price is right
I read your review of Ngala Tented Camp, South Africa (Traveller, August 2) and I'd like to let your readers know that they don't need to pay anywhere near the quoted price for a private Kruger safari camp experience. Dismayed at the prices when I started researching our trip, we persevered and found somewhere much more affordable. In May, we stayed at Dzuti Bush Camp, on a 12,000-hectare Kruger concession near Hoedspruit. The camp offers an authentic bush experience with only four en-suited guest tents facing a waterhole and there are no fences. It is run by Judy Meeser and her daughter Sabre who are devoted to conservation of the bush and its animals. It may be basic, but we enjoyed fabulous meals and two daily game drives. We saw many elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, buffalo, wildebeest and lots more, all ably guided by Sabre who grew up in the South African bush.
Barbara Hilling, Watsonia North, Vic
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Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Airport immigration and security is still an embarrassing shambles
Fifty years ago, as university students on very limited budgets, a friend and I used student rail tickets (valid for a month) to travel from Melbourne to Cairns and back again. In those days, there were three classes of sleeper cabins. We used third class which consisted of three, drop-down benches on the wall, upon which we rolled out our sleeping bags. In July, as I was meeting my family in Port Douglas as part of my 70th birthday celebration, I decided to recreate my rail journey by travelling on the Spirit of Queensland train from Brisbane to Cairns. There are no longer sleeper cars on this train, having been replaced by the wonderful RailBed seat – the seat converts to a full-length bed, complete with crisp linen, doona and two pillows and the seat/bed head surround allows for undisturbed sleep by blocking fellow travellers' reading lights. Three substantial and appetising meals (which compared favourably to the airline equivalent) are prepared in the adjacent cafe car and were brought to my seat during the 25-hour trip, along with wine, tea and coffee. Showers and clean toilets are easily accessible at each end of the Rail Bed carriages. Thank you, Queensland Rail for this very comfortable and enjoyable trip down memory lane. Patricia Sandell, Mildura, Vic Price is right I read your review of Ngala Tented Camp, South Africa (Traveller, August 2) and I'd like to let your readers know that they don't need to pay anywhere near the quoted price for a private Kruger safari camp experience. Dismayed at the prices when I started researching our trip, we persevered and found somewhere much more affordable. In May, we stayed at Dzuti Bush Camp, on a 12,000-hectare Kruger concession near Hoedspruit. The camp offers an authentic bush experience with only four en-suited guest tents facing a waterhole and there are no fences. It is run by Judy Meeser and her daughter Sabre who are devoted to conservation of the bush and its animals. It may be basic, but we enjoyed fabulous meals and two daily game drives. We saw many elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, buffalo, wildebeest and lots more, all ably guided by Sabre who grew up in the South African bush. Barbara Hilling, Watsonia North, Vic
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This might sound scary, but there's a good chance you've been using AI to help with your travel plans for quite some time now. Even if you didn't realise it. If you've ever searched for flights or hotel stays via a website aggregator such as SkyScanner or then you've used AI. If you've interacted with a chatbot on a travel website, that's AI. Even if you've just googled for potential destinations, your search has been powered by AI. Artificial Intelligence is very much part of our world now, and for travellers it can be a handy guide to that world, with a host of tools out there to help you plan and execute your next holiday. Start at the beginning: where do you want to go? Publications such as Traveller, of course, are ideal for expert advice from people who are on the ground, experiencing the world's best travel destinations in person. You can augment that knowledge, however, with some basic guidance. Using generative AI via 'large language models', or LLMs, such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Mistral, you can input the desired parameters for your holiday – say, 'somewhere cold, with mountains, great food, cultural attractions, and not too expensive' – and you will be given a series of answers that will at least provide some inspiration. (The results for that search on ChatGPT, by the way, were Bulgaria and Slovenia – good calls – and Iceland and Norway, which are both notoriously pricey and not at all suitable. So, be careful.) These LLMs can also help you plan an itinerary, particularly travel-specific AI sites such as PlanTripAI, or LaylaAI. Simply enter your destination, the sorts of things you're interested in, the time you have to spend, and the bots will spit out all sorts of suggested itineraries. They may not be perfect; in fact, they almost certainly won't be. But you will be able to pick and choose and perhaps collect a few ideas you wouldn't otherwise have had. Next, the booking portion of your trip, which is probably the simplest to have magical bots lend you a helping hand. Use aggregators such as those mentioned at the top of this story, or the likes of Kayak or Expedia, to search flights, accommodation and experiences. When you find what you like, either book through that site, or go to the individual providers' websites to see if you can get a better deal by booking direct. And finally, there are ways to harness AI when you're on the ground, enjoying your holiday. Google's suite of apps is the leader here. Google Maps is an indispensable tool that will help you get around, tell you how busy certain routes are, give you 3D paths to follow, even tell you which carriage of a train to ride in for the easiest exit at your destination. Google Translate is also invaluable in non-English-speaking countries, with real-time translations of menus and other signage via your phone's camera, plus the ability to talk into your phone in English, and have it spoken back to you (or to someone near you) in the local language. It's scary, seeing how good it is. But also very handy.
