In the last fifteen months I've taken only a soft-sided carry-on bag on three separate overseas trips.

If there is any city in the world in which one should play absolute tourist, London is it.

Part of the reason for motorhomes' increasing popularity has to be the improved comfort.

Where is it safe to travel overseas? Some places are fairly easy to rule out. Afghanistan or Iraq, Congo and Sudan are only likely to attract the most adventurous traveller.

The first time I travelled to Europe, long, long ago, about the only way to keep in touch with home was by surface mail, which took around a month.

There seems to be a general consensus out there that budget airlines are a good way to get around Europe easily and on the cheap.

At first, I thought somebody had died and we'd stumbled into the place where the corpse was being embalmed...

At the height of the aviation chaos caused by the ash cloud, I commented to my wife, "It's going to be interesting to see the outcome of this ... "

One of the trickier decisions you face when you're on the road in a strange country is where to eat.

I've just used one of the European budget airlines for the first time, and found it very good.

Whether you get fat and flabby while you're travelling rather depends what sort of trip you're on.

The first time I ever flew must have been about 1960 in a Grumman Widgeon amphibian, piloted by the famous Freddie Ladd.

If you want to know the best places to check out when you're visiting a foreign country you're often best advised to ask a tourist rather than a local.

Ombudsman Deborah Battell says her office has received complaints from travellers that paying in their home currency when using credit cards may actually cost them more.

We baby boomers seem hell-bent on dashing off around the world gaining notches in our money belts. Everyone has been, or is going, to Europe or Asia.

I'm sure it's an embarrassing sign of old age and colonial cringe but one thing I do like to have when I'm on the road is a nice early morning cup of weak tea... well, two cups, really.

The first thing I do when I enter a new hotel room isn't to go straight to the window to check out the view, test-bounce the bed or look into the bathroom to see whether the toiletries are Molton Brown or Gilchrist & Soames.

Think of women's clothing and Iran and the unappealing image that springs to mind is probably the shapeless, black coverall of a traditional chador.

Natural disasters have put the tourism sectors in Christchurch and Queensland on the back foot but the Aussies have already come out swinging with the cleverly named "Nothing beats Queensland" campaign.

I've always felt that food was one of the great reasons to travel. But you'd have to say that until relatively recently it wasn't top of the list of reasons for visiting the South Pacific.

At Auckland International Airport I watched sympathetically as my young daughter wrestled with the dilemma of how to meet the needs of three young children within the limits of the aviation security rules.

If you've flown Air New Zealand and found yourself on the new Airbus A320, you'll have had the chance to use your mobile at 5000m, or to listen to your neighbour doing important business by phone.

The shadow of earthquake and recession may still be hanging darkly over the land but that seems only to have spurred Kiwis to fly further and to more exotic locations when they go on holiday.

I've always found ancient places of worship to be strangely moving. Probably it's because the dominant role of organised religion in bygone times meant the greatest talents of the age were harnessed to make these churches.

So passengers are going to be able to make mobile phone calls on domestic flights on Air New Zealand's new A320s. Fantastic. Hurrah. Yippee. Not.

Hihi - otherwise known as stitchbirds - may well be New Zealand's most interesting birds.

After digesting both sides of the debate, Jim Eagles believes there should be a uniform set of rules governing freedom camping.

Checking your rental car for scratches before you depart on a journey can be tiring - but Alex Robertson has a solution.

You may have noticed that over the holiday period Air New Zealand finally took delivery of the first of its five Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

Peter Calder takes a break from creature comforts - and city slickers.