Your travel website!

We found a great free online tool to create a website for anything you might be interested in, and others can contribute and help you as well. Using a free wiki, select your topic and set up your website.

Travel is a great category for a wiki website, because people from everywhere can add their comments, photos, information, or anything else to enhance your website while you sit back and enjoy their efforts. By letting others help you build your website, you can have valuable travel information from places you aren't able to visit yourself. Take advantage of all your friends' vacations (and their friends as well!) by creating a network that will grow your website much faster than you could ever do on your own.

Even better, many people live in areas that are considered vacation spots or travel destinations by someone else. Locals can provide good insights about restaurants, entertainment, shopping, and lots of other local flavor that is off the beaten path, and will help your website develop an authentic flavor that no one person could possibly create on their own.

You can have a particular focus ... some people have wikis about travel to a specific country, traveling with kids, or traveling and food. One of the most interesting features we noticed on some travel wikis are "Top 10 lists." You can create a particular category, or allow visitors to make up their own. Things like "Top 10 strange foods" or "Top 10 weird local customs" or "Top 10 travel disasters" are a lot of fun. More practical lists might include "Top 10 things you don't think to pack but probably should" or "Top 10 ways to amuse the kids on the road."

It's fun and easy, and you can customize your wiki in any way that you like. Go ahead and try it out, and create a site that you will enjoy being webmaster for as well as one that can be useful to fellow travelers!

Nature in New Zealand

New Zealand is the perfect destination for adventurous, nature-loving travelers. While Aukland is a huge cosmopolitan city offering cultural museums, diverse shopping, pampering spas, and much more, it also holds treasures for those who are inspired by nature. The Brick Bay Sculpture trail is the perfect marrying of culture in natural surroundings, Butterfly Creek houses 700 free-flying butterflies and walk-through aviary and aquaria exhibits, the Aukland Zoo offers up-close experiences with a wide variety of animals, and some of the world's best gardens are open to the public. Within minutes of most Aukland hotels are breathtaking beaches, serene islands, and majestic natural scenery.



The capital city of Wellington offers balloon rides over the picturesque countryside, canoing or kayaking along local streams, or rock climbing and other extreme outdoor activities at the Makahika Outdoor Pursuit Centre. Many park trails, walkways, public gardens, and shoreline walks are accessible to Wellington hotels. Enjoy mountain biking or hiking in the nearby mountains and wild areas.





And Christchurch is THE garden city! Don't miss the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. You'll also want to visit Orana Park, which is the largest wildlife reserve in New Zealand. If you love the kiwi (and who doesn't?!), you'll want to visit them at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve where there is a large daytime kiwi viewing area. Bottle Lake Forest Park offers more active travelers the opportunity to hike, mountain bike, or trail ride in a production forest. Other parks and gardens include Victoria Park, Ports Hills, Hagley Park, Travis Wetland, Horseshoe Lake, Halswell Quarry Park, Bexley Wetland, the Groynes, Styx Mill Conservation Reserve, Spencer Park, and Riccarton Bush, with a wide variety of outdoor sights and adventures to be enjoyed. When seeking Christchurch hotels, look for one near one of these refreshing destinations and enjoy your vacation!

Spring at Bellingrath Gardens

One of my favorite travel destinations is located in South Alabama, just outside Mobile. Bellingrath Gardens is close enough for my family to visit on a fairly regular basis, and the spring is normally our favorite time of year there. The 905 acre estate boasts over 250,000 azaleas, hydrangeas, fuschias, Easter lilies, and much more.

Begun as a fishing camp by Mr. Bellingrath, the available acres appealed to Mrs. Bellingrath and she began planting azaleas, camellias, and other southern favorites on the property in the early 1900's. It was in the spring of 1932 that the couple opened the grounds to the public for an afternoon, and they were overwhelmed by the response. In 1934 they opened the lovely grounds to ongoing public visitation.


Changing with the seasons, Bellingrath has been likened to "a beautiful woman with a different dress for every week of the year." Summer roses draw crowds, fall color is led by chrysanthemums, the holidays feature loads of poinsettias, winter is the time of camellia blossoms. But the spring stars are the azaleas that form walls of lovely pink flowers bordering the long winding paths that work along the lovely estate, the perfect backdrop for photos and breathtaking up close or from a distance. Shown here are the Azalea Trail Maids, southern belles in traditional gowns that stroll the estate among the lush azalea plantings. Another wonderful spring feature is the Japanese garden with its graceful wisteria.


Unfortunately, this year is not ideal for azaleas. The flowers are lovely, but will not be lasting as long as they normally do, so the window of opportunity is very limited. However, Bellingrath is still worth visiting at any time of year, and even if you miss the azaleas this year, you should place Bellingrath on your calendar for next spring, and consider visiting the see the many thousands of other lovely flowers in bloom. Generally, the azaleas start to bloom in late February and are at their peak during March.

Admission prices range from $5.50 to $26, depending upon the age of the visitor and whether you wish to view the gardens only or to also tour the home and/or ride the riverboat cruise.





So lovely, the Gardens have been the subject of many works of art. You can visit a collection by Richard Earl Thompson featuring Bellingrath Gardens listed at secondnatured.com (which by the way, supports nonprofit environmental organizations and helps to preserve natural beauty with the income from purchases made from downloaded art). Canvas prints are also readily available from other sources. (Please note: we are not affiliated with these or other art sites and cannot vouch for them but found them through an online search.)