Exchanging Homes? Why not do Reunion Island?

One type of accommodation option that has emerged in the past decade or so among potential tourists, is the idea of Home Exchanges. We saw this recently in the movie, The Holiday, with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz exchanging their British and American homes to each other's delight. Really, as much as this modern society is more open to these sort of things, one can never be cautious enough in dealing with complete strangers. Especially on the internet. Nowadays, psychos are roaming mad, and a mere innocent look is not enough to see through what one is capable of. How paranoid our society is becoming.

One advertisement caught my eye as I was searching for my apartment. It was from a person from Reunion Island, located near the coast of mainland Africa in the Indian Ocean. I first got familiar with this French island when I went to Mauritius a couple of months back. Most Mauritians raved about this lovely neighbour of theirs. Reunion island is not a very populated destination, with only 700,000 inhabitants. Their culture is a mix of French, African, Indian and Chinese as reflected through their food, music and way of life. Really there are so much that this small island can offer from beautiful landscape, to refreshing seascape. The best time to visit this island is from April to September when the weather is not too hot.

It is not for the faint hearted tourist, as the authentic experience of this island is anything but traditional but everything that one could hope for in a travel destination. I do hope that I can visit this lovely neighbour of Mauritius one day. Costa Cruise offers sailings to this paradise island as seen here. This island is also good for surfing, adrenalin sports, mountain biking, treking, photography enthusiasts, spa lovers, nature lovers, and everyone else.

There is a growing number of resorts from budget to luxury found at majority of the island's towns. A few of them are: Les Villas du Recif, Les Villas du Lagon, Boucan Canot, Novotel Saint Gilles La Reunion, Hotel Saint Alexis, Lodge Roche Tamarin, Palm Hotel and Spa. I was surprised to find out that they had a lot of accommodation types to offer!

Starting April 1, 2009 Air Austral will connect Sydney and St Denis, Reunion Island direct, twice a week. People travelling to Paris will have the chance to see this magnificent island on their way to Europe. Surely this is something I look forward to selling to my passengers!

Photos from my Mauritius Trip

A few photos from my trip. Some are details of the places I've been to, and the hosted events I participated in. Really, it's just a summary of my Mauritian experience. Enjoy! Visit my other blogs for more photos! I've purposely scattered the photos in all my sites. Gorgeous Traveller, A traveller's domain, Lemon iced tea.

..I woke up a few mornings early enough to witness glorious sunrise/s.
..I was luckily billeted in lovely single rooms in great properties (few times I had a junior suite all to myself!)
..I enjoyed taking photos of people and things, downtown at the markets, as we drove through small towns,and at various events we went to.
..It was winter in Mauritius at that time, but we had a fair bit of sunshine! Other times though, it was pure wind! Haha! Saw a rainbow thrice! :)
..Yummy seafood. Throughout the trip we indulged in degustation! Buffet breakfasts daily! At least five course lunch/dinners! Overflowing alcohol! :)

I am back from MRU!

After more than a week of not being near a computer, or logging onto my blogs, emails, or anything internet related.... I am glad to be back home from my Mauritius trip! I will be posting lotsa photos soon, when I am unjetlagged and have done my dirty laundry. Also when I get around to sorting my hundreds of photos!

For now, I am just really really glad to be back after a week in paradise. I suppose paradise is paradise when you only have a bite of it. After a while, you know that reality kicks in, and it's time for the real world.

I was meant to go straight back into work this morning when my plane landed. But, my eyes were bloodshot. Too tired. As I write now, I am not quite sure my body knows where it is. It's meant to be about 6PM in Mauritius. And about 12Midnight Sydney. I want to rest, but I can't seem to. I want to blog some more and catch up on emails, etc. But I will be working tomorrow. I will just have to force myself to bed. After all, I am back to reality. Back to normalcy. Which is really good.

I will blog more about Mauritius (MRU) again in the next few days, weeks. For now, it's Au Revoir. *GoodBye in French*

P.S. A big THANKS to everyone who's visited my site (a.k.a. Home) while I was away! :) I appreciate it!

Being a travel agent

Last night I was researching on hotels for my trip to Mauritius, as well as other travel details such as what to bring, what the weather would be like, etc. I couldn’t be more excited to travel to this place. It’s not one of those places that people usually visit. I’ve read that celebrities have their honeymoon in Mauritius, or just go to the island to hide away from it all. I will be going away for about 7 nights in a few days time and since this is for work, we are staying at cool five star hotels. When I say hotels I mean quite a few. We’d be staying at four different hotels. This doesn’t mean though that we’d see only four, because in my job, when we are sent overseas to inspect hotels we’d have a taste of a few, but are most likely to visit more hotels than where we're staying at. Particularly the ones which we sell a lot, or those that belong to the same market we sell. For example, if we were to be sent in Italy to see Venice, Rome, and Naples, we would most likely check out a fair bit of what Hotel Venice, Hotel Rome, Hotel Naples are like. This is one of the perks of being a travel agent. We get to see places, hotels, or experience tours all because we need this in order to be better at our chosen careers. To travel for free, well sort of. I only chipped in about 100 dollars for the entire trip; meaning includes flights, meals, accommodation, etc. That’s a decent amount if I may say so, considering it would be pure luxury that we’d be experiencing. I think I’d spend a lot more than that on my shopping to buy clothes to wear while I’m there! Well I couldn't wear something too plain while sipping cocktails at the beach with some celebrity!