Viator Travel Blog

I’ve just spent a couple of months in Melbourne catching up with family and friends. And I have to admit I’d forgotten what a fab town it is. I was born and raised there, and sometimes it’s hard to really see your hometown, but a few years away gave me fresh eyes. So here’s my Top 10 of things I did this Downunder Summer in Melbourne.

If you find yourself in Sydney next week (March 7 – 15), you’re very luck indeed. The city is celebrating its annual Harbour Week Festival, with more than 350 events in, on, around, over and even under Sydney’s iconic harbour.

The big events are the Sydney Harbour Regatta (March 7 – 9), when more than 350 yachts compete and thousands of spectators gather harbour-side to watch (the event is free to watch).

Do you have kids? I have one. His name is Emmett. He’s nearly three years old. He loves penguins. And fish. And butterflies. And snakes. And jellyfish. And alligators. Most of the time we only get to experience these things in books. Which is why I was super-duper excited to check out the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco‘s Golden Gate Park.

When I was 11 years old (nearly 20 years ago), in May of 1989, I took my first tour to Alcatraz Island. My elementary school was a two-hour drive from San Francisco, and this was our big field trip of the year, Alcatraz and the San Francisco Zoo. In retrospect I think that part of the reason we went to Alcatraz and not say, an art museum, was perhaps meant as a cautionary tale.

While some people head for the hills, others hit the bars, and some prefer museums, stargazing or visiting the wildebeest, for me the ultimate holiday involves crashing waves and glistening sands. That’s right, I can never go past a trip to the beach. It started with Elvis and clambakes, in all those 1950s musicals with pretty girls in polka-dot bikinis and beefy boys in tight shorts, having an innocent sing along around the fire. I am fortunate to have grown up in Sydney, a city with some of the worlds most beautiful beaches,

Editor’s Note: This is part of the ‘Contemporary Family Vacation’ series by Jeff Gates, the New Media Lead Producer for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Managing Editor for its blog, Eye Level. Catch up on Jeff’s posts from this year’s family outing to the Pacific Northwest. As we stood on the bluffs overlooking the [...]

Editor’s Note: Loyal readers will have fond memories of the last family vacation taken by Jeff Gates, the New Media Lead Producer for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Managing Editor for its blog, Eye Level. Catch up on posts from Jeff’s last vacation and then enjoy his posts from this year’s family outing to [...]

File this under “Only in Thailand”. We had two elephants come to the village recently for a game of elephant soccer (“football” to those people with funny accents). Now I thought that would mean the two elephants playing soccer against each other. But oh no. In typical Thai style, this turned out to be two [...]

Editor’s Note: If you miss Mr Squiggle as much as Jack clearly does, sign the petition to bring Mr Squiggle back! For those of you born without eyes and ears and a television in Australia, or you just don’t know, Mr Squiggle was one of the longest-running children’s television programs on national (non-commercial) television in [...]

Editor’s Note: Luke posted this last year for his mum. We thought it nicely captures the spirit of Mother’s Day, so we are re-posting Luke’s original ode today in honor of moms (and mums) everywhere. Fighting my way to Sydney airport on Easter Thursday evening — along with 20,000 other travellers, dropper-offers and picker-uppers — [...]