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There are traveling secrets anywhere you travel. This article will tell you key travel you should know before traveling to Barbados. Don’t miss the travel tips at the end!

Barbados is a beautiful island and an excellent vacation spot. It is one of the best islands in the Caribbean.

Money

The currency is Barbados is the Barbados dollar or the Bajan. It is 1.98 the US dollars. So basically $20 Barbados is about $10 US, give or take a little.

Cost of Goods

Items and services in Barbardos are not cheap. They are about the equivalent of items or services in the US.

A nice dinner for two with wine will run you $100 US. Souvenirs are $20 – $35 for t-shirts, $10-14 for towels, mugs, etc.

Natuarally, as it is almost anywhere you travel, the domestic goods are much cheaper than imported items.

Traveling To and From and While in Barbados

When you arrive in Barbados at the airport and claim your bags you will walk out of the terminal to buses, taxis and shuttle transport. It is best to pre-arrange a shuttle to and from your hotel. The taxi ride from the airport will run $20-60 depending on the distance to your hotel and size of taxi you require. The shuttle will charge for surfboard bags and some other large oversized items. Do not pay more than $5.

If you rent a car it will be about $50-60 per day. Don’t let anyone charge you more than that. If you are from the US and you are planning to rent a car while in Barbados keep in mind you will have to drive the car. This may sound simple but the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car and the cars drive on the wrong side of the rode. This takes a little getting used to but also serves as quite an adventure!

Dress

Barbados is a British colonized island and therefore embraces the British conservatism in dress. The dress during the day is casual, tropical travel beach attire. At night and for dinner the men wear pants and collared shirts and the ladies where dresses and skirts. Due to the weather it is best if they are lightweight materials.

The Barbadians, or Bajans as they are more commonly referred to on the island, dress business casual most of the time. In the city business dress is the norm for locals and there are many men in ties and even jackets.

When dressing to go shopping beach attire is not appropriate. Bathing suits and swim wear are reserved for beaches and beach bars.

Dining

There are some great restaurants in Barbados. The Cliff restaurant is one of the nicest restaurants on the island. The view, as you can imagine for the name, is gorgeous. The restaurant is located in the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean.

In St. Lawrence Gap, Bellini’s is great. It is right inside a cove with small boats and is amazing at sunset. The salmon is my favorite.

Most hotels will have a book of restaurants on the island in their lobby area or with the concierge desk. It will have a picture of the restaurant and the menu with prices. This is a great way to pick some places you would like to eat at during your stay.

Hotels

There is a wide range of hotels to choose from. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

Budget

If you are looking for a bargain, try the Sandy Bay Beach Club. The hotel itself is nice enough, 3 star. But the staff is very friendly and helpful and the beach out front of the hotel is possibly the best on the island. It is all-inclusive so all meals, alcohol, gratuities and non-motorized sports activities are included. This makes it an excellent deal.

Breakfast and lunch are served buffet style and there is a snack bar for in-between times. Dinner is your choice of buffet style dinner or 5-course dinner in the dining room, reservations are required. They will tell you they are booked for the dining room when you ask but you can always get in. Just ask when you can come in and see if there has been a cancellation or if you can try coming at last seating which is at 8:30pm.

You can scuba, kayak and paddle boat and it is all included. Massage for an hour in the spa is only $65. For $5 you can have a giant umbrella staked in the sand by your lounge chairs. The activities center offer a $50 Turtle and Shipwreck snorkel trip. It is a great boat ride and a really reasonable cost.

If you try booking this hotel use www.cheapcarribean.com and you may get an even better deal.

Moderate

The Hilton is a gorgeous hotel located on a peninsula, so the view out of every window is crystal blue water.

This hotel has all the amenities, valet, room service, scuba excursions, restaurants, bars, spa, pool, children’s programs, everything you might need.

The rooms range from $450 – $1500 per night.

It is a beautiful hotel and if you have some money to spend on a nice vacation this is the resort to choose. You actually don’t even need to leave the hotel much. You have the views, pool, and beaches while having all the amenities of the hotel only steps away.

Expensive

Sandy Lane Hotel is the place to stay if cost is not a concern. It is the site of Tiger Woods wedding and is breathtaking.

This hotel is stunning. It is by far the most luxurious hotel on the island. You name it and it’s done. Spa, golf, horse back riding, 5 star dining, concierge service, luxury sedan from the airport. They will have it or find it for you.

The children have a summer camp style center called the Tree House Club. It is a kids dream with arts and crafts, movies, pool time. It also always parents some alone time on the vacation. They also have a Den for teenagers to enjoy away from the parents and little ones.

Room rates range from $850 – 10,000 per night.

Attractions

Snorkeling with the Turtles & Shipwreck

Catamaran and boat snorkel trips are offered all over the island. The Snorkel Turtle trip was nice but you may or may not see turtles in the water. Keep your eye out because you may see some from the boat.

The shipwreck snorkeling is beautiful. There are a ton of color fish and clear water. There is an old shipwreck and then a newer man made shipwreck where they sunk a party boat, not as authentic, but draws some exotic sea life.

Wild Life Reserve

If there is one thing you get out and do in Barbados go to the Wild Life Reserve. It is on the North end of the island and you can take the 4×4 Adventure Tour, taxi or rental car. It is $13 US admission cost and it is worth 3 times the price.

When you walk in there are large turtles everywhere. The reserve has no cages in the main area. Only the snakes, gigantic python and iguana’s are caged in a separate area. The monkeys, rabbits, and other wild life run free. The reserve is heavily shaded with rain forest looking trees and vines that hang and provide swinging tools for the monkey. You walk through the reserve on brick paths. There is even a crocodile in a pond, with high rock walls so it can’t escape.

It is a unique experience and something not to be missed.

Atlantis Submarine Excursion

If you choose to do the submarine excursion book this on www.magicaljourneys.com. They offer discounts including some two for one booking deals. That means $90 for two people instead of $180.

Other attractions on the island include a rum tasting tour, exploring caves, golfing and horseback riding.

IMPORTANT TRAVEL TIPS:

- Check the weather before travel so you know how to pack

- Search www.cashunclaimed.com to see if you have unclaimed money owed to you that can add extra money to your travel budget.

- Use travelers cheques. If they are lost or stolen they can usually be replaced within 24 hours, from virtually anywhere in the world by most banks, service establishments and by a large number of merchants

- Do not leave valuable in your hotel room or if you do opt for activating and using the safe in the closet.

- Do not call home from the hotel room. There are shops you can go in and dial from their computer, use a handset to talk and call home for $0.50 per minute. The hotel will charge you $5.00-35.00 to connect you and then $2.90-7.90 per minute! If you use your cell phone it may cost you $2-$5 per minute.

- Travel with great people and HAVE FUN!

About The Author

Nicole Anderson offers a free search for your portion of the $25+ BILLION in unclaimed money in the United States. Millions of Americans are unaware they are owed money. It could come from old savings bonds, uncashed checks, checking and savings accounts, the list goes on and on. Click on to http://www.cashunclaimed.com for your free search and see how much money is owed to you and your family.

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I hope you’ve been enjoying my posts lately. I thought I might do something different today and rustle up a few bits of info from around the WWW. These are some of the news items and blog posts that have been popular over the last few weeks. Leave me your thoughts.

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That’s all the news for today guys, so until next time, thanks for stopping by.

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Canon Ixus 80 Is Review

Article by
Owen Thomas
Having lost my previous camera in an unfortunate incident involving a corrupt taxi firm, intoxication and being dressed as a knife and fork (long story), just days before embarking on a cross continent cycle ride, a snap decision had to be made.
Weight becomes at a premium on that kind of trip, and whilst I wanted to capture the best possible pictures of North America’s amazing scenery, I knew that anything bigger than about matchbox size, was not what I wanted to lug around on my back for 3,800 miles. I could really do without the backache. Whilst being lightweight, the camera also needed to be fairly robust, cope with some decent temperature extremes and be simple enough to use that even a trained monkey would have a fighting chance. These requirements, combined with a student budget, effectively wiped out anything but a very portable camera. So I chose the Canon IXUS 80 IS digital compact camera.

The IXUS 80 IS from Canon is sleek and small and weighs in at only 125g minus battery (who uses a camera without a battery in it?!). As an added bonus, though not a draw for me personally, the Canon IXUS 80 IS also comes in pink; obviously Canon is trying to hit the female birthday present market.
Fitting nicely between my thumb and little finger, with a very easily accessed picture-taking button and zoom, the Canon IXUS 80 IS is great for one handed, on-the-go photos – just what I needed. A solid slide switch easily flips between playback, video and photo with an encouraging click to notify you of the change, and reduce those somewhat awkward moments of realising you’ve been videoing 10 seconds of forced smiles having hit the wrong mode.
Being my mother’s son, my view on instruction manuals is that they are far more use as guinea pig bedding, fancy dress costumes, wastepaper lining or other, equally vital roles. They are certainly not there to be read. This, combined with the fact that I only got the camera 12 hours before leaving the country, means that everything I learnt about this camera was through pressing buttons and seeing what happened. Having had a Canon camera before, I was able to transfer my previous knowledge easily and found that the menu system is pretty intuitive. With only a few buttons, it’s pretty easy to follow and select options. In addition, at times of extreme tiredn
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ess or mid-hill-climb, the auto function is really good, managing this picture of a gorgeous lake near Gunnison, Colorado, without me touching a thing. Can’t get water much stiller than that.

The Canon IXUS 80 IS also offers a lot of options for enhancing various colours. Below are two photos I took immediately after one another of exactly the same thing. It was our first sighting of some fairly threatening, steep looking mountains. The only difference between them is that ‘Vivid Blue’ was selected in the Manual settings for the one on the right.

And there you go. On the left, no mountains, and on the right, an imposingly large vertical wall has appeared from nowhere. Bearing in mind we’d just cycled 600 miles across Kansas, which as America goes is fairly flat, it was a tad intimidating. I know which photo I’d rather be cycling towards anyway! Admittedly, neither is worth keeping as a photo and the only reason they were still on my memory card at the end of the trip was purely sentimental value. However, I was rather surprised to find that these settings actually worked.
In fact the settings worked really well in general. This little camera can take some absolutely brilliant photos with a very small amount of input from the camera operator (and good job too as my knowledge of cameras could fit on a postcard). Even massive scenes such as Monument Valley came out fantastically with a little fiddling with the exposure and ‘Vivid Red’ settings.

This was taken about two thirds of the way through our trip on a day excursion south especially to see them. Well worth it should you be in the area, as they are a completely surreal experience. I had always thought that film directors made up or at least enhanced the backdrops in American Films until I went out there and saw this kind of thing myself. This is the classic postcard view of the two mittens and a butte. The Canon IXUS 80 IS did struggle a bit with the utter vastness otherwise known as the Grand Canyon, but then from what I saw, even the postcards in the gift shop had problems with that, so it’s pretty understandable. Even so, it didn’t do a bad job at all with this one probably being the best of the bunch taken on quite a quick exposure.

I have to thank the ‘infinity’ setting for this particular photo. Somewhat impressively, you can still make out the rock strata on the south rim 27 miles away. Even the first spike in the image is 4 miles from where I’m standing! This was our second day off, about 40 days into the trip and we saw the best views by far. The scenery was so big that my head had problems processing it, never mind the poor little IXUS 80 IS.
You can vary the exposure a bit to suit your minor whims, so whilst major adjustments are the forte of bigger, so-called better cameras, the Canon IXUS 80 IS is easily good enough to get a wide range of shots.
Due to the heat and the fact that we’d elected to cycle east to west against the prevailing wind, we were awake and cycling by 5-6am every morning. Whoopee. Having said that, when we crossed into Mountain Time in Kansas, we did get some rather spectacular sunrises over our shoulder, that made up for the early starts.

These three photos are of exactly the same thing, with different exposures. Personally I prefer the middle one as the top one looks a bit unrealistic.
This was one of the times that the temperature affected the camera a bit. Setting off so early in the morning meant that the temperature was often pretty close to freezing before rising up to 35°C in the day. The lens occasionally suffered from condensation, causing very blurred photos early in the morning, but this probably could have been avoided had it been taken care of a little better, and not just lobbed into a camelbak.
The Canon IXUS 80 IS also has a function for lightening and darkening skin tone. I didn’t actually try out this function, but maybe I should have done in this photo. Her face is cut out or she’d kill me, but check out the tan li
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nes! This photo was actually taken in Lake Tahoe, California after sixty days of wearing sleeveless tops – so I think she can be forgiven.

The only settings I couldn’t seem to make work were the various lighting settings. The Canon IXUS 80 IS didn’t seem to cope too well with fluorescent lighting although it did pretty well at night, with a good flash (when you haven’t got your finger over the top of it 3 times in a row that is…).
Taking photos with this camera is a dream. Just hold the button down and green boxes pop up surrounding what it thinks you’re focusing on. If it has chosen the wrong subject simply release and press again and the Canon IXUS 80 IS has another go. This can go on until you feel it has made a good stab at the target. This pre-focusing also allows action shots to be taken, something we perhaps overused slightly with numerous 80’s sitcom style photos.

This photo was actually taken in San Francisco after we’d just crossed the Golden Gate bridge and went back to the nearest beach to dip the wheels in the Pacific ocean.
In summary, the Canon IXUS 80 IS performed absolutely brilliantly. For as little as £134.00, it is brilliant value for money and did exactly what I asked of it on the trip. For such a tiny little thing, I was very impressed with the powerful photos it could kick out. As far as I’m concerned, the Canon IXUS 80 IS comes very highly recommended.

By: Phil Young

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