Allow me to introduce to you our latest Explorers – Our Little Jaunt. They are going to be living in Sydney before moving on, taking in Australia and beyond. Beyond is going to be everywhere they can get to before running out of money for food.

Our Little Jaunt between them have many interests, some of which are sure to make great reading for those wanting to know what’s possible while travelling. In this vein I’m thinking of their loves for ‘pushing boundaries’, ‘doing things that scare us’ and ‘online networking’. Can’t wait to see where such endeavours lead them.

They’ve also set themselves a high standard when it comes to having fun while travelling, having seen this video and wanting to rival it as they make their tracks around the globe…

Their most recent post is T minus 8 hours, 20 minutes and was posted more than 8 hours 20 mins ago. This means their little jaunt has begun, as this twitpic shows! Happy landing and welcome to the fold guys.

Maz, Escaping the Grind, has posted on landing in Australia. It seems a while ago that we first met the ever-smiling Maz, a £10 Pom 2009 travelling to Australia, and converted to an STA Explorer (not in a weird cult type way). And now she’s there, feet firmly planted down-under.

The post, Australia on a thousand pennies, details the beginning of her adventure – basically queuing outside STA Travel’s Victoria store for three days to become a £10 Pom 2009. It is this success that saw her boarding a Quantas flight last Tuesday bound for the other side of the world. Towards the end of the second leg of the journey Maz awoke to her first Australian sunrise,

“I don’t think any of this was real until then.”

Her first few days were spent kicking-the-butt of some serious jet lag and a slightly unusual Thanksgiving dinner,

“About thirty of us drank, ate and made ourselves thankful by the beach in Double Bay. Not your typical American Thanksgiving scene, but I wasn’t complaining about eating turkey and pumpkin pie with Sydney Harbour as a backdrop. It could definitely be a lot worse.”

Next up for Maz is finding work. She’s hoping by the next update she’ll be an employee and asks for readers to wish her luck. At STA travelbuzz we’re confident you won’t need luck - you’ll ace it!

Ready to travel Roxie1983 at the gapyear.com forums has detailed her trip, and it sounds superb,

“May 2010 London to New York, Camp America in New Jersey, August 2010 New York to San Francisco, Green Tortoise Tour ‘Best of the West’, Sept 2010 LA to Quito, Oasis Overland tour ‘Amazon and Andes’, Nov 2010 Santiago to Auckland.”

Sounds good doesn’t it? However she hasn’t actually booked it yet! Before taking the plunge and committing to it she’s wondering whether she should go into a branch, since the entire process was done online and via email with a ‘very helpful lady at STA travel’. We say it can’t hurt, especially as the STA Travel guys are all experts on different locations, so may suggest something you’ve not even thought of…

Before we get to The Pinnacles and Chris (Hang 10 and Party) enjoying them, we should at least mention the other adventures he’s been having. These include experiencing Perth, the trials of getting the Campervan trip going, surfing The Rabbit Hole (sort of) and viewing Wave Rock. Yup, he’s been busy.

However, back to The Pinnacles, spectacular limestone formations rising from the ground,

“Now I wasn’t sure what I was expecting of this place. A few tall rock formations perhaps? What we were presented with was a 4km drive around a staggering amount of rock formations in all shapes and sizes. It was impressive to say the least, all be it slightly eerie.”

Due to the very long trip to get there, and a bit of time spent haggling on a eucalyptus didgeridoo, the sun was setting as Chris arrived. Fortunately this was perfect for photographing the natural beauty of the location.

I think you’ll agree that Chris did it justice…

Adam has once again been up to a serious amount in Africa and is currently on the Niger River.

The Niger is the route Adam and his travelling amigos have chosen for getting to their next destination,

“There are three main ferries that the COMANAV company have going from just outside Bamako, travelling all the way along the Niger to Gao, in far east Mali.”

Adam’s description of the journey conjures up images of Indiana Jones in Raiders, which sounds great. However the reality of cramped rooms, livestock on deck and the culinary highlight being a meal having the addition of boney goat might not be for everyone. Despite this, and ‘painfully slow’ progress at times, the views the trip offered were amazing. One morning in particular they awoke to find themselves surrounded by water as the floated through a part of the river that is 30km wide,

“You could barely see land on the horizon. There were occasional strips of reed, blowing in the strong wind, or a few birds flying past, but apart from that we were alone in the middle of nowhere. A pretty cool experience.”

The journey had a few stops along the way and you can read about what each entailed for Adam and his pals in his post. One in particular that was a rather rude awakening…

‘Reasons to travel’ is the latest post from Amar, our Gap Year Go Getter. In it he considers the reasons people go travelling and what they look to get out of their time away.

The thoughts were kicked off by his own moment of realisation, as he describes,

“I guess I had a little epiphany or moment of enlightenment. Call it what you will, something happened. I don’t think the circumstances matter as long as you learn from it. I couldn’t even begin to explain what ‘clicked’. Unless you were me, you wouldn’t understand.”

Like all good scholars, Amar doesn’t rely on his own words to get the message across. Instead he turns to spiritual activist Marianne Williamson for further clarity, providing a quote that is certainly designed to get you thinking about yourself and your place in the world. If you’re the philosophical sort then click through and share your thoughts with Amar…

Last night Cam and I attended our second STA Travel Aus gathering as part of our talk tour. Having already been to Manchester we’re now strictly London only, which those eager readers among you will notice contradicts the initial schedule. Yes, sadly STA travelbuzz will not be at the Bristol get together. If you were planning on coming by, please accept our apologies – if you just send us an email we’ll try and sort something for the near future…

The talks are all taking place in STA stores and tonight we’ll now be at the one taking place in Russell Square, so if you’re in the vicinity and love travel why not drop by. The new schedule is below, so if you can’t make tonight hopefully they’ll be a more suitable date. We look forward to meeting you.

25th November – Russell Square 7pm–10pm
24th November – Earls Court 7pm–10pm
26th November – St. Pauls 7pm–10pm
30th November – Covent Garden 7pm–10pm
1st December – Victoria 7pm–10pm
2nd December – Kensington 7pm–10pm
3rd December – Ealing 7pm–10pm