What follows is an update on three of our STA Explorers who’ve all been up to some rather excellent travel related shenanigans.

The always entertaining Lucy has begun her adventure, and ‘I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t covered in sand!’ is her first post since landing! I’ll warn you now; it’s lengthy, but worth your time as it covers the arrival in Thailand and the 10 subsequent days. There has been noodle eating, socialising with fellow travellers and chilling on the beach, among other activities,

“Got to the [Full Moon] party and got body painted up in preparation and then got well and truly stuck in on the beach with M and P and 30,000 others! The beach was AMAZING […]”

Good work Lucy! Body paint is one way of preparing for mixing with others while globe trotting, another method might be to learn the language, I give you Michael,

How cool is that? He even amends an error in pronunciation – that’s attention to detail. I love audioBoo and I’m becoming quite a fan of Michael too!

Finally Marianne of £10 Pom fame who has been writing about Canberra, Australia Day, and hooking up with travelling friends,

“After Tom, the Brits kept coming. Chris, Kerri and Kat (who spent just a bit more than £10 to fly Down Under) arrived in their camper van after exploring Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. I count Chris among my STA connections thanks to Cam and the lovely people at STA travelbuzz.”

In case you’ve not heard about Chris he’s another Explorer, his camper van trails can be found at The Wanderings of a Devonshire Boy.

As you can see our tribe of Explorers continues to grow, new and old - but all superb and full of travelling experiences on a variety of destinations. Love ‘em!

Alice has posted on the opportunity to travel for free that is STA Travel’s World Traveller Internship.

Our STA Explorer Alice in down-underland was fortunate enough to benefit from a previous STA Travel offer – she was £10 Pom 2009. Thinking travelling to Aus for a tenner was a pretty amazing deal, she believes that the chance to become STA Travel’s World Traveller Intern might be even better,

“I wasn’t sure that STA could do it… sending 150 people to Australia for only 10 pounds was pretty incredible (especially as I managed to grab myself a ticket) but they’ve outdone themselves with this new opportunity.”

Her rallying cry is stirring, even breaking down the process of applying into six very basic steps with the final one being the clincher – ‘go and experience the world’.

She’s right; it isn’t often that the chance to travel for free and see the world comes around. It’d be shame to waste it. If you’re applying let us know and tell us how it’s going. Either leave a comment below, drop us an email or @statravelbuzz. We’d love to hear how it’s going.

We’re back, and normal service is about to resume, but before it does a run through our friendfeed - the place to keep up with us and our tribe of STA Explorers and their travelling experiences - has spilled the details on all that they’ve been up to over the festive break.

We have to begin with this tweet from Escaping the Grind, Alice in Down-underland and Hang 10 and Party or, Marianne, Alice and Chris, stating that they miss us. Aww. It’s great to see Explorers getting together and having an ace time! We miss you too. Marianne has also posted on the experience of spending Christmas on Bondi Beach and being one of the 1.5 million people bring in New Year in Sydney…

Samantha’s Christmas in Melbourne was all good once the pressies had arrived and the tree was up,

“I could have nearly mistaken it as an English chrissy until walking outside to 40 degree heat…dreaming of a white Christmas, no chance Sheila!!”

Her new year was spent at the Falls Festival, a celebration of the arts, where she welcomed in 2010 with acts including Jamie T and Moby.

Laura and Jamie, Having a Ball from NZ to SE Asia, enjoyed mince pies on the beach and had ‘the best NYE ever’ in Sydney.

Alex welcomed in the New Year with 12 grapes, taking part in a Spanish tradition of eating one on each stroke of midnight to bring you good fortune for the coming year.

Like Marianne, Amar hit Bondi Beach despite the weather being somewhat less favourable than glorious sunshine. He was there for New Year also,

“The atmosphere, the 20,000 people at your side, everything. Makes me grin like an idiot just thinking about it again. Yesterday will be with me for the rest of my life. When that bridge lights up it truly is a magical moment. I hope one day that you’ll get to see it for yourself.”

Well, you can see it for yourself thanks to Amar and the power of YouTube.

OK, admittedly not the same, but if it makes you head there next year…

Finally we have Our Little Jaunt who didn’t just celebrate Christmas and New Year in Sydney, it was also their first wedding anniversary. Congratulations!

I think we’re just about up to date. It’s 2010 and we’re looking to expand our community as always, so if you had a superb Christmas break while travelling, or are about to head off to far flung lands let us known via email or Twitter.

What a year 2009 has been!

It was the 30th birthday of STA Travel which was celebrated in many ways, but most spectacularly in the return of the £10 Pom. We did our bit marking the occasion by going crazy around the world with out ever leaving London, assisted marvellously by @fillingthepages, @curiouscheese, @alice_walkabout and @spintheglobe.

The STA travelbuzz meet-ups kicked off too. On a monthly basis we got together to discuss anything and everything on travel. Most of the time we did attempt to keep to a theme, thanks in part to the expert speakers from STA Travel divulging their insider knowledge on locations they love.

Equally as impressive was the stream of travelling experiences from across the globe from the many wonderful peeps we’ve met and befriended through the STA Explorer programme. There are too many to mention, but you know who you are - you’ve all been brilliant!

If this wasn’t enough, to cap it all, STA Travel also won Best Use of Social Media for the third time in a row at the Travolution Awards!

And I could go on. But that was then, and now is about to be 2010 where we’re going to be doing even more. Can’t wait to have you all involved. Thanks guys, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Sam and Cam. x

The last time we heard from POMbear (aka George) he was struggling to sleep on his long haul flight to Aus, but that is clearly a distant memory as his most recent post is about his Hong Kong experience.

“When flying over Hong Kong the views from the plane window was something out of Sim City. There were so many tower blocks, too many to count through a tiny airplane window. I hadn’t ever been this far away from home and neither my friend Sam who I was traveling with; this was going to be a great experience.”

His time there took him on a trip up Victoria Peak on the safest tram in the world (a bold claim surely asking for trouble? It hasn’t had one reported incident in a 100-year history), gambling at Happy Valley Races where he finished the evening up and visiting the markets to pick up knock-off goods.

This was only half of it though. George’s favourite experience came discovering the Chi Lin Nunnery and the Nai Lin Gardens,

“I found that this place was what traveling was all about, discovering hidden gems away from tourists.”

Has anyone else been to the nunnery and gardens? The final night saw George trying to watch the sunset across Hong Kong, unfortunately the evening was overcast, but this didn’t hamper the photography as the view of the lights coming on throughout the city was most impressive.

And George’s final thoughts on his Hong Kong experience,

“Leaving Hong Kong for Australia was hard […], as there were still many more things to do, see and find. Perhaps I could live there one day…. in the fantastic Chi Lin Nunnery!”

STA Explorer Alice has sent a hearty “G’day mate” from down-under updating everyone on what she’s been up to since making it to Oz.

It turns out that since witnessing her first Australian sunrise (and getting her RSA) she has managed to get two jobs. One is at a restaurant in Dee Why and the other is at Liquorland, which to me sounds like an alcohol based theme park… I pretty sure it isn’t though. When Alice isn’t working she’s making the most of her new surroundings by chilling on the beach and attempting to tan; although the bronzed look isn’t arriving as quickly as she’d like :(.

She has also got to meet her boyfriend’s, handsome Geoff, cricket pals who turned out to be a lovely bunch of guys. She’s also hooked up with fellow STA Explorer and £10 Pom Marianne on Manly beach and is looking forward to meeting up with Chris, Hang 10 and Party next weekend. It’s like we have our own branch of travelbuzz in Oz.

She’s also sent out some STA Travel love focusing on the £10 Pom promotion, the queuing experience and the team that helped her sort the trip,

“The queue brought together people from all walks of life but who shared one common goal; the desire to travel. Everyone was extremely dedicated and we had a whole heap of fun. The queue was more like a festival and when I made it in the staff were extremely helpful and really could not do enough for us.”

It sounds like Alice in down-underland is settling in just fine to life in Oz and we can’t wait to hear more about it. Be sure to check back for further updates or just go straight to her site Alice Goes Walkabout.

Marianne took on the arduous task of checking out the Sydney beaches for the benefit of all her, and our, readers. The three beaches in question are Bondi, Coogee and Manly.

First to get the Maz treatment was Bondi,

“Last week I hit Bondi Beach with a few friends to spend some time on Sydney’s most famous strip of sand. It’s not huge, especially after you see Manly, but it’s big enough and it’s PACKED mostly with the likes of us, i.e. backpackers, and surfing aficionados, i.e. not us… The surf is KILLER.”

She might not be a surfer but she did attempt swimming for three minutes. The surf though was pretty tough, and despite being a strong enough swimmer to cope her bikini was faltering,

“[…] after a couple of minutes I decided that was enough indecent exposure and headed back to shore. Not to self: buy more secure bathing suits…”

A friend did also attempt to surf, but after a ‘handful of near death experiences’ the rented board was returned to the shop – so play safe kids.

Next up was Coogee for a free barbeque. The odd thing about Coogee was it was full of Australians,

“Okay, sounds crazy – Australians on an Australian beach?! What?! But honestly, after Bondi Backpacker Heaven, it was actually strange coming across so many locals.”

The final sandy escapade was on Manly and it turned out to be Marianne’s favourite of the three. Partly because it is on north side of Sydney, partly because it is in a nicer part of town but mostly because,

“[…] for chilled out afternoon lying on the sand. Manly is the way to go.”

There you have it, a quick guide to Sydney’s beaches, the main ones at least. If you’ve got any questions let Marianne know, I’m sure she’ll be more than willing to help out. And if you know of any less well known beaches worth investigating in the Sydney area, get in touch and we’ll see if Maz is willing to continue her research…