With Big Brother 9 dragging its bloated corpse towards an overdue death, surely the whole reality TV phenomenon is finally, thankfully kaput?

We-ell. Not quite. Because Bebo’s interactive online travel reality show The Gap Year (which STA Travel sponsors) is still going strong, and, although I slightly hate myself for admitting this, it’s actually not bad at all. Pretty compulsive in fact. All of which is, in my opinion, down to Dave.

Roaming the world for six months at the whim of us online audience who control his budget and adventures, the British contestant is winningly anti-reality. With no whining, no attention seeking and certainly no poor pop song singing, Dave is as laid back as they come, even slightly shy. Which means that locals in all the places he visits invariably warm to his relaxed, unpretentious style, and we end up getting a really genuine insight into the countries he explores.

The latest video (here and below) from Dave couch surfing in Hawaii, is a classic - especially his admission that he ‘collects fridge magnets’ (rock and roll, man, rock and roll). He’s now moving onto Australia, so if you want your faith restoring that not every normal person turns into an idiot in front of the camera, become a fan of The Gap Year and follow Dave’s winning wandering ways.

New STA Explorer Alison descirbes herself as an ‘organised, structured lass’. Good thing really, as she’s facing some serious upheaval as she moves from London back to her homeland Australia - and visits eight countries in four months along the way.

As she writes in On The Road Home, the blog she’s created to chronicle her experiences, the cornerstone of her trip planning has been The Spreadsheet, a colour-coded masterpiece ‘that lısted where and when I wanted to travel, which tours wıth which companies I’d chosen and how much İ thought it all would cost’. Deciding to plan and book her journey with STA Travel, Alison initially found sterling support from Beth in the Ealing Broadway branch, who

relentlessly worked on my itınerary, working and reworking the order of things to get me the best price on flights that she could find. She even took a moment wıth me to grieve the loss of Mongolia when that proved to be a country too far for my budget. She was there to have a little clap when İ paid for the trip and hold my hand through all manner of creative debit/credit card management.

However, she got an unwelcome shock when she returned to the branch to find that Beth had disappeared. Her laid-back successor Saxon has done his best to get to grips with her repeated questions and crises (such as her passport being held hostage by the Uzbekistan Embassy), and thankfully Alison’s organisation paid off as she’s ‘finally lıvıng The Damn Spreadsheet.’

Her first stop is beautiful Istanbul, where she is staying in a basic hostel but has loved the Topkapi Palace and Grand Bazaar. She’s moving onto central Asia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia over the next months, promising to review the many adventure tours she’s booked along the way with STA, and uploading photos onto her Flickr account. So follow her blog and get involved by leaving a comment. If it’s a thorough and as opinionated as her travel planning, you’d be mad to miss it.

Now, if you ever wanted to know the power of being an STA Explorer then look no further than the experiences of our Australian Adventurer.

Georgina begins her latest post, Neighbours Night in Melbourne, with these words:

“Best night ever. Let me cut a long story short…”

I’m going to cut it even shorter, because who am I to steal any Alan Fletcher aka Dr. Karl Kennedy related thunder!

The girls of Hip21 had, as of the 18^th, posted about their anticipation of the Neighbours Night which you can read here – make sure to take note of the ‘honking’ reference involving good ol’ Dr. K. Come the evening festivities, and Alan Fletcher or Dr. K (I don’t think he minds), is prepping the stage for his performance in his role as front man and driving force of indie band, Waiting Room. It was at this point he spoke to the gathering crowd:

“Where’s Claire? Who’s Claire that writes the Hip21 blog? Who saw me honking my horn today at Ramsey St?”

At this point the experience is far better described by Hip21 girls themselves; needless to say excitement ensued in epic proportions, but basically Dr. Karl had been reading Hip21, which is cool by any measurement! The joy continued as they were invited back stage afterward to talk Hip21, get signed albums, pose for pictures and discuss his Portsmouth University gig!? All in all they were left with only one conclusion:

“Dr K [is] fantastic! He really is hot stuff.”

We’re not talking yoga or listening to excessive amounts of trance core, no, we’re in for lengthy summers down under and it is Free Spirit, an online publication from Tourism Queensland, that’ll give you the details that might just stir those stumps.

You see, Queensland is actually Australia’s sunniest state and Free Spirit gives you all you could possibly require in terms of information for planning some time bathed in the antipodean rays. At the STA travel site you can get some more details about Free Spirit and what it offers. Here’s a start:

·Top things to see and do
·General ‘know before you go’ info
·What’s hot (and we’re not just talking about the weather!)
·Great working holiday tips
·Exclusive deals and offers
·Stacks of downloadable freebies including a Lonely Planet guide, free Aussie music and a free Natty download!

A natty download from Natty! Also included in the e-zine is a competition with the main prize of a trip to Cairns and Great Barrier Reef, with an Olympus camera thrown in for the preservation of special moments.

As for Free Spirit, well you can click right about here and begin virtually thumbing through. If you’re anything like me, this will begin speculatively and then you’ll land on page four (featuring a surfer) and start thinking “yeah, I can see myself in Queensland…”

Gallivanting students George and Claire are camper vanning around Australia - and their drive to Adelaide and Melbourne sounds like a scary road movie!

After a Groovy Grape wine tour, sampling the likes of Jacobs Creek with some kangaroo steaks to soak up the booze, the girls promptly get stuck in a massive storm on the way to the coastal town of Robe:

our petrol gauge was on emergency low. million miles from anywhere, no towns in sight, no cars, no people, no light for miles and miles, was like somethng out of a horror movie… finally came to a petrol station, which was a huge sigh of relief except for the wierdo in a orange boiler suit!! horror movie!

Surviving unscathed to enjoy Blue Lake, the Grampians mountain range, Ballarat, and the Sovereign Hill olden-days re-enactment town, the girls then unbelievably get stuck again on the Great Ocean Road. You’ve got to admire their cool in a crisis:

So what did me and Claire do, we got in the van and ate chocolate laughing at our drama and traumatic situation. We put bright pink legwarmers on and tied our hair up, after all digging wheels with a spoon is hard work.

Thankfully, the girls were rescued by some grumpy Aussies, and went on to see koalas at both Wilsons Prom and Healesville Sanctuary, not to mention making time for another wine tasting at Domain Chandon. Now happily arrived in Melbourne, they have a final piece of advice for STA travellers in Oz:

STA Explorer George has finally arrived in Oz (despite nearly being detained thanks to a mouldy apple in the bottom of her travel buddy Claire’s bag) and has posted an update about their first week exploring around Adelaide.

The girls go into great detail about the hostels they stay at, as well as the tours they take. They particularly loved the ‘absolutely wicked amazing tour’ around Kangaroo Island, where they got to cuddle a joey called Millie, chill with the sealions in Sea Bay, sandboard at Little Sahare, spot baby penguins at night in Vivonne Bay and hike in Flinders Chase National Park (it makes me feel knackered just writing this!)

However, they do have a reminder that our summer is their winter:

Australia is not hot, it is not all sun and bright skies. Adelaide is cold and dreary …We have our hats our A$10 fleaces, gloves and wet soggy uggs boots - which are NOT cool here, aussies wear uggs as slippers so we do get some looks sent our way…

But they take refuge in wine, toasted marshmallows and layering, not to mention the occasional nice meal. The girls may be hardy adventurers, but they don’t believe in backpacker snobbery:

George asked some of the guys on the tour ‘are there any nice restaurants around the Adelaide Festival Centre?’ much to the shock of all the others, their response was ‘backpackers don’t eat in restaurants, but we can tell you where to buy cheap food!’ haha, we never asked again! Yes ok, we are splashing out but dam it we’ve worked hard for this all year so deserve to!! nice restaurant for lunch and dinner, why not?!!

Ask them questions, give them suggestions, and generally enjoy more of their Aussie adventures here.

Being a bum on Bondi is the act that Tina of Tina’s Travel Blog partook in at the end of May. It may have been a little off season and not really warm enough to disrobe and enter the surf, but it did have atmosphere and, in some circles, that’s all that matters.

Jason of Jason’s Travel Blog (I’m beginning to spot a theme) has left Australia for Fiji, and then NYC. Before doing so, he threw up some underwater photos of his activities from the Reef. I guess that’s him in the goggles!

Then there is Ed and Mary who conclude our watery antipodean wanderers. They complete the trinity by spending their time in Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay taking in the soggy delights of Wet n’ Wild and Seaworld amongst other excursions and witnessing some fights (!).