This week our Travel Tuesday mention goes to the picture perfect Runaway Jane – full time travel writer and freelance illustrator (she refuses to choose between the two).

Disheartened by a career in sales Jane opted for a ticket to Australia instead. It turned out fairly well by all accounts, her own in particular,

“I’ve always been curious about the world outside my little town. It was that, and the encouragement from a friend that prompted me to quit my job in sales, and travel half way across the world in search of happiness. It’s a decision that I have never regretted doing.”

Runaway Jane is full of the type of content that anyone interested in travel would find a joy to delve through. Blog posts such as Top 5 Things I Love About Travel and Can Travel Change the World are her mainstays as is the travel photo of the week category, there is also a page dedicated to extracts from her sketchbook. Jane has also just started Jane’s Guide to Edinburgh.

At STA travelbuzz we strongly suggest you head over to Runaway Jane and enjoy her talents as a travel writer and illustrator – we certainly do!

#traveltuesday #tt

It is time for an update on the activities of some of our STA Explorers and how their travelling experiences are currently panning out.

First a relative newbie to the clan – say hello to Nicole! She’s an Aussie who is heading to London after summer camp in the US. From our great capital she’ll set off again on adventures that will hopefully see her,

“… teach English, learn to snowboard in the Swiss Alps, master a foreign language and help save the giant pandas in China!”

All of this will be documented across Bitten by the Travel Bug, @NicoleTravelBlog and Facebook.

Alex of the South American loveliness that is afowen.com has added significant amounts to the sites What to do in Bogotá page. Basically it’s a must read if you’re visiting!

Michael has updated his Facebook photos with what he refers to as leftovers from Mongolia. Leftover doesn’t really do them justice as the images are great. I’ve included one below (statues/monuments are nothing without horses in my opinion), though I’d also like to recommend this super shot that has one commenter asking, ‘Did you accost a local?’

Travelling Editor Dylan has also updated, going into detail about the preparation and subsequent effects of kava. Something he experienced while in Fiji.

It was also experienced by our very own Cam and Siobhan at the Adventure Travel Show…

Finally if you’ve travelled and filled the less hectic days with music and film,the sharing of which with fellow backpackers is something Chris sees as a mainstay of travelling, you’ll enjoy his latest Top Ten Tuesday – Film’s and TV.

There is more from th STA travelbuzz tribe on our  travelling experiences page. If your interested in joining the STA Explorer fold, just leave us a comment below or get in touch via email or Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you.

Today’s hero of travel is the Globetrooper website, which promotes a truly shared experience when it comes to making your way around the world.

Essentially the site is a network where individuals just like you can build a journey of a lifetime and then ask like-minded folks to join you whether they’re friends, or those friends you haven’t met yet, strangers. In their own words,

“Globetrooper is a tool to find travel partners for group trips and world adventures.

More specifically, Globetrooper is a tool for adventurous travellers to create trips and invite people from all over the world to join them.”

Currently on the front page of their site are three featured trips, Sam’s Europe and anywhere else… no time limit, Mark’s Great Circular Indian Railway Challenge and Alice’s Backpacking/Working Europe in Spring ~ 2011 ~. Clicking through to these will give you a grand idea of what is possible at Globetrooper.

Obviously this is only scratching the surface of what is on offer, I looked though and found road trips from London to South Africa, plans to travel the world while playing poker and a Tour of Khovsgul Lake in Mongolia…

Of course there is also a page of travel guides to help with the planning, a forum for discussing said plans with the community and a blog covering plenty of useful and interesting travel related fare.

Globetrooper is lots of what we at STA travelbuzz love – community and travel. And this is why we’re giving them a Travel Tuesday virtual handshake of hearty approval! Good work!

#traveltuesday #tt

If it is travelling experiences that you’re after then look no further than our band of STA Explorers. We’ve got updates on three today – Jimmy, Michael and Kez.

Jimmy is a legend among mere mortals! His travelling, for want of a better metaphor, goes that little bit further…

To get the full flavour he’s put together a video of his travels and it is a brilliant watch. There is tribal tattoos (real tribal tattoos), playing with a leopard (possibly a Jaguar? Answers on a postcard…) and a 500km, 6 week horseback trek from Cuzco to Puno in Peru…

Second up is Michael, he’s our STA Explorer Stranger in Moscow. Originally Michael had planned to go across continents with a buddy, but things didn’t work out on the travel plans front for his pal. However, like a true adventurer, such adversary only spurred him on and if you read his Twitter @AlpeOnTour he’s currently in Ulaan Bataar Mongolia, prepping for horse riding.

The excellent image above was taken from Michael’s set on Facebook – go make friends and tell him how much you love his hat – I think there might be a story behind the hat…

Finally we have Kez. She’s the good half of the partnership that is her and STA Explorer Chris (who took a surfboard to the face recently, ouch! Be warned kids, fun can be dangerous). She’s witnessed him updating his blog and Twitter while travelling and decided she should get involved too. You can find her musings as she hangs out in Byron Bay at In the Words of Kez and on Twitter @kezisms. We’ll be giving her the STA Explorer name of Australian Artisan due to her artistic talents.

If you’ve got travelling experiences to share then we’d love to have you as an STA Explorer – just leave a comment below or drop us an email, jayne@statravelbuzz.co.uk.

At STA travelbuzz we’re very proud of the tribe of STA Explorer’s we’ve built up and there has been quite a bit of activity recently – and this calls for a round up of travelling experiences.

Firstly our two latest additions, Henrietta and Stu have been busy updating. Henrietta has done so from Nha Trang in Vietnam and Sihanoukville in Cambodia, where a slower pace of life has taken over. Stu on the other hand has already updated 15 times in May alone on his adventures through Europe by rail.

Toni has provided visual flavour to here travels with a recent Flickr update. Her photostream takes in a Big Buddha, Hong Kong Sevens rugby, sunsets in Koh Tao and a huge Manta Ray!

There are apologies from George for a lack of updates, but promises ‘more than more than 9 words describing the best thing ever‘ shortly and more travel too as soon as his funds are replenished.

It’s Travel Tuesday for Chris and this means a post on the best ways to travel Australia. Yes, there are at least 10 ways of moving your travelling self about the land down under.

And finally we have Maz, a recently returned £10 Pom who has enlisted the services of the BorderJumpers, Bernard and Danielle who are travelling to nearly all 54 countries in Africa, to provide a guest post on Zambia.

All excellent stuff. If you’d like to be part of the STA Explorer community and share your travelling experiences then send us an email telling us so!

For those in the know, the fact that this Berlin wall photo has been delivered by STA Explorer Malph will fill you with joy (possibly)…

Malph is the chief architect in a global campaign title The International Mankini Challenge. The challenge being to get photographs of men in mankinis while in front of landmarks across the globe. Malph may have returned, but the challenge has continued as brave and proud individuals carry the torch. Yet, Malph recently visited Germany and decided to pack his hi-vis leisure wear… he is such a professional.

On the World Traveller Internship front things are fairly quiet. Behind locked doors are furrowed brows of the STA Travel hierarchy as they count votes and assess the final entries of the hopefuls looking to land the dream role.

The time now is for reflection. Something Harry and Natalie have both taken advantage of.

Harry discusses his filming of the Narnia of Essex, Burnham on Crouch,

“Last weekend I ran around my home town in Essex much like an inadequate athlete, with a tripod, and the odd mate, to film my STA final video – I am now in the top ten of this crazy internship competition and it’s getting very exciting.”

There is some behind the scenes info, like a textual version of a DVD extra. The oyster escapades are especially entertaining, as are the further details on Bruce, a local who features in his submission; he’s a man who loves speed…

Natalie has taken a positive viewpoint to the making the top 10 of the competition regardless of the final outcome,

“I feel like I’ve really stretched myself during the competition, and that is definitely a good thing. I’ve learned how to make movies, improved my blog, and found out a lot about social media that I never knew before. These are all such great skills, and I’m so thankful that STA gave me the push that I needed to learn them.”

She’s already considering taking these skills and producing some travel documentaries of a socio-political ilk. Cool stuff indeed.

To view the final submissions for STA Travel’s World Traveller Intern competition visit the main site here.

It’s time to pay homage to a fellow online travel troubadour and we’ve got just the guy this week – The Aussie Nomad!

The Aussie Nomad is Chris Richardson (@theaussienomad) and he’s a career breaker in his late 20s,

“Why not open the Macbook up and work from the beach or a foreign office and watch the snow fall outside. With that thought in mind and short trips to Hong Kong, Singapore and Phuket in previous years. It was obvious I was destined to try my hand at roaming the world, working and sleeping in some of the amazing places it has to offer.”

He’s followed it through too; having just landed in Paris (the subject of last week’s #traveltuesday) the adventure is well and truly underway. The blog is a work of inspiration to those that harbour dreams of leaving the surroundings of the office cubicle for somewhat more stirring scenery.

The Aussie Nomad is full of interaction and discussion on the art of travel, with plenty of comments and opinion, which is what we love to see. I have no doubt it is his call to the travel enthused and like-minded that has fostered such affection,

“Follow me as I leave a little country town in Australia and head to London, Singapore, Kansas (Kansas, are you serious…) and beyond in search of a new job and a new adventure.”

Chris we are and we’re enjoying it greatly. Ladies and gentleman of the travelbuzz readership I give you this weeks hero of voyage -The Aussie Nomad.

#traveltuesday