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

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!

Lucy has returned home after escapades on the other side of the globe. Her most recent update covers the month of April and all she did in the run-up to arriving back in ‘sunny London’ to a welcome back party with friends and family…

The month involved amongst other things, dominating New Zealand’s North Island, a heroes and villains party hosted by a ‘moody 80-year-old bloke with a beard down to his shoulders who had a deep hatred for the young travellers he entertains every night of the week’, a visit to a deer catching museum, a trek up Franz Josef Glacier, Lake Matherson, a skydive, Ferg Burger, lakes Pukaki and Tikapo, sleeping in an airport, Fiji, LA and Darth Vadar on a bus. If you ever needed a reason to go travelling I think that list will probably have you packing your packs before you’ve read the end of this sentence.

A highlight from the above were the views around the lakes,

“We stopped at Lakes Pukaki and Tikapo and saw Mount Cook in the background which was some of the most stunning scenery of the whole trip.”

Lucy expects that her next post might not be quite as thrilling as she signs of from the post and her trip,

“Expect my next post to be very boring in comparison to the last four!

Lucy – Intrepid Explorer x”

Lucy you were intrepid indeed and we enjoyed every update! Finally, because I’m feeling Lucy’s geek appreciation, I’m going to leave you with the image of Darth Vadar on a bus… awesome.

If you’d like to share your travelling experiences then get in touch with us by sending Jayne an email.

Our STA Explorer Jimmy, who also goes by the name of Asia By Foot doesn’t update all that much on his blog, but he keeps us in the loop by other methods. We recently received an email informing us that he’d been honoured by a tribe in the form of receiving a tattoo – they used sticks and it took nine hours. You could say he’s an adventurous type; see the final paragraph of this article.

He did post yesterday though, offering two links to pictures. One of which is this excellent Thailand photo gallery. I’ve included a few images below. Click on them to see them full size and with comments explaining a little about what Jimmy was up to.

The other link was also to a photo. Now bearing in mind that Jimmy likes to integrate himself fully, click on this link with caution. I imagine it was less painful than the nine hour tattoo, but I can’t be sure. However, he looks happy enough. Comments welcome…

Continuing our Travel Tuesday feature of highlighting travel blogs we are today featuring Nomadic Matt.

Nomadic Matt is, as his blog states, about life untethered. He refers to himself as twenty-something vagabond, who has been on the road regularly since 2005,

“My original trip was supposed to last a year. I didn’t come home until 18 months later. Once back, I knew I couldn’t go back to my old life or a typical job – I wanted to travel more. Three months later, I was traveling again. I haven’t stopped since.”

His about page passes on more info on how he came to where he is now an also features interesting facts. Did you no Nomadic Matt once got lost in a jungle?

Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site contains tips, his blog, photos, videos and more all on where he’s been and what he’s done. You can find him on YouTube, Twitter @nomadicmatt, Facebook and FriendFeed. If you want to know insider knowledge about a specific destination, from hostels in NZ to learning to scuba-dive its likely Matt will be able to help you out.

Matt, on this fine Travel Tuesday, you’re our man.

Myself, Fran & Siobhan spent Saturday immersed in all things travel related at the Adventure Travel Show Live. After presenting to a diverse audience our STA Explorer programme and the World Traveller Internship (WTI) we had a few chats and gave out our goody bags to excited, budding nomads hoping to apply for the WTI and become STA Explorers.

After, Fran went and saw some of the talks and spread the STA travelbuzz word, whilst Siobhan and I went to check out the different travel stalls. First off was drinking Kava, the traditional Fijian drink, with Ben Keene from Tribe Wanted and Dylan (@travellingeditor). The Kava was mixed together by a very authentic looking Fijian and we all had to clap before we received our drink and then clap again after. It was hard to do so when we were almost gagging from the taste (think trees mixed with mud). However, after 3 cups of that and a very numb mouth, we set off giggling like school girls to chat to the STA Travel team who were all working hard giving out information on various deals and offers currently on while answering any questions people had about specific destinations.

We also spoke to the guy on the Mali counter, who taught us about classic Mali music before we made our way to the Healthy Travel talk with Jane Wilson. She taught us how to successfully remove a tick (grab it by the teeth and yank it out). The appropriate clothing to wear (tie trousers at the bottom over your boots to avoid bites and leeches). And how to get over a bout of diarrhea (LOTS of water and eat if you feel hungry).

From there we met Toni, our newest explorer, and we chatted all about her up coming travels. The previous evening had seen her meet a bunch of people to discuss her trip and she has already arranged to meet people while travelling and partake in a little couch-surfing!

All in all a great day!

Just wanted to send out a reminder to all those with a love of travel and a desire to get away. The launch of STA Travel’s World Traveller Internship is happening on Tuesday 26th January in the STA Travel Victoria store from 7:30PM.

Two individuals will take up positions with the brand as a World Traveller Intern and go around the globe, adding their own insider knowledge to STA Travel’s expertise. If you reckon this could be you then pop down to the store on Tuesday night and hear straight from the horse’s mouth what you’re going to need to do to get the run on everyone else.

You can look at all the details on this wiki, as well as add you’re name to the list of attendees. We’ve also created a Spotify playlist for the night so we’ve all got something to dance the night away to, while making our way through the free food and drink. If you’re coming along then simply follow the link and add your own travelling tracks to the list.

Cam and I look forward to seeing you there!