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!

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!

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.

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…

As far as a travel companion goes STA Travel has served Marianne (Escaping The Grind) well, from backpacking around Europe to her current Australian adventure, they’ve always been able to help out.

Her latest post sees her reminiscing about her past travels and the different ways in which the STA Travel brand has been involved. As I mentioned already, the first time Marianne used them was to organise a trip around Europe. It wasn’t just about sorting the Euro Rail pass, Euro Tunnel tickets and travel insurance; there was also the advice,

“I was able to talk to someone about what was actually a realistic trip for me – where I could go, how long I would need, how I would get there. Just like any traveling trip, nothing went exactly as planned, but it calmed a lot of my worries being able to talk to someone who actually knew what they were talking about!”

After that there was a jaunt to Barcelona, Marrakech and Madrid before the chance arose for Marianne to become an STA Travel 2009 £10 Pom. It was a chance she wasn’t going to miss, queuing for three days to ensure her place! It was at this point we met Marianne and the ‘wonderful Cam’ signed her up for the STA Explorer programme – we haven’t looked back since!

To read the full post and find out what she’s currently getting herself into in Oz, click through to Filling the Pages – she’ll be more than happy to make your acquaintance.

If you’d like to become an STA Explorer or just want some more information just drop an email to Cam.

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!

She’s been with us a while and (to quote Frank S. among others), ‘now, the end is near’, Marianne is leaving the country. *Weeps*.

However, the rat pack classic would continue with something about the ‘final curtain’ – this is certainly not the case for our STA Explorer and £10 Pom 2009 Escaping the Grind who’ll be boarding a plane to Sydney within the week! New chapters abound…

For now though she is feeling a little down about the folks she’ll be leaving behind, especially her family. But not wanting to dwell overly on this, Marianne looks forward to seeing her nearest and dearest in the next few days,

“That’s my sentimental post of the week. The next one will be more upbeat as I’ll be recounting what is sure to be a fantastic week of celebration and farewell.”

Exciting times ahead – and having met Marianne, she’ll definitely be able to say ‘I did it my way!’ At STA travelbuzz we can’t wait to hear her tales from Oz.