Travel Archives - Laura Zera

Ten Things I Learned in West Africa, 2019 Version

I spent January out tripping in West Africa. More specifically, over 30 days, I backpacked 3,800 km from Morocco to Senegal, using buses, minivans, mopeds, sept-place cars (seven-seater Peugeots), a horse-drawn cart, one ferry, a couple of quatre-quatre (4×4 Toyota trucks), and a brutal iron-ore train that, coincidentally, at two-and-a-half kilometers, ranks as the longest train in the world.

Aside from one five-hour stretch of vomiting (on which I blame Senegalese box wine) and a few rough transit days, it was exactly the trip I needed to help me get up and dust myself off from a couple of soul-crushing events in December. I plan to write about the adventure in some shape or form; for now, here are a few observations.

Being 50, with a newly shorn head and an androgynous travel wardrobe, will not prevent African men from propositioning you.

People maintain a beautiful commitment to family, rest time and community. But having a close-knit family doesn’t negate the stress of a lack of a reliable income and opportunities to earn money. Their governments have failed them in this regard, and hence they migrate. I met a trio of Gambian migrants—a married couple and another woman—in the immigration office at Mauritania’s northern frontier. They’d traveled 1,200 km before being caught. They later rode in my mini-bus, with a police escort, to the jail in Nouadhibou, where they would be processed and eventually deported. The wife was six months pregnant, and could only watch out the window as their steps were erased, the scenery she thought they’d left behind flying by once again. When I told the other woman that I liked her scarf, she offered to give it to me.

Morocco is the ninth-largest world producer of Mandarin oranges, and exports them regionally. Mandarins are abundant. I ate them the whole time.

Kids are kids are kids. Bright eyed. Precocious. Full of possibility and potential. And yet still annoying when they call me “toubab” and ask for money.

My T-Mobile partner cell service is considerably better on a one-lane highway in sparsely populated Western Sahara, with no towns for miles, than it is in Bellevue, Washington, two miles from T-Mobile headquarters.

China has a heavy presence in much of Africa, as it has for two decades. Its expats and companies are grudgingly tolerated in Mauritania. They build infrastructure in exchange for export contracts and access to natural resources, such as exclusive fishing zones off the Mauritanian coast. One byproduct of Chinese capital is that the Bay of Nouadhibou’s infamous ship graveyard is disappearing. It once held up to 300 corpses. Now there are about five left, the others having been cut up for scrap metal.

Sex tourism isn’t only in Thailand. Some fifty-plus-year-old French people hook up with young locals in Senegal. It even happened at my European-run auberge.

The restaurant doesn’t have to be fancy for the food to be really damn fine. Example: Chez N’Tifi in Dakhla, Western Sahara. Also, I love that Dakhla has a fast-food joint called Bivouac Express.

There will be a lot of police checkpoints, and at many, they will ask for your passport and spend 10 minutes writing down the relevant data. In Mauritania, you can get ahead of the game by creating a “fiche” with all of the needed information. Once you find the only shop for miles that makes photocopies, run about 20, then hand one over to the checkpoint officer before he even has a chance to finish his sentence. As the only foreigner in the vehicle, watch your popularity increase among the other passengers when your rad prep skills spare them the extra-long stop.

It’s disheartening to see my share value drop in everyone’s eyes as soon as I tell them I don’t have children, and they almost recoil if I include that it’s because I don’t want children. It’s disturbing and heartbreaking to hear stories of ongoing female genital mutilation and child marriage. I pray for a day when girls and women around the world have full agency and equality.

Atar to Nouakchott: A Mauritanian Minibus Odyssey

By Laura Zera 17 Comments

I was in Mauritania last week, part of my Marrakech-to-Dakar backpacking route (current location: Saint-Louis, Senegal). Public transport in Mauritania was never all that great (I’m being generous), but two journeys were particularly special. Here, I do an anatomy of one of those trips, which took me from the town of Atar, in the Adrar region, to the capital city of Nouakchott.

The distance between the two points is 438 kilometers, which is 1,314 in Africa-travel kilometers. Following is a breakdown of how I passed eight hours in transit.

Window that doesn’t open? Check. Temperature? About 88 degrees F.

Window that doesn’t close? Check. Unfortunately, it was in the back, and I was told to move and sit with the women in the row behind the driver so as to not mix with the dudes.

Tail light that gets pulled off at one of about eight police checkpoints? Check. Just shove that sucker under the seat. Maybe one day it will get put back on.

Cracked windshield? Check. Apparently they can’t get windshields in Mauritania, they have to go to Senegal. True story. I didn’t see a windshield in any vehicle that wasn’t cracked.

Shit ton of sand and dust? Check. The inside of my nose was black at the end.

Le petit-déjeuner under the driver’s seat? Check.

Sunroof? Check. Actually, it’s the sliding door. It sort of closed? Not really. It also rattled a lot.

Engine block directly under the lump to the left of my legroom? Throwing 95-degree heat? Check and check.

Health app on iPhone completely fucked up by the bumpiness of the ride? Check. I climbed just one flight of stairs that day.

Old woman with rock? Check. I offered her a hand down at the end of our journey and she refused, taking a man’s hand instead. She did not approve of the removal of my layers down to my t-shirt.

Front tire blown at 70 mph, 90 minutes into the trip? Check. The funny thing is that I took a photo of the bald tire before we left, and predicted a blow-out. I even checked the other nearby mini-buses to see if any of them had better tires, which was a nyet.

Spare tire as smooth as a baby’s butt? Check. I reiterated this to the driver several times. Thankfully, he stopped at the one town on the route and got a better used tire. Apparently they don’t have new tires in Mauritania, either.

Worth the trip out to the desert in the first place? Check. It was all to see Chinguetti, a Berber town founded in the 13th century as the center of trans-Saharan trade routes,

The wise and funny curator at the ancient library in Chinguetti. It holds some incredibly old books of math, literature, science and astrology, as Chinguetti was also a place of Islamic scholarship. Sadly, a thief broke in about three years ago and stole the oldest book in the collection, which was the Koran.

To Kibbutzniks from Eilot to Misgav-Am, Thank You

By Laura Zera 24 Comments

This post is a message of gratitude to the thousands of kibbutzniks in the State of Israel, written by a former kibbutz volunteer.

When you began welcoming volunteers to your bucolic kibbutzim in the 1960s, you thought you’d kugeled two birds with one stone. First, you could introduce Israel to Jews from the Diaspora communities, especially given the sudden uptick in interest after the Six-Day War. You’d also found a source of cheap labor to pick your fruit, tend to your babies/cows/turkeys, prep your food in the community dining halls, and spend eight hours at a whack rescuing tiny cans of orange juice when they tipped over on the juice factory assembly line.

But after a few years, the demographic of the volunteers shifted, and along with it, the driving motivation behind them coming to your community collectives. Non-Jewish visitors weren’t interested in studying Hebrew and supporting the kibbutzim model. No. The goyim wanted to party.

This created friction. Kibbutzniks disliked when the volunteers’ living quarters turned into fraternity houses. You weren’t happy when bonfires burned too high and noise levels peaked at one a.m. (On my kibbutz, neither were the turkeys: many of them had heart attacks.) You did not enjoy having to resuscitate alcohol-poisoned youth, and cringed if your own children became entangled with volunteers. You worried that inevitably, one of those foreign jackasses would start a fire and burn down a building from cooking toast on space heaters in their rooms.

Rightly so.

On behalf of a moderate percentage of the roughly 400,000 young people who have volunteered on kibbutzim over the past half century, I’d like to offer an apology. And, perhaps, a bit of an explanation.

Using the volunteer section of my own kibbutz as a representative sample, I can tell you this: we came to Israel to seek adventure, and often, to run away from something else. Splintered families. Dead-end job prospects. Uncertainty over career paths. Boredom. Heartbreak. Adulthood.

Imagine our delight when we arrived at a kibbutz, met the other volunteers, and realized we’d just joined our own special kind of mixed-breed tribe. There was safety in our cohort. We could speak up, act out and fuck off, and in at least two dozen languages. We spent our stipends on chocolate, cigarettes and alcohol, and when the latter’s supply in the kibbutz shop ran out (or was tactically suspended), we made covert connections with Yemeni laborers in a nearby village and took our business there. We worked all day, and at night, blew off enough steam to run power-plant turbines. We erased memories, and struggled to form new ones, given our inebriated states.

There were other things going on, too. Sharing of cultures and perspectives. Learning how to navigate a new country. Trying new things (I changed my first diaper on a kibbutz). Making friendships. Growing up. It was messy at times, but it happened.

This is where the gratitude comes in, because it was you, dear kibbutzniks, who created this opportunity. You gave us (shitty single) beds, fed us delicious (high-fat) food and washed our (crusty) clothes. You riskily invited us to your family-friendly celebrations. You organized trips around the country for us, to places like Masada and the Sea of Galilee. You dispensed medicine, and sometimes, advice. You taught us how to milk cows, drive tractors, raise children and chop cucumbers into very thin slices.

We couldn’t have had all of that at home. We couldn’t have had all of that anywhere else.

The impact of the things we absorbed during our volunteer tenures was less tangible and visible than what you saw on a day-to-day basis, so I can understand your skepticism. It only just snapped into clear view for me last September in London, when I gathered with a group of eleven volunteers from my former kibbutz, Givat Haim Ihud.

Givat Haim Ihud volunteer reunion – 2017

We came together from Canada and the U.S., England and Scotland, Denmark and the Netherlands. It had been 30 years since we last woke to the persistent call of Boker Tov, the volunteer tasked with getting our drunk asses up for work battling a constant game of musical rooms.

Good news: we’ve evolved into stand-up human beings! Informed by our kibbutz experiences, we went on to figure out our families, find our vocational calling (or at least something legal that pays the bills), and feed our hearts. We’re a beautiful lot, and I dare say, we wouldn’t have turned out this great if it weren’t for having stumbled down a few dusty paths together during our time in your country.

Our reunion comprised a whirlwind of a weekend where we tried to catch up on everything and had to say le’hitra’ot too soon. We went through reams of photos and stories from the old days, laughing over the absurdity of our antics. We were so comfortable together, because, after 30 years of trying to explain our kibbutz time to others who just couldn’t get it, we were finally among people who did.

So, thank you, kibbutzniks. All of you. Thank you for tolerating us. We’re sorry for puking in the flower beds. We love what you gave to us, and we’ll never forget it.

Travel: Warsaw, Krakow, Berlin, Oh My!

By Laura Zera 8 Comments

If you go to Europe, you need to see all the attractions that a place is famous for. I don’t disagree with doing “the tourist thing.” But then there are the other things. The daily minutiae that makes a place real. In August, I tried to document some of that in Warsaw, Krakow and Berlin. I took a few pics of their famous, pretty things, too. (Note: the photo layout in this WordPress theme sucks rocks. Sorry.) A special thanks goes to writer Chris James and his better half, Bożena: they made our time in Warsaw extra special. Also, Francis and I did visit Auschwitz and Birkenau when we were in Poland. I’m still processing. It’s not something I can easily put into words or photos, but I hope to try, if only because we must never forget.

Warsaw — There’s nothing else to do but drink in the case of Brexit.

Does he know he matches his plastic bag?

We stayed with our friends Chris and Bozena but we didn’t take any photos of them. This is their hamster.

Potsdam. This is how you do an entrance to a subway.

Alexanderplatz, Berlin. The light was perfect.

The apartment lobby, when you have six flights of stairs and no elevator.

Our Berlin AirBnb host’s mother, who was a wonderful and spontaneous tour guide and became a friend.

Six Things South Africans Do Differently From Americans

By Laura Zera 21 Comments

South Africa clocked 348,646 visits from American tourists in 2013, and given the lure of a favorable exchange rate, screaming airfare deals, and winery tours and wild animals, there’s probably no chance of those numbers dropping off. South Africans have also gained a reputation as some of the friendliest people in the world, and well worth getting to know better. So, beyond calling a barbecue a “braai” and having enough diversity to warrant 11 official languages, here are a handful of less obvious socio-cultural traits that set inhabitants of the Rainbow Nation apart from their U.S. visitors.

I guarantee that 5 out of every 6 people here ironed today

South Africans are committed to ironing their clothes. School uniforms, t-shirts, jeans. Women iron. Young men iron. Everybody irons. Whereas Americans have mastered the art of buying wrinkle-free fabrics, and are willing to risk looking rumpled when they don’t, South Africans still place an immense value on precision pleats.
A bullet hole to enhance the view

Americans carry guns to exercise their constitutional right. South Africans carry guns because they have a legitimate reason to be concerned for their safety. Regularly featured on lists of countries with the highest murder rates, South Africa is also struggling to contain climbing numbers for armed robberies, burglaries and carjackings. If you’re planning to join the millions of international tourists who visit each year, have a read of these smart safety guidelines issued by the British government so you can be armed with knowledge.
Unlike the dull walking (or standing, or walking and then standing) style of American protests, when South Africans want to demonstrate, they do a special dance called a “toyi-toyi.” Usually accompanied by music, toyi-toying is a peaceful form of protest, used when the masses want to draw attention to unfavorable government policies or social issues. And in this hilarious step-by-step instructional YouTube video, you can learn to toyi-toyi too.
I have absolutely no idea…

Despite temperatures that regularly hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit in many parts of South Africa, refrigerating dinner leftovers is considered optional. Americans fret over bacteria to the point of compulsiveness, but South Africans are more cavalier, leaving pots of chicken, rice and veg out overnight without a second thought.
Founded in California, and purchased by Facebook in 2014, the Internet-reliant, multi-media instant messaging service WhatsApp claims its largest user base in South Africa. So while Americans text away—either enjoying plans with unlimited texting, or free-text utilities like iMessage—South Africans, many of whom rely on pre-paid phone plans that charge for texting, have jumped on board so heavily that they’ve racked up a 78-percent user adoption rate, compared to 8 percent in the United States.
Hoot if you like strawberry!

South African motorists allow other drivers to pass them on the highway. In America, signs that read “Keep Right Except to Pass” go largely ignored. In South Africa, not only will drivers move to the shoulder if necessary to allow faster cars by, it’s standard etiquette for the driver who did the passing to flash their hazard lights twice to say thanks, something Americans can only dream about.

For all the South Africans reading this, PLEASE add on! I’d love to hear from you.

Travel: The Many Faces of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa

By Laura Zera 4 Comments

As if it wasn’t enough to build the world’s tallest building — 2722 feet (829.8 meters) — the creators of the Burj Khalifa took things a step further (because that’s Dubai’s unofficial tag line, really) and added a light-show facade. Hang around long enough (or have dinner at a restaurant that overlooks it and the dancing fountains, like my friend Andy and I did last month), and you’ll see all combinations of incredible colors and designs. And yes, my photos do cut the top off. It’s virtually impossible to get the whole thing in one frame unless you’re a mile away from it.

As for zooming to the top, you’ve got two options: For about $34 USD, you can float around on the 124th floor, but it will cost you 95 bucks if you want to go all the way to the 148th. (From what I’ve been told, it’s not really worth the extra money.) But the main thing is that you must *book ahead!* Otherwise, you may find that the time slot you want is sold out, plus tickets cost more at the door.

Here are a few shots of what it looks like to peer down onto a city’s skyscrapers. It’s crazy.

The Burj Khalifa gift shop is filled with loads of overpriced crap your brain wouldn’t even register as desiring, including this very phallic stuffed version of the building.

And finally, if you’re curious to see the renowned dancing fountains, I’ve got you covered there, too, and all without having to pay the $14 going rate (due to Dubai’s prohibitive liquor laws) for a beer on the restaurant patio. Don’t even think about ordering wine…

Travel Tips: South Africa Edition

By Laura Zera 11 Comments

Cape Town from the boat — Cape Town’s Table Mountain

I’ve been wandering the globe for 31 years, and I still haven’t got my packing procedure and checklist nailed down (my husband will have just sprayed coffee out of his nose if he’s reading this; let’s just say we have a different flow when it comes to travel prep). I’m currently “going around” in South Africa and Botswana, as they like to say here, and seeing how in my last-minute bag stuffing I grabbed my trusted traveler (Nexus program) card instead of my permanent resident card, I’m kind of wondering if America will let me back in later this month. Ah well, in the meantime, here are some info bytes for this incredibly hospitable region.

A dassie rat’s view atop Table Mountain

If you’ve got an unlocked cell phone (or one that’s eligible for unlocking), rather than buying an international plan at home, just pop a local SIM card in when you arrive. The carriers around South Africa and Botswana are slick, and it’s nothing to find a shop and get set up. The cost for a SIM card, enough minutes to call taxis and local booking offices, and 400-500 mb of data is between 13 and 25 USD.
Don’t bring old money. When you get cash out of the ATM or from the teller before you leave for your trip, sort through it and exchange any bills that were issued prior to 2013. Many countries treat currency as though it has an expiry date. I forgot about this, and was turned down in Gaborone when I tried to exchange a perfectly pristine fifty from 1996. ATMs remain the simplest currency-exchange solution.
After some fuss, we got the car.

If you’ve booked lodging and services online, you may encounter places that insist on taking an old-fashioned imprint of your card and getting you to sign it once you’re there face to face. The problem? The new style of American credit cards doesn’t feature embossed numbers (or they’re only just barely raised). Twice already I’ve had to stand around and wait for 15-20 minutes while they fiddled with my card, and a (major name-brand) car rental agency first said they might not even be able to complete the booking.
Shared mini-van taxis are the cheapest way to get around in this part of the world, but if that seems like less than fun, then never fear: Uber is in South Africa! (In Botswana, a similar app is called Hello Cabs. It functions like Uber, except you still have to pay with cash at the end.)
Oh, hai

For a South African safari, Kruger Park ain’t the only game in town. Based on a recommendation from an SA friend, we decided to try Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park (if you don’t sound like you’ve had 8 gin & tonics when you say it, then you’re pronouncing it wrong). It’s less built up, less crowded, and equally full of animals. It’s also the second-oldest reserve in the world, after Yellowstone. What I found to be a plus is that it’s only a 2.5-hour drive away from the nearest urban center/airport (Durban), whereas Kruger is a 5.5-hour drive from Johannesburg (though you can also now fly right in and out of Kruger).
That’s one well-horned rhino

I can’t help but throw in a clothing discovery. When the staff at the Seattle ExOfficio store told me last month that their underwear was a bestseller, I was skeptical. Though pricey, I bought a pair to try, as well as the even-pricier men’s version for my hubby. Well, I’m here to tell you that those folks weren’t exaggerating when they bragged about their knickers. They wick. They sink-wash and air-dry fast. They retain their shape. Best of all, they actually hold everything in place without hurting you. I will be buying more (when they go on sale).

Have anything to add? Don’t hold back!

Q&A with Australia Travel Blogger Michela Fantinel

By Laura Zera 17 Comments

As it’s been 24 years since I set foot in Australia, I wouldn’t even try to dish out travel advice for Down Under. Never fear, I’ve called in an expert! If you have any thoughts or ideas about going there–especially if you’re a female solo traveller–Michela Fantinel is a woman you need to know. (Note: in honor of this post’s subject matter and our guest’s Italian roots, we’ll be using the non-American spelling of “traveller” today.)

Founder of the popular Rocky Travel Blog, Michela is also the author of Your Australia Itinerary, a beautifully laid out e-book with a series of comprehensive itineraries that can be chain-linked together, depending on your time allotment. Plus she’s a good sport for having put up with my questions. I hope you enjoy getting to know Michela and hearing a few of her tips.

Let’s start with stats. How many times have you presented your passport for inspection at Australian Immigration? And what’s the combined number of months you’ve spent there?

Thanks for this question, it put a smile on my face! This is the first time I’ve thought about it. My first trip to Australia was in 2004 (on a gap year); since then, I’ve been 5 more times, but in my last trip (in 2015), I had to leave to get a travel-visa extension. So, in total, I have presented my passport 14 times for inspection at Australian Immigration. And in 6 trips over 11 years, I’ve spent 17.5 months travelling alone in Australia.

You cover a huge range on your site, from the best websites for domestic flights to specifics like tips for driving to Uluru. Which topics do you feel most “proud” about, because you’ve done such extensive research, or the information isn’t widely available elsewhere, or maybe you’ve covered it with a unique angle?

Definitely the female solo travel aspect is what I take pride in! My website covers a niche within a niche: Australia budget travel that’s tailor-made for the solo traveller. This isn’t covered much by other bloggers. Well, there are a few travellers and bloggers who have occasionally travelled solo in Oz, but I am the only female solo traveller and blogger aged 50+ who has travelled alone in Australia extensively, over a longer time, covering nearly 100,000 kilometers and writing about my travel adventures. In addition, the second topic is the local experience; meeting the locals is my specialty, and with this, I don’t only mean humans. As a wildlife warrior (volunteer work) and Australian Zoo member, I am a proud supporter of Australian wildlife.

You’re a fair lady. Not as in “Julie Andrews in the Broadway show,” but as in “a hole in the ozone can’t be good.” What’s your favorite sunscreen?

Oh, I like this question cause I struggle with the intense Australian sun. While I do use sunscreen, this is not enough to prevent burning. The outfit is essential: I wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants almost all the time. I prefer technical outdoor wear (with UV protection 50+) as well as a wide-brim hat and good-quality glasses to protect my eyes, too.

I know you’ve fallen in love with Australia. But have you ever fallen in love in Australia?

This question makes me blush… I am a shy person. 🙂 To tell you the truth, on my first solo trips in Australia, I wasn’t interested in meeting men. When you’re on the road, time is so short to get to know someone. But in the last years, I have taken the time to stay longer in a place and be more open to getting to know the locals. As a solo traveller, I naturally attract lots of locals, and as a woman, obviously men, too! While I have had short romances, I cannot really say that I’ve ever fallen in love…but who knows what the future will bring! :))

Tell us about a place there that really surprised you, good or bad.

There are a few. One I fondly remember is Cunnamulla in South Western Queensland. This is a small Outback town in the middle of nowhere with 1,500 inhabitants. It took me one night by train and an extra half-day of car travel to get there, and my first thought was “what the heck am I going to do here?” Well, it was a big surprise. This place that at first looked like a boring village unfolded a rich natural and cultural heritage that was astounding. Not only did it offer many outdoor activities, including natural spa pools with artesian spring water, and birdwatching spots, but it also had great infrastructure that you don’t expect in a remote Outback town, including a top functional hospital, swimming pools and recreational areas, a local airport to fly into Brisbane and much more! This was a real Aussie experience, full of life and great in spirit!

Your Alexa website rank in Australia is 6,233. That’s 3,774 spots better than the Australian prime minister’s website. Are you finding you’ve become an Australia expert even to the locals? (Note: your global ranking is also 237,530 spots higher than Kylie Minogue’s, just in case you feel like feathering your cap for a sec.)

Yes, that’s true. I have become an Australia expert to the Aussies, too. I’m not bragging about this, it’s a fact. Why? Australia is a big country. If someone living in a remote village in Queensland wants to travel to the other end of the continent, for example to South Western Australia, they are likely to Google for travel tips, and this is where Rocky Travel Blog comes in, with my travel expert’s insight that helps them craft their trip.

You’re all about low-budget, solo female travel, which is one reason I’m so happy to host you, because, like, YES, traveling alone is freaking awesome and really not very scary, and it doesn’t take a lottery pay-out to do it. Can you tell us your biggest budget tip for Australia? Also, who was the oldest female solo traveler you met there?

I would say make a plan, find out which expense has the biggest impact on your budget, and work around it. For instance, if this is accommodation, then try to reduce the cost and stay for free: Ask friends to host you, try out housesitting, look for a female-travel forum where you can be hosted for free, or stay in budget accommodation like hostels. Doing good research and pre-planning your Australia trip at least 4-6 months ahead is also going to save you lots of money.

Australia is one of the friendliest countries for solo travellers in the world. I personally never felt unsafe or uncomfortable. And there are many ways to save money even in an expensive country like Australia. I love travelling alone and enjoying the freedom that comes with it. Of course, it is natural to be apprehensive and feel worried about the first solo trip, but once you get started, it’s difficult to give up travelling alone, because it is very rewarding.

On my travels, I keep meeting solo travellers, mostly women, and to my great surprise, the majority are not young, they are aged 40+. The oldest was 80 years old, a mother of 4 and a grandmother. She turned into a solo traveller out of necessity. Somehow her travel plan didn’t work out, nobody wanted to join her on her road trip around Australia. So at the age of 76, she didn’t want to wait for a travel companion and went off on her own. What her children thought was going to be a 4-week road trip turned into a 6-month solo trip. This was such an amazing and inspiring experience, considering her age. But it also brings a clear message: Nothing is impossible, and limitations only live in our minds, when we stop dreaming. The funny thing is that she was so proud of this trip that she was planning her next adventure, at the age of 80. I loved her attitude, and I believe this serves as an example to many women wanting to venture out on a solo trip in Australia.

Michela Fantinel is the founder, blogger and publisher at Rocky Travel Blog, where she not only inspires independent-minded solo travellers, but also helps them create their travel itinerary and make the most of their time and money in Australia. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and on her website.

Do you have any Australia travel questions or tips of your own for Michela? Share them in the comments below!