1. Sundowners at La Med
For a totally chilled out summer cocktails by the sea experience head down to La Med in Camps Bay. It’s where pretty much anybody who’s cool in Cape Town hangs out every now and again and you’re never short of some fantastic eye candy. The odd impromptu parachute landing by locals throwing themselves off Lions Head only add to the cool factor of this Cape Town Sundowner institution.

2. Curry at Bukhara
There’s nothing quite like a curry and a few beers after a game. Head down to Church Street in Cape Town’s City Bowl to experience one of the best in Cape Town. Get a table on the Verandah and enjoy the hustle and bustle of Cape Town below but be warned it gets packed to the rafters every night so you’ll need to book in advance.

3. Shopping at the Waterfront
The Waterfront with it’s iconic picture postcard views has become the central tourist location in Cape Town. Only a few minutes from the Stadium at Greenpoint you can shop until you drop, take a trip on a Catamaran or even book a helicopter flip over the Peninsula.

4. Surfing at Muizenberg
When in Cape Town do as the Capetonians do. Muizenberg is the home of learning to surf in the Cape and in October 2009 grabbed the world record for number of surfers riding the same wave, a staggering 103. There’s plenty of surf schools just off the beach and for a few quid you can grab a board, wetsuit and an instructor for an hour.

5. Shark cage diving
You won’t get many locals promoting shark diving because of the alleged increased shark activity in the area due to companies artificially chumming the ocean so you get a glimpse of the 20 ft killers. However, if you fancy an up close and personal experience with a great white then here’s your chance.

6. Laze on the beach
The water in Cape Town is icy cold all year round and the swell is dangerous for all but the most experienced swimmers. The best way to enjoy the beach is from the comfort of your sunbed. Clifton’s 4 beaches are without doubt the busiest and coolest in Cape Town.

7. Hiking in Silvermine
Unknown to many Capetonians, Silvermine forms part of the Cape Peninsula National Park and has some of the best walks in Cape Town. Choose a trail of between 1 and 4 hours and you’ll get to see some of the most stunning scenery in the world.

8. The Old Biscuit Mill
An organic market in the same vein as Spittalfields in London. Lots of freshly made natural eats and treats as well as some pretty cool stuff to buy. It’s only a short drive from the Greenpoint Stadium in the up and coming area of Woodstock. If you want a taste of multi-culteral Cape Town then it’s well worth a visit.

9. Winelands tour
No trip to Cape Town is complete without a tour of the wine route. Crawl from wine farm to wine farm tasting their wares. Having done this several times myself the first two wine farms are fantastic … and you really savour the delicate differences between wine growers. After that it all becomes a blur.

10. Moyo for supper
Speir wine farm is one of the biggest in the Cape and also home to Moyo restaurant. Reserve a tree-top table and enjoy a truly African evening of fantastic food and great impromptu singing, drumming and dancing from the resident musicians. World Cup 2010 - 10 Things to do and see in Cape Town (between matches of course

There’s some confusion surrounding the ticket allocation and collection for the forthcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa. There are two types of tickets. Individual match tickets for each of the 64 games and Team Specific Match Tickets (TSTs) which are a series of tickets to follow your national team and may include between 3 and 7 tickets. (Code TST5 = 5 games etc). If your team gets knocked out your TST ticket remains valid to follow the team that progresses into the next round of the competition.

You can only collect your tickets from the designated Ticket Collection Points in each of the 9 host cities in South Africa. You must be the person who applied for the tickets and must present the credit card used to pay for the tickets. You will also need another from of ID such as your passport. Tickets will not be delivered to your home address.

Tickets are still available for the tournament and yesterday Fifa announced another PMA (participating member association) phase of sales which will take place through the Fifa.com website from 9 Feb - 7 April, 2010. This will coincide with the 4th planned sales phase whereby match tickets will be available on Fifa.com and at branches of FNB Bank (in South Africa) on a first come first served basis.

Sales of World Cup tickets in the host country have so far been met with apathy. More tickets have been sold to watch England’s games than Bafana Bafana, the South African national team. This is no great surprise in a country where Man Utd and Liverpool are the two biggest supported teams. Having lived in South Africa for some time I wouldn’t be overly concerned by the lack of enthusiasm thus far. South Africans are notoriously laid back about committing to any event until the day before it’s due to take place. For more information about tickets for the World Cup visit Fifa.com.

Yes, but the prices vary wildly depending on when you travel. If you decide to stay until after the final on July 11th then you can fly home on the 13th for £2,698 or stay an extra couple of days in the Mother City and return on the 15th for only £472 with British Airways, a colossal saving of almost £2,200.

This pattern of volatile prices continues across the board and with most airlines. Emirates, however, are very consistent with return prices around the £2,800 mark … ouch! If money is not an issue and you’re looking for a direct flight then try either BA or Virgin. If money is an issue and you don’t mind traveling 15 - 20 hours then focus on SAA and other European airlines. From our research KLM is a good choice, lots of availability and fairly consistent prices of between £1,000 and £1,600 for a return flight during the World Cup. South African Airways is also a great option and with a travel time of only 15 hours (1 stop in Johannesburg) it’s possibly the best choice at the moment.

In general, aggregate sites are a great way to search. Try opodo.com or travelsupermarket.com. Once you’ve found an airline and roughly know your travel dates try searching cash back sites such as quidco.com. You can often shave up to 5% off the price of your flight by clicking through from one of these sites.

Our advice for travelers is to book early. Don’t hang around for a last minute bargain because chances are there won’t be any. As a regular traveler to South Africa myself, the closer to your departure you get the more expensive and less choice there is.

Burj Dubai. The World’s Tallest Skyscraper at almost 2,700ft

At nearly 2,700ft the Burj Dubai super skyscraper is the World’s (newest) tallest building. And it’s not just a few inches taller by means of a pointy bit on top, it’s gigantic. More than 1,000ft taller than it’s nearest rival, Taiwan’s Taipei 101. Here’s a few facts to make your eyes water.

• Temperatures at the top are up to 10C cooler than at the bottom
• 76th floor - The highest swimming pool in the world
• 158th floor - Plans for a mosque that will make it the most elevated place of worship in the world
• 3.5 times taller than Canary Wharf and twice as tall as the Empire State Building
• Estimated £1bn dollars to build
• Air-conditioning system requires equivalent of melting 12,500 tons of ice per day
• The double deck cabin elevators travel at 40mph
• Laid end to end the 31,400 tons of steel rebar would stretch a quarter of the way around the world
• The Burj Dubai will be visible 95km away
• 124th floor - The world’s highest observation deck
• 58,900 cu yd of concrete were used. The weight of 110,000 elephants
• Electricity usage in the tower will be the equivalent of having 500,000 100W light bulbs on at the same time
• Took 22 million man hours to complete

Dubai seems to have gone skyscraper crazy and is planning another super skyscraper, the Al Burj. Estimates of it’s height range between 700m and a staggering 1km. But the question however remains, with over 49 office floors largely unoccupied at the Burj Dubai, will these buildings also gain the titles of the world’s tallest white elephants?

Whatever happens, I love them. Role on the next battle for the World’s Tallest building with all it’s jaw dropping facts and stats.

Bed in a Tree offers a handpicked selection of 27 weird and extraordinary hotels from around the world each offering an unforgettable and original place to stay. Hotels include the Ice Hotel in Sweden, an actual bed in a tree in South Africa, an aeroplane in New Zealand, a snooze in a suitcase in Germany and even a night in a stone pineapple in Scotland! The guide is written by Bettina Kowalewski, a travel writer and photographer as well as a television producer and director, who has developed a passion for seeking out the most unusual hotels from around the world and discovering the astonishing stories behind their creation. You’ll find practical advice on getting to each hotel as well as three interesting and often unusual activities to do nearby. The guide features venues for a memorable forty winks for all budgets and levels of luxury with a 10% discount at many of the selected hotels. Bed in a Tree is the perfect gift for anyone looking for a unique travel experience.

Dorling Kindersley - £8.99. Buy it now

I’ve roughly calculated the extra cost for a family of 4 could range between £40 and a whopping £200 extra for their flights if, like me, they have infants and require those larger exit isle seats on long haul flights. BA have recently scrapped free meals on short haul flights and cut the baggage allowance for passengers in an attempt to cut it’s losses from £401m in the last financial year.

Although the costs will personally hit the pocket of many flyers, particularly families on a budget I think it’s a necessary step and one which gives customers flexibility and choice when traveling. However, having just tried to book a short internal flight on a different carrier for a family of 5 I am all too aware that the new pick and pay style of booking flights is just becoming too complicated for the average casual flyer and more needs to be done by the airline industry as a whole to standardise prices and more inportantly pricing structures on flights. As a footnote. After a couple of hours attempting to unravel the extra costs for my internal flight I gave up and decided to hire a car. Road trip here we come!

Personally I’m slightly bemused. I can see that it would reduce stress levels of die-hard smokers who find it difficult spending two hours between smokes but there are hundreds of patches and chewing gums that deliver the same nicotine hit without the physical presence of a look-a-like cigarette. Instead of selling them a pack of smokeless cigarettes for around £5 why not give them some nicotine gum. I also object to the visual aspect of smokeless cigarettes, they look like toys .. my children will be intrigued, they will ask questions and although the smokers will be idly unaware due to the relaxed nicotine state, I will be two rows behind explaining to my children for the entire flight what they are and why they can’t have one. Ryanair should, in my opinion, conduct another survey of irritated parents then maybe offer free nicotine chewing gum instead.

WOW !! … zoofish are brilliant. I am so so happy with my new site.
This time last week I didn’t have a website. In just 7 days I now have a brilliant site and zoofish did all the work. They helped write the copy, chose great pictures and helped me set up my email, in fact they held my hand throughout the whole process. To say I’m happy is an understatement … I can’t praise them enough. They delivered much more than I ever imagined and for a very affordable price. They are brilliant. 5 stars from start to finish.
Melanie Gardner - www.sunrisebeachvilla.com - September 2009

Contact zoofish.com to see what they can do for your Holiday Rental website.

1. How many extra visitors will there be?
An estimated 3.5 million people will be traveling to and from the 9 World Cup stadiums during June and July next year. A conservative estimate of 300,000 extra visitors will visit South Africa purely for the World Cup, mainly from Europe and the US. The draw for the finals takes place in Cape Town on December 4, 2009 and this will, in many respects, dictate how many visitors there will be in each of the 9 locations. Look out for England, Germany, Italy and Spain. All of these teams carry a huge following and will create a big demand for bed spaces.

2. How close are you to the stadium?
This is very important. The closer you are the more you can charge. If you are within walking distance then you could possibly charge 100% more than your normal ‘peak’ rate. This rate tails off the further from the ground you are. For example in Kommetjie (35km away) you could be looking at a reasonable 25% increase on your normal rates.

3. How many available beds are there given the time of year?
This is the most interesting factor. For large tourist destinations such as Cape Town and Durban there will be plenty of choice and availability. (Even despite it being popular with visitors from Gauteng at that time). Availability is generally high and depending on the draw, demand for bed nights could be lower than expected, so be sensitive to this factor when selecting your ‘World Cup’ rates. On the flip-side smaller towns like Nelspruit and Rustenburg could be overun with extra visitors, especially if 2 big European teams are drawn to play there. These towns could expect an extra 60,000 visitors for a single game and availability will be scarce. This is actually a concern of the organisors and for the casual renters it could be a great opportunity to make a killing.

And that’s it in a nutshell. Be wary of the draw. Predict the migration of visitors between games and don’t be greedy. It’s best to get an extra 25% than nothing at all. And also fill the beds early. If you decide to leave it to the last minute thinking you can charge a premium then my advice is don’t. It’s a risky strategy and you could be left empty handed particularly in the major towns.

Tags: Cape Town, Nelspruit accommodation, Rustenburg accommodation, World Cup, World Cup Accommodation
]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/onelocation/~3/XMzUZQ68S0w/ Here at OL HQ we’re very excited to announce the launch of zoofish.com, a specialist website service for Holiday Home Owners. It’s fab because you don’t need to know anything about websites because we do all the work for you. Here’s how it works: 1. Choose a design. We’ve got lots of fab designs to choose from. [...] http://www.onelocation.com/blog/?p=418 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:50:11 +0000 Here at OL HQ we’re very excited to announce the launch of zoofish.com, a specialist website service for Holiday Home Owners. It’s fab because you don’t need to know anything about websites because we do all the work for you. Here’s how it works:

1. Choose a design.
We’ve got lots of fab designs to choose from. And if you don’t like them, no problem, we’ll just design something especially for you.

2. Choose a colour.
Select one of our custom colours for your design. Again if you’d rather have your own colours then no problem, just tell us what they are and we can do that too.

3. Tell us which holiday rental sites your currently listed on.
We’ll gather all your info and send it to you in a word document. You then check your details, add or edit them as you wish and email it back together with as many photos as you like.

4. Sit back and relax while we build your site.
Our ace development team will then weave their magic and fit your copy and pics to the design of your choice. Within a few days you’ll have your very own, unique and super cool holiday website for a fraction of the cost of traditional web design agencies.

We’ve been building websites for some of the world’s biggest brands for over 20 years so we know what we’re doing. We also know the holiday rental industry inside out and are experts in knowing what holidaymakers want to see. The whole package costs just R3,900 (£450 UK, $690 US) and is payable as either a one-off fee or in 12 monthly installments making it a little easier on the pocket.

There’s now no excuse for not having the time or money to build your own holiday website. zoofish.com - we do the work so you don’t have to.