Top 35 Free Sites for Europe Travel Tips Everybody Ought to Know About
When planning a trip to Europe, there are a ton of available resources for travelers. With this is mind, it is often time-consuming to wade through all of the websites to find really valuable information.
Here is a list of some of the top travel resources for planning a trip to Europe.
1) Wikitravel
This is one of the best sites for travel available. It is open source, so it is constantly updated; further, it is usually locals or people who have direct, experience with an area who contribute information. Thus you get localized information you might not have gotten elsewhere.
2) World Travel Tips
This is a huge, comprehensive resource for world travel. It includes forums, articles, links, free membership and much more for every continent. Their European section covers every European Country and offer in-depth information about each one.
3) About.com: Europe for Visitors
This is a great site dedicated to travel in Europe from About.com. Geared towards everyone from first time to experienced travelers, it is a goldmine of European travel and planning information.
4) Virtual Tourist
This is a great travel guide. Their motto is ‘real travelers – real info.” This seems consistent with the site, which has everything from transportation reviews to the best travel deal and trip planners. The site also includes forums where you can read about other people’s adventures in Europe.
5) Travel Europe
This is an swicki (cross between a search engine and wikipedia) where community users can add, remove and improve the results. This particular swicki is geared towards travel in Europe and is a great resource fro planning a trip to or in Europe.
6) Visiteurope.com
This is the European travel commission’s guide to Europe and is packed with tons of useful information, articles, advice and much much more.
7) Europe for Visitors
This is a site that offer European news, general advice, specific country advice, hotels, links to city guides, tourist offices and much, much more.
8.) Europecities.com
This is a comprehensive portal site that offers European city reviews and guides to hundreds of European cities and over 40 European countries.
9) Travel Library
Travel Library is an impartial resource for travelers and offers a plethora of resources that offer in-depth travel information, from hotel and hostel ideas to travelogues and most popular locations.
10) Europa: Traveling in Europe
A huge site that offers tools and information for over 30 European Countries. Each country has their own site dedicated to travel resources, information news and more from that country. Categories for visitors include: documents you will need, choosing a time to travel, getting there, staying healthy, money, shopping, communicating, pets, and if things go wrong.
11) Europa: Your Europe
While this site is geared towards European citizens, it still offers tons of great information for visitors outside of Europe. Information categories include: working in Europe, education and study, living in Europe, traveling in Europe, consumer protection, European citizenship and diplomatic protection.
12) European Union Website
This is the official website of the European Union. It offers news, educational resources and tons of links to information about what’s going on in Europe and well as youth travel portals, travel guides, transportation information and much, much more.
13) Yahoo Answers
This is a great place to ask questions and get answers about anything Europe related. You ask the question and get a number of answers, then choose the answer that fits your question best. This site is great because it gives you several points of view to read and learn from and is focused on sharing knowledge.
14) Travels Wise
This site offers tons of information about travel in Europe and countries including Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the Ukraine.
15) Rick Steves’ Travel Tips
This site is a large portal site that offers tips and advice for exploring Europe safely, effectively and confidently. From packing tips and safety to accommodations and communications, you will find what you’re looking for.
16) Travel Punk
This site offers travel tips and advice targeted at backpackers, budget travelers and tourists. Offers tons of great information as well as travel tools and resources for finding cheap flights and accommodations.
17) TERC Europe Travel Tips
Offers tips on traveling in Europe and categories run the gamut from packing tips and staying healthy and safe to money matters, budget planning, food and accommodations and much more. It is a huge site that is well worth visiting for any Europe travel-related needs.
18) Accessible Journeys
This is an awesome travel site that offers a wealth of information, tips and travel advice about accessibility and traveling in a wheelchair. With information on everything from traveling with your wheelchair or scooter to equipment rentals, handicapped parking permits in Europe and accessible ways to travel, it is a great resource.
19) Europe Travel Tips
A large portal with tons of travel tools, articles and information about travel in 40 European countries, from Austria to the United Kingdom.
20) Independent Traveler
Great site offering lots of travel tips and advice to independent travelers.
21) Travel-and-transport.com
This is a highly useful portal that offers basic and necessary transportation information for Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway and Sweden. New to the site is a route planner that is especially handy.
22) Travel Notes: Europe
Comprehensive travel notes and advice for traveling throughout Europe. Lots of links, resources and tools for travelers.
23) Open Travel Info
Great travel site with a large amount of travel and Europe related information. The forums and articles are especially useful.
24) Discover Europe
Another excellent portal site that offers a wealth of tools, resources and links for travelers to learn about different European countries and plan their trips effectively and efficiently.
25) World 66: Europe
This is a great wiki site that allows members (free) to change and information. It has a great travel guide, maps, and resources for getting to Europe and getting around it. Members can also post photos and there is a cool photo gallery of different places in Europe. Well worth checking out.
26) Backpacker.net
Geared towards backpackers, this is one of the better sites for information, advice and travel planning for backpackers. Users can submit and read recommendations for hostels, tours, bars, beers and much more.
27) WorldWideBackpackers.com
This site is another excellent resource for backpackers and other travelers. While it is geared towards backpackers, there is a wealth of rich information for all travelers, so you should definitely pay them a visit.
28) Gate 1 Travel
This is a travel site for Central Europe. there is a wealth of information that is super handy; they offer info from climate and clothing advice to packing, required travel documents, travel insurance, transportation, communication and much more.
29) Backpackeurope.com
This is another site that is geared towards backpackers in Europe but is highly useful for all travelers. Has Europe travel tips, advice on packing, hostels and hotels, transportation and links to other travel resources.
30) Gemut.com
This is a great travel site that offers visitors advice on everything from car rental and rail travel to hotel reservations, money matters and much more.
31) Travels With Friends: Travel Tips for Europe
Travel
tips and advice from planning your trip to executing it. The site’s creators travel Europe and research sites, accommodations, destinations and much more, so there is great, first-hand information available on all aspects of travel in Europe.
32) Suite 101: Eastern Europe & Russia Travel
Travel, culture and trip planning and advice. This is an excellent resource for finding out more about Eastern Europe and its cultures.
33) Traveler’s Point
Europe advice, tips and travel help for all European countries.
34) Budget Travel Online
Great site offering ideas, how-tos, advice and tips for travelers.
35) Yahoo Travel
Yahoo’s comprehensive travel site offers a wealth of information on all European Countries and many of its countries. Another great resource to check out.
The Big Fish of Argungu
Argungu is already full of visitors. The attraction, however, is not this small Nigerian town, but the event starting the very next day: The Argungu Fishing Festival.
What is that?’ you ask. Well, it began in 1934 as a fishing competition in celebration of the visit of the Sultan of Sokoto. The contest was so well received it became an annual event! Other features were later included, and in 1970 an agricultural and livestock fair was added. Usually planned for February, this year’s festival, however, was held in March.
A severe harmattan season forced this postponement. The harmattan is a cool, dry and often dust-laden wind that blows southwestward from the Sahara from December through February. As we travel to Argungu, strong winds still stir up dust from the bare land and sweep it along like a thick, brown, windblown fog. Our lips and nostrils become sore from the dry wind. Men in flowing robes, mounted high on camels, draw up the neckpieces of their turbans to cover mouth and nostrils so that only their eyes peep out through the swirling dust. Motor vehicles creep along slowly until the wind dies down. Soon, however, the people arrive, eager to see the festival begin.
It opens with an exhibition of achievements in agriculture and livestock rearing. Let’s take a look at the goat-skinning competition. At a signal, each contestant truncates a hind leg of his slaughtered animal and inserts a small hollow cylinder between the skin and the flesh. He then blows through this hole to inflate the whole animal, which facilitates the separation of the skin from the body. The winner is able to lift an undamaged pelt free in just three minutes!
At the Waterside
Friday and Saturday feature contests at the waterside, beginning with the Kabanci display—a number of water events in the small Matan Fada River near the town. The banks of the river provide convenient slopes on which the spectators can stand and watch. Girls compete in hand-fishing contests and races in canoes made from hollowed-out palm trees. Men compete in similar and other events, including the underwater breath-holding contest. Contestants pop up from the water, one after the other, disappointed to see that others are outlasting them. The winner is clocked at 4 1?2 minutes, and might have continued longer if he had not been stopped by anxious assistants.
The Big Fish
Saturday’s program is the high point: the Argungu fishing contest. The rhythmic music of drummers and chanters sets the mood for the event. Crowds of fishermen station themselves on either side of the river, equipped with giant gourds and triangular fishing nets. Each gourd has an open end and is used either as a buoy on which the fisherman can float or as a container for fish.
Anticipation grows among the craning spectators. Many are wondering if this year’s winning catch will be bigger than the 98-kilogram (216-lb) fish caught in 1979. Since last year’s festival, no fishing has been allowed in this portion of the river. The water has become quite shallow during this dry season and is doubtless now teeming with fish.
At the sound of a gunshot, the charge of the fishermen begins. Wave after wave of men with their gourds and fishing nets surge down the river banks. Within minutes the shallow smoke-gray water swarms with men. A shout goes up: The first catch has been made!
Whenever anyone nets a heavy fish, other contestants come to his aid. Men in a patrolling boat take the catch to be weighed and tagged. The pace of weighing increases, but few catches are heavier than 30 kilograms (66 lb). Many pick up fish no bigger than sardines. Suddenly one weighing more than 40 kilograms (88 lb) is caught! Since most of the contestants have already left the water, the fisherman thinks this is the winner and makes the champion’s gesture. A few, however, continue fishing, hoping to catch something bigger. Perseverance pays off. Before the hour expires there is a shout of triumph! It is a 1.3-meter (4.27-ft) Bukuiki, as it is named in Hausa. At 50 kilograms (110 lb), it weighs much less than the record catch of 1979, but it is this year’s winner nonetheless.
Cyber Wars Between Pakistan and India
We all are aware of the wars India and Pakistan have fought and the resulted destruction especially precious human lives. In the current information age, some battles are not only fought with guns and tanks but also through media, internet and pen. Since the advent of Information Technology among the masses of South Asia in mid 1990s, the pace of cyber wars between Pakistan and India have also been increased.
Cyberwars between the two countries started in May 1998, when India conducted its nuclear tests. Soon after India officially announced the test, a group of Pakistan-based hackers called milw0rm broke into the Bhabha Atomic Research Center web site and posted anti-India and anti-nuclear messages. The cyberwars usually have been limited to defacements of each others’ sites. Defacement is a low level damage, in which only the home page of a site is replaced with hacker’s own page, usually with some message for the victim. Such defacements started in May 1998 and continued during Kargil War in 1999 and then during that era when the tension between India and Pakistan was at its peak from Dec 2001 to 2002. Therefore, the period between 1999 to 2002 was very crucial, when the troops were busy across the LOC exchanging gunshots and the hackers busy in defacing sites of each others.
According to attrition.org, a web site that tracks computer security related developments on the Internet, show that attacks on Indian websites increased from 4 in 1999 to 72 in 2000 where as the Pakistani websites were hacked 7 times in 1999 and 18 times in 2000. During the first half of 2001, 150 Indian websites were defaced.
During Kargil war, the first Indian site reported to be hacked was http://www.armyinkashmir.com, established by the Indian government to provide factual information about daily events in the Kashmir Valley. The hackers posted photographs showing Indian military forces allegedly killing Kashmiri militants. The pictures sported captions like ‘Massacre,’ Torture,’ ‘Extrajudicial execution’ and ‘The agony of crackdown’ and blamed the Indian government for its alleged atrocities in Kashmir. That was followed by defacement of numerous Indian governmental sites and reciprocal attacks on Pakistani sites.
Two prominent Pakistani hacker groups are PHC (Pakistan Hackers Club) and G-Force. The founder of PHC is Dr. Nuker. The US Department of Justice has identified “Doctor Nuker” as Misbah Khan of Karachi. Misbah Khan was involved in defacement of the official site of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Doctor Nuker struck back with an interview to a magazine Newsbytes where he claimed that the ‘federal grand jury made a mistake in indicting Misbah Khan of Karachi’ and that ‘he merely uses insecure servers in Pakistan to get online anonymously’. Doctor Nuker has been featured in international publications including Time and Newsweek.
G-Force is based in Lahore and it consists of eight members. Both Pakistan Hackers Club and G-Force are professional hackers with a specific aim: to work for the cause of Kashmir and Palestine. It is still to be seen how their hackings are helping the cause of Palestine or Kashmir! Pakistan Hackers Club has been around since quite long and apart from Indian site, they have defaced many USA and Israeli sites including US Department of Energy’s site. G-Force was founded in May 1999 after the nuclear tests and their initial target was Indian sites but after 9/11, their concentration has been shifted to US-based sites. According to zone-h.org, G-Force has successfully defaced 212 sites. G-Force’s “achievements” includes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and three military sites associated with the US Defence Test and Evaluation Professional Institute.
During this cyberwar, in December 2000, a wired.com news story created waves that claimed that an Indian hacker’s group “Patriotic Indians” has defaced the official site of Pakistani government pakgov.org. Later, it was revealed that the actual site of Pakistani government is pak.gov.pk, not pakgov.org and pakgov.org was in fact registered by the alleged hacker himself with fake information.
On the Indian side, there are various hackers groups that have defaced Pakistani sites. Among them, the most famous one is H2O or the Hindustan Hackers Organization. However, the independent as well as Indian analysts admit that at this cyber-front, Pakistan has always been winning this war. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, Pakistani hackers are organized in groups where as most of the Indian hackers are working as solo. Secondly and the most important reason is the religious motivation of the hackers based in Pakistan, to do something for the cause of Muslim brothers & sisters in Palestine and Kashmir.
At the government level, both the countries are doing their best to curb hacktivism. NIC (National Informatics Centre) of India and Cybercrime division of FIA (Federal Investigation Authority) in Pakistan are taking necessary steps to eliminate all forms of cybercrime, including hacking.
A few of the Indian sites defaced by Pakistani hackers are:
1. Indian Science Congress
2. National Informatics Centre
3. Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (State-run international voice carrier)
4. External Affairs Mnistry
5. UP government site
6. Ministry of Information Technology
7. Mahindra & Mahindra
8. Rediff Chat
9. Asian Age newspaper
10. Aptech India
11. University of Mumbai
12. Official site of Gujarat Government
13. GlaxoWellcome India
14. The Parliament home page
15. SetIndia.com
16. Department of Electronics
17. Engineering Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Commerce
18. Center for Advanced Technology
A few of the Pakistani sites defaced by Indian hackers are:
1. The Nation (newspaper)
2. Pakistan Television
3. Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation
4. Official site of Punjab Government
5. Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology
6. Prime bank
7. Hamdard University
If fighting with our neighbours is in our genes, we can fight through the internet, media, newspapers and books but let us not fight with guns and missiles. There may be humiliation if a website is defaced but at least no human life is lost.
Please visit India-Pakistan Friendship Club (IPFC) to access more articles related to India and Pakistan.
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