Geography games for challenge your knowledge.

Sometimes we want to be couch potatoes so here are few games to play. Of course all of them are about travelling. They are educational and help to learn more about our world or if you are expert you can simply challenge your knowledge.

BBC travel's geoguessr.
 Click on image to enlarge.

1. BBC travel’s geoguessr.

It is pretty challenging time to time. This game uses google map and it is showing you basically a picture of a google street view and you must point in map where this picture is taken. Sometimes you can really test your knowledge, but most of the time you can guess where it is by many things you can see around. So be hawk-eyed and look for clues.

2. Geographyzone. 

Geographyzone.
Click on image to enlarge.

This game can help you to learn and challenge in the same time. You can choose to challenge yourself in world country or world capital city challenge or challenge yourself in borders of one continent only. The idea is to find and point out given country with the mouse in map. In smaller downer window it will appear the name of the country or capital city you must find. 

Click-that-hood.
Click on image to enlarge.

3. Click-that-hood.

Very similar to Geographyzone only there is more options to choose from and it have more modern look and when you are going on specific place it will show you the right name of the place instead of guessing. So the idea here is to click it as fast as you can. And if you like you can add your city too when you go down of the page.

4. Jetpunk. Countries of the world quiz.

The idea is to write in the box where is written “Enter country’s name here” as much as you can country names. When you write in one country name correct it will disappear and it will colour in green in map where the country is situated. In this game knowing and fast typing helps a lot. Don’t forget that the time is ticking. When the time is done the game is over and it will show you the result. You can check out later other similar games they are offering similar to this one.

Jetpunk. Countries of the world quiz.
Click on image to enlarge.

5. Nationalgeographic travel quizzes section.

Nationalgeography travel quizzes section.
Click on image to enlarge.

You can find different quizzes here related to geography. Quizzes have questions with given answers where you need to press on the one you think is correct answer and in next step you will see do you answered it right or wrong with short story about it.

All of these games you can find easily through google search by writing the name of the game and basically all of those games will be the first ones in your search. 

Search engine and online travel agent testing.

1. Testing results with rounded prices in euros .
Few of in previous article mentioned
not included doe to different reasons. Click on image to enlarge.

As in previous article mentioned I did test the websites with different parameters like buying international flight 81 day before flight. Secondly I tested belief that flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays the price will be much cheaper than flying on Fridays and Sundays.

2. Few options from London to Stockholm
different airports. Click on image to enlarge.

So in picture 1. you can see that there is no cheaper days to fly out so it is pretty false believe. The days sometimes apply to domestic flights, but again most of the time that is not giving good result.

So following only the rule of flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays cannot give you cheapest flight. As mentioned in previous article it is good to know that most of the time you will get the cheapest ticket if you are flexible that means you don’t have specific day, time and so on to fly out. So very handy than is to use the sites where it is possible to see the days when it’s cheaper to fly the sites with calendars or similar options where you can see more than one day.

3. One way. Click on image to enlarge.

Don’t forget that when the city you are flying in have more than one airport and you are looking for cheapest travel option it’s important to know from or to which airport is cheaper to fly. In this example it could be that you are buying two one way tickets or multi city ticket and that way have less travel expenses. You can see example in picture 2. But then there is a case which you need to take in mind.

4. Round trip. Click on image to enlarge.

In some cases it’s cheaper when you book round trip than one way tickets even if you are flying to or from different airports as you can see it in example pictures 3., 4. So checking that can save you money. But it’s important not to forget when finding a much cheaper option you should count the end cost like transportation to and from airport and then ask yourself is it still cheap.

Search engines and online travel agents.

There are lots of transportation options in our days so I will post few articles on this subject, but in beginning I will talk about air travel.

So one of the first things I want to talk about in air travel are search engines and online travel agents.

So what’s good in search engines and online travel agents?

Search engines and online travel agents give you the chance to see a lot of different flight offers in one place which helps to get the cheapest price for your journey. But there don’t exist one perfect search engine or online travel agent for all of world’s people. Everybody have different needs and for some country’s some engines perform better than they perform for others. So for every person perfect search engine can vary. One important thing to take in mind is that there are not all of the air companies in one search engine so it worth to search in more than one. When using search engine or online travel agent important is to know that some of them have fee. So before buying ticket you should check does the site have extra fee for booking through them. And if there is extra fee you still can go directly to the air company official site and book it through them.

Other consideration when choosing from offered cheap flights is that cheapest flight in search engine won’t always be the cheapest in the end as the prices are displayed without extra fees like baggage. Even if you had flayed with the same air company once in your life you should check the rules of baggage again after a time as they like to change their rules time to time. The other important extra cost is getting to and from airports which can be costly as many cheap air companies land far from cities. So not paying attention to details can cost a lot of money.

So here is the list of sites for looking cheap flights:

adioso, airfarewatchdog, amadeus, cheapflightsfinder, cheapflights, cheapoair, ctrip, dearflight, dohop, ebookers, expedia, farecompare, google flights, hipmunk, kayak, lastminute, liligo, matrix.itasoftware, mobissimo, momondo, opodo, optionsaway, orbitz, priceline, skyscanner, southalltravel, travelgrove, travelocity, travelsupermarket, vayama, whichbudget.

Talking about these sites there are few futures I would like to mention which I found useful or at least interesting.

Amadeus trip tools.

airfarewatchdog, kayak and amadeus.

Airfarewatchdog and Kayak have great information about different air company baggage fees in one place so it could save you time. But Amadeus have trip tools like country phone codes, currency converter and other useful tools for traveller in need.

whichbudget, adioso, dohop and skyscanner.

Adioso destinations.

These sites could be useful when you are looking for the cheapest option from specific airport, but don’t know where you would want to fly. Whichbudget have the future of writing departure city or country and it already will show you in right corner cheap flights from city or from all of the country airports to different destinations starting from cheapest. But if you will write in search engine destination country or city it will show you the cheapest option to that place. But I have doubts of this sites performance as they showed me totally different price in featuring steps and it was not the fee for booking through the site. So after all I didn’t find it trustful.

Skyscanner.

Then there is Adioso which gives you option of choosing the flight from your city or airport to not only specific place but it can show you cheapest domestic, international, country, continent and so many other flight destination options.

Then there is Dohop with its interesting tool "Dohop away" which will show you the cheap flights from the city you are at.

Then there is Skyscanner which have option of choosing from country or city to anywhere or specific country and it will show you cheapest options from your given city, airport or country. Fantastic is the option to not only choose the exact date when to fly but ability to search flights for entire week, month or even a year.

google flights, liligo.

Other interesting future is Google flight map with approximate prices of destinations where to fly. The same as Google, Liligo have map too, except they have Luxembourg in there "where to go" map, but they don’t have few bigger countries than Luxembourg in their list flying from.

priceline.

They have interesting future which worth exploration it’s named "name you’re own price".  This literally means that you can bid for your flight price.

Priceline "name your own price".

optionsaway.

They have interesting price locking option. Which means that after finding you’re flight deal you can up to 21 day make your decision to buy it or not and the price will be the same when you locked it.

hipmunk.

This site has funny character which can definitely give you positive emotions while looking for cheap flights. They have funny and useful tool named "agony" so check it out if you search through them. Generally speaking this site is different from others as it had made flight searching more fun.

But there are more things I would like to mention, firstly it is believed that buying domestic flight 49 days before flight and international 81 days before flight will provide you with the cheapest option. Secondly it is believed that flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays the price will be much cheaper than flying on Fridays and Sundays. So it maybe help you when you are planning you’re next flight. For my next article I will compare all of here displayed sites by choosing different parameters which will show them in performance.

Quick questions to local in Latvia.

This is first article from series of questions to locals from not so popular and known places. The idea is to show that there are so many countries we don’t know so well, but they still worth that we know them. This is fast look from different angle to those countries. So quick questions will show how different country locals in their life have had contact with travel.

Fast facts about Latvia.

Latvia coloured in red.

Latvia is situated in Northern Europe. It is 64,589 km² big which is relatively small country compare to other European country’s. Latvia have land border with four countries, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia. In Latvia live 1,997,500 inhabitants. Capital of Latvia is Riga and official language in Latvia is Latvian. It’s a member of European Union and NATO and have euro as currency. Latvia is in temperate climate zone and what is surprising is that it has one of the fastest Internet in the world according to speedtest.net data.

Collecting wild mushroom in autumn.

Name, Surname: Krišjānis Leitis.

Age: 28.

Gender: Male.

Home: Riga.

Which was the first country you travelled to?

Lithuania.

At what age was this journey?

Don’t remember. I think i was 10 years old.

What was you’re impressions from it?

I went to Lithuania with my family. At that age it was really big adventure for me and I got a lot of new emotions. 

Which country is you’re dream destination where you travelled or would like to travel and why it is your dream destination?

Place where I wanted to go all my life was Iceland and this year dream came true. And next place where I definitely want go to is New Zealand. I wanted from childhood to go there as it was far and unknown to me.

What do you like to do when you are travelling?

When I travel I like to compare impressions I get in different countries. I like to enjoy nature’s beauty from every country where I get.

What are places you suggest to see in your country to tourists?

Jūrmala beach, Sigulda, Latgale – land of the blue lakes, Kurzeme – land of the Kursland Vikings and of course Riga – capital of the Latvia.

What are dishes you suggest to tray in your country?

You should definitely try could soup and dessert locally known as black bread soup.

What are things you suggest to do in your country?

At spring you should try to collect some birch juice together with some Latvian, but at end of summer and autumn you can try to collect wild mushrooms – these two are like national sports here:)

Cemetery tourism, tomb tourism, graveyard tourism.

All of these names describe the same thing which is visiting cemetery like tourist. For those who hadn’t heard about cemetery tourism will have question why would anyone would want to see cemetery in their vacation.

Firstly, it could be the artwork why to visit some of cemeteries. Secondly, it could be the culture what attracts, as traditions associated with the funeral are very different in each country and learns you more about people culture in country you are visiting. Thirdly, people are interested to see famous people graves, but those are only few reasons. 

Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol.

Those who look for unusual things cemeteries can surprise you as you could see lots of things you wouldn’t expect to see in cemetery, so keep your eyes open to see unusual as it’s easy to pass not noticing. One of the unusual could be even cemetery itself like the one in Egypt al Qarafa cemetery in Cairo. It’s a cemetery where people live together with death. It might not look like a cemetery in first spot to some of people, but there are lots of graves as it is cemetery. Unusual is that many people live there as they can’t afford to pay for place to live. So the cemetery had become a place to live for some of people.

Many times tourists without a doubt are visiting UNESCO objects so should take in mind that there are even cemeteries which is world heritage sites (UNESCO) like the one in Stockholm, Sweden "The Woodland Cemetery" or in Qufu, China "Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion". There are 32 different UNESCO cemeteries in world. You can see more about those cemeteries in UNESCO homepage.

Take in mind that some of them are in danger so should go there before it’s too late. But don’t think that it worth only to see UNESCO cemetery’s there are lots of cemetery’s which worth to see from not UNESCO list. So checks out before you go or when you are there at the tourist office centrum if there is one in city.

Other important things to take in mind are that in some cemetery’s you have to pay to get in an entrance fee. For some people that would sound shocking, but yes, sometimes you are asked even to pay money to get in to cemetery. In some more famous touristic cemetery’s there will be even guided tours. But that’s not all you can do as cemetery tourist.

If you are more in too visiting museums this could be more for you. There are different museums related to cemeteries. Some of cemeteries have their own museums, where you can get to know more of the cemetery you are visiting, but in some cities there are different kinds of museums for cemetery tourists. There are museums related to cemeteries in countries like Austria, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and USA and many other countries.

So here is a small list on few museums for your exploration.

Mausoleum in Great cemetery in Riga.

                Austria.

                1. Funeral Museum in Vienna.

                Germany.

                1. Museum fuer Sepulkralkultur in Kassel.

                2. Museum of the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg.

                Hungary.

                1. Piety museum in Budapest.

                Netherlands.

                1. Uitvaart Museum Tot Zover in Amsterdam.

                Portugal.

                1. Dispatch House in Porto.

                2. Jewish Cemetery & Isaac Bitton Museum in Faro.

                3. Cemetery Medival das barreiras in Fao.

                Spain.

                1. Museum de Carrosses Funebres in Barcelona.

                2. Museum de Laudas Gremiais in Noia.

                United Kingdom.

                1. The National Funeral Museum in London.

                2. National Ice Cream Death Museum in Derbyshire.

                USA.

                1. Museum of Death in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

But for those who still look for more suggestion is to look for symbolic meaning of things we see in cemeteries. In almost every cemetery you can find interesting symbolism, many of use wouldn’t think about it, but many things we see in cemetery have some meaning. I founded interesting to read more about the symbolical meaning in cemeteries in site graveaddiction under gravestone symbolism. The last I would like to mention is other useful site witch would help you find famous people graves if that’s what interests you in cemetery tourism. So check out site findagrave.