General
Tourism
Offices Worldwide Directory |
 Contains
links to the official tourism websites of every country in the world, as
well as that country's overseas tourism offices and official regional websites.
Afghanistan, not surprisingly, is absent and the USA, which doesn't have
an official national tourism website, has separate listings by state.
Given its stated mission, TOWD is extremely well done. |
| SwissInfo
WorldTime |
 You
can look up the current time anywhere in the world from this website.
It's a very simple website, but useful if you want to make a phone call
to somewhere far away. |
| Festivals
Around the World |
Lists
festivals in countries all around the world, as well as tourist information
about each country such as a map of the country and a list of tourism links.
The map which shows New
Zealand within the Pacific is hideously distorted and the single
page summary of New Zealand absurdly lists Invercargill as one of the
four main cities, however the list of New Zealand tourism links is excellent,
and I assume the same applies for other countries. Last visited
in July of 2007. |
| International
Ecotourism Society |
This
highly regarded website contains extensive eco-travel information compiled
by the International Ecotourism Society, which has been in operation since
1990. |
| Lonely
Planet |
This
is the guidebook I've used ever since starting to travel. It's
full of practical information, and has a useful online chat area called
The
Thorn Tree where you can ask questions and get answers from fellow
travellers, or just read what other people are saying about destinations
which interest you. |
| CIA
World Factbook |
 Yes,
that is the same CIA I'm talking about! The Central Intelligence
Agency of the US government provides basic statistical facts about every
country around the world, as well as other territories (check out Navassa
Island: population none and no economic activity, but hey there is "scattered
cactus"!). |
| CyberCaptive
Cyber Cafe Search Engine |
This
website lets you find any of over 7000 internet cafes in over 150 countries
around the world by entering the name of the country or city where the
cafe is located. |
| Internet
Cafe Guide |
This
site is heavy in advertising, but it also contains lots of information
on locations of internet cafes around the world, claiming to list over
3500. |
| US
State Department Travel Warnings |
The
State Department of the American government issues travel warnings about
various countries, often for political disturbances. Last visited
in January of 2005. |
Latin
America
The
Pacific
| Pacific-Pictures.com |
This
commercial website by the author of the Moon Handbook travel guide to the
South Pacific has a page for each country, with about 10 photos for each
country. There's also a website
links page. Last visited in July of 2005. |
Australia
| Welcome
to Australia |
The
official website of the Australian Tourist Commission, the government tourism
agency. |
Brunei
| Wikipedia |
The
Wikipedia article on Brunei is as good an online resource for the country
as you'll find. As well as a general overview, there's also
a historical section which covers the
Brunei Rebellion, information
about the current sultan and a
Brunei travel section. Last visited in January of 2006. |
| CIA
Factbook |
 The
Central Intelligence Agency world factbook has a good potted account of
the country, including a large scale map. There's very little
tourist information here, which is fine since there's very little for a
tourist to do in Brunei, anyway. Last visited in January of
2006. |
| Brunei
Government website |
 The
official Brunei government website includes a
tourism section which in 2007 still talked about the government's official
goal of one million visitors in the year 2000 as a future event, which
gives a pretty good indication of how uninterested the government really
is in tourism. The figure of over 400,000 visitors in a 9 month
period in 1999 refers mostly to foreign workers, not tourists.
Last visited in July of 2007. |
Costa
Rica
| Tico
Times |
The
Tico Times is an English language newspaper which has been covering Costa
Rica since 1971. |
| Organization
for Tropical Studies (OTS) |
The
Organization for Tropical Studies has 3 research stations in Costa Rica,
at La Selva, Las
Cruces and Palo Verde.
I passed the station at Palo Verde, but I didn't realize that outside visitors
could stay there and have organized walks from there. Rates
vary - with the Palo Verde accomodation set at $55 per night I probably
would have stayed in my tent anyway, but $30 for a full-day guided walk
seems like good value. |
Egypt
| Egyptian
Museum |
This
is the official website of the Egyptian museum, rather than pretenders
like www.EgyptianMuseum.com. I was concerned that this website
might be as poorly organized and labelled as the museum, but actually it's
not bad. The masterpieces
section of the website shows many of the most interesting and significant
artifacts held at the museum, and the pharoanic
eras section will clue you in on who did what and when. |
| Griffith
Institute Archive |
The
Griffith Institute, based in England, claims to have the "largest specialized
Egyptological archive" in the world. Unfortunately their website
is not being actively updated, the last changes being in 2005.
The coverage of Egyptian archaeology is deep rather than broad, with very
few subjects covered, but those subjects are covered very thoroughly.
The most interesting section for most people is the records of Howard
Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings,
complete with photographs
taken at the time of the excavation and, best of all, descriptions
and photographs of Howard
Carter's on-site notebooks and the articles found. Since
this website is an archive of source materials, there's no description
of the articles, beyond what Carter himself provided. Last
visited in July of 2007. |
| Professor
Elizabeth Carney's website |
Elizabeth
Carney's website has good sections on Akhenaten
and his Family and The
Tomb of Tutankhamun. There are lots of photos, unfortunately
each section contains a huge amount of material but occupies only a single
page, which means frustration for anyone with a dial-up internet connection.
There's some annotation, but not enough to satisfy most Egyptophiles. |
 |
Andrew
Bayuk's slightly odd (I never did find out the significance of the "Guardian"
name) and rather messy website is his personal testament to an obsession
with Egypt which strikes quite a few people. The website has
been around since 1995 (yes, there was an internet in 1995) and is very
incomplete, but the
pages which have been created have good photos and the text is full
of great facts, thankfully not of the weird New Age space alien type. |
| International
Museum Institute of Texas |
This
very large web page has photographs and text describing articles from the
20 year long world tour of items from the Egyptian museum, including items
from Tutankhamun's tomb as well as other significant finds such as the
Narmer palette and images of other pharoahs such as Akhenaton. |
Fiji
| Fiji
Visitors Bureau |
The
official Fijian government website has a lot of useful information, including
links to other tourist oriented websites. Last visited in January
of 2008. |
| Fiji
Government Online |
The
official website of the Fijian government has a page of links to government
departments, including the Fiji Visitors Bureau. |
| Beachcomber
Island Resort |
This
island in the Mamanuca group north of Nadi is the "party island" of Fiji,
packed with hundreds of younger travellers whose idea of foreign travel
revolves around partying with other sexy young things at night and indulging
in sun-bathing and watersports during the daytime. Last visited
in April of 2008. |
| Navini |
The
resort website proudly proclaims that "You can and will stroll around the
island in 10 minutes", which makes this island in the Mamanuca group a
good place for the tourist who wants to relax and isn't too interested
in adventure. Last visited in April of 2008. |
| Treasure
Island |
More
watersports but in a more adult atmosphere than Beachcomber, with canned
culture in the form of a kava ceremony and "Polynesian" hula dancing and
fire dancing - a slightly odd idea, in what is after all really a Melanesian
country. The website has sections in Japanese, German, Italian
and even Russian. Last visited in April of 2008. |
Japan
| Japan
National Travel Organization |
The
official Japanese tourism website. |
| SushiCam |
Originally
a witty week-by-week account of life in Japan written by an American guy,
this site now has interesting articles by multiple contributors.
Each covers a different topic or place, and they're often accompanied by
good photographs. Last visited in July of 2007. |
| Japan's
War Heroes have their Shrine |
Geraldine
Sherman wrote this article for the Canadian "Globe and Mail" newspaper.
It recounts a visit she made to the Yasukuni-jinja shrine and its attached
Yushukan
museum, both of which are devoted to all the Japanese who died
in foreign wars since 1867. This is an extraordinarily controversial
place, inside and outside Japan, and the article gives good, basic coverage
of the issues involved. |
| Engrish |
Pages
and pages of funny uses
of the English language in Japan and elsewhere, grouped by category. |
| Bullet
train timetable |
The
official timetable for the Shinkansen, known in the West as the "bullet
train". |
| Todai-ji
temple |
The
official website of Todai-ji temple in Nara is all in Japanese, but you
can still enjoy the photographs of the temple treasures. |
New
Zealand
| General |
|
| New
Zealand Herald |
New
Zealand's largest circulation newspaper, based in Auckland.
Includes a weather
section. |
| |
|
| Rotorua |
|
| RotoruaNZ |
This
is the official website for the city of Rotorua, a very good place to learn
about local attractions. |
| Wai-O-Tapu
Thermal Wonderland |
This
award winning website gives information about one of the geothermal tourist
attractions in Rotorua which I was foolish enough not to visit. Maybe
next time! |
| Polynesian
Spa |
The
Polynesian Spa in downtown Rotorua has 35 individual hot pools to soak
away the sore muscles of a day's hard touristing. |
| Skyline
Rides |
Website
for an aerial gondola company based in Rotorua, which also has attractions
such as a steel
luge. |
|
|
| Christchurch |
|
| Christchurch
Art Gallery |
The
Christchurch Art Gallery has a good website discussing some of the art
works in their collection, as well as public
art scattered around the city, such as fountains and statues. |
|
|
| Southland |
|
| Red
Boat Milford Sound Cruises |
Red
Boat Cruises operates boat trips on Milford
Sound, in New Zealand's fiordland region. The website
has a Milford Sound map and information about the sights you'll see there,
as well as schedules and prices for the cruises. |
Russia
Solomon
Islands
| Taucher.Net |
How's
your German? After seven wasted years of study, mine's not
too bad, so I was able to glean quite a bit from this German language website
devoted to wreck diving, which has a section
on the Solomon Islands. |
| United
States LST Association |
The
United States LST Association is dedicated to the preservation of artifacts
related to the LST or "landing ship, tank". They even have
an operating example of an American World War Two LST. |
Trinidad
and Tobago
| Emperor
Valley Zoo |
The
official website of the Emperor Valley zoo in Port of Spain, the capital
of Trinidad and Tobago. |
| additional
links |
Check
out additional links to Trinidad and Tobago websites about insects. |
United
Kingdom
| London
tourist board |
The
official website for London tourism. |
| Tower
Bridge |
The
official website of Tower
Bridge. |
| Natural
History Museum |
The
official website of the Natural History Museum. |
| Museum
of Science and Industry |
The
official website of the Museum of Science and Industry, which has a relatively
small but very worthwhile collection of historic military aircraft, including
a Supermarine Spitfire in its original floatplane incarnation, the Gloster
Pioneer the first Allied jet aircraft, a German Me163 Komett rocket propelled
fighter and a German V1 Doodlebug cruise missile. |
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