continents

I'm currently twenty-three hours into a forty-seven hour trip on Amtrak's Empire Builder train, a journey which travels more than halfway across the US, from Seattle to Chicago. As I write this, the train is hurtling across Montana's northern plains between Malta and Glasgow. To the north, it's dead flat as far as the eye can see; to the south, there are hills in the distance, but they are mostly insignificant.

This is a distinct change from earlier in the day, as the train weaved its way through the Rocky Mountains, so high in altitude that even the tracks were covered in snow.

This is farming country - the landscape is occasionally interrupted by farmhouses, barns, grain silos and graveyards of rusted-out agricultural machinery. I haven't seen a car on the road that runs beside the railway line for about half an hour, and I can't recall the last place where my mobile broadband device had a signal.

Not wanting to shell out $400 or more for a sleeper, I've chosen coach class, which effectively means being unable to lie down and stretch out for two nights in a row. The seats in couch class do have the ability to recline quite a way, and have a decent legrest that pops up, but it's still not quite the same as having a bed to stretch out on. I'm fortunate that the train is more than half-empty and I have staked a claim on both my seats; this let me lie across both of them during the previous night and get around eight hours of - frequently interrupted - sleep. Not ideal, but considerably better than a bus.

The entire journey costs $153; possibly less if booked in advance - but, strangely, at least $100 more if broken in the middle for a night. As you might imagine, I've decided not to go with that option, and thus am in it for the long haul.

Naturally, there's not a lot to do, other than look at the scenery or eat in the cafe, so bring a lot of reading material or a laptop if you're inclined to get bored easily. My carriage had power points at each seat, but other Amtrak trains I've been on haven't always had this, so be prepared to charge your electronic equipment up in the toilets.

The dining car is available during breakfast and lunch, but must be reserved for dinner; the cafe is open during daylight hours, although strangely the attendant takes a break smack bang in the middle of breakfast time.

The train's air conditioning seems to run permanently, and it can get cold in the middle of the night, so I recommend either bringing a blanket, or wear as much layered clothing as you can. I'd also recommend a facemask, if you're sensitive to light when trying to sleep, because it's never completely dark inside the train.

For the last three nights, I've been staying at Portland, Oregon's Northwest Hostel, which is one of two Hostelling International hostels in this city. The hostel consists of two historic buildings, one containing the reception, kitchen and rooms, and the other containing a second kitchen and more rooms, often reserved for groups.

This hostel is the only one of the two that is located within easy walking distance of Portland's main attractions - as its name suggests, it is in Portland's north-west quarter, and it is only three blocks from the "free rail zone" - the area where all rail-based public transport in Portland is free. Theoretically, it is possible to get from Portland's Amtrak and Greyhound stations to the hostel for free, only using the MAX light-rail and the streetcar, but it's not really a direct path, and it's probably easier just walking for fifteen minutes, unless your luggage is particularly heavy.



The hostel's website notes that it has dormitories ranging from 4-bed and 6-bed rooms through to 8-bed rooms, however it doesn't mention that these rooms are not necessarily isolated from one another. In my case, while my room was an 8-bed room, it was separated from another 8-bed room by a couple of curtains, so effectively I was staying in a 16-bed room. Personally, I prefer to stay in 4-bed dorms, but unfortunately, the Hostelling International USA website doesn't give you any ability to specify this when you book.



The beds - all bunks - were fairly sturdy, and didn't rock too much when climbing in, so there's less chance of being woken up when the person above you arrives in the middle of the night. Bedclothes are provided by the hostel - basically a pillowcase and a folded-up YHA-style sleeping sheet - and there were extra blankets available in a trunk in the hallway.



My room had free lockers, with a clip for attaching your own padlock, although the reception also had padlocks available if guests required them. There were also plenty of lockers available outside the rooms, again all free. I can't understate just how great it is to have free lockers; while obviously it's no guarantee of security, it's nice to be able to leave your valuables behind for a little while and not have to lug them around with you all day. Hostels that insist on providing only pay-per-use lockers - or none at all - should really look at this and learn.

Other than that, the rooms were fairly typical for a hostel. One minor annoyance was that towel hooks were located on the bed. Admittedly, it was nice to have hooks (I've stayed in some cheap hostels that don't have any at all), but it would be better for them to be located on the walls, away from where you can smell them.

The bathrooms were fairly drab, as one would expect from such an old building, but they were very clean. The showers were of the bath/shower combination variety, which might present problems for people with mobility issues, and while the water was always hot, the shower-head in one bathroom was missing, and it fired a fairly narrow stream of water at the occupant.



My dormitory had its own ensuite bathroom, and there were two others located out in the hall, one upstairs and one downstairs. I suspect the hostel could probably do with a few more of them, as there were times when they were all occupied.

Each building has a small kitchen, with a refrigerator where guests could store perishable food, however there wasn't much storage space for non-chilled food. Cooking equipment consisted of an oven, a four-plate stove and a microwave, with a fairly complete set of utensils. Not quite like the industrial kitchens of various hostels in other counties (such as New Zealand, for example) but certainly workable. I'm not sure how well it would cope if the hostel was full, though.



Also, simple things like washing-up brushes were missing, meaning that guests had to clean their dishes with a sponge - this doesn't strike me as a particularly good way to clean.

The hostel had plenty of common areas, from the dining rooms attached to each of the kitchens to a comfortable, although dark, ground floor lounge in the second building. There didn't appear to be a TV room anywhere, although given the quality of American TV, this was probably a blessing.

There is free wifi covering every room, and the speeds were good, although it did drop out a few times. There's also a large selection of board games available, plus a good range of travel books and also a book-swap collection.



Each building has a laundry, with one washing machine and one tumble-drier - I suspect in busy periods, this would be insufficient. Only one of the buildings had a rack where clothes could be hung out to dry.

The staff were all incredibly friendly and helpful, and upon arrival, they would take each guest through the hostel, showing them the various facilities, before taking them to their room. They also provided advice about Portland's sights and nightlife, and were more than happy to print out my onward Amtrak ticket (naturally, for a fee).



In all, this would have to be one of the most comfortable hostels I've stayed in so far, but this is tempered by the fact that it wasn't high-season and the hostel was half-empty. In more crowded periods, I do wonder if the small kitchens, low number of washing machines and lack of bathrooms might make the place a bit cramped.

For years, flights between Australia and the United States have been dominated by the Qantas and United Airlines duopoly due to an agreement between the two countries that limited any other airlines flying the route to only four flights per week. This severely limited competition on the route, drove up prices and resulted in poor service, to the extent that serious travellers would only fly with Qantas.

Now, with a new government in Australia, a new open skies agreement has been struck between the two countries, and there are no longer any restrictions on flights for any Australian or US airlines.

Virgin Blue has been planning to fly on this route for a while now, and will commence services towards the end of this year under the banner of V Australia.

The new agreement, however, will not remove restrictions on airlines from other countries on the US-Australia route. Singapore Airlines has long wanted to fly a Sydney to Los Angeles service, but is still hamstrung by Australia's refusal to allow such a move.

Whenever I travel, I always carry a small, portable shortwave radio with me, mainly to keep up with world news, when I'm travelling through countries where English isn't the main language. You may wonder what the point is, in this age of 24 hour BBC World and CNN satellite television - until you find yourself in a small bed and breakfast or hostel without a television, let alone a satellite receiver.

I was staying in a hostel in Florence back in March 1999, when NATO commenced its bombing campaign over parts of Kosovo and Serbia. The hostel didn't have a TV room, and there was certainly no English programming on the radio in the city at that time; if I hadn't had my shortwave radio with me, I probably wouldn't have even known anything was going on, just across the Adriatic. Now, many might argue that knowing about this might not have helped me in the least - but who knows; I could well have been heading to Croatia at the time, and there's nothing to say the NATO attacks might not have reignited the conflicts that had been going on in that area for many years.

The BBC have announced that their World Service broadcasts to Europe will close on February 18th, 2008. The World Service has been broadcasting in a number of forms since 1938, and has been one of the most reliable broadcasters of news and information programs available, and I dare say has been invaluable to many a traveller on the road in that time. Unfortunately, the BBC now expect people to hear their service via local rebroadcasts (which tend to only be available in big cities, if at all), the internet (hard to get to that when you're on the move) or satellite radio (not exactly something you want to put in your backpack).

It's a pity that the BBC couldn't wait until future technologies, such as portable satellite radio, or Digital Radio Mondiale broadcasts on shortwave, became feasible, because once they have left the shortwave bands in Europe, they are going to be leaving a very big gap for the traveller in times of emergency.

After reading an article in The Age today that pans the tiny republic of San Marino for having an excess of shops selling rubbish that no-one in their right mind should buy, it occurred to me that none of these shops would survive unless there was actually a market for them.

To be fair, San Marino isn't the only place in that area with an oversupply of plastic trinkets on sale to clueless travellers; I have distinct memories of seeing shady men setting up makeshift stalls on white sheets on the ground, in almost every Italian city that I went to. While on the odd occasion, their wares might have been related to the nearest famous site - for example, plastic colosseums and books on the history of Pompeii (printed in China, of course) - but in general, it was purely junk, like the green plastic soldiers, furnished with a rifle, that vibrate and simulate a real soldier crawling along the ground. While it makes me wonder why anyone would buy such things at all, who would be silly enough to buy them when travelling?.

Many of the vendors clearly aren't operating legally; I recall seeing one vendor, in Venice, having a worried conversation with a colleague who had just arrived upon the scene, and then quickly packing up his trinkets into a white sheet and running off, very fast; two minutes later, two members of the police force casually strolled into the area - I don't know if they were even aware that an illegal vendor had been operating there or not. However, if these men are willing to risk arrest to sell their goods, there must be some pay-off and hence I must come to the conclusion that people are actually buying this rubbish.

I see the same here in Australia; Melbourne's Queen Victoria market is often touted to tourists as a must see, and I'll admit, the atmosphere is fascinating and it's a great place to buy food - but half of its stalls are selling the same Chinese-made junk that are sold in similar markets everywhere on the whole planet. I wouldn't buy any of this in a pink-fit. Do tourists really need fake Gucci handbags? Or even the genuine Gucci handbags, for that matter? Or Bart Simpson t-shirts?

The French engineering firm Alstom have launched the prototype of their new high-speed AGV train at their rail test centre in La Rochelle. The train, when operational, will be able to travel at 360 km/h, covering a distance of 1000km in just three hours. It will also have more seating than existing TGV trains, with space savings coming from the removal of motor carriages at the ends of the trains - instead, the trains will have distributed motors underneath each carriage.

I've just noticed on the Scanrail website that their railpass, which covered rail travel in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, is no longer available; sales of this pass ceased on December 31st, 2007.

This is a shame, because it was possible to purchase the Scanrail pass even after a traveller had arrived in Europe, although with a few restrictions. The only remaining equivalent is the Eurail Scandinavia Pass, which is not available to European residents, and cannot be purchased by travellers already in Europe.

Travelodge is building a hotel in West London made from 86 modified shipping containers. When completed in June, it is expected that rooms in the hotel will cost around €25 per night, less than a third of the cost of the nearest Travelodge in Slough, and cheaper than the nearest youth hostel.

The rooms are pre-fabbed in China, shipped out to the UK, where they are installed and then will be decorated. It is intended that the rooms are recyclable and although the words eco-friendly have been touted in relation to this building, I have to wonder what the insulation is going to be like. How are shipping containers going to deal with an unusually hot summer?

With a European winter now in full swing, the newspapers are full of European alpine ideas. Firstly, we have the New York Times with an article on night skiing in St Moritz - if you can afford to stay there, that is. Fortunately, it's not the only resort they list.

Still on Switzerland, the Independent goes ballooning in Château d'Oex, but at €227 for an hour's flight, it makes the aforementioned accomodation in St Moritz look like a night in a run-down motel.

The Independent also has a look at skiing in some of the lesser known areas of Austria's Tyrol region; and while you're there, why not have a weekend in Innsbruck?

Anyone who's had to fly this Christmas knows how bad the experience can be. If the trip out to the airport, which by necessity is incredibly inconveniently located, isn't bad enough, then there's the queues, delays and cancellations once there. And after that, the flight - stuck in a seat with no leg room, for hours.

Fortunately, just in time for the new year, The Guardian has provided a list of ten non-flying trips. Of course, you have to be in Europe, first...

Travel through much of Europe is about to become considerably easier: in three days' time, on December 21st, nine more states will be added to Europe's Schengen Zone, allowing travel without passport checks across an area that stretches from Portugal in the west to Hungary in the east.

Most of the new countries to the treaty are former communist states; Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia. The other new addition is Malta, which will now become the frontier border for illegal immigration from northern Africa.

The UK and Ireland are still hold-outs, having not joined Schengen at all, and while Switzerland and Liechtenstein have joined, they haven't yet implemented the treaty.

The upshot of this is that travellers will no longer have to put up with regular, and often gruff, passport checks as they travel from Germany into Poland or the Czech Republic, or Austria into Slovakia or Hungary. On the downside, passport checks on the eastern borders will probably get worse.

I recall on one trip from Bosnia into Croatia by bus, my passport was checked three times in the space of about 30 minutes; first officers came through, and inspected passports; then another person came through and collected all of the passports and took them into a building, where they were stamped - and then returned, rather haphazardly, by being given to a passenger to hand out. This was followed by more officers coming through to check them again - presumably Croatian police, this time. Annoying, but not too bad, in the general scheme of things. What's been your worst border-control experience?

As of December 9th, it's now much easier to cross Switzerland from north to south, with the opening of a new high speed rail link, in a tunnel through the Alps. Known as the Lötschberg tunnel, it runs from Frutigen to Raron, and will shave off around 30 minutes on trips from Bern to Brig.

International travel will also improve, with six daily trips from Bern/Basel to Milan starting in 2008.

It's far from independent travel, but North Korea has become just a little bit more accessible, with the opening of the southern city of Kaesong to very tightly managed tour groups.

Travels on these tours can expect a heavily organised trip, with no ability to wander off and look around for themselves.

Ever since the September 11 attacks, governments around the world have been slowly making it more and more difficult for travellers to enter their countries. We've previously detailed how the United States and Japan have been treating travellers as if they were criminals, by fingerprinting them upon entry.

Now it's the United Kingdom's turn - everyone who enters the UK for longer than six months will require a biometric visa, which will include their fingerprints. Once again the question must be asked: how does this prevent terror attacks?

Anyone heading to Malta or Cyprus over the new year break should be planning ahead, as on January 1st, 2008, these two countries will be dropping their local currency (the pound and the lira, respectively) and will replace them with the euro.

This will bring the number of countries in the euro zone to fifteen, and will make life much easier for travellers, removing the need to exchange currencies upon entry from other eurozone countries.

Of course, if their experience of the euro switchover is anything like mine was, living in Amsterdam at the time of the 2002 changeover, then prices will rise dramatically.