Hit the road, baby!

Aha…so news of another great competition has come our way.

HostelBookers are offering one lucky UK resident the chance to win a round the world ticket (up to a value of £3000) plus £1000 spending money to go with it. All you need to to is head over here and complete their survey.

See, told you it sounded good!

Get moving, though, as the deadline is October 31st.

Good luck and happy travels!

Visiting London, never mind living there, can be extremely expensive. What makes the situation even worse is the fact that the city has so much to offer and the temptations are too hard to resist!

London's Theatres for Less

One of the things London is famous for is its great theatre shows: drama acts with many excellent improvisations, comedy performances with brilliant black humour and the loveable musicals.

So, what is the best advice for someone who loves London and wants to experience it to the max?  These tips and tricks to get into London’s top theatres for less…

1. “tkts”-

 This wonderful organisation was established in 1980 and since then it has become the most famous “half price” ticket booth in London. tkts is managed by the Society of London Theatre and their main aim is to give every person, rich or poor, the option to go to the theatre. Visit their booth either in the Clocktower building in the centre of Leicester Square or in the Brent Cross shopping center.  To find more locations and information visit their site.

2. “DiscountTheatre.com”-

This is a brilliant way to get a cheaper theatre ticket without even leaving the house! The site offers a secure payment system and a guarantee that you will have the same seat you requested on the reservation form. Visiting their site will not only assure you a ticket to the best show in town, it will also give you the option to explore some hotter deals such as: “buy a theatre ticket and get a free night in a Central London hotel!”

3. Standby-

You will be surprised by the number of theatres that offer standby purchase options- even the biggest shows get cancellations from time to time! Unfortunately for some of you, this opportunity is only available for 60+ retired citizens, students who study full time or members of the theatre union. In order to get a standby ticket, you will need to arrive about an hour before the show starts. If there are any tickets left, you can buy them for up to 70% off the original price!

4. Go with all your friends!

This is by far our favourite solution! If you book tickets for a group of 10 or more people, you can ask for a discount. The more people, the cheaper the price gets! Before buying tickets, call the theatre you wish to go to, tell them your situation, be polite and see if they can make an offer!

5. Move After Lights Out

This is a tricky one indeed, but worth trying. The further you are from the stage, the cheaper the ticket. Wait until the lights are out and the play has started, and then sneak quickly to the front to take up any empty seats. Good luck!

EasyToBook.com specialises in discount rates on hotels all over the world, from simple motels all the way up to celebrated 5-star venues. For more information about hotels in London, visit their site!

They offer to pay you £20 000 for the year in return for reviewing (in front of the camera) holidays as voted for by the public.

So what’s the catch?

Well, you do need to have experience in social media and be prepared to take a year out of your life for this. Great for some careers, not so good for others.

Where Do I Apply?

You can find all the fine print here. Happy Travels!

The London Underground, by RealSMILEY

It’s the oldest in the world and its map resembles rainbow-coloured spaghetti, but don’t be intimidated. It’s easy to use the London Underground.

Top Tips for Using the London Underground

1)      Get a Map. Every station gives them out for free or you can find maps of the London Underground online here.

2)      Know which exit you want. Many of the central stations have several different exits, but they all have an ‘overland’ map available before you step above ground. The exits are labelled according to street names and famous attractions. Make use of the information!

3)      Closing time. The London Underground closes earlier than you might expect – just after midnight in many cases. Use this guide to check the first and last train for each line.

4)      Understand Zones. London Underground ticket prices depend upon which zone you want to travel through, numbered from 1 to 6 from the centre of London to the outskirts. Most attractions lie within zones 1 & 2. All London underground maps show these zones, so that you can tell in advance which zone you are in, which you want and how much you should pay.

5)      Understand the Lines. Each line has its own colour and name (eg Bakerloo in brown, Circle in yellow). Directions are described in terms of north or south, east or west, although each platform has a large map showing you where you are and which stops the next train will call at.

Part 2 of How to Use the London Underground

1) No idea what twitter is, but embarrassed to ask?

Read my handy (and brief !) guide to what twitter is and how it can help you get more out of your weekends.

2) Familiar with twitter but want a bit more guidance…

Read this handy guide from the National Geographic Team.

3) Want to go all the way, starting with city breaks and moving on to quitting your job, redesigning your life and travelling the world?

Read Christine Gilbert’s comprehensive Twitter for Travelers (you will have to pay for it and – to cut a long story short – no, I don’t get any of the money!)

Secret reason number four. You already know everything about twitter but just dropped in to have a look around. Well, if you think you’re a twitter traveller worth following then drop your twitter handle in the comments below.

Happy tweeting!

Not a clue? Read on for a Beginner’s Guide to Twitter.

Twitter: In its Simplest Form

By Clevercupcakes

 Twitter has been called many things – a microblogging platform, an independent force for democracy and a total and utter waste of time. I’ll leave it up to you to make up your own mind.

 What twitter definitely is, is a free service that gives you a fresh clean webpage with a twitter logo on it. You can publish things on this webpage for free as often as you like. The only catch is that your publishing efforts must be 140 characters or less (around the same length as a text message).

Why would anyone want to do that?

No good reason, if you stop there. Twitter’s strength lies in the way you drop in and out of other people’s twitter streams (the name for those webpages we just talked about.) It’s like a real-time global conversation – except you can filter out the bores without pretending that you’ve finished your drink or that you need to go to the toilet.

So?

By woodleywonderworks

 My take on the twitter phenomenon is that it’s a cross between chatting with friends, colleagues, Stephen Fry and Barack Obama,  and browsing the newspaper headlines to see which article to read (you can link to another website in your 140 character tweet.)

A few examples related to planning a cheap weekend break.

Get Inspired

Follow @travelcwb on twitter and you’ll get free updates on what’s happening here at Cheap Weekend Breaks as well as the latest information about other exhibitions, special deals and resources that I think might be useful.

Of course, it’s not all about meeee! You can ‘follow’ (the word for subscribing on twitter) tweets from the National Trust to Time Out London and more.

Get Informed

This morning, I was researching a trip to the Arabian Baths in Seville. I mentioned that on twitter – and within a few minutes someone had given me the link to the site. Could I have found the information another way? Of course, although it would have been slower. Similar thing when I headed to Valencia for the crazy tomato throwing festival. A quick tweet (the word for your 140 characters) and I had top tips coming my way.

Get going

Ready to dabble in the twitterverse but the hashtags (#), RTs and DMs make it all look like gobbledegook?

Don’t worry about that. You can either get started and worry about it later or wait for my next post in this series.

Just one word of caution – consider anything you publish on twitter as public property. Forever.

Reader by Moriza

 The Beginner’s Guide to RSS – Part Two

For a gentle introduction to RSS, read Part One.

So, you’ve decided you want to try RSS, now what? 

The easiest way to read subscriptions is through a piece of software called a Reader (better name than RSS, eh?) There are lots of free ones available, although most people use Google Reader. Once you’re set up it takes less than ten seconds to add, order and remove various subscriptions.

You’re not obliged to stay with google or with any of your subscriptions, so the best way of finding out whether you like it is to play around with it.

But first you need to set it up.

A) Get a free google account if you don’t already have one.

 1) Go  to Create a Google Account

2) Enter your email address and create a password

3) If you’re using a public computer then uncheck the “Stay Signed In” box. Personally I also uncheck the “Enable Web History” as well.

4) Read and agree to the terms and conditions.

5) Log in to your email and click the activation link. This should eventually take you to the log in page.

6) Log in using the details you entered in step 2.

You’re in! Now a google account has lots of toys, but for now we’re going to ignore all those and just look for the reader.

B) Choose the RSS you want to subscribe to.

I’m going to suggest this one (of course!) but you can use any orange RSS picture.

1) Click on the RSS icon (orange box towards the top right of the screen). 

2) Click on the box that says ‘Google.’

 3) Click on “Add to Google Reader” (Log in again if you need to)

You’ll then see an example of what your Reader looks like, and what the material from this site will look like in your Reader.

4) Click on the “Subscribe” box.

Success! Now play around with your options.

Any questions on subscribing via RSS? If so, pop them in the comment boxes below or let me know by using the contact form.

Now that you’ve subscribed by RSS you can get back to the real matter at hand. Planning your next weekend break…

What are these orange boxes?

That orange box scattered across cyberspace symbolises RSS.

 RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which to me seems a bad name. (Really simple? But I still don’t know what it means. Argh!?!*&*!)

Already happy with RSS? Then check out 101 Cheap Weekend Breaks and see how many weekends you’ve spent exploring the world…

RSS will seem simple after reading this. I promise.

Forget the internet for a second and remember the dark ages a few years ago when you read things that were in a printed format.

Newspapers were either published every day or every weekend. Magazines were often published every month and books would usually only come out once.

Magazine - By Gustty

Most of the time you would buy one of these whenever you felt like it. If you became a big fan, then to avoid the hassle of having to go to a shop, you would subscribe. Magazines had subscription services and newspapers had child exploitation paper rounds.

Your magazine or newspaper would arrive at your door with no further effort on your part. If you ever changed your mind, then you cancelled your subscription.

 This is how subscribe via email works  If you type your email address into the first empty box at the end of this post and press submit, you’ll receive an email every time I publish something new. If you change your mind later, then you can click on the unsubscribe link that comes with each email. That’s it.

Back to newspapers and RSS.

Email subscription overload...by rwp Roger

However, what if you wanted to subscribe to ten, twenty or one hundred newspapers? Then your house would drown in the clutter of all that printed material and your paper boy would be crushed under the weight of it all.

You can sometimes get that feeling if you subscribe to too many blogs or websites via email.

 What’s the solution?

 Subscribe via RSS. It’s the equivalent of having your paperboy file all your magazines and newspapers neatly in the garden shed and be on call for 24 hours a day to run and retrieve whichever one you feel like reading. Or show you a selection of the most recent papers. Or perhaps only those with travel supplements. Whichever you want.

 That’s RSS. Only it’s free and doesn’t breach employment laws.

 Sounds great. But how do I subscribe using RSS?

RSS Makes Reading Easier - by Inju

Click on the orange button in the top right corner of this site or visit this post for step by step instructions on subscribing via RSS.

But what about feeds?

At its simplest, think of the feed as the subscription service that puts your newspapers and magazines in the garden shed.

But I don’t want all that. Can’t I just look at a website?!

Of course. There’s no need to use RSS unless you want to. Don’t be intimidated by the orange boxes! RSS simply allows you to read a lot of material online from one screen, instead of surfing to each separate site. Like using a remote control instead of getting out of your seat to change the channel each time.

That’s all.

Any questions on RSS? If so, drop me a line in the comments boxes below or use the contact form.

Photo by Yomi955

How to subscribe via email – easier than finding chocolate at Easter.

If you enjoy this site, you can get updates delivered for free to your inbox. Here’s how:

1)      Enter your email address in the white box in the top right corner and press submit.

2)      Enter the letters to show that you’re a human being and not a crazy, spamming robot.

You should then see something that looks like this:

3)      Go to your email account and look for the message from Feedburner Email Subscriptions. If you can’t see it, then check your junk filter in case it’s been swept there by overzealous automated email police.

4)      Click on the link in the email. You should then see this message:

 Any questions? Post them in the comments below or drop me a line using the contact form.

That’s it. Sit back and enjoy updates from Cheap Weekend Breaks. Create your own weekend break and explore the world, one weekend at a time.