James Shearer

Well, I’m back in Vancouver after travelling to San Francisco then returning on the train (28 hours up the interior of California, Oregon and Washington into British Columbia). What a great city to visit and what an amazing train journey.

The photos of San Francisco are here

Just over 3 years ago I arrived in Canada to start on what would become an epic journey across the 2nd largest nation on the planet. The diary I wrote whilst on the road which sparked the development of Trail Canada is available to read online.

My travel diary across Canada

Trail Canada is offering complete holiday packages in Canada which you can build and customise online.
You can choose your destination, where you stay, the kind of room in the hotel, what airline and airports to fly to and from, if you want a car to rent and when you book it all together online the savings are huge!
Trail Canada vacation in Canada package builder

So with Trail Canada expanding to a size which can be somewhat impossible to notice all the new and cool features, here are my top 10 favourite pages:

Hotels in Canada
The Trail Canada hotel guide has thousands of hotels across Canada. I think this is a great part of the website because the hotels are available at great rates, really really great rates and there is a huge selection.

Photos of Vancouver
I live in Vancouver now and these are all my own photographs (as are 99% of the Trail Canada images) but these are the most recent and some of my favourites.

Car rental in Canada
There are so many websites offering car rental in Canada. This area of the website offers loads of information on how to rent a car. Instead of having ca rental shoved in your face, you can find out about the dos and don’ts of renting a car in Canada.

Maps of Canada
A really great resource for Canada maps. There are maps of Canada, maps of provinces, city maps and also maps of the territories. Really useful to get an idea of how big Canada really is!

Photos of Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the most unique places I have ever visited anywhere in the world. Anyone traveling to Canada should not miss the chance to visit this remarkable province on Canada’s Atlantic coast. These are my photos of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Canada travel guide
One of the few online guides to Canada. This constantly expanding section of the website is one of the features which makes Trail Canada different. A complete and detailed guide to travel to Canada and what to do when you get there, how to get around and how to make it the best trip ever.

Destination guides and city guides
New to Trail Canada is the guides to each major Canadian city and popular destination. The number of featured destinations is growing and so is the information on each city.
Detailed city guides currently exist for:
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Toronto, Ontario
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Calgary, Alberta
Vancouver, British Columbia

Free e-cards of Canada (greeting cards)
Another great little feature of Trail Canada is the ability to send an e-card - an electronic greeting card. Each e-card can be customised with your own personal message and will be sent with an accompanying photograph of your choice. This service, like the rest of Trail Canada, is free to use!

If you have any thoughts on Trail Canada, what your favourite areas of the website are or any comments or suggestions, please click here to contact.

At last, I have had time to put some photos from the last 2 countries I have been to - the Netherlands and Sweden.

There are also some wildlife photos which I will be adding to.

Lots more pictures coming soon along with updates to the travel section of this web site.

So much to do and so little time.

Enjoy the photos and please feel free to post comments or email me.

Photo galleries

See ya,

James

I have to make this a quick update due the fact my Internet cafe credit is about to run out and I have no change for another just now.

I felt quite sad to leave Stockholm behind and head to the west coast and the industrial city of Goteborg (Gothenburg) - pronounced yoo-te-bor! Stockholm immediately became a favourite destination of mine and Goteborg would have to try hard to compete.

I took the train across the country which took about 5.5 hours on the express Intercity. My train car was half seated accommodation and half childrens’s playground! I’ve never seen that on a train before. The comfortable, spacious passenger car was pulled by possibly the oldest electric train I have ever seen - see photo soon.

Arriving in Goteborg I discovered that once again there was no where to stay! This time due to the Metalica concert in the city which drew in tens of thousands of fans from across Scandinavia.

Fortunately I found a room, at not too bad a price (600SEK) - still double what I wanted to pay for a budget break - but it was worth every Kroner. I quickly discovered what the giant squeegie (how do u spell that?) in the bathroom was for. As soon as I turned on the shower the entire bathroom instantly flooded by about 3cm deep water. This was due to the very inadequate drainage and the design of the shower to be one of these walk in, share the same floor as the rest of the bathroom, type of things. I ended up using the squeegie thing to direct the water to the plug afterwards.

Goteborg on the night of the concert looked a little like a field after an all night rave. Litter, glass and empty bottles and cans strewn everywhere. It wasn’t until the next morning the city cleaned up the mess.

Exploring Goteborg by foot, tram and ferry proved a delightful way of getting around. The uninterrupted sunshine and temperatures exceeding 20 degrees lasted until 9.30pm every night.

Stockholm was probably the most photogenic cities I have ever had the pleasure to visit and Goteborg, also a very beautiful city, offers little in comparison. The impressive industrial structures along the harbour, including a giant building which I assume is part of their port authority showed off unique designs which make Sweden famous for this art.

I have many interesting and some unusal photographs which I will post in the next few days. I also need to put up the photographs from around the Netherlands too!!!

That’s it for now, another remarkably vague post but I am sure I will write something more interesting as I collate my experiences of the land of Vikings, Volvo, ABBA, Ericsson, Ikea, Bjorn Borg, and of course tall, attractive blondes!

Hej da,

James

After a few days in Sweden’s city on the water, I have had a chance to recover from the minimal amount of sleep the night which left me no where to sleep apart from a very short bunk on board a 100 year old ship. Last night I managed to book myself the last room at Oden Pensionat on one of the larger islands which make up Stockholm.

It was tempting to stay in bed all morning but I had to get up early despite a late night spent at Kungstradgarden where a festival of food has been going on all week. I’ve never been to as many concerts in all my life. Yesterday as I wandered the streets, I experienced many different types of music from 28 musicians playing on various outdoor venues across the city. By musicians, I don’t mean the ones seen in doorways playing for money, but Swedish pop, rock and dance stars which attracted the crowds by the tens of thousands. All of which was completely free apart from the cost of the enormous amount of food I tried.

I’m sitting at an Internet cafe in Centralstatioen enjoying the cool air and the fresh breeze coming in from the street. It must be the copious amounts of trees and water throughout the city which keeps the air fresh. For a capital city the air is remarkably clean and the water unpolluted to the point where restaurants fish for their own produce right in front of their establishments in the heart of this truly beautiful city.

Despite my rushing around this morning to fit in visits to 3 of Stockholm’s most popular tourist destinations I was only able to make one and now have 90 minutes. The train I intended on taking was full and I didn’t feel like standing for 4 hours as I head from the east coast to the west and the city of Goteborg (Gothenburg).

I know there is a lot of Stockholm still left untouched and even an extra day would allow me the freedom to see a little more but the city is incredibly busy with visitors from across Scandanavia, Russia, Poland, and many other countries. I learned today is race day for the most popular horserace in Europe. It is also the long weekend for many European countries and with weather like this (25 degrees and sunny) I’m not surprised people are flocking to such a great destination. This has left me with very little option of places to stay so I am hoping Gothenburg will be a little easier to find accommodation and perhaps a little cheaper. The rumours of Sweden being an expensive country have prooved to be not unfounded.

I think I am going to go outside for a bit to find some icecream and a park to relax in until my train. Stockholm has made it onto my list of some of my favourite cities in the world which also includes Vancouver, Zurich and Saskatoon (don’t ask about the last one)

Adjo,
James

PS. I had to edit this blog because Blogger doesn’t recognise Swedish characters! Ooops.

Waking up on a ship in Stockholm has never been a dream, plan or desire. But it happened. Peering out the porthole across the harbour to Gamla Stan with its beautiful, historic buildings reminded me how I came to be in such a place.

It may have only been 5.45am but the early morning, summer sun had also woken the other 3 travellers sharing the same bunkroom below deck. It didn’t take long before a Polish guy was asking me (in Polish) how to add credit to his mobile phone. Fortunately this was in English and following instructions in English is one of my hidden skills.

With one mission complete my next was to find some breakfast. Sidetracked into an Internet cafe I must go to find something to eat and explore “the European capital of cool”.

Waking up on my birthday to find the hundreds of emails from victims of the MyDoom virus is not the best way to start the day! See Symantec’s security response to this worm.

My wandering travel friend Pia has finally, and I do mean finally, put together some of her incredible pictures and though provoking travel diary and produced a travel guide to India - Amazing India. If you are interested in travelling to India or want to learn about the varied cultures across one of the most populated countries in the world, Amazing India has it all. Check it out! (Now I want to go!)

Now I have to fight my way through the snow storms and deepening drifts in Glencoe to get to Glasgow! Some of my winter pictures are online here - Scotland Winter Photos.

With what could only be described as an interesting and quite unique experience of a weekend behind me, the Sunday night train from Glasgow to Fort William set off into the dark, cool evening. Around 7.30pm with the snow on the ground increasing in depth as the temperature dropped, the train came to a sudden stop somewhere on Rannoch Moor. As time went by fellow passengers began glancing about anxiously in an attempt to ease their curiosity as to why we had remained stationary on the UK�s most remote railway during a snow storm.

Time ticked by and nothing happened. Then, as suddenly as we stopped, a hurried announcement came across the in-train PA system “unfortunately the train has become derailed and we are going to be stuck here for sometime”.

Not very reassuring! Looks of amusement crept across the faces of the younger passengers sitting by me. As the snow continued to fall and no progress appeared to be being made the sense of amusement was slowly being replaced with worry. Then a loud bang, bang, bang shot through the two car train. In an effort to relieve boredom I went to the front of the train to investigate. Some of the Scotrail crew were attempting to rectify the fault in the frozen points that had caused the accident by applying the skill of large rocks at considerable force to the steel. This only served to frighten the passengers nearer the back of the train.

The snow continued to fall and the level of desperation amongst the members of the crew began to become quite apparent. With a shudder and a pop the lights went out. Complete darkness enveloped the restless passengers. Within seconds the lack of heating became chillingly obvious and the open electric door sucked in the Scottish winter weather.

Fortunately the lights came back on but without the heat leading a couple of hikers to decide they would brave the weather, the terrain and without knowing exactly where we are to head out to find civilisation.

Rising levels of fear, desperation and boredom spread through the train. Efforts to request help by the crew appeared to be fruitless and the free drinks were a welcome to many who were shivering in the refrigerator temperature. Not being a hot drink drinker I was more interested in easing my increasing hunger. Scenes from the movie “Alive” came to mind.

6 hours after the drama had begun the hikers returned. A collection of vehicles were less than 50 metres away. The 100 or so Christmas shoppers squeezed in amongst gifts, shopping, kids and umbrellas. I found myself in the back of a Royal Mail postbus with a mother and screaming child. I didn�t care. The next 3 hours of treacherous, unploughed roads winding through Glencoe finally led me home.

My passion for travel oddly untarnished. Perhaps injected with excitement having survived yet another encounter with the bizarre.