Win a trip to Rio de Janeiro!

You could be jetting off to a free holiday in Brazil with roundtrip airfare to Rio de Janeiro courtesy of Ipanema Canada!

Open to Canadian residents. Contest details here.

Top 5 Little-Known Travel Don'ts

Guyana: Don't stop hooting/honking.

Guyanese drivers seem to be leading the worldwide revolution in car hooter functionality. Not content with it as a vaguely obnoxious, sometimes-necessary warning tool, they have used it to develop a complex, quasi-SONAR system of urban navigation – where you hoot to let others know when you're taking off, when you're turning, when you're overtaking, and when you're approaching an intersection (really blast the thing, if you're not planning on stopping). If you ever find yourself behind the wheel on a Guyanese road, unless you want to be invisible, don't let up on your hooter.

Singapore: Don't chew.

Although somewhat of a cliché by now, Singapore's famous ban on chewing gun merits inclusion in this list, if only because of the (quite adorable) steadfastness of their position on the issue. Eighteen years of international incredulity (not to mention, significant teasing) led to a referendum on the matter in June 2010 – when government officials decided to 'stick' to their proscription of the corrupting chew, prompting wild celebrations on the part of train seats around the city.

Mauritania: Don't... do anything, really.

A veritable land of 'Thou Shalt Nots', it'd probably be shorter to make a list of the things you CAN do in Mauritania... Nevertheless, topping the list must be its draconian stance against public displays of affection between men and women. Not even married couples are permitted to hold hands in public in Mauritania – which might go some way toward explaining it's relative unpopularity as a global honeymoon destination. Another oddity: in public, women can't lie on their backs, and men shouldn't lie on their stomachs.

Micronesia: Don't you rub your belly like that, I know what that means....

Hungry? Full? Feeling queasy? Need to tuck your shirt in a little more? All these good reasons to rub your belly, but in Micronesia, they're the equivalent of putting on your best fishnets and hanging out on a street corner by the docks after nightfall. That's right – in Micronesia, if you want to let someone know that you're, um, interested, the quickest way would be to give your gut a little rub in their presence. Gastronomy-themed pick-up lines are optional.

North Korea: Don't mention that gigantic skyscraper over there.

Taking the idea of an 'elephant in the room' to its absurd conclusion, North Korea's abandoned Ryugyong Hotel in downtown Pyongyang – a 105-storey, pyramid-shaped concrete affair, once called “the worst building in the history of mankind” by Esquire magazine – is curiously absent from all official photographs of the capital city. And while 'disappearing' things from photographs wasn't invented by North Korea, the public's herculean act of 'double-think' has ensured that even while in Pyongyang, it's hard (in fact, potentially hazardous) to get anyone to admit that the building actually exists.

Construction started on the Ryugyong Hotel in 1987, with builders giving themselves the optimistic target of completing it in 1989 (at which time, it would have been the tallest hotel in the world...and definitely still the ugliest). However, in 1992, pesky construction problems, such as crumbling concrete, and sagging girders, significantly stalled the project – before it was totally abandoned in 1996 due to a lack of funds, electricity shortages, and widespread famine. A national embarrassment, and a monument to the bizarre workings of the North Korean government, if you ever find yourself in Pyongyang, fight your urge to compliment the skyline.

Image of Ryugyong Hotel from here.

Cheap Flights Song

This hilarious song chronicles the attempts of three women to find cheap flights to their friend's wedding.

It's a great round-up of the woes of unbundled fees... a little dig at Ryanair perhaps?

Word Travels Forum Round-Up #20

Happy Easter! For those of you not currently enjoying a holiday, here are the travel topics burning up our forum boards this week:

Tour operators in Poland

Getting a Cuba tourist card

Travelling in Kuwait

Nepal trekking and accommodation

If the answer you need isn't there, why not ask your question on the forum today?

Win a Trip to Belgium!

Want to win the ultimate chocolate holiday? You could win a trip for two to Brussels that includes accommodation, flight vouchers, Museum of Chocolate admission, a city tour, and unlimited Skype calls!

The contest is open to UK residents. More info is available here.

And for other cities to enjoy chocolate in, read this.

Image from here.

5 Reasons I Hate to Fly

I travel often, and when I do it tends to be long-distance. We're talking 54-hour odysseys from Cape Town to San Francisco, or Minneapolis to Oslo. I used to get a thrill out of it like any newbie, but the sheen has long since faded, and while I still love to travel, I look at the journey less as part of the fun and more as some sort of penance to pay before I can enjoy myself. Here's a few of the reasons I hate to fly:

1. Lack of sleep - There are two kinds of people: those who can sleep on planes and those who can't. I can't. Ever. There was one blissful haul from Senegal to Atlanta where an industrial-strength muscle relaxer put me into a drooly coma, But generally my brain refuses to cooperate. There are always factors that contribute to this. On a recent flight from Joburg to Paris, I had the pleasure of sitting next to a three-year-old who cried non-stop for seven hours, even when he was asleep.

2. Long layovers - On long trips, sometimes you can't avoid a layover of more than three hours. Maybe it was cheaper, or maybe the only other flight was too quick of a turn-around and you didn't want to chance missing your connection. While some airports have entertainment to keep you busy on long layovers, usually you're too tired to do anything but eat and try to find somewhere to sleep. I once sat at Charles de Gaulle airport for two hours, a twitchy zombie.

3. Airport security - You stand in queue after queue. You're tired and disoriented. You have to fill out paperwork with the threat of deportation should you forget something. People make you take off your shoes and put humiliating paper booties on. They rummage through your intimates and confiscate your snacks, then give you suspicious stares and quiz you about your travel plans. Oh, and now we all get naked pictures taken, or a good old-fashioned feel-up. Yay.

4. Airplane climate - The conditions on planes are terrible. They cool them to nearly the point of freezing, and now charge you for flimsy blankets. The recirculated air is bone-dry, leaving your skin crying for the moisteriser you weren't allowed to carry on. You're parched, but the sugar in the orange juice is just dehydrating you further and the flight attendant is giving you the evil eye for asking for a fifth glass of water.

5. Class wars - One of the worst parts of flying is knowing that you could be so much more comfortable if you had more money. If you'd paid for an upgrade you could be snoozing in a flat bed, or drinking champagne and having your steak done how you like it; instead of craning your neck to see the (either blue or red-tinted) tv screen twenty feet away and trying to choke down the breakfast sausage. It's the same in airports, when you didn't quite shell out enough to pay for the fancy lounge with the comfortable seats and showers.

Travel Movie: Before Sunrise

Unlike Brokedown Palace, the 1995 film Before Sunrise is a best-case-scenario for teenagers travelling abroad. Boy meets girl in a romantic foreign city, they share one night of passionate conversation and fall madly in love.

American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and French Celine (Julie Delpy) meet on a train, and spend one night in Vienna simply walking around and discussing everything from existentialism to sex. It's an oddly intimate view of the city minus the tourist trappings, and many hidden corners are explored between dusk and dawn.

I'd hate to give away the ending, but it definitely stays true to the romantic notions of idealistic and philosophical 19-year-olds.

Verdict: Rent it