#and the sky islands and the depths are AMAZING examples

[fishofthewoods]

saw this in a dream and felt the need to make it a reality

[bkenvs3000w24]

The Most Amazing Thing About Nature

Welcome nature enthusiasts to my blog and prepare to be mesmerized! 

Have you ever just opened up a travel brochure and seen beautiful pictures of islands with clear blue water or glowing beaches at night? Well, imagine this, a warm summer night with you standing right by the shore with your toes digging into the sand and waves gently rushing towards your feet. The moon is the only bright thing in sight, until suddenly the water starts to glow a bright blue, illuminating the darkness. What you are imagining isn’t a scene from a disney movie but one of nature’s most amazing displays. 

Bioluminescent waves spotted at Long Beach in California (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/04/bioluminescence-beach-waves-orange-county-california/72102677007/ )

Bioluminescence is one of the most mesmerizing phenomena nature has to offer. If this rings a bell or you’re not sure what it is let me backtrack and refresh your memory. Bioluminescence is when living organisms produce light (US Department of Commerce, 2010). Bioluminescent creatures exist in places like the deepest parts of the ocean to the dense woodlands. Each creature is unique in the way it emits light (US Department of Commerce, 2010). You’ve probably seen or noticed some of these organisms and never realized they are known to be bioluminescent like fireflies (US Department of Commerce, 2010)! One of the most iconic examples consist of marine organisms where an abundance of tiny dinoflagellates cause the ocean to glow, also known as bioluminescent bays. 

When the dinoflagellates are disturbed or they sense movement, they respond by creating trails of light wherever they go (The Ocean Portal Team, 2023). Imagine canoeing through these waters at night (although I do not recommend it) while trailing your hand and watching as the water comes alive with shimmering light under your fingertips! It truly feels like a scene straight out of a fairytale. For example, bright waves traveling with the movement of dolphins spotted at Huntington and Newport beach in California. It’s not just the ocean but high in the treetops at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa where you’ll see enchanting fireflies. Or in depths of caves like the Waitomo Glowworm caves in New Zealand where the darkness is disrupted by the light from glowworms (Watkins et al., 2018). These insects found in dark and damp caves, emit a green light to attract prey or potential mates (Watkins et al., 2018). 

An image of the caves in New Zealand lit up due to the glowworms (https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel-and-adventure/2019/01/see-natures-amazing-glow-in-the-dark-spectacles)

Did you believe these organisms only light up to claim the title of the coolest creatures around? There’s more to it than meets the eye! Some bioluminescent organisms attract prey using their light like the glowworms (Watkins et al., 2018). Others use it to camouflage with their environment (The Ocean Portal Team, 2023). Most often it is used for communication like how fireflies flash their lights to attract mates (The Ocean Portal Team, 2023). Animals like jellyfish use their ability to defend themselves by scaring their predators (The Ocean Portal Team, 2023). 

The magic of bioluminescence doesn’t stop there! Scientists are still discovering new species and finding out how and why these organisms produce light. From glowing fish to fireflies high up in the sky, there is a diverse variety of bioluminescence. So next time you look out into the ocean or gaze out at the night sky, think of all the glowing organisms. Hopefully, after reading today’s blog, I’ve gotten my message across and brought the experience directly to you!  

The Ocean Portal Team. (2023a, May 11). Bioluminescence. Smithsonian Ocean. https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/bioluminescence 

US Department of Commerce, N. O. and A. A. (2010, February 12). What is bioluminescence?. NOAA’s National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/biolum.html#:~:text=Bioluminescence%20is%20the%20production%20and,surface%20to%20the%20deep%20seafloor. 

Watkins, O. C., Sharpe, M. L., Perry, N. B., & Krause, K. L. (2018). New Zealand glowworm (arachnocampa luminosa) bioluminescence is produced by a firefly-like luciferase but an entirely new luciferin. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21298-w 

[shoechoe]

ok this is real long and rambly im v sorry !! i jus wanted to talk abt music as well heh,, i loved reading ur music commentary under the tag game !! (hehe. i tag u rlly often cuz. i hav this secret inner mechanism where if a mutual tags me in anything *once* ill tag that mutual in literally everything if i remember/if prompted. tis how i roll) tho fr ur segment abt 20 min prog rock songs was so damn accurate. it rlly reminded me of pink floyd's "dogs", king crimson's "lizard" (not the album itself but moreso the sort of. i guess mashup shit they do. another prime example of this is moonchild (including the dream and the illusion), or the devil's triangle. which is honestly more nervewracking rather than boring i guess. JDEVGAVEAHDHGEAVHGAEVDGEVDG. hell ost i guess. w lizard ive listened to it so many times and while it does hav a multitude of lyrics DAMN those 23 minutes are painstakingly longgg ! i guess im a lil biased cuz u know ive played it too often. tho it does hav some v beautiful parts... ! i think a prime example of what u hav mentioned abt prog rock was w king crimson's one red nightmare. it has a cool part and then its jus. Instrumentals after and it gets kind of boring. at least the drums r p damn good!! or u know to some of comus's songs (which isnt prog rock but its prog folk. same damn thing where the songs are INSANELY long and can sometimes b rlly boring in certain portions), some prime examples being their song the herald (only 12min long. but mannn sometimes w prog rock or prog folk they make 10+ min songs feel like HOURS. but its also v mesmerizing!! or drip drip which. holy hell is an AMAZING song but theres this one part thats insanely fucking boringgg YAWN. its a nice break before the very chilling lyrics nearing the end but. come on now!) but yeah. i jus wanted to ramble bc i rlly need to get to listening to kc's entire discography as well. idk what u've listened to jus yet but some song recs if ur inchrested or havent listened to them already... could also apply 2 some of ur followers if they read this long ass ramble. this ask is a 20+ min prog rock song at this point: formentera lady, islands, the letters, ladies of the road, pictures of a city, moonchild, cirkus runthrough / lady of the dancing water (alt take) (why this one? it jus sounds better imo. lady of the dancing water is very very beautiful), thela hun ginjeet (this one is very fun and catchy), the sheltering sky, frame by frame, matte kudasai (VERY soothing), ummm.. dr diamond (live. i wish there was a more high quality ver somewhere), cadence and cascade, book of saturday, probably some more i forgot abt !!!!!! top 5 songs on their spotify also slap (obvs everyone and their mom already knows those songs id imagine! tho for new listeners those r bangers. esp starless.). if u wanna get REAL scared u should listen to da devil's triangle. (exaggerating but its quite diff from what *ive* heard. like hollyyy hell they set the mood down so so so so so well)

I appreciate the extra depth in the commentary- it is thoughtful. (I also appreciate the tag games.)

I agree that progressive rock is a very alluring and simultaneously often frustrating genre as someone who tends to be a fan of it. I consider it the musical equivalent of a sit-down meal; it requires a lot of patience and is best for when you have the time to just appreciate and drift off to it.

Progressive rock is usually lengthy, often slow, very experimental, and tends to utilize a lot of improvisation; as a result, you end up with a lot of songs with pieces that work extremely well, but you do often have to sit through a lot of parts that you just don't care for. Having music be a test of patience is understandably just not for everybody.

I find that my favorite progressive rock songs transform into feeling more like journeys rather than typical musical experiences. I consider Echoes by Pink Floyd to be my favorite prog rock song (and one of my favorite songs in general) for this reason. I end up enjoying the long middle portion entirely made of odd, unnerving, very non-"musical" sounds, because the entire song feels like you are trekking through something strange and unknown.

The slow transition with the buildup of the main tune's return at the very end of the middle portion feels almost like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or the reward at the end of a long journey- I hope that doesn't sound cheesy, lol. I enjoy sometimes playing Echoes at nighttime while I'm lying in bed, and I believe that is the absolute best time to play it. It ends up being a very moving experience for me and it really highlights the great potentials of progressive rock.

Thank you for the recommendations- I'm planning to listen to everything, anyway, but I'm sure any of my followers looking for music recs will appreciate it. King Crimson gets a lot of praise from music enthusiasts, but it doesn't seem as well-known among the mainstream as other progressive rock like Pink Floyd, for example.

[anexlomara]

TOTK doesn't really feel like a sequel.

Now don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game. Within the first 5 or so hours of playing, it shot up to my top 3 games of all time, just behind Portal 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Guess I have a thing for sequels. That said, TOTK functions less like a sequel to BOTW and more like a remix, taking what BOTW laid as groundwork to change and rework into a wholly new experience.

Now TOTK as a game has its roots as DLC for BOTW, with the development team having too many ideas to put into the game as DLC, so they decided to start on a whole new game. This presents an opportunity to take what worked with BOTW and build off of it and to take some of the criticisms of it and rework those aspects, to varying degrees of success. For example, BOTW's massive open world was both a source of praise and complaint from the audience, with many praising the new direction for the series and some complaining that the world was too empty with not enough to do in the world. The development team for TOTK seems to have taken both statements to heart, effectively doubling or tripling the world size with the additions of the sky islands and the Depths, but also reworking the world to have more interesting places to explore, like the myriad of cave systems and mines. This is what many sequels attempt to do, double down on what worked and fix what didn't about the previous installment.

But TOTK doesn't just do this, it also removes aspects of the world that BOTW went to great lengths to introduce as integral to the world. The Sheikah Tribe is a major piece of the story of BOTW, with its ancient tech being the catalyst for the setting and how the player/Link interacts mechanically with the game via the Sheikah Slate. Their towers are how you acquire the game's map, their Guardians are a constant threat, and their Divine Beasts serve as the games dungeons. In TOTK, while the Sheikah Tribe exists as an entity, their technology and role in the story are massively reduced, with incredibly little of their tech remaining in the world with no explanation as to where it went. Now this is obviously to make room for the new focus on the Zonai and their technology, but without an explanation, it feels like there is a lack of context/information to what happened in between the two games.

So what do I mean by TOTK feels like a remix. Well, it's what it shares with BOTW and the changes to what they share that gives me this feeling. Take the Shrines for example, in BOTW, they are Sheikah technology rising out of the earth, as most Sheikah tech was unearthed; but in TOTK, they are now Zonai tech, falling from the sky with the coming of the sky islands, and not only that, they are in new locations, resetting the puzzles and exploration needed to find them. For another example, the powers Link acquires in TOTK are similar, but differ from the ones in BOTW. Ultra Hand is incredibly similar to BOTW's Magnesis, but allows much more freedom in with you can interact with and how. None of the other powers have good equivalents across games however, with the dev team seemingly wanting to try new ideas with how Link can interact with the world.

As said at the top of this post/essay, TOTK is an amazing game. It expands on both the lore and mechanics of BOTW and the Zelda franchise as a whole. If BOTW was a testing ground for a new way to play Zelda, TOTK is the logical next step, remixing and reworking the lore, mechanics, and world of BOTW into something wholly new yet incredibly familiar.

[meilleur-holidays]

Bali: Exploring Off-the-Beaten-Path Destinations

Hey, are you one of those who loves and admires the wonders of natures, all in a nutshell?? Well, then Bali is the place for you.

Whether you are up here to enjoy solo travelling, or with friends to explore every nooks and corner or a honeymoon couple who wants to spend blissful romance and partying at the same time, this island will be all yours!

To start with Bali “The Land of the Gods” is a picturesque Indonesian island. Decked with forested volcanic mountains, green rice paddies, beaches and exotic coral reefs.

Bali is also home to religious sites such as cliffside Uluwatu and Tanah Lot Temple, also to the sandy bright sunny beaches Kuta, Nusa Dua, Seminiyak and Sanur.

Coming to the atmosphere blanket of the island, you will experience a tropical, warm and humid climate all year round with two main distinctive seasons: Dry Season and Rainy Season. To enjoy the beauty at its best in terms of comfort and weather with less crowd May-September will be the ideal time for you.

160 countries haveVisa on arrival provision to visit Bali. No pre applied Visa is required. Mandatory documents required are passport, return flight tickets, hotel booking vouchers and adequate funds (Bali currency). The cost of visa on arrival is is USD 35 approx. per person

Now coming to the in-depth details about Bali.

Bali’s airport is named Ngurah Rai International Airport. You can try currency exchange at the airport; however, airport do not offer great exchange rates. The local currency in Bali is Indonesian Rupiah.You must be careful regarding the denominations.

For example, INR 1 = 200IDR.

You will see plenty of shops outside the airport for local sim cards. Approximate cost is between INR 900-INR 1500 with data value from 9GB-15GB.

The first visit to this beautiful island usually starts with Uluwatu temple. It is very famous among the tourists. The entry ticket is usually between INR 250-300 per person. To abide by Balinese culture, it is mandatory to wear a sarong available at each temple sites. Sarong is basically a scarf which has to be wrapped around your waist prior stepping in the temple.

The most popular beach in Bali is the Kuta beach. Seminiyak is for blissful beach retreat and Nusa Dua for water sports and upscale resorts.

With the vast Indian Ocean at its backdrop along with the cool breeze sets the perfect ambience to enjoy. You can see the temple from the long stretches where you stand up to feel the beauty of the place. Evening can offer you a beautiful sunset with colored hues across the sky and the breathtaking reflections on the ocean. That will be a million-dollar picture for sure!!!

You can buy beautiful souvenirs outside the temple as a memory to your visit to Uluwatu.

The next popular spot is the beautiful Tanah Lot Temple in Pantai Batu Belig beach. Entry fee is approx. INR 350-400per person. During low tides till sunset, you are free to step onto the boulders at Tanah Lot and hear the roaring waves and enjoy the amazing views of the endless sea. The sunset at the beach will leave you spellbound!

For some pepped up evening to enjoy parties and some grooving music one must visit the Finns Beach Club. Dance, music and tasty food with some happening ambience is what you will get there. Visit to the club between 7pm-11pm is free of cost.

For free individualtravelers, trekking to Mount Batur can be one of the option. Trekking with the help of guide will be of INR 2000 per person. The trek usually starts at night to enjoy the beautiful sunriseat dawn. The cushion like clouds with a hint of  passing amidst the clouds will be a rare view. It feels like a cloud blanket around. To treat your eyes with such rare views, this place deserves a sure shot visit.

Another temple visit can be to Ulu Wanu with an approx. ticket price of INR 250-300 per person. It is a peaceful site with the mountain backdrop and the passing sea. There are options of some beautiful photography at Handara Gate and boat rides.

To bring a twist to the taste, you can visit the Banyumala waterfalls. One can enjoy bathing and click some beautiful photographs. The view of the waterfalls sliding along the green slopes looks amazing.

You must enhance your bargaining skills to shop around Kuta and Seminiyak areas. To buy local stuffs like water, chocolates or some munchies Alfa mart is a very popular store. The departmental store is available almost at every hotel location.

The next add on will be visit to Ubud approximately at a distance of 40km from Bali. The entry fees is INR 0. You can enjoy ziplining, Bali swing, taste local coffee and other adventurous sports. Coconut water is available in plenty in Bali.

The Kintamani at Ubud has some gorgeous views. You will surely love the mountain and sea combo there.

There is an option of buffet spread right beside the Kintamani spot. Nasi Goreng (fried rice) is the local dish in Bali and is very popular among tourists.

Monkey forest near to Ubud is an interesting place to visit. Entry fees is approximately INR 400 per person. You will get to see plenty of monkeys, might get a chance to exchange friendly handshakes with them as well.

An escape to another part of the beautiful island, will be visit to Nusa Penida. You must book a ferry for the journey to and fro. The ferry ticket and the cab transfers are included in the package of Nus Penida. The harbor to the island is Sanur. Manta Bay and crystal bay offers some amazing options for snorkeling.

The most popular sight at Nusa Penida is the broken island. You will have some beautiful options to click pictures there.

A short trip from 4nights to a week as per your time schedule will surely give you a hang over this beautiful island.

Must to Know and Carry:

Passports

Return flight tickets

Hotel vouchers

Local currency

Hats and sunglasses

Swim wears

Flipflops

Comfy clothes preferably of cotton material

Routine medicines if any

Delectable Dishes

Nasi Goreng – Fried Rice

Sate – Skewers

Pepes Ikan- Steamed Fish in Banana Leaf

Laklak- Balinese Cake

Bubur Sumsum- Black Rice Pudding

Pisang Goreng- Fried Banana

Mie Goreng – Stir fried noodles

Babi Guling Ibu Oka – suckling pig

Gado Gado – Indonesian salad

Bebek Bengil – Crispy duck

Seniman coffee

Shoppers Paradise

High end designer threads – Seminiyak and Petitenget

Coffee and Chocolate lovers – Kintamani Ubud

Vintage Handicrafts collections - Sukawati or Ubud market

Exclusive Jwelleries - John Hardy Workshop or Studio Perak in Ubud

Furniture items - Saya Gallery in Seminyak

Eco friendly bags - Ono Creations, Threads of Life, or Smile Clothing.

Perfumes - Utama Spice in Gianyar and Denpasar

Street shopping Sukawati market in Gianyar and Ibu Suzy

Quirky gift items - Ubud market, the Krisna Oleh Oleh Souvenir Store in Kuta

Organic Skincare - Bali Balance, Kou Bali, Ubud Bali shopping market

Bali Ceramics - Ubud Ceramics and Woodcraft, Kevala Home, Kim Soo Home

To make the most out of your Bali trip, it's essential to choose the right tour package service. Meilleur Holidays is a reputable travel agency that offers customized Bali tour packages to cater to individual preferences and budget. Their packages include accommodation, transportation, sightseeing tours, and other services. Meilleur Holidays ensures a hassle-free and enjoyable vacation experience for their clients by providing professional tour guides, 24/7 customer support, and flexible itinerary options. Whether you're looking for a romantic getaway or an adventure-filled vacation, Meilleur Holidays has a Bali tour package that suits your needs.

[wolfstarlibrarian]

WAIT I HAVE ANOTHER REQUEST, OH ALL KNOWING LIBRARIAN!!

i know you have done a vampire sirius list (which is amazing, thank you) but are there other mythical creatures/humanoid fics? for example, faeries, remus as a vampire, incubus, mermen, even demons/gods. thank you <3

Oh friend, the Librarain is definitley not all-knowing but they are happy to help! Below are some lists and fics that may suit your fancy, and be sure to also check out the fics currently coming out from @rsfiresidetales! 

Vampire Sirius

Witchy/Paranormal

Mermen Fics + Art

✨

Creatures, Gods, & Demons Wolfstar

Demon Sirius

Grimsfall by @prettyremus There is a legend in the old city of Grimsfall that a large, black creature used to emerge from the forest at night, and anyone who met its gaze would be driven to madness before the thing dragged them into the depths of hell.

At the Crossroads by @yumenouveau Tumblr prompt: How about "A Kiss in the street" and reason to kiss: "life or death" for Wolfstar? - of-stars-and-moon

take me as I am by Judeyjude, Shira_a Sirius is a sleep demon who gives nightmares to humans. Remus is an insomniac with hallucinations. Unstoppable force, meet Immovable object.

If You Give a Lupin a Dandelion by @momstiel, @artymakeart Remus Lupin is not daft… he knows better than to make a deal with a devil. Even if that devil is handsome as hell (literally), charming, and quite possibly the best friend that he’s had in years. Or alternatively, how Remus accidentally summoned a naked dude on his porch.

Island God Sirius + Regulus

Smoke Signals by @kattlupin Sirius Black, the reluctant God of Black Island, has his world turned upside down. Not by the smoldering volcano that has come back to life and is threatening to blow its top and destroy them all at any moment, but by the islands mysterious, surfing, pot smoking inhabitant, Remus Lupin.

Greek God Sirius

the fairest star who stands in the sky by @aryastark-valarmorghulis

In Arcadia, they say that magic breathes in the forest, between tall oaks, ferns and asphodels; under the all-shining moon, vine-clad slopes curl, clear streams scorch, and the herdsman god plays his hollow pipes, drawing on Satyrs and Naiads

Fae AU

Out there on the water by @itscooltobefanficy In another life, Remus Lupin was sure that he had drowned. For as long as he can remember there have been things in the water, in the moonlight, on the black foaming beach before the glassy waves.

Merman Sirius + Potters

Of Barnacles and Mermen [+Podfic and Fanart/Coloring Pages] by @xinasvoice A deserted island is the perfect new home for a werewolf who is sick of chains, cells, Ministry regulations, and—to be perfectly honest—humans in general. Only, Remus hadn’t realized that, while the island itself may be deserted, the reef surrounding it is home to an unusually beautiful and territorial merman.

Incubus/Succubus AU

Sing Before We Die -orphaned account This was what he did, Sirius Black. Hunter. Master. Powerful. Born for the hunt, bred for it. Wolves were Beasts, and nothing more. Beasts hiding in human skin. So why is it when those amber eyes lock on his, Sirius can't remember what he's made for? Only that he wants to take Remus by the heart and hold him forever.

Rembus + Hunter AU art/comics by @mlim8

The Librarian would be remiss if they didn’t include a link to this delightful AU with incubus Remus (Rembus) and Hunter Sirius.  

[darkestwolfx]

Bolt from the Blue - Re-Review #42

“Isn’t that something else?”

Yes, because when has a giant, blue laser in the sky transmitting solar energy down to Earth ever been a good idea in the world of Thunderbirds Are Go? Oh no, nobody panic, this is a completely innocent piece of machinery.

Look at Parker getting all technical.

“Mr Kinnear!”

This poor man just can’t catch a break can he? He finally came to his senses and left behind the waste of space that is Fischler - honestly I wouldn’t have stayed working for that man as long as this guy did - only to end up with what seems like his sister?

And after all this, he ends up saying;

“This still beats working at Fischler Industries!”

That, can only tell us what an absolutely terrible employer Fischler was. Considering we don’t see him again I’m wondering if the GDF finally did something about him...

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. We have some... safety overrides to make sure nothing could possibly go wrong.”

And you were saying? Honestly, this show has jinxes everywhere.

Did Miss Edmunds remind anyone else of another familiar face that makes your skin crawl? I’ll leave you a hint.

So, I love this episode. It might partially be because there’s a panda in it - and yes, I work with pandas - but there are other reasons too and I’m sure we’ll get to them.

Firstly let us address the plane struck by ‘lightning’.

“The plane’s gilding but losing altitude. There are four in need of evacuation. Two pilots, one child.”

“That’s only three. Who’s the fourth?”

“Brains, you want to tell them?”

“It’s transporting a rare giant panda in the cargo bay.”

“Ok, four to save, one’s a panda.”

Scott - honestly the way he says that line gets me every time!

“Gordon can go with Virgil and help with the evacuation.”

“Yes! I’ve always wanted to see a giant panda up close!”

“That’s not likely to happen.”

“You’re crushing my dreams, Brains!”

“But it’s in a sealed, environmentally controlled container-”

“La la la la la - I can’t hear you!”

Honestly, weren’t Gordon and EOS made for each other? They could encourage each other to be like children forever.

And so now we’ve got to another of those reasons I mentioned - it’s Gordon’s facial expressions (throughout the whole episode). So, this is officially the world’s most disappointed face.

“They appear to be highly charged plasma bolts.”

Hoorah for that... Just what we need. Well, we’ve never had a rescue like it, that’s for sure.

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a pre-sentation?”

“Perhaps you should see what he wants.”

“Oh I’m sure it can wait. The safety commission will shut us down without your approval. So I want to make sure you approve.”

Yeah... definitely a relation to Fischler.

Brains, John already got what they were without you.

"A solar collector.”

Shall we send Thunderbird Three to investigate?”

“We may not have to. Lady Penelope’s already on board.”

“John, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Not sure it’s a pleasure to nearly be torn apart by plasma bolts, but hey.

“Hang on Captain, we’ll get you out of there.”

I think this is a speak too soon moment.

“We’re about to go critical.”

“Does that mean ka-bloom then?”

“ka-bloom”, I love that, it’s very Parker.

“Surely you have a way to reset something like this?”

“I’m a sales director, not an engineer! Did I mention we have three delightful colours to chose from?”

No you didn’t until now, and please don’t mention it again. I think the colour of the episode is set at blue anyway.

This episode really does get off to a dramatic run.

“Thunderbird One’s been hit!”

“Same here! We’re all going down!”

“No one panic! That bolt must have overloaded our circuit breakers. We’ll try rebooting.”

I love how Scott is completely in control here. I mean, it’s believable considering that TOS always made him out to be a honoured pilot. We saw him save Anderbad City with some pretty good flying to in ‘Fight or Flight’. Also, as the eldest we would expect him to have more experience and considering he’s taking over as leader from their dad, you would have expected him to have a pretty level head. This is a complete change however to his reactions in ‘Up from the Depths’ and a little in ‘Heavy Metal’ where he was reliant on others to help him fix his own ship and flight pattern. Either we’re meant to see that he learnt from these events, or that these are anomalies in the writing process.

“Gordon, flip the switch.”

“No problem, just like when your hairdryer blows a fuse at Tracy Island.”

“What? What do you mean my hairdryer!”

Another nice little TOS reference here - in ‘Operation Crash Dive’, Gordon saves Fireflash by treating it like fixing a fuse before he later fixes the TV on Tracy Island, claiming the same.

“Gordon has flight control. Try to keep us in the air!”

“Relax, if more plasma bolts hit, I’ll use your hairdryer trick again.”

“One time. One time that happened!”

Admittance is still admittance, Virgil. I love how Gordon can get things out of people by just being persistently annoying.

Just taking some air, ey, Virgil? Big brother to the rescue. I sense Scott likes doing that.

“Scott... little help!”

“I’m jetting down now. Try not to move.”

“Ready, step!”

“Got it! Thanks for the boost.”

“Any time.”

In fairness, I think this scene is a little piece of genius and it’s another scene that contributes towards my love of this episode. So, here come the reasons;

1. I think it would take an awful lot for Virgil to ask for help, even from his brothers. Even in ‘Skyhook’ and ‘Earthbreaker’ when Thunderbird Two was going down, he didn’t ask for help. He accepted it yes, but he didn’t actually ask for anyone to come and save him.

2. So, accidentally, Virgil ended up in danger of either falling into the ocean, or worse, being hit my a plasma beam. As a result of that, Scott’s comes to his rescue. Now this, puts Scott in danger too, because if either of them took a direct hit there would be bad things. But this isn’t even thought about or discussed, which totally fits in character (especially for these two). The level of reaction here is what matters, and the danger they throw themselves into for each other will be thought about later.

3. The worry and relief. You can tell they have shared worries about this and the dialogue projects this so, so well. In those five lines is everything we need to know about their emotional states.

4. It’s not often these boys have to rescue each other, but when they do (like with Alan&John in ‘EOS’, the instant response seems to be to cover up the fear; “Thanks Alan, I was really sweating there at the end.” “I noticed.” And this dialogue is doing the same thing. The clock is ticking, the situation is precarious and yet what we get is the use of simple words as part of a conversation meaning something completely different. The power of words is transformative, and whenever they can be used with double meanings, they carry so much more strength. People in real life often never say things as they mean. It’s like with death - we don’t often use the word in conversation, we’ll refer to it as something else, and this is exactly what the Tracy boys do - they face danger head on, and they skirt around the less nice possibilities, whilst knowing what they are potentially confronting the whole time, just without saying it. Because we all know once things are said, they are hard to take back.

5. Childlike brotherhood. The nature of this scenes very much takes me back to imagining a younger Scott and Virgil helping each other out with the simplest of things like learning to ride a bike. There’s a very clear, well-built, brotherly relationship shown in this scene, and that comes across so well, in the dialogue that could refer to nearly any other situation, than hanging for your life from a doomed plane only miles above the ocean with plasma bolts trying to hit you.

So, who was the mastermind behind this excellent scene? Elly Brewer is mainly known for writing episodes for the Tracy Beaker series’, which is a completely different kettle of fish to something like Thunderbirds Are Go. She wrote ‘Lost Kingdom’ which was another fantastic episode, and this is (unfortunately) the only other script she wrote for this series. I think this is an absolute shame as her handle on the brother’s was perfect, and her use of dialogue was perfectly balanced out to disguise/contain other feelings whilst commenting on the action. A someone who also has ambitions to be a writer, she is a real example of how to write character interaction. I believed every inch of this script - not only for this scene, but for every scene and every character - and okay, the acting brought it to life, but a good script often allows for good acting, so they come as a pair most of the time.

I’ve already mentioned above my feelings regarding Scott in this episode (who is portrayed again, as a really strong pilot, just like how Dan Berlinka wrote him in ‘Fight or Flight’.) I’m not trying to slate or show anyone up here, but I feel like compared to Ben Townsend, Brewer and Berlinka had a much better handle on the character of Scott Tracy. Don’t mistake me here, Townsend has written some amazing scripts for Thunderbirds Are Go - ‘Heavy Metal’, ‘Up from the Depths’, ‘Brains Vs. Brawn’ (and more I won’t list them all) - but interestingly two of the above I’ve mentioned, are also the two episodes where I felt the discrepancies with Scott’s skills as a pilot creeping in. I love both episodes for their content and some perfect moments, but it definitely feels like Townsend is uncomfortable or at conflict writing for Scott (in places, because he did give us some amazing moments like Scott&Ned, but I think there are definitely points where I question his decisions, especially against strong episodes like this and ‘Fight or Flight’ which put Scott very much in the driving seat). ‘Inferno’ -which I think is one of the best scripts written for this series, with it’s realism and excellent interactions - is also one of Townsend’s works for this series and (apart from maybe ‘Up from the Depths’) is what I consider to be his best work. It is interesting that Scott does not appear here though.

Remember that this is all only my opinion, and as always, I’m more than happy for you to disagree with me. That’s the whole point of discussions, and please feel free to discuss it (I will reply, although it might be at some point later in the week). Dropping it to my ask box may be easier than in the comments if you do with to have a full length discussion.

“Virgil, we’re almost at the water!”

“Release the plane and pull out. Repeat, pull out!”

Some of that quick thinking made towards an awesome rescue. I mean, the plane went down, but really who cares about that? There was nothing in it, and a plane can be rebuilt.

“Sorry Brains.”

“For what?”

“It’s time for you to go.”

Lady Penelope has way better aim than I do!

“Careful Parker, the walls are burning up!”

“You don’t ‘ave to tell me twice. hOh boy, hit’s ‘ot hin ‘ere. Blast! Missed.”

“Go on, Parker! I’ve got you!”

“Much hobliged, M’Lady.”

Parker is just a grade one badass. Look at him go! And Parker and Lady Penelope are an absolute perfect duo. Their teamwork is always spot on and their relationship is brilliantly explored in scenes like this. Lady Penelope has always been a considerate character, but high society (in the past at least) have always been assumed to have had a lack of care for those below them (I’m sure there were those who did, but history just records the majority). Lady Penelope has such care for Parker - probably as much as he has for her - and scenes like this are perfect for showing exactly what makes their partnership work. It’s very give and take, even when it seemed like Parker is just driving her around. She’s always got his back and it was lovely to have another scene showing that off.

Still think it’s “a perfect take your daughter to work day”? They definitely picked a day!

“Woah, I’m in Thunderbird Two!”

“The panda’s doing just fine. I heard him munching on bamboo.”

“Aww!”

Look at that thinking face of love and affection.

“Thank you for saving him.”

“You’re welcome. We love having satisfied customers.”

“Yeah, furry or otherwise.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Oh...”

“Thank you.”

“Can I go see Mr Panda now?”

“I think he’ll like you.”

“Really?!”

And this is the world’s happiest face! Gordon has achieved his dream. Having seen pandas myself, I can completely understand why it was a dream of his. Also, the Gordon and Virgil interaction (in this whole episode, but especially here where words aren’t even needed) is just absolute perfection!

And now to tie up some loose ends;

“I may lose my job over this, but I am not gonna lose my life!”

I think you might have lost that anyway. I mean, I think the GDF are gonna be putting her on trial for this.

“Oh now, isn’t that sweet! I didn’t expect a welcome back committee!”

“She realises that we’re arresting her, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t know.”

Don’t worry mate, I don’t think any of us would really know how to deal with her. She’s positively crazy.

See what I did there? Her annoying talking has rubbed off on me!

[kittenfemme27]

Bastion: What it means to truly move on.

“Someday, your bird is gonna fly.”

Bastion is the first game released by what is now the critically acclaimed Supergiant Games, makers of other games like Transistor, Pyre, and most recently Hades. But back in 2011 they were a nobody. 7 developers from various backgrounds within the industry came together to make games that could focus on storytelling first and foremost more than any of their previous studios would allow. Bastion was the result of that. Starting out from the idea of a top down isometric RPG, Supergiant realized that they wanted to portray a world that was fractured and broken, and wanted to show the vast and empty sky as a contrast to that destruction, but realized the camera angle wouldn’t allow this. So they came up with the idea that the ground would come up in front of the player as they walked forward, allowing the empty sky to show beneath them since the groundwork would not originally be laid until the player walked towards it. To explain this choice and why the world reacted this way, a destructive event known as “The Calamity” was created in the game's story. Thus, Bastion found its ethos.

Bastion’s a masterpiece. Plain and simple. It's been ported to nearly everything under the sun for a reason, being playable on literally 3 different console generations as well as every OS a PC can run, but coming back to play this game for the first time within the current political and geological climate that we find ourselves within as time goes on only makes it more and more apparent how much the story has to say. Even if you could somehow ignore it’s absolutely incredible music, insanely varied and addictive and yet delightfully simple gameplay, jaw dropping art direction and set pieces, Bastion’s storytelling is at its core and the story it has to tell is one that I think a lot of people didn’t fully appreciate back in 2011. From what I could find online, most people either ignored it in favor of the gameplay, or let the meaning of it glaze over them. And that's really, deeply a shame. Because Bastion is one of the best games I have ever played. And I’d like to talk about why.

Gameplay:

“Kid just rages for a while...”

I want to start first and foremost by talking about the gameplay and how you engage with the world. Combat in Bastion is simple and not exactly groundbreaking. An isometric hack ‘n’ slash with 2 weapon slots and a single ability, with a shield that has a parry mechanic and a dodge roll with fairly lenient invulnerability frames. Player movement is very, very slow which encourages you to very quickly become proficient in dodging and blocking. It’s fun, for sure, if just a little bit easy. But it’s nothing to write home about at first. As you play, though, you’ll begin to uncover Bastion's hidden depth and variety within its combat. A lot of that depth comes from the sheer number of Weapons, Upgrades, Passives, and Skills you can equip in any combination. 

You are given 11 weapons, each of which can be upgraded with collectibles found within the levels for a total of 5 times per weapon, and these upgrades form a loose “trees” of upgrades that you can switch between at will. You can make the Spear better at critical hits and critical damage and faster thrusts, or make it better at throwing with more spears per throw, for example. Every single weapon has a 2 distinctive upgrade “Trees” in this way that clearly make it better at one specific aspect of the weapon, but you are free to mix and match these upgrades as you see fit. Maybe you want the Spear to have a high critical hit rate, but also throw 2 spears per throw, you can do that. It’s also worth mentioning that there are no restrictions placed upon you on what type of weapons you want to take. You can take two melee weapons, or two ranged weapons, whatever combination you desire is up to you. The narrator even has a line for literally every combination you can have that you’ll hear upon exiting the armory. Some compare you to legends of yore from the game worlds past, others point out just how plain silly it is for the Kid to carry both a mortar launcher and a rocket launcher.

Each weapon also comes with two skills that you can use during gameplay, ranging from protective skills like one that makes you block all attacks for a few seconds, to damage based skills such as the Bow’s skill that fires a ricocheting arrow between enemies. Even then, there are other Skills that are tied to no weapons at all which brings the total of skills in the game to 30.

In addition, there’s the Tonic system in which each level up confers a slot that you can equip a drink from the bar, for a total of 10 at max level. These function as passives applied to your character that allow even further customization. Some are basic things you’d expect, such as overall more health, or more restoration or ability potions, a flat 15% damage resistance, and so on. A number of these however offer a very very strong benefit in exchange for a side effect. Werewhiskey, for example, gives you a 100% crit rate but only below 35% health. Doomshine offers a permanent 10% crit but takes away 10% of your health permanently. Or Leechade, which allows you to gain health from striking enemies, but makes your health potions only 1/3rd as effective. These can all be stacked upon each other in any order or combination. You choose and be changed at any point between missions..

All of these systems together enhance the very simple hack ‘n’ slash combat to be something with infinitely more depth than presented to you at first glance, and something that you can experiment with as much as you want, since no choice is permanent. Part of the way it encourages you to experiment are the Weapon Challenge missions that crop up each time you obtain a new weapon. They ask you to complete some sort of challenge related to that weapon with no Skills, no other weapons, and in some of them not even the ability to dodge or block. Besting these will net you 1 of 3 prizes, depending on how well you did, With the first two prizes being upgrade materials and the last being a Skill for the weapon the challenge is based on.

Beating Bastion unlocks a “Score-Attack” version of New Game+ that keeps a running overall score during the whole game and during stage specific score for each mission, with a multiplier and a timer to keep that multiplier up. This effectively turns the game into a leaderboard chasing isometric arcade game. Every enemy adds 1 to the multiplier, and resets the timer, so it's up to you to run through each mission as fast as possible and challenge yourself to see what kind of score you can get, and since it lets you replay any mission you want, you can always find ways to get a higher and higher score. One of my playthroughs of this game was on the PS Vita and even since beating it, I've found myself trying to one-up my own score while i’m just sitting around since each mission only takes about 10-20 minutes. The most challenging content in the game is a set of 4 different repeatable combat arena’s with 20 waves of some of the toughest enemies in the game. You can make this even harder by invoking each God within the games Pantheon and raising the difficulty of every enemy you encounter. Doing this raises how many points you get per kill, and in these combat arena’s I’ve regularly topped a million points in just a single stage from precise gameplay.

I think that’s what I find amazing about Bastion’s combat is that despite 3 playthroughs, I never once found myself bored or annoyed by any of it. All 3 of my playthroughs had me switching up Weapons, Upgrades, Skills, and Tonics between every mission just to experiment and see what crazy builds I could make. Every challenge was always a delight and a real test of skill, every mission a romp where I got to find a new weapon and play with it each time. Often, I would die, but that was fine! Losing in Bastion is fun. It’s part of the experience, because you can always go back and change your build to whatever you desire to try again. In a way, it’s fitting for the entire theme of the game. It’s the End of the world, and there are no more rules. Do whatever you’ve gotta do. Might as well have fun with it, while you do. 

Art & Sound:

“I suppose all that's left... is to try'n remember this moment.”

I think the other reason that I didn’t get bored on any of my 3 playthroughs of Bastion was the absolutely breathtaking art and music the game features. The soundtrack, composed by Darren Korb, clocks in only at an hour and while that does sometimes mean that there are repeats of songs, I'd be lying if I told you there was a single song on that score that I didn’t absolutely love. Or that I thought was out of place during any section of the game. Each and every song is its own radically different soundscape that, in songs like “Brynn the Breaker”, invokes a feeling of complete and utter destruction around you and a sense of leaning into that destruction. It’s fitting that the first time this song plays, you are almost assuredly going to hear the line “Kid just rages for awhile...” as you wreck each and every enemy and object around you after waking up on a floating rock in the sky.  Meanwhile, in other songs such as “Build that Wall”, it's clear that Supergiant was acutely aware of the impact their music could have on a scene. In Caelondia, the games world, “Build that Wall” is a jingoistic anthem meant to inspire the Cael by noting the danger they face from the outside world and from the Ura, a people who live to the east, and implores them to build walls to keep everyone else but keep themselves safe. But the first time you hear that song, you’ll be rolling through the dilapidated ruins of Prosper Bluff, a place overrun by birds ready to rip you apart and barely hanging together by literal boards between each floating island, and not a wall in sight. Guided only by the simultaneously soothing and haunting voice of an Ura girl singing the theme of the people who hate her. In that moment, it sounds much more sorrow and sad than any anthem for a nation ever could.

Darren Korb has stated that the point of Bastions music was meant to invoke a sense of the “American Frontier”, of exploring new and uncharted land, but it’s interwoven with melodic and slow moments of tragedy and despair, featuring lots of slow acoustic guitar and lots of slow vocals when there are any at all. I really cannot praise enough this choice of frontier-ism interwoven into the music itself, as it sells the entire theme of the game perfectly.

The art of the game is just as fantastic, too. Supergiant set out to make sure you could see the sky in a top down game, which sounds a little absurd and like a nearly impossible feat, and yet they succeeded with such aplomb it almost seems like it was easy. Below each stage is a blurred barrage of trees, nature, clouds, sky, sometimes ruins within those things, it reminds you constantly that the world has ended and nature has reclaimed it. Progressing further and further down the set of missions and further away from the Bastion and Caelondia sees you going more and more into what's left of those wilds and away from the ruins of civilization, before reaching the icy peaks in the east of the Ura. It creates this feeling of loss and tragedy at what's lost, a sense of exploration into this new and unknown world, before finally getting to it's cold center as you get closer to the truth of the Calamity.

In general, the art style of Bastion feels like a living breathing oil painting. Features on people are exaggerated with small bodies, yet large heads and eyes and hands or feet. Making them feel like something out of a children's book. Every single thing in the game is full of color and life, down to the animals and the foliage, with the only notable exceptions being the ruins of buildings that are oppressive and gray, and the final cold reaches of the Ura’s leftover ruins. Because of the oil painting aesthetic, the narration, even the surreality of the world coming up before you, Bastion feels a lot more like playing a fairy tale than anything else I've ever played, even things that have tried to emulate that same effect. Bastion reminds us that the presentation of a game, in both its art and its music, tell just as much about the story and the world of a game as the actual story itself does.

Story: (Spoiler Warning)

“Now here’s a kid who’s whole world got twisted, leaving him stranded on a rock in the sky.”

Bastion is a game about a lot of things, but at its heart, it’s a game about Tragedy. A tragedy you can’t prevent no matter what you do, because it has already happened. Setpieces in the game constantly remind you of this, like going through the Hanging Gardens, a place where people used to gather and finding nothing but ashen corpses. Rucks, Bastion’s narrator, will even tell you the names of these people. I remember playing this game in 2011 and being upset at this. I wanted to know about Maude the Tutor, I wanted to hear the life of Percy the Snitch, but I couldn’t. That was the tragedy. It didn’t register with me at the time, but that was the point. I was supposed to be upset I couldn’t know these people, that they died in a tragedy I couldn’t prevent. 

The core story of Bastion revolves around a war that took place some 50 odd years ago. Caelondia and her people, versus the Ura. In the modern day, before the calamity, the war was over. There was an Ura named Zulf who was trying to broker peace, even. But the Caelondian’s military-science division, the “Mancers” had a secret weapon. One they intended to use to get rid of the Ura for good. It would cause a genocide of the very land the Ura lived in and cause it to literally fall into nothing, ripping apart the physical earth where it stood before. Worse yet, this weapon was being created by an Ura inventor that lived within Caelondia named Venn under threat to his daughter, Zia. Venn couldn’t stand to aid the destruction of his people and sabotaged the weapon that ushers in the Calamity with vengeance in his heart, so that it would backfire and take Caelondia down with it. Imagine Venns shock, then, when the mancers asked him to pull the trigger.

Turns out an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Just like that, the Calamity has already happened. The Ura who were discriminated against in every part of Cael society and the racism and cycle of vengeance and violence within the Caels and the Ura reached a boiling point that caused the literal end of the world.. And that’s where you wake up. In a world already torn apart and crumbling before you. On a rock in the sky.

Tragedy permeates everything about the game. In the Hanging Gardens, you find Zulf as he’s about to kill himself after watching his Cael wife crumble to ash right before his eyes. When you meet the second survivor, an Ura singer who just so happens to be Zia, Venns daughter. She’s mournfully singing the tune of Caelondia that was the anthem used to inspire the Caels to oppress her own people, and her sweet voice sounds like the dying breath of an entire nation. Bastion makes it very clear that these people's lives as they knew them are over. But then Bastion asks you a simple question: You have to keep going, so what are you going to do with that world?

Before you get to make that choice, though, you’re asked to decide the fate of a man who hurts you. Zulf at one point reads the journal of Venn that he obtains from Zia and learns everything about the Calamity. He learns about the Mancers plan to genocide his people. He learns about Venns sabotage. Zulf spent his entire life advocating for peace between the two peoples, and this is what he’s met with. Unable to stand it, he attempts to destroy the Bastion and flees after injuring Rucks. As you chase him, he lures you far from the Bastion and sends the signal to an entire army of Ura survivors to attack the Bastion, even persuading Zia to come with him to try and convince her to abandon the Bastion. In the end, though. You chase him all the way to the heart of the Ura nation and as retaliation for bringing someone so powerful who kills so many Ura, the Ura forces attack Zulf and leave him for dead. You come across his body and are given a choice to either leave him and carry on, or take him with you and abandon your weapon. You’re asked right then and there, can you forgive someone who hurt you and your chance at fixing the world and break the cycle of violence? Or will you press on, like Venn, with vengeance in heart. If you choose to save Zulf, you walk forward with zulf on your shoulder through multiple Ura archers shooting you nearly to death. It’s only once they realize that you’re trying to save Zulf do they stop trying to attack you. This moment of compassion, this breaking of the cycle, inspires the Ura to let you pass. If you choose not to save him, you must battle an entire army, which isn’t even hard for you at that point. It’s a bloodbath. You, a Cael kid from nowhere, end the last of the Ura outside of Zia who knows so little of her culture that she can’t even read the journal her father left over. You succeed where the Mancers failed. The cycle of violence remains unbroken within you and within your heart.

You’re given two options upon returning to the Bastion at the end. You can use the power of the Bastion to reset the world to where it was before the Calamity. You’ll lose all your memories, but everyone and everything that died will be okay and alive again. There’s a risk, though. Rucks has no way of knowing if this plan will work. If it will prevent the Calamity in the end. “Problem with a machine that sets things back to a bygone time,”  he says, “Is that you can’t test it.”

Your other option is Zia’s choice, though both her and Rucks support whatever decision you make, they know it’s not an easy choice. Her plan is to turn the Bastion into a floating island ship that can travel anywhere. To forge a new world and look for survivors on other floating islands and carry on in this destroyed world and find hope within that tragedy. Make something new, and beautiful, from the ashes of something dead. Maybe that’s not possible, she thinks, but it’s better than recreating a world with institutional violence, with cycles of hate and vengeance, a world where something like the Calamity could happen in the first place.

Supergiant knew what most people would pick, though. Resetting seems like the only real choice, at first. Maybe the Calamity will happen again, maybe it won’t, but you can’t just let all those people die. The whole game has been building up to fixing the Calamity. Rucks, old and clinging to the past, is sure that resetting it will work and that things will be okay again. He’s a bit like a father figure to you, too. He’s narrated every action you took, made sure you were never truly alone in this ruinous world. So of course you trust him. An overwhelming amount of people chose to reset the world the first time they play. I did, too. I knew that maybe the Calamity would happen again, but I couldn’t just let everyone die. Maybe things would be different, I thought. Maybe this time people won’t let something like a genocide happen again. Maybe Venn won’t pull the trigger. I didn’t know, but it was better than letting everyone die, right? It had to be. I had to hope that I made the right decision. So with trepidation in my heart. I chose to reset everything.

Rucks comforts you when you choose to reset that “No matter what happens next... you done good.” Credits roll. You see pictures of the lives of each character in the reset Caelondia. The lonesome Kid continues his work as a mason on the wall built to keep the Ura out, where he isolated himself after losing everyone in his life. The only person to ever sign up for 2 tours on the Wall. Rucks continues his work on the Bastion, refining it for the future, meaning that there’s still a need for a safeguard like it in the first place. Zia plays a concert on her harp with a mournful look on her face, she found comfort in music but that comfort was equally as isolating and lonely, what with her being an Ura girl in Caelondia. Zulf gets married to his fiancee, blissfully unaware of the impending genocide on his people while he fruitlessly brokers peace. Upon seeing these credits, these images of the lives of these characters, I knew I made a mistake. History is going to repeat itself. Sure they were alive, and so was everyone else, but the cycle of violence remains unbroken and eventually, even if the Calamity that befell the world the first time doesn’t happen again, another will. Rucks final words in this ending are a simple forlorn goodbye. “So long kid... Maybe I'll see you in the next one. Caelondia... We’re coming home.”

Choosing this ending left me feeling anxious at first, and then hollow and empty. I didn’t save anyone, I just clung to the past. I expected things to be different in a world where something like the Calamity could happen in the first place. I knew, then, that for there to be any hope at all I had to move on from the old world. I had to do right by Rucks, by Zia, even by Zulf. They were my friends. They deserved better, they deserved more. They deserved a world without the conflict and violence that Caelondia brings. I understood even more clearly what I had done when, upon starting a new game, Rucks final words echoed over the loading screen. As far as I could tell, the Calamity had happened again. Rucks even makes comments of feeling a sort of deja-vu while retelling the story and is much less confident resetting will work the second go around, for a reason he just can’t quite explain.

Bastion is a story about tragedy, about generational trauma left over from a war, about the cycle of violence and all that it perpetuates. It’s a story about waking up in a world that has already crumbled and fallen apart through no fault of your own and being told there is nothing you can do about that destruction. And there isn’t. Climate change is a bigger problem now in 2020 than it ever was in 2011. People are going to die, it’s just an awful fact at this point. Those in charge continue to ignore that fact and these issues while also continuing to stoke the fires and flames of the impoverished and destitute more and more every day, bleeding them dry for any pennies they might have. 

But that’s not all Bastion has to say. It’s not fair for the next generation just like it wasn’t fair for the Kid, to wake up in a world already destroyed, and yet still, people like the Kid and Zia found hope. Within Bastion, you can save Zulf and end the cycle of violence, you can choose Zia’s option and set out on a world that is better for everyone in the end, as ruined as it is. Even in the end of the world and everything you knew, there is hope. Bastion doesn’t just ask, it begs on hands and knees for the next generation to take up this dying world and make it better. Bastion, and Supergiant, believes in the next generation. that it's possible to move on from the past and make something better, to seize control and make a better world while purposefully never forgetting the cycles of violence that led us to the end of the world in the first place. Our great Calamity is already unfolding before us and there isn’t anything we can do to stop it, only delay it. Bastion tells us that it's okay, that we can make something beautiful, and new, and better from those ashes. 

In the scene for the Evacuation ending, Rucks tells us that he’s not sure how to live in a world like this, but he’s willing to learn. And excitedly offers to help teach you how to fly the Bastion through the skies. The very first image you see during the credits then, is the Kid finally collapsing of exhaustion and resting while Rucks tucks him in. The next is Zia looking forward on the deck of the Bastion, a smile on her face and hope in her heart. You get to see Rucks later teaching the Kid how to fly the Bastion, finally giving the Kid the family that he so desperately needed, and finally you see Zulf. He’s got a frown on his face, he’s still lost everything in the Calamity after all. More than anyone. But he’s chopping food for everyone else still, helping out where he can. I couldn’t help but think upon seeing his expression that he might hate me for the rest of my life, and that was alright. I’d always just be happy he was alive. Seeing the smiling faces of everyone in the Evacuation made something very clear to me. In the Old World, Zia was an outcast, Zulf was a fool, Rucks was nostalgic, and the Kid was alone. In the Calamity, they found friendship, they found happiness, they found love and family in each other, they found adventure and they found hope for the future. Zia’s final words to the Kid echoed in my head:

"Any moment I'd want to live again... happened after the Calamity. Not before."

And I was at peace. I knew I had done the right thing I had chosen to move on, accepting the world for what it was and not looking for miracle solutions to fix it or change it, but to forge on ahead with what I had and make something better. 

Bastion’s story is not directly told to you, especially after the ending. There is no epilogue that tells you exactly what happened, just a few lines of dialogue that you can make of what you will and some pictures of the lives after your choice. it’s never explicitly stated that the Calamity happens again if you choose to reset things. It’s meaning is in between the lines that Rucks has to say. It’s In the subtext. It's in the art, it's in the environment, like the tragedy of finding nothing but ashen corpses around a lone peace talker right before he’s about to jump to his death. It’s in the music, like the haunting melody of an outcast’s voice singing the song of her oppressors while never realizing how much the very city she was raised in tried to exterminate her. But more than anything it's in the feeling you get while you play. Bastion’s story plays out in your heart as much as it plays out in your mind and on the screen in-front of you. What you feel, what you make of it, that’s just as important to the meaning of the story as what you’re hearing and seeing. Obviously this can be said of all stories, but Bastion is maybe the one that’s resonated most in my heart and in my soul more so than any other story. It offers no simple answers, no painless choices, and no easy ways out. Move on, or cling to the past, those are your only two options and Bastion forces you to make a choice.

In the end, I chose a new world. A better world. A world with my friends that would never let the cycles of violence and the generational trauma that caused the Calamity to happen again. Sure, resetting technically brings everyone back to life, but it wasn’t until I chose to move on and move forward that I felt I could even say in my heart that I’d saved anyone at all. 

Conclusion: 

“I dig my hole, you build a wall.”

“Build that wall, and build it strong, Cause we’ll be there before too long.”

Bastion is, and I'm not saying this lightly, a perfect game. The gameplay loop and combat is phenomenal and addicting, the music and art and aesthetics are so top notch you could honestly create an entire art style out of them all on their own, the storytelling is amazing and has so much to say that I cannot believe something this important was just thrown out by an indie studio nobody had ever heard of while it was only 7 people strong, and how many people slept on it or completely missed the point of the tragedy of Caelondia and the Ura. 

This game will live in my heart for a very, very long time and its music and messages it conveyed will stick with me even longer. My only regret with Bastion is that I’ll never get to experience it for the first time again. But, even with the spoilers here, you can. Play it, Kid. You won’t regret it.

“We can't go back no more. But I suppose we could go... wherever we please.”

[flyingcarpettours]

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[nmirah]

Softfoot’s Flood - Chapter 2

The moon hung bright and round, shining at its fullest. The sky behind it was black, the faces of ancient warriors peeking out as glittering white stars, smiling down upon the valley. Softpaw trembled, his paws scuffing in the dirt excitedly. The clan was gathered in the clearing around the small pool in the center of the camp, waiting for Brackenstar's order to leave for the gathering. Brightpaw wiggled beside him, excitement making her amber eyes glow.

           It would be the two apprentices first Gathering. They had been training for almost a moon now, but nothing was more exciting than this to them. The Gathering was where cats from all clans joined together under the truce of the full moon, sharing tongues and passing news from clan to clan. It reminded them all that four clans ruled the mountainsides. Stonepaw and Lilypaw padded up to join them, chosen as well to go to the gathering. This would be their second one, and they looked at the barely younger apprentices in amusement.

           "Ready for it?' Lilypaw asked, her pale yellow eyes shining. Brightpaw nodded, her face calm, while Softpaw jumped to his paws, tail waving excitedly behind him.

           "I am! You'll have to point out some of the other apprentices to me. I want to meet as many as I can!"

           Stonepaw blinked happily. "Sure! Be warned, though, the tree-bridge is definitely slippery, and there are many more cats than you first expect." He dipped his head. "I was scared when I first got there."

           Lilypaw rolled her eyes." You hid behind me the whole time and barely spoke a word!"

           The dark grey cat ducked his head as Lilypaw tried to cuff his ear. "No fair, you were scared too!" Lilypaw aimed another soft swipe at his flank and caught him, sending the two into a rolling scuffle, sending puffs of dry dirt and stray pieces of grass flying as they tumbled.

           "Enough!" The two young cats froze at the deep, commanding voice of the deputy Pinefire, who looked down at them with stern eyes, though Softpaw could clearly see the amusement glittering in their amber depths.

           "I don't want the other clans to see my kits arrive all dirty! They would think ValleyClan doesn't teach their apprentices to wash!" He scolded them. The two cats ducked their heads, but Softpaw saw that their eyes were still laughing, twinkling with mischief.

           "Sorry, Pinefire," Lilypaw mumbled, glancing up at her father. "We were just playing."

           Pinefire sighed, shaking his head. "Honestly, you behave more like kits now then you ever did in the nursery."

           "Come one, that's not fair!" A purr sounded as a dove-grey cat padded up, her blue eyes warm as she gazed at her daughter. "You were worse than they were, when you were an apprentice. You and Cedarblaze got into so much trouble!"

           The deputy nuzzled her briefly. "They don't need to get any bright ideas from our example!" he murmured, his gaze flickering across the four apprentices. "ValleyClan is grateful and proud that we have so many kits and fine young apprentices this green-leaf."

           Their conversation was cut off by a loud meow from Brackenstar, whose massive dark tabby form turned and led the way through the camp tunnel. Softpaw stood, his joints stiff from sitting still for so long and his body tense with nerves. The two warriors glanced at them encouragingly before hurrying up to join the head of the patrol.

           "This is it." Brightpaw whispered, pressing her muzzle into Softpaw's ear. He nodded, swallowing as they made their way through the tunnel and into the forest beyond.

           The ValleyClan cats bounded through their territory in confident strides, sweeping through the undergrowth with graceful steps. Softpaw gasped as they broke through the line of bushes and stared out over the river, the moon shining brightly overhead. He could smell HawkClan scent; they had passed by already. Across the river he could make out the small dark shapes of ThistleClan. He wiggled his bottom in excitement and turned, joining his sister, Lilypaw and Stonepaw.

           "I'm so excited!" He mewed, his voice coming out as a squeak. "Do you think Brackenstar will say our names out to all the clans?"

           "Of course!" Stonepaw mewed, his blue eyes bright. "He did for us!" Lilypaw nodded over his shoulder.

           The clan patrol stopped, standing in front of the tree-bridge. Brackenstar flicked his tail and leapt up, Pinefire following him closely. The cats filed one-by-one onto the island. Softpaw swallowed nervously, and Birchtail fell back to walk beside him.

           "It's a bit wobbly at first, but if you dig your claws in you'll make it across without any problems." He advised. "Here we go!"

           Softpaw hesitated a moment before leaping up onto the slick wood. He dug his claws in as he felt himself slipping sideways and picked his way across the bridge slowly, tensing as the log gave a shudder when his sister leapt up to follow him. He landed on the other side with a relieved sigh, touching noses with Brightpaw as she joined him, her legs trembling.

           Lilypaw and Stonepaw were waiting there for them, and greeted them with loud purrs.

           "Great job! You never slipped once!" Lilypaw gasped. "I almost got an unwanted bath when I first went across."

           Stonepaw let out a mrrow of amusement. "The look on your face was amazing! C'mon, we'll introduce you to some of the other apprentices."

           He led them into the clearing. It was smaller in the moonlight, and crowded with cats. The pile of stones at the far end of the clearing held all four leaders; the medicine cats and deputies sitting and chatting at the bottom. ValleyClan was the last to arrive, and Softpaw heard Brightpaw gasp at the number of cats.

           "It takes a while to get used to." Stonepaw mewed. "Oh! I see Cloudpaw from HawkClan!" He mewed brightly, waving his tail to a large, furry tom.

           "He's an apprentice?" Softpaw gasped. "He's huge!"

           Lilypaw giggled. "Oh, all HawkClan cats are large! Have you seen Sunstar yet?" She asked, before joining her brother and Cloudpaw. Both Softpaw and Brightpaw looked over to the Rock Pile, gasping as they spotted the massive tom perched there, speaking to the old AshClan leader Hollowstar, who looked like a young apprentice in comparison. The golden tom's odd coloured eyes flicked unsettlingly in the moonlight, and Softpaw felt a shiver run down his back as he glanced at the golden leader's giant paws, both armed with an extra claw. Sunstar was not a cat he wanted to meet in battle!

           "Softpaw, stop staring and come over!" Brightpaw teased, joining the others. Softpaw purred and followed her, meeting up with the throng of apprentices that had amassed when he was lost in thought.

           "This is Softpaw and Brightpaw." Stonepaw was saying. "They became apprentices almost a moon ago." Brightpaw dipped her head respectfully, while Softpaw merely waved his tail. Stonepaw was sitting next to the white apprentice from before, who had happy eyes and silver patches on his back.

           "This is Cloudpaw," Lilypaw motioned to the white apprentice again, "And Heatherpaw, Poppypaw and Sorrelpaw." She motioned to the other three she-cats, two grey tabby's and one tortoiseshell. Heatherpaw dipped her head kindly, while Poppypaw and Sorrelpaw lashed their tails in excitement.

           "Where's Snowpaw?" Heatherpaw asked.

           "Couldn't make it this time. She wasn't chosen." Lilypaw answered.

           "Nice to meet you!" Poppypaw mewed, padding up to Softpaw. "We share a border!"

           Softpaw nodded, noticing her AshClan scent right away. Who could miss that stinky, ashy smell, he thought, his whiskers twitching.

           "How were your first few days of training?" Cloudpaw asked, his eyes reminding Softpaw of the pine trees that covered his territory.

           "Awesome!" Softpaw meowed. "Brightpaw and I caught a huge squirrel yesterday. It was bigger than both our heads combined!"

           "Impressive," Heatherpaw tipped her head to the side. "If you like squirrels. I think they have too much fur." She ran a pink tongue over her lips.

           "Hey, Cloudpaw, tell them that story about the wolves!" Stonepaw meowed, pushing his friend's shoulder with a paw. "Brightpaw didn't believe me!"

           While Cloudpaw launched into a story, Brightpaw listening intently with glowing eyes, Softpaw nudged Stonepaw with his head.

           "Show me around the island! I'm curious." He mewed softly. Stonepaw nodded, and the two slipped away into the sparse undergrowth, listening to the water lapping at the shore. They travelled around, chatting freely, until a loud yowl made Softpaw jump.

           "The Gathering is starting!" Stonepaw gasped. "Come on!" He leaped back into the clearing, finding a place to sit near his mother Rosepetal. She looked at them with amusement flickering in her blue eyes and turned back to watch the leaders.

           "I will begin today," the ThistleClan leader, Cloudstar, mewed. "A few sunrises ago, we drove off a fox. We doubt it will return." He mewed. His warriors flexed their paws in return, looking very pleased and proud. "Also, we have a new litter of kits." His eyes glowed fiercely with pride, and Softpaw guessed that he was the father. "Stonekit and Cinderkit are ThistleClan's newest members." Yowls of congratulation filled the island, and Softpaw couldn't help but join in.

           Cloudstar sat back, letting Hollowstar stand to address the crowd. He looked very old and frail, but his eyes held power within them.

           "AshClan is faring well. We have a good number of apprentices, our warriors are healthy, and our kits are strong." He meowed, before sitting back.

           This time, Sunstar stood, hushing the crowd with his fiery gaze. His massive form seemed even more giant when he stood, and the fact that he had long, fluffy fur didn't help.

           "HawkClan is proud to announce that a new litter has been born. Palewing and Pineshade are the parents." He waited for the cheers to go down. "We are also being very well fed with our newest portion of our territory. The rabbits have had many offspring this year." He growled. Softpaw felt Rosepetal stiffen beside them, and she bent her head towards the two apprentices.

           "HawkClan won a piece of land from us a few moons ago. He's still milking it for all it's worth, however." She hissed. Softpaw shuddered, looking at the smug look on the HawkClan leader's face as he sat back down. Softpaw's shoulders tensed as he watched Brackenstar stand, not even glancing once at Sunstar, his fur flat and his pelt unruffled.

           "ValleyClan is well. We have made two new apprentices. Brightpaw," He looked over at the brown tabby-and-white she-cat, "And Softpaw." Softpaw swallowed nervously as his clan leader's gaze sought him out. The clearing rose with yowls of approval. Softpaw scuffled his paws in embarrassment and pride, noticing voices from all clans welcoming him. He met his sister's gaze and saw the pride and self-consciousness there, matching his own feelings. He blinked warmly at her and the yowls died down.

           "Green-leaf has treated us well. ValleyClan is well-fed and strong." Brackenstar finished. Softpaw felt a pang of pride for his leader, who hadn't mentioned HawkClan. It had been moons before, after all.

           Softpaw saw Sunstar leap down angrily, and the Gathering finished as quickly as it began. Cats began to clump into their original clans, and ThistleClan and HawkClan left quickly, since their homes were the farthest from the island. Softpaw twisted his way through the crowd of cats with Stonepaw close behind him. The caught up with Brightpaw and Lilypaw just as they were leaping up onto the bridge. He made it across the fallen tree once more and ran behind his clanmates with a trembling tail, the scents of many cats still wreathing around him.

           How could the clans be so different, but also the same? He thought about Sunstar's thinly veiled threats, and Brackenstar's nobility. Stonepaw brushed his pelt and looked at him with glowing blue eyes.

           "That was awesome! Brackenstar is so cool!" He meowed excitedly. Softpaw pushed his worries away and nodded, laughing along with his friend. As they neared the camp, Softpaw was hit with a rush of pride for his clan.  He followed his sister back into their den, and wiggled in his nest, his eyes bright.

           "I can't believe there are that many cats living around the lake!" Brightpaw gasped. "And more!"

           "Yeah, how do we all fit?" Softpaw mewed. Lilypaw looked at them with a purr, curled up beside her brother.

           "Wasn't Sunstar massive?" She meowed. Stonepaw raised his head with a nod.

           "It's amazing. I heard he has six claws on each paw. I wouldn't want to meet him in battle!"

           "And the ThistleClan cats are so small!" Brightpaw chirped.

           Lilypaw laughed. "Did you see Dawnleap, the ThistleClan deputy? She looked barely taller than Stonepaw!"

           Snowpaw shuffled in her den and shot the new apprentices a tired look.

           "Can you please go to sleep?" She moaned. "You woke me up from a really good dream, and I'd like to get back to it."

           "Yes Snowpaw!" Brightpaw meowed, tucking her head into her nest, though her flicking tail told that she was too excited to sleep just yet. Snowpaw let out a sigh and curled up into a tighter ball, looking like a small snow drift in her mossy nest.

           Softpaw drew his tail over his nose and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift. He imagined himself as a warrior, standing tall and proud beside his friends, all older and experienced. They were showing off their scars, and Softpaw motioned to a six-clawed scratch mark down his side, claiming to have beaten Sunstar. He purred softly as his mind drifted into a comfortable black sleep.

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Caves • Eurogamer.net

Each week, Five of the Best gives love to the overlooked parts of games. The things you don’t notice when you’re playing because you’re too busy doing more important things. But you remember them. They’re there in your memory all the same. So much so that when someone says something like, “Which are the best caves in games?” Some immediately spring to mind.

So: which are the best caves in games? Let’s give it a try, shall we?

I’ve been caving – spelunking – before, back when I was a teenager, and I’m not sure I could do it now. I remember having to swim in icy cold water under a stalactite and shimmy along tunnel-like passages. I don’t know how I did it – it gives me the shivers just thinking about it now.

But I have been in a cave since, in Thailand, and I was totally unprepared. I found myself on a makeshift tour, on my hands and knees, army-shuffling through what was basically a tunnel with the dimensions of an air duct. I remember seeing a cave spider on the wall – it was bloody dark in there – and thinking, ‘Oh god, are they all over the wall?’

Don’t worry, our guide said, it’s nothing compared to when he slept there overnight with nothing but a candle, which went out, and when he woke up to relight it, he found himself completely surrounded by cave spiders.

I was very reassured.

Still, there was an amazing moment where the guide pointed into the blackness of another chamber and it became slowly apparent he was pointing out a colony of bats. God knows how many were in there. Hundreds? Thousands?

I was quite relieved to get out.

Grow Home’s most elusive cave

There are great caves in Grow Home. They feel really, really cavey. Outside it’s a beautiful balmy day, but in here it’s dark and still and you can almost feel the cool air.

Brilliantly, I think there’s an Achievement for finding all the game’s caves. I remember this because for an age I had found all but one. I’d found the cave with the weird little glowing critters, the one with the bull, the one that you can drop down into by pulling the boulders aside…

Finally I had to go back to the very start. The really big sandy island at the very bottom of the game’s world was the first place I felt I had exhausted. But I had forgotten to look around the back of the main mountain. There, almost hidden by perspective, was the cave I was after. I went inside and, yes, wonderfully still and chilly. A perfect cave. So cavey!

Skip to 2.12!

The Batcave

The game’s getting on a bit now, but still: spoilers for Arkham Asylum

How many times have we been in the Batcave by this point? It’s been a hub, an upgrade menu, even a raiding area. There’s something really special about it each time, though, because it’s the Batcave. And there’s something especially special about it in Arkham Asylum.

Mid-way through Arkham Asylum there’s a huge reveal. It’s not the solution to the mystery or a sudden character death. It’s that Batman has a back-up Batcave on Arkham Island. There’s a lovely bit of theatre to the discovery, to the way he’s scanned in and allowed to enter. But more than that, there’s a real force of wonder to it, because…I had no idea!

A Batcave on Arkham Island was news to me, anyway. It felt brilliant: like Batman had been keeping a secret from us, the player, and he was finally letting us in a bit. And it’s a reminder that in Batman’s world, pretty much nobody knows about the Batcave anyway. What a lovely moment. And what a lovely cave.

The secret tomb in Knights of the Old Republic 2

I’m cheating a bit because it’s a tomb rather than cave, although you need to go through a cave to get to it. It’s on Korriban and it’s literally called the Secret Tomb. It’s optional, you don’t have to go there, but do. Go there because it’s a magical cave filled with Dark Side energy, like everything else on Korriban.

The tomb shows you visions and tests you. It shows you famous KOTOR characters Malak and Revan during the Mandalorian Wars, before they turned to the Dark Side. It’s a war you fought for them in but you don’t know much about it. Why did they disobey the Jedi Order? What did you do? It’s a theme running through the game, and there, in the tomb, you learn more while wrestling with what you think about it all.

I remember it still, nearly 15 years later. I think it stuck in my head because it made me think. It was more than another cave to kill-through and loot (although there is loot to be had – this is an RPG after all).

Honorable mention to The Witcher 3’s Cave of Dreams, which has a big blue floating whale and has similar magical visions to the Korriban tomb. It’s actually the cave which inspired this whole topic.

I mean, the graphics aren’t great now but…

Destiny’s loot cave

The infamous loot cave in Destiny represented the state of Bungie’s shared world shooter when it first launched – a place with so much potential, but which was also an incredible grind.

And so the loot cave itself – a spot you could sit and endlessly farm wave after wave of enemies as they spawned – gained notoriety as an exploit. It was a shortcut to some of Destiny’s rarest item drops. And while farming the loot cave wasn’t fun, it was efficient. It was the fastest way to get through Destiny’s grind.

When it was patched out, it was a relief. I no longer feel like I had to try this thing to keep up with everyone else doing the same. Bungie, correctly, realised it needed to provide better, faster ways of getting players to the game’s level cap. And in its place, one of the few examples where Bungie acknowledged the impact its players had – an Easter egg showing a pile of bones from all the enemies slain along the way.

Tom Phillips

Cheats!

Minecraft

Minecraft is a game of two worlds, really: the above and below. Every time a new world is generated, mountains spike up to the sky, and forests and grasslands spread further than the eye can see. For a blocky game it can create some gorgeous vistas. But what you can’t see, though, and what’s equally awe inspiring, is what lurks below.

Down there, huge black chambers await. Down there, abandoned mine shafts await. Down there, coal, iron, gold, gems, diamonds, all the things you need. But in the darkness, monsters await, too. And lava. And falls into fathomless black depths. Down there: danger.

But you are inextricably drawn towards them, drawn underground. And every time you see a cave opening or a chasm scarring the earth, or you begin a stepped tunnel down underground, you hope to hit upon the chamber of riches you see. But you never know. You break the block to reveal blackness and for a brief moment you are helpless to what lies beyond. It’s a cycle of excitement I will never tire of.

This is ridiculous! I’ve never seen a cave like this.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/five-of-the-best-caves-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-caves-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[travelguideworldtour-blog]

Most Beautiful Regions in Norway

Most Beautiful Regions in Norway

Founded at the shore of Scandinavia and flanked into the east by Finland, Sweden and Russia, the delightful places of Norway each have something to supply with varied and arresting landscapes where you are gone, greeting you. Together with archipelagos of islands, lakes and infinite forests not to mention the Northern additionally on series; Norway shores are out standing to behold. The nation boasts a great deal amazing scenery Even though Norway is famous for its fjords that scar its Atlantic coastline plus it is of the very inland in Europe.

Contents

1 Most Beautiful Regions in Norway

1.1 Northern Norway

1.2 Trondelag

1.3 Western Norway

1.4 Southern Norway

1.5 Eastern Norway

1.6 Svalbard

Northern Norway

Encompassing nearly 1 / 2 of the nation’s wild and rocky coast line, Northern-Norway is definitely among the most gorgeous regions in Norway or even the environment. Because it cut by the ice age and was destroyed, the scene is varied and beech woods lie next to alpine mountains and fjords, glaciers. When it’s snow-mobiling or reindeer sledding your path through boundless snowcovered woods, shooting a panoramic boat trip through the fjords to find that the natives which inhabit the seas across the spectacular Lofoten Islands or learning about the Sami individuals who reside in the spot; the richly populated Northern-Norway undoubtedly produces a unforgettable holidaydestination. While the dark winter nighttime sky are painted a plethora of colors while the Aurora Borealis 42, Because the majority of the region is located above the Arctic Circle, Northern Norway is blessed with all hours of sun at the summertime.

Trondelag

Within the midst portion of the nation, Trondelag has plenty of great outdoor activities for all individuals to savor fishing and sailing across its slopes, ski in its own mountains and researching its marvellous domestic parks all being remarkably popular. Offering the perfect mixture of culture, history and fantastic character, Trondelag has lots that you visit and do and you always have the option to stay in one of those enchanting fisherman’s villages or at the enjoyable old mining town of ro ros should you’d like to have to grips with life. Since it hosts the former capital of Norway, Trondheim, there can be lots of history on the city has a vibrant arts and culture scenery that you relish in addition to plenty of striking buildings and fascinating museums.

Western Norway

Referred to as Vestlandet from Norwegian, the most Western portion of the nation is currently home to among Norway’s biggest cities in both Bergen and Stavanger in addition to a number of these most incredible fjords conceivable. As an example both Sognefjorden and Geirangerfjord are must see sights due with depth, their period and beauty along with carrying a boat trip is memorable. With landscapes like the views from around of Preikestolen and Latefossen’s water falls for you scale or to increase ; Western Norway is unrivalled for what it’s to provide up, across the globe. The location is beautiful to behold since it isn’t just home to Jotunheimen’s wonderful mountain park but as well as probably one of the fjords, Jostedalsbreen’s glacier plus the greatest summer ski skiing in the united kingdom in Stryn.

Southern Norway

Since it really is home from that which is referred to while the Norwegian Rivierait will come as no real surprise to find out the portion of this united states features a lovely shore that you research lots of scenic villages and cities scattered round its various bays, rivers and inlets. Its archipelago is lovely to see and island hopping round while fishing pool, swimming and sailing from the waters that are clear of the region is heavenly. As a result of climate and the summertime weather, Southern Norway is a popular holiday destination amongst Norwegians. Although its inside is seen, there are a lot of lakes and woods that you increase around in winter that the area’s hills cause some skiing as well as in the event that you would like to immerse yourself from the astonishing all-natural splendor of the area.

Eastern Norway

Eastern Norway is a nature enthusiast’s dream, as many lakes, valleys and rivers dot the spot and a plethora of trails and paths weave their way. The valleys of Hallingdal and Gudbrandsdalen are scenic to explore since boundary the most Jotunheimen that will be home to the greatest mountains in Scandinavia. Containing 1 / 2 the nation’s people, together with lots based from the funding Oslo, Eastern Norway comes with a wealth of amazing things that you see and perform together with a lot of amazing nature too on series. You will find plenty of activities available Since it houses the country’s biggest national park at Trysil in addition to Hardangervidda, the ski resort and people can decide to hike, sail or ski their own way. Oslo woods and also the fjord surround itself has lots of beaches and islands for you and landmarks including this Boat Museum that is wonderful.

Svalbard

Svalbard is among the most delightful places on the planet to watch Arctic nature and the chief island of Spitsbergen has some infrastructure and resolutions that are smaller to discuss about it. The majority of the islands are composed of nature reserves and parks that protect and conserve the lovely and crazy wintery world by. With polar bears than humans, the Svalbard archipelago is among the places on Earth that humans live along with the bulk of the islands have been covered in rock and glaciers. As the scenery is amazing to behold along with the landscapes are all home to whales, reindeer, arctic foxes and polar bears, walruses and seals float about in its waters.

  See more articles about Norway!

  Most Beautiful Regions in Norway

[joshuamshea84]

How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs

Updated: 10/28/2018 | October 28th, 2018

Traveling Thailand can cost as little or as much as you want it to be. This is a country that covers all budgets! This is a country where you can stay in $3 USD rooms or $1,000 USD resorts. Street food for pennies or gourmet dinners for hundreds. Expensive tours or inexperience attractions.

There’s something for every budget here in Thailand.

Thailand is a cheap country to live in and travel around. I usually spend very little money here. But that changed when my friends came, and why that changed is important for anyone planning to come to Thailand.

How much does it cost to travel around Thailand?

Your Thailand costs will vary greatly depending on the kind of traveler you want to be. I’ve been visiting the country for over a decade and I’ve seen it change a lot. Here’s how much you can expect to spend and how to save money in the country.

How Much Does it Cost to Visit Thailand?

On a recent visit to Thailand with my friends, we traveled for 24 days and I spent $1,596.27 USD or $66.51 per day. Here’s the breakdown (all prices are in Thai baht):

Accommodation (cheap guesthouses, nice beach bungalows, luxury jungle huts) – 13,565

Flights around Thailand – 4,200

Transportation (public buses, trains, taxis) – 1,470

Ferry to, around, and from the islands – 1,875

Diving in Ko Tao – 800

Hiking in Khao Sok – 1,200

Movie and popcorn (Sherlock Holmes 2—don’t see it!) – 320

Misc. (bug spray, toothbrush, etc.) – 363

Drinks (it was the holidays!) – 10,115

Jim Thompson House (museum in Bangkok) – 100

Medicine (I popped my eardrum scuba diving!) – 1,890

Food (street food, seafood dinners, amazing international meals in Bangkok) – 11,000

Web stuff for work – 890

Water – 100

Total spent: 47,888 THB or $1,596.27 USD

Note: 1 USD = 30 THB

For Thailand, that’s a lot of money. But my friends had never been to the country before so we traveled a little faster than normal and stayed at nice placer than I normally would on a budget.

I love traveling Thailand because it’s cheap and backpacking around Thailand usually costs $30–35 USD per day, depending on how much alcohol you consume and how many days you spend on the islands, where costs are higher.

But when time’s limited and this is one of two big trips all year, you don’t want to scrape every penny. Vacations don’t need to cost a fortune, but if you aren’t traveling all the time, staying in the cheapest place to make your money last becomes less of an issue. You want nice things.

You travel faster. You take planes, not 12-hour trains. You cram more activities into your day. You pamper yourself more. You eat nicer meals.

And my friends definitely wanted all of the above.

How Much Do You Need to Travel Thailand?

You don’t need to spend a lot of money in Thailand.

If you’re backpacking Thailand, plan to budget between 825–1150 BHT ($25–35 USD) per day. This range will get you your own room (fan only) with a shared bathroom (or a dorm room on the lower end), food from the street stalls, a couple of drinks per day, a few tours here and there, and local transportation. If you’re spending more time on the islands where things tend to be more expensive, budget towards the higher end or even upwards of $40 a day.

On a budget of around 1,650 baht ($50 USD) per day, you would be able to fly between some destinations, eat more delicious seafood dinners and international meals, take more tours and activities you wanted, sleep in air-conditioned rooms, and drink more.

If you’re looking to stay in Western hotels or expensive resorts, eat mostly Western food or in tourist areas, drink a lot, do a lot of tours, and fly a lot, you should budget 3,300–5,000 baht ($100–150 USD) per day. After that, the sky is the limit.

Throw in some extra money for shopping, and a maximum of $55 USD per day would give you a very, very nice budget vacation in Thailand. For that price, you would get:

Flights (so you don’t have to spend time on long bus rides)

Meals that include local restaurants and cheap street food, as well as delicious seafood dinners and some delicious international food in Bangkok

Budget guesthouses with a few “splurge” nights thrown in

Some tours and activities

A few drinks

A little extra wiggle room just in case

While all the money-saving tips mentioned on my website can be applied to any style of trip (saving money is universal), how fast you travel on a vacation changes how you spend money. We could have saved a lot if we’d skipped the flights and taken the train, but my friends didn’t have the time to spend 12 hours on a train. We flew, which is expensive during peak season.

How to Save Money and Lower Your Thailand Costs

Thailand is an inexpensive country, but if you’re on a really tight budget and need to lower your costs here’s how to save even more money during your visit:

Get off of the tourist trail – The easiest way to save money in Thailand is to live like a local. Take the local buses, eat street food instead of standard restaurant food, and drink beer instead of other (more expensive) alcohol. In Bangkok, average Thai citizens live on a less than 8,000 THB per month. In the countryside, the average person lives on even less. Try to follow their example. Visit less touristy cities and islands, and you’ll save big.

Book tours when you arrive – Want to take a cooking class, try zip-lining, or head out on a jungle trek? Maybe you want to try scuba diving near the islands. No matter what you’re looking to do, wait until you get into Thailand to book. Travel agencies are located everywhere so they are easy to find. These people are extremely friendly and easy to negotiate with, too. When it comes to tours, the general rule is that the more you buy, the better discount you can get. Grab a group of friends and sign up for tours together to increase your discounts. If the first travel agent won’t negotiate with you, move on to another one. Sure, you could just purchase these tours online before you arrive, but you’ll be paying a lot more. Wait until you arrive and you’ll save a lot of money.

Eat at the street stalls – Everyone agrees that the food from street vendors in Thailand is the best food in the country. Plus, it’s ridiculously cheap. You can easily find a bowl of soup or noodles for less than 30 THB. Street stalls line every block, making them a simple and cheap option for any meal.

Skip the Western food – Western food venues are always more expensive when compared to Thai food. Since some of the ingredients need to be imported, you should expect the prices to be higher than any Thai food you’ll find. Since most Western food places also pale in comparison to its original, it’s best to just skip it altogether and enjoy the delicious local food.

Negotiate with tuk-tuk drivers – Unlike taxis, the tuk-tuks do not have meters. This means you need to agree on a price before you take off. If you don’t, they’ll be able to jack up the price on you. Drivers are always friendly but if you’re going to act like a clueless tourist they will definitely take advantage of you and charge you a few extra bucks. While I generally try to avoid tuk-tuks, they are fine for short distances (and you need to try them at least once!).

Limit your drinking – You can save a lot of money by limiting how much alcohol you drink. Alcohol in Thailand can be quite expensive, so go for water if you’re on a budget. If you are going to drink, be sure to take advantage of happy hour deals when you can, and stick to beer instead of cocktails. o save even more money, buy your beer at 7-Eleven as it will be much cheaper than the bar.

Use a hospitality exchange website – Sharing economy platforms like Couchsurfing and BeWelcome allow you to stay with locals for free while giving you a local perspective on the destination. There are plenty of hosts here, both locals and expats, so be sure to check out to not only save money but get an insider experience.

Bargain hard – When you head to the markets you’re going to have to bargain hard. Never take the first price and don’t be afraid to walk away if you feel like you’re getting ripped off. If you can, ask a local what prices you should expect to give you a point of reference. Just remember to bargain hard but don’t be a jerk!

*** In the rush to see everything, you can spend a lot of money before you even realize it. I’ll admit that the budget traveler I normally go out the door on this trip. I would normally never fly around Thailand, skip the expensive resorts, and not eat as much international food as I did with my friends.

A three-week vacation in Thailand might not be as cheap as a three-month backpacking trip, but it can still be inexpensive as long as you watch where your money goes and don’t forget about keeping to a budget in your quest to see everything. Thailand doesn’t need to cost a fortune though and if you use these tips when you travel, no matter your travel style, you’ll save money!

  Get the In-Depth Budget Guide to Thailand!

My detailed, 170+ page guidebook is made for budget travelers like you! It cuts out the fluff found in other guidebooks and gets straight to the practical information you need to travel and save money while in Thailand, a country I used to call home (so I know it really well!). You’ll find suggested itineraries, budgets, ways to save money, on and off the beaten path things to see and do, non-touristy restaurants, markets, and bars, and much more!! Click here to learn more and get started.

Book Your Trip to Thailand: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Traveling News https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/how-much-a-holiday-in-thailand-costs/

[melissagarcia8]

How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs

Updated: 10/28/2018 | October 28th, 2018

Traveling Thailand can cost as little or as much as you want it to be. This is a country that covers all budgets! This is a country where you can stay in $3 USD rooms or $1,000 USD resorts. Street food for pennies or gourmet dinners for hundreds. Expensive tours or inexperience attractions.

There’s something for every budget here in Thailand.

Thailand is a cheap country to live in and travel around. I usually spend very little money here. But that changed when my friends came, and why that changed is important for anyone planning to come to Thailand.

How much does it cost to travel around Thailand?

Your Thailand costs will vary greatly depending on the kind of traveler you want to be. I’ve been visiting the country for over a decade and I’ve seen it change a lot. Here’s how much you can expect to spend and how to save money in the country.

How Much Does it Cost to Visit Thailand?

On a recent visit to Thailand with my friends, we traveled for 24 days and I spent $1,596.27 USD or $66.51 per day. Here’s the breakdown (all prices are in Thai baht):

Accommodation (cheap guesthouses, nice beach bungalows, luxury jungle huts) – 13,565

Flights around Thailand – 4,200

Transportation (public buses, trains, taxis) – 1,470

Ferry to, around, and from the islands – 1,875

Diving in Ko Tao – 800

Hiking in Khao Sok – 1,200

Movie and popcorn (Sherlock Holmes 2—don’t see it!) – 320

Misc. (bug spray, toothbrush, etc.) – 363

Drinks (it was the holidays!) – 10,115

Jim Thompson House (museum in Bangkok) – 100

Medicine (I popped my eardrum scuba diving!) – 1,890

Food (street food, seafood dinners, amazing international meals in Bangkok) – 11,000

Web stuff for work – 890

Water – 100

Total spent: 47,888 THB or $1,596.27 USD

Note: 1 USD = 30 THB

For Thailand, that’s a lot of money. But my friends had never been to the country before so we traveled a little faster than normal and stayed at nice placer than I normally would on a budget.

I love traveling Thailand because it’s cheap and backpacking around Thailand usually costs $30–35 USD per day, depending on how much alcohol you consume and how many days you spend on the islands, where costs are higher.

But when time’s limited and this is one of two big trips all year, you don’t want to scrape every penny. Vacations don’t need to cost a fortune, but if you aren’t traveling all the time, staying in the cheapest place to make your money last becomes less of an issue. You want nice things.

You travel faster. You take planes, not 12-hour trains. You cram more activities into your day. You pamper yourself more. You eat nicer meals.

And my friends definitely wanted all of the above.

How Much Do You Need to Travel Thailand?

You don’t need to spend a lot of money in Thailand.

If you’re backpacking Thailand, plan to budget between 825–1150 BHT ($25–35 USD) per day. This range will get you your own room (fan only) with a shared bathroom (or a dorm room on the lower end), food from the street stalls, a couple of drinks per day, a few tours here and there, and local transportation. If you’re spending more time on the islands where things tend to be more expensive, budget towards the higher end or even upwards of $40 a day.

On a budget of around 1,650 baht ($50 USD) per day, you would be able to fly between some destinations, eat more delicious seafood dinners and international meals, take more tours and activities you wanted, sleep in air-conditioned rooms, and drink more.

If you’re looking to stay in Western hotels or expensive resorts, eat mostly Western food or in tourist areas, drink a lot, do a lot of tours, and fly a lot, you should budget 3,300–5,000 baht ($100–150 USD) per day. After that, the sky is the limit.

Throw in some extra money for shopping, and a maximum of $55 USD per day would give you a very, very nice budget vacation in Thailand. For that price, you would get:

Flights (so you don’t have to spend time on long bus rides)

Meals that include local restaurants and cheap street food, as well as delicious seafood dinners and some delicious international food in Bangkok

Budget guesthouses with a few “splurge” nights thrown in

Some tours and activities

A few drinks

A little extra wiggle room just in case

While all the money-saving tips mentioned on my website can be applied to any style of trip (saving money is universal), how fast you travel on a vacation changes how you spend money. We could have saved a lot if we’d skipped the flights and taken the train, but my friends didn’t have the time to spend 12 hours on a train. We flew, which is expensive during peak season.

How to Save Money and Lower Your Thailand Costs

Thailand is an inexpensive country, but if you’re on a really tight budget and need to lower your costs here’s how to save even more money during your visit:

Get off of the tourist trail – The easiest way to save money in Thailand is to live like a local. Take the local buses, eat street food instead of standard restaurant food, and drink beer instead of other (more expensive) alcohol. In Bangkok, average Thai citizens live on a less than 8,000 THB per month. In the countryside, the average person lives on even less. Try to follow their example. Visit less touristy cities and islands, and you’ll save big.

Book tours when you arrive – Want to take a cooking class, try zip-lining, or head out on a jungle trek? Maybe you want to try scuba diving near the islands. No matter what you’re looking to do, wait until you get into Thailand to book. Travel agencies are located everywhere so they are easy to find. These people are extremely friendly and easy to negotiate with, too. When it comes to tours, the general rule is that the more you buy, the better discount you can get. Grab a group of friends and sign up for tours together to increase your discounts. If the first travel agent won’t negotiate with you, move on to another one. Sure, you could just purchase these tours online before you arrive, but you’ll be paying a lot more. Wait until you arrive and you’ll save a lot of money.

Eat at the street stalls – Everyone agrees that the food from street vendors in Thailand is the best food in the country. Plus, it’s ridiculously cheap. You can easily find a bowl of soup or noodles for less than 30 THB. Street stalls line every block, making them a simple and cheap option for any meal.

Skip the Western food – Western food venues are always more expensive when compared to Thai food. Since some of the ingredients need to be imported, you should expect the prices to be higher than any Thai food you’ll find. Since most Western food places also pale in comparison to its original, it’s best to just skip it altogether and enjoy the delicious local food.

Negotiate with tuk-tuk drivers – Unlike taxis, the tuk-tuks do not have meters. This means you need to agree on a price before you take off. If you don’t, they’ll be able to jack up the price on you. Drivers are always friendly but if you’re going to act like a clueless tourist they will definitely take advantage of you and charge you a few extra bucks. While I generally try to avoid tuk-tuks, they are fine for short distances (and you need to try them at least once!).

Limit your drinking – You can save a lot of money by limiting how much alcohol you drink. Alcohol in Thailand can be quite expensive, so go for water if you’re on a budget. If you are going to drink, be sure to take advantage of happy hour deals when you can, and stick to beer instead of cocktails. o save even more money, buy your beer at 7-Eleven as it will be much cheaper than the bar.

Use a hospitality exchange website – Sharing economy platforms like Couchsurfing and BeWelcome allow you to stay with locals for free while giving you a local perspective on the destination. There are plenty of hosts here, both locals and expats, so be sure to check out to not only save money but get an insider experience.

Bargain hard – When you head to the markets you’re going to have to bargain hard. Never take the first price and don’t be afraid to walk away if you feel like you’re getting ripped off. If you can, ask a local what prices you should expect to give you a point of reference. Just remember to bargain hard but don’t be a jerk!

*** In the rush to see everything, you can spend a lot of money before you even realize it. I’ll admit that the budget traveler I normally go out the door on this trip. I would normally never fly around Thailand, skip the expensive resorts, and not eat as much international food as I did with my friends.

A three-week vacation in Thailand might not be as cheap as a three-month backpacking trip, but it can still be inexpensive as long as you watch where your money goes and don’t forget about keeping to a budget in your quest to see everything. Thailand doesn’t need to cost a fortune though and if you use these tips when you travel, no matter your travel style, you’ll save money!

  Get the In-Depth Budget Guide to Thailand!

My detailed, 170+ page guidebook is made for budget travelers like you! It cuts out the fluff found in other guidebooks and gets straight to the practical information you need to travel and save money while in Thailand, a country I used to call home (so I know it really well!). You’ll find suggested itineraries, budgets, ways to save money, on and off the beaten path things to see and do, non-touristy restaurants, markets, and bars, and much more!! Click here to learn more and get started.

Book Your Trip to Thailand: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Traveling News https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/how-much-a-holiday-in-thailand-costs/

[travelguy4444]

How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs

Updated: 10/28/2018 | October 28th, 2018

Traveling Thailand can cost as little or as much as you want it to be. This is a country that covers all budgets! This is a country where you can stay in $3 USD rooms or $1,000 USD resorts. Street food for pennies or gourmet dinners for hundreds. Expensive tours or inexperience attractions.

There’s something for every budget here in Thailand.

Thailand is a cheap country to live in and travel around. I usually spend very little money here. But that changed when my friends came, and why that changed is important for anyone planning to come to Thailand.

How much does it cost to travel around Thailand?

Your Thailand costs will vary greatly depending on the kind of traveler you want to be. I’ve been visiting the country for over a decade and I’ve seen it change a lot. Here’s how much you can expect to spend and how to save money in the country.

How Much Does it Cost to Visit Thailand?

On a recent visit to Thailand with my friends, we traveled for 24 days and I spent $1,596.27 USD or $66.51 per day. Here’s the breakdown (all prices are in Thai baht):

Accommodation (cheap guesthouses, nice beach bungalows, luxury jungle huts) – 13,565

Flights around Thailand – 4,200

Transportation (public buses, trains, taxis) – 1,470

Ferry to, around, and from the islands – 1,875

Diving in Ko Tao – 800

Hiking in Khao Sok – 1,200

Movie and popcorn (Sherlock Holmes 2—don’t see it!) – 320

Misc. (bug spray, toothbrush, etc.) – 363

Drinks (it was the holidays!) – 10,115

Jim Thompson House (museum in Bangkok) – 100

Medicine (I popped my eardrum scuba diving!) – 1,890

Food (street food, seafood dinners, amazing international meals in Bangkok) – 11,000

Web stuff for work – 890

Water – 100

Total spent: 47,888 THB or $1,596.27 USD

Note: 1 USD = 30 THB

For Thailand, that’s a lot of money. But my friends had never been to the country before so we traveled a little faster than normal and stayed at nice placer than I normally would on a budget.

I love traveling Thailand because it’s cheap and backpacking around Thailand usually costs $30–35 USD per day, depending on how much alcohol you consume and how many days you spend on the islands, where costs are higher.

But when time’s limited and this is one of two big trips all year, you don’t want to scrape every penny. Vacations don’t need to cost a fortune, but if you aren’t traveling all the time, staying in the cheapest place to make your money last becomes less of an issue. You want nice things.

You travel faster. You take planes, not 12-hour trains. You cram more activities into your day. You pamper yourself more. You eat nicer meals.

And my friends definitely wanted all of the above.

How Much Do You Need to Travel Thailand?

You don’t need to spend a lot of money in Thailand.

If you’re backpacking Thailand, plan to budget between 825–1150 BHT ($25–35 USD) per day. This range will get you your own room (fan only) with a shared bathroom (or a dorm room on the lower end), food from the street stalls, a couple of drinks per day, a few tours here and there, and local transportation. If you’re spending more time on the islands where things tend to be more expensive, budget towards the higher end or even upwards of $40 a day.

On a budget of around 1,650 baht ($50 USD) per day, you would be able to fly between some destinations, eat more delicious seafood dinners and international meals, take more tours and activities you wanted, sleep in air-conditioned rooms, and drink more.

If you’re looking to stay in Western hotels or expensive resorts, eat mostly Western food or in tourist areas, drink a lot, do a lot of tours, and fly a lot, you should budget 3,300–5,000 baht ($100–150 USD) per day. After that, the sky is the limit.

Throw in some extra money for shopping, and a maximum of $55 USD per day would give you a very, very nice budget vacation in Thailand. For that price, you would get:

Flights (so you don’t have to spend time on long bus rides)

Meals that include local restaurants and cheap street food, as well as delicious seafood dinners and some delicious international food in Bangkok

Budget guesthouses with a few “splurge” nights thrown in

Some tours and activities

A few drinks

A little extra wiggle room just in case

While all the money-saving tips mentioned on my website can be applied to any style of trip (saving money is universal), how fast you travel on a vacation changes how you spend money. We could have saved a lot if we’d skipped the flights and taken the train, but my friends didn’t have the time to spend 12 hours on a train. We flew, which is expensive during peak season.

How to Save Money and Lower Your Thailand Costs

Thailand is an inexpensive country, but if you’re on a really tight budget and need to lower your costs here’s how to save even more money during your visit:

Get off of the tourist trail – The easiest way to save money in Thailand is to live like a local. Take the local buses, eat street food instead of standard restaurant food, and drink beer instead of other (more expensive) alcohol. In Bangkok, average Thai citizens live on a less than 8,000 THB per month. In the countryside, the average person lives on even less. Try to follow their example. Visit less touristy cities and islands, and you’ll save big.

Book tours when you arrive – Want to take a cooking class, try zip-lining, or head out on a jungle trek? Maybe you want to try scuba diving near the islands. No matter what you’re looking to do, wait until you get into Thailand to book. Travel agencies are located everywhere so they are easy to find. These people are extremely friendly and easy to negotiate with, too. When it comes to tours, the general rule is that the more you buy, the better discount you can get. Grab a group of friends and sign up for tours together to increase your discounts. If the first travel agent won’t negotiate with you, move on to another one. Sure, you could just purchase these tours online before you arrive, but you’ll be paying a lot more. Wait until you arrive and you’ll save a lot of money.

Eat at the street stalls – Everyone agrees that the food from street vendors in Thailand is the best food in the country. Plus, it’s ridiculously cheap. You can easily find a bowl of soup or noodles for less than 30 THB. Street stalls line every block, making them a simple and cheap option for any meal.

Skip the Western food – Western food venues are always more expensive when compared to Thai food. Since some of the ingredients need to be imported, you should expect the prices to be higher than any Thai food you’ll find. Since most Western food places also pale in comparison to its original, it’s best to just skip it altogether and enjoy the delicious local food.

Negotiate with tuk-tuk drivers – Unlike taxis, the tuk-tuks do not have meters. This means you need to agree on a price before you take off. If you don’t, they’ll be able to jack up the price on you. Drivers are always friendly but if you’re going to act like a clueless tourist they will definitely take advantage of you and charge you a few extra bucks. While I generally try to avoid tuk-tuks, they are fine for short distances (and you need to try them at least once!).

Limit your drinking – You can save a lot of money by limiting how much alcohol you drink. Alcohol in Thailand can be quite expensive, so go for water if you’re on a budget. If you are going to drink, be sure to take advantage of happy hour deals when you can, and stick to beer instead of cocktails. o save even more money, buy your beer at 7-Eleven as it will be much cheaper than the bar.

Use a hospitality exchange website – Sharing economy platforms like Couchsurfing and BeWelcome allow you to stay with locals for free while giving you a local perspective on the destination. There are plenty of hosts here, both locals and expats, so be sure to check out to not only save money but get an insider experience.

Bargain hard – When you head to the markets you’re going to have to bargain hard. Never take the first price and don’t be afraid to walk away if you feel like you’re getting ripped off. If you can, ask a local what prices you should expect to give you a point of reference. Just remember to bargain hard but don’t be a jerk!

*** In the rush to see everything, you can spend a lot of money before you even realize it. I’ll admit that the budget traveler I normally go out the door on this trip. I would normally never fly around Thailand, skip the expensive resorts, and not eat as much international food as I did with my friends.

A three-week vacation in Thailand might not be as cheap as a three-month backpacking trip, but it can still be inexpensive as long as you watch where your money goes and don’t forget about keeping to a budget in your quest to see everything. Thailand doesn’t need to cost a fortune though and if you use these tips when you travel, no matter your travel style, you’ll save money!

  Get the In-Depth Budget Guide to Thailand!

My detailed, 170+ page guidebook is made for budget travelers like you! It cuts out the fluff found in other guidebooks and gets straight to the practical information you need to travel and save money while in Thailand, a country I used to call home (so I know it really well!). You’ll find suggested itineraries, budgets, ways to save money, on and off the beaten path things to see and do, non-touristy restaurants, markets, and bars, and much more!! Click here to learn more and get started.

Book Your Trip to Thailand: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

source https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/how-much-a-holiday-in-thailand-costs/

[tamboradventure]

How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs

Updated: 10/28/2018 | October 28th, 2018

Traveling Thailand can cost as little or as much as you want it to be. This is a country that covers all budgets! This is a country where you can stay in $3 USD rooms or $1,000 USD resorts. Street food for pennies or gourmet dinners for hundreds. Expensive tours or inexperience attractions.

There’s something for every budget here in Thailand.

Thailand is a cheap country to live in and travel around. I usually spend very little money here. But that changed when my friends came, and why that changed is important for anyone planning to come to Thailand.

How much does it cost to travel around Thailand?

Your Thailand costs will vary greatly depending on the kind of traveler you want to be. I’ve been visiting the country for over a decade and I’ve seen it change a lot. Here’s how much you can expect to spend and how to save money in the country.

How Much Does it Cost to Visit Thailand?

On a recent visit to Thailand with my friends, we traveled for 24 days and I spent $1,596.27 USD or $66.51 per day. Here’s the breakdown (all prices are in Thai baht):

Accommodation (cheap guesthouses, nice beach bungalows, luxury jungle huts) – 13,565

Flights around Thailand – 4,200

Transportation (public buses, trains, taxis) – 1,470

Ferry to, around, and from the islands – 1,875

Diving in Ko Tao – 800

Hiking in Khao Sok – 1,200

Movie and popcorn (Sherlock Holmes 2—don’t see it!) – 320

Misc. (bug spray, toothbrush, etc.) – 363

Drinks (it was the holidays!) – 10,115

Jim Thompson House (museum in Bangkok) – 100

Medicine (I popped my eardrum scuba diving!) – 1,890

Food (street food, seafood dinners, amazing international meals in Bangkok) – 11,000

Web stuff for work – 890

Water – 100

Total spent: 47,888 THB or $1,596.27 USD

Note: 1 USD = 30 THB

For Thailand, that’s a lot of money. But my friends had never been to the country before so we traveled a little faster than normal and stayed at nice placer than I normally would on a budget.

I love traveling Thailand because it’s cheap and backpacking around Thailand usually costs $30–35 USD per day, depending on how much alcohol you consume and how many days you spend on the islands, where costs are higher.

But when time’s limited and this is one of two big trips all year, you don’t want to scrape every penny. Vacations don’t need to cost a fortune, but if you aren’t traveling all the time, staying in the cheapest place to make your money last becomes less of an issue. You want nice things.

You travel faster. You take planes, not 12-hour trains. You cram more activities into your day. You pamper yourself more. You eat nicer meals.

And my friends definitely wanted all of the above.

How Much Do You Need to Travel Thailand?

You don’t need to spend a lot of money in Thailand.

If you’re backpacking Thailand, plan to budget between 825–1150 BHT ($25–35 USD) per day. This range will get you your own room (fan only) with a shared bathroom (or a dorm room on the lower end), food from the street stalls, a couple of drinks per day, a few tours here and there, and local transportation. If you’re spending more time on the islands where things tend to be more expensive, budget towards the higher end or even upwards of $40 a day.

On a budget of around 1,650 baht ($50 USD) per day, you would be able to fly between some destinations, eat more delicious seafood dinners and international meals, take more tours and activities you wanted, sleep in air-conditioned rooms, and drink more.

If you’re looking to stay in Western hotels or expensive resorts, eat mostly Western food or in tourist areas, drink a lot, do a lot of tours, and fly a lot, you should budget 3,300–5,000 baht ($100–150 USD) per day. After that, the sky is the limit.

Throw in some extra money for shopping, and a maximum of $55 USD per day would give you a very, very nice budget vacation in Thailand. For that price, you would get:

Flights (so you don’t have to spend time on long bus rides)

Meals that include local restaurants and cheap street food, as well as delicious seafood dinners and some delicious international food in Bangkok

Budget guesthouses with a few “splurge” nights thrown in

Some tours and activities

A few drinks

A little extra wiggle room just in case

While all the money-saving tips mentioned on my website can be applied to any style of trip (saving money is universal), how fast you travel on a vacation changes how you spend money. We could have saved a lot if we’d skipped the flights and taken the train, but my friends didn’t have the time to spend 12 hours on a train. We flew, which is expensive during peak season.

How to Save Money and Lower Your Thailand Costs

Thailand is an inexpensive country, but if you’re on a really tight budget and need to lower your costs here’s how to save even more money during your visit:

Get off of the tourist trail – The easiest way to save money in Thailand is to live like a local. Take the local buses, eat street food instead of standard restaurant food, and drink beer instead of other (more expensive) alcohol. In Bangkok, average Thai citizens live on a less than 8,000 THB per month. In the countryside, the average person lives on even less. Try to follow their example. Visit less touristy cities and islands, and you’ll save big.

Book tours when you arrive – Want to take a cooking class, try zip-lining, or head out on a jungle trek? Maybe you want to try scuba diving near the islands. No matter what you’re looking to do, wait until you get into Thailand to book. Travel agencies are located everywhere so they are easy to find. These people are extremely friendly and easy to negotiate with, too. When it comes to tours, the general rule is that the more you buy, the better discount you can get. Grab a group of friends and sign up for tours together to increase your discounts. If the first travel agent won’t negotiate with you, move on to another one. Sure, you could just purchase these tours online before you arrive, but you’ll be paying a lot more. Wait until you arrive and you’ll save a lot of money.

Eat at the street stalls – Everyone agrees that the food from street vendors in Thailand is the best food in the country. Plus, it’s ridiculously cheap. You can easily find a bowl of soup or noodles for less than 30 THB. Street stalls line every block, making them a simple and cheap option for any meal.

Skip the Western food – Western food venues are always more expensive when compared to Thai food. Since some of the ingredients need to be imported, you should expect the prices to be higher than any Thai food you’ll find. Since most Western food places also pale in comparison to its original, it’s best to just skip it altogether and enjoy the delicious local food.

Negotiate with tuk-tuk drivers – Unlike taxis, the tuk-tuks do not have meters. This means you need to agree on a price before you take off. If you don’t, they’ll be able to jack up the price on you. Drivers are always friendly but if you’re going to act like a clueless tourist they will definitely take advantage of you and charge you a few extra bucks. While I generally try to avoid tuk-tuks, they are fine for short distances (and you need to try them at least once!).

Limit your drinking – You can save a lot of money by limiting how much alcohol you drink. Alcohol in Thailand can be quite expensive, so go for water if you’re on a budget. If you are going to drink, be sure to take advantage of happy hour deals when you can, and stick to beer instead of cocktails. o save even more money, buy your beer at 7-Eleven as it will be much cheaper than the bar.

Use a hospitality exchange website – Sharing economy platforms like Couchsurfing and BeWelcome allow you to stay with locals for free while giving you a local perspective on the destination. There are plenty of hosts here, both locals and expats, so be sure to check out to not only save money but get an insider experience.

Bargain hard – When you head to the markets you’re going to have to bargain hard. Never take the first price and don’t be afraid to walk away if you feel like you’re getting ripped off. If you can, ask a local what prices you should expect to give you a point of reference. Just remember to bargain hard but don’t be a jerk!

*** In the rush to see everything, you can spend a lot of money before you even realize it. I’ll admit that the budget traveler I normally go out the door on this trip. I would normally never fly around Thailand, skip the expensive resorts, and not eat as much international food as I did with my friends.

A three-week vacation in Thailand might not be as cheap as a three-month backpacking trip, but it can still be inexpensive as long as you watch where your money goes and don’t forget about keeping to a budget in your quest to see everything. Thailand doesn’t need to cost a fortune though and if you use these tips when you travel, no matter your travel style, you’ll save money!

  Get the In-Depth Budget Guide to Thailand!

My detailed, 170+ page guidebook is made for budget travelers like you! It cuts out the fluff found in other guidebooks and gets straight to the practical information you need to travel and save money while in Thailand, a country I used to call home (so I know it really well!). You’ll find suggested itineraries, budgets, ways to save money, on and off the beaten path things to see and do, non-touristy restaurants, markets, and bars, and much more!! Click here to learn more and get started.

Book Your Trip to Thailand: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post How Much a Holiday in Thailand Costs appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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