The Mana Pools National Park is one of Zimbabwe’s World Heritage Sites. This area forms part of the Middle Zambezi Valley, which extends eastward from Kariba to Kanyemba and southwards to the summit of the steep Zambezi Escarpment. The Middle Zambezi Valley is one of the few remaining places on earth where the black rhino can still be found. The accessible water and abundance of vegetation attracts high concentrations of animals. There are a growing number of safari operators offering professionally guided canoe trails, affording the visitor a close up view of an abundance of wildlife along the banks of the Zambezi River.Mana means ‘four’ in Shona, in reference to the four large permanent pools formed by the meanderings of the middle Zambezi. These 2,500 square kilometers of river frontage, islands, sandbanks and pools, flanked by forests of mahogany, wild figs, ebonies and baobabs, is one of the least developed National Parks in Southern Africa. It was saved from a hydro-electric scheme in the early eighties which would have seen the flooding of this subsequent World Heritage site. It has the country’s biggest concentration of hippopotamuses and crocodiles and large dry season mammal populations of elephant and buffalo.

For the adventurous traveler, a canoe trip down on the Mana Canoe Trail is one of the best ways to experience the African bush. Guests take a guided canoe safari down the Zambezi River towards Mozambique – a real African adventure where you have to dodge territorial Hippos and camp on sandbanks that are visited by elephants at night. The canoe safaris last anywhere from three to nine days and cover different stretched of the river from Kariba Dam downstream for up to 160 miles, past Mana Pools to Kanyemba near the Mozambique border.

Best Time to visit:

The best time to visit the park for wildlife viewing is at the end of the dry season (August-October) when large numbers of Elephant, Buffalo, Waterbuck and Impala come to the river to drink and graze along its banks. Game viewing is also very good in June and July. During the rainy season, much of the game moves off away from the river towards the escarpment.

The major airlines operating to Mana Pool-Zimbabwe is Air Zimbabwe, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airways. The Air Zimbabwe is the only direct flights to Zimbabwe. You can book your cheap flights to Zimbabwe at reasonable price with cheapzimbabweflights.com. You can always call our reservation experts on 0207 993 6219 for arranging cheap flights to Harare, Bulawayo & Victoria Falls. We can arrange cheap lodges & hotels in Victoria Falls & Kariba Town mainly Carribea Bay, The Cutty Sark, and the Zambezi Valley Motel in Nyamhunga.

Instead of letting the kids watch DVDs during your next road trip, use those long hours in the car to sharpen their minds.

That’s the advice from Dr. Katherine Wiesendanger, an education professor at Longwood University in Farmville, Va. She offers these tips for turning those mindless hours in the car to mind-sharpening opportunities.Official Navigator

No minivan sallying forth to vacation wonderlands can arrive without a designated navigator. Why not appoint your child to the post? An official trip navigator’s title and duties are a great way to reinforce map reading, mathematics and geography skills.

Dr. Wiesendanger recommends that during the trip, parents require the navigator to trace the family’s progress on a map. Every hour, call for an official report from the backseat, asking the navigator to detail location, current direction of travel, the next exit, the nearest town and the next state.

Mom or Dad can also add a mathematics component to navigator reports by asking for the total miles traveled and remaining, which the navigator can learn to compute using location information and the map’s scale. The driver can use the odometer to double-check.

A to Z

Dr. Wiesendanger suggests that road trips also present opportunities for kids and parents to sharpen verbal skills. Story-telling, for example, can involve the entire family and exercise everyone’s mind.

One idea is to use “story starters.” One family member starts the story with a simple “Once upon a time” statement. Each family member then takes a turn to build on the story. These stories can take imaginative, often humorous turns that entertain and create memories.

Another mind exercise idea is having kids keep a daily vacation journal, starting in the car. Writing brief reflections on the day’s experience and tomorrow’s anticipation lets kids practice expressing themselves. The journal also becomes a vacation keepsake that kids and parents are likely to treasure a few years down the road.

If you want to have a superb holiday, Dubai is the place to go. Dubai it’s a luxurious destination that blend the traditional with modern with so much success.

If you plan to go to Dubai, the best time to be there is during the cooler time of the year. Would be best to go between Octomber and May, the average temperature will be 24C. If you will miss this period, it will probably be very hot outside. But, since everywhere is air-conditioned, you will have no problem inside.You can get to Dubai by plane easily, at least 80 airlines land everyday at the Dubai International Airport.

When going from place to place in Dubai, the most convenient way is by taxi. Also, almost all hotels can arrange a taxi for you. You can always also rent a car, you just need to have a valid passport, driver license and to be over 21 years of age. Renting a car is not high priced and they will offer you a big variety of options.

You can also take part to camel racing in Dubai. It is a popular traditional sport in the Emirates. It’s free to the public and they have customized racetracks for this. They also have a camel racing federation.

One of the best activities in Dubai is the “dunes dinner”. You will drive your 4-wheeled drive land cruiser (they will give it to you) in the desert to the east of Dubai. You can even ride camels or stay in an Arabian tent under the stars. The average cost per person for these tours is $75, you can arrange these with the various operators in Dubai.

All these things will take part in making your holiday in Dubai fantastic. Have fun.

Had a great holiday recently for a fraction of the normal price. There are plenty of ex pats now living in Spain who regularly let out their apartments and with flights being so cheap I saved a fortune. I found the apartment I stayed in, which was fantastic, at the following internet address.

The Apartment cost me just £200 per week and there was four of us! The flights from the UK were just £300 given the flew out late at night. So it was a holiday for 4 people costing a total of £500.Often the apartments you rent are somebodies home and as such they are really well looked after, especially as many of the people who own them are now retired. Of course you are expected to look after them and a small breakages deposit was required. In any event I got my deposit of £50 back straight away after the holiday.

We stayed in Benalmadena which was fantastic, it has a great beach, excellent marina and apartments themselves had a pool with water slides.

I can honestly say that given the amount spent we had a great time and to be honest it put much more expensive holidays we have been on in the past to shame – I won’t be going back to a travel agent again!

Today’s traveller has many needs. Among the many needs are travel clocks. These clocks are necessary for obvious reasons even in the day and age of hotel wake up calls. A travel alarm clock is a kinder gentler way to be awakened than the excessively loud hotel room telephones.

Travel clocks now come in all kinds of shapes and sizes so that you can bring them with you and have a little display of personality or a small taste of home. Travel clocks can also offer a method of you keeping your time when traveling rather than relying on the hotel services which are on local time for the area in which you are traveling.You can also involve your children in your travel by allowing them to choose a travel clock for you that will remind you of them every morning, not that you won’t be thinking of them anyway, it’s just a good way to make them feel that they are important to you even when you are away.

We often forget the importance of feeling at home when we are traveling. Little things such as travel clocks, candles, photographs of friends and family can go a long way toward making you feel at home no matter how far away you are. Traveling, especially when traveling on business, can be quite a lonely endeavor. Anything that makes you feel less alone and isolated is a good thing to bring with you when you travel.

Whether you travel often during the course of your business or you only travel for family vacations, good travel clocks will have a huge impact on the way you wake in the mornings and your overall enjoyment of your trip. Make a point of choosing a clock that has an alarm that will wake you in the morning without being overpowering and obnoxious and if you can, choose one that will help you feel much less homesick.