Older travelers in England have been pleased to learn that from April 1, they'll be able to travel on local bus services for free. The free travel applies during off peak hours, all weekend and for two full weeks over Christmas, and a survey's already suggested bus use among pensioners will increase by at least a quarter as a result.

Hilary Bradt, the founder of Bradt Travel Guides, the publishers of books usually related to exotic destinations like Madagascar or Kyrgyzstan, is one of the Brits who's very pleased about the new scheme. To celebrate, she's planning an April trip from Land's End to Lowestoft--which means from England's most westerly point to the most easterly--using only the free bus services.

She thinks traveling across England for free like this will take about a week, covering about 370 miles. Sure, it's slow, but it's also free. And in Britain you can pay a lot of money for a slow, late transport service.

Related Stories:
· Pensioners Given Free Bus Travel [BBC]
· England Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: lemoncat1]
]]> amandak 2008-03-24T10:30:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/9/10/11217/3391

We love the outdoors and that makes it easy to love zorbing. And while the standard issue experience of rolling down a hill at 30 miles per hour in a massive plastic sphere is pretty extreme, the folks at Sphere Mania have taken the sport to a whole new level.

The UK zorbing company offers the traditional harness sphereing, where two people are strapped into the ball before being rolled down a hill, as well as a more unique way to zorb: Aqua sphereing. The wet and wild roll puts up to three people in a water-filled zorb where they'll slide and splash as the ball travels down the hill.

Related Stories:
· Zorbing coverage [Jaunted]
· Sphere Mania [Official Site]]]> jnaw 2007-09-11T11:20:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/8/23/112843/709

Pack carefully when you're flying in and out of the UK: the latest stats report that 30 million bags a year go missing, which means yours has plenty of opportunities to end up lost. Apparently 85% of these bags do reach their owners within 48 hours, but the law states that if the bag and owner don't catch up within 3 months, the bag can be handed over to an auction house.

For some reason, it works like this: shoes, appliances and valuables are removed from the cases and sold separately; the rest of the contents--dirty underwear included--are sealed into the case and the cases are auctioned off "lucky dip" style. If you've been parted with your luggage (which is most likely to happen at Heathrow), you might want to try the Greasbys or Wellers auction houses to get it back--or to pick up an interesting replacement.

Related Stories:
· Lost Luggage Auctions [UK Times]
· Heathrow's In Chaos [Jaunted]

[Photo: Silvferduk]]]> amandak 2007-08-24T09:30:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/7/12/3143/00033

Great Britain just got its biggest casino with the opening last week of Isle Casino Coventry. It's the first overseas casino for the Isle of Capri Casinos gang who are gambling on Brits being big gamblers. A cascading indoor waterfall, 30 slot machines, a 12-table poker room, and 50 roulette stations fill the 100,000 square feet of the new casino.

Coventry, England's ninth largest city and nearly a hundred miles northwest of London, was until now famous for being further from the coast than any other British city. Whether its fortunes will go up or not with the new Isle casino might just be a matter of chance.

Related Stories:
· Isle Casino at Coventry Opens [CNN]
· Casinos coverage [Jaunted]
· Coventry hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: lopolis] ]]> amandak 2007-07-12T08:47:47-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/