When it comes to travel, cheap accommodation options can help you to save money, but great accommodation will help you to really enjoy your destination. You might be overwhelmed by suggestions of where to go and where to stay. I'm sure you'll have some idea of your dream destination -- but once you get there, where do you sleep? There are a multitude of accommodation options, and your choice will be influenced by both your budget and your inclination. For more see: http://indietravelpodcast.com/preparation/travel-accommodation-options/

Is it safe to travel in Asia? It sure is! But there are risks to mitigate. We give you the low-down on the best health and safety advice for travel in Asia. http://indietravelpodcast.com/travel-safety/health-safety-asia-safe-travel-asia/ This first half of this podcast deals with health concerns, while the second looks at safety and security issues. See the new book at http://travelsafetybook.com/ for more in-depth coverage.

Looking at our highlights from 2011, we realise we have a lot to be thankful for. Most of all, thanks to you — the Indie Travel Podcast Community — for inspiring us, for funding us, for talking to us every day. If it wasn’t for you, Indie Travel Podcast would have died a long time ago. Instead, it’s growing. Listen to this podcast about our travel resolutions for 2012, and how 2011 went for Indie Travel Podcast.

After five years of full-time travel, hosts Craig and Linda Martin take a few minutes to reminisce and highlight some favourite moments from their travels. Highlights include: * Camino de Santiago, Spain * Perth, Australia * Istanbul, Bursa and Cappadocian cities, Turkey * Flitting around Europe - Austria and Czech Republic get a focus each * Couchsurfing in South America * Road-trips in New Zealand * Favourite natural attractions * Favourite man-made attractions For more, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/travel/five-years-fulltime-travel/ or listen to the podcast!

As we travelled using the Eurorail/Eurail Global Pass, we took note of what we would have spent buying point-to-point tickets. Is a Eurail Pass worthwhile, or is it too expensive? Eurorail or Eurail? There's a little confusion over the terms Eurorail and Eurail. Basically, they're two terms for the same thing! The term Eurorail was replaced with Eurail a few years ago, so we're going to stick with that from now on. Our Europe train travel We had a 15-day Global Eurail Pass each, which meant we could travel in any of the countries covered by Eurail on fifteen individual days spread across the two-month validity of the pass. Every day that we wanted to use the pass, we wrote the date in the space provided. Our passes were checked every day that we used them, and usually stamped by the conductor - we'd heard stories of people trying to cheat the system using removable ink on their passes - this isn't going to work anymore.

Jane Meighan set off on her first big adventure at the age of 17, heading to Australia to spend three months there. Her family hadn't travelled a lot, so it was an eye-opening experience for her, and laid the foundations of her love for travel. Since then, she's spent a fair bit of time in Western Europe, visiting friends and enjoying the art - especially the Gaudi museum in Barcelona. As an environmentally conscious person, a comment made by a friend about her carbon footprint made Jane realise how much flying she was doing, and what that was doing to the environment. So she's decided to travel around the world by land and sea. She'll start in Edinburgh, and travel down the UK to catch a boat to Amsterdam before travelling slowly through Eastern Europe. The Trans-Siberian train will take her across Russia, and she'll travel by cargo ship from Shanghai to the States and from the other side of the States back to the UK after cross-country trip. Although Jane has got the big picture sorted out, she plans to organise the details as she goes along. A bit of research has of course helped a lot - she knows, for example, that it's a lot cheaper to buy trans-Siberian tickets in Moscow than book them from the UK. She'll use point-to-point tickets in Eastern Europe, buying as she goes to keep her options open.

La Tomatina is a giant tomato fight that’s held every year in Buñol, Spain, on the last Wednesday of August. There’s celebrations all week, but most people go just to throw tomatoes at each other, and this year we joined in the fun. We had a great time, but as always we learned a fair bit about what we could have done better. What we did right Arrived early Although the fight starts at 11am, you can’t get there at 10am and hope to be part of the action. The smart people are in the main square at 8am – we didn’t make it that early but we were there by nine. Didn’t prepare too much but knew where we were going We travelled by train, and we knew that the train we wanted left from San Isidre station and not from Valencia Nord, the main station in the centre of town. The night before, we worked out how to get to that station (by metro) and we got there as soon as we could. We’d tried to find out about train times, but couldn’t – which didn’t matter anyway, since there was a crowd waiting at the station and everyone just had to wait until the next train, whenever it might be. In Buñol, we followed the crowd to the main square, but we knew we wanted to be in sight of the ham, so we squirmed through until we could see it. We had a great spot which ensured we were part of the action. Wore sensible (and disposable) clothing Despite the fact that one of the few rules of La Tomatina is “don’t rip t-shirts” a lot of people lost the shirts off their backs. We wore shirts that we wouldn’t mind losing – in fact Linda’s was one wear away from the bin in any case, so she threw it out afterwards. Linda wore shorts with a zip pocket for a credit card, train ticket and a bit of cash, and bought a pair of cheap sunglasses instead of wearing her hat. Craig wore swimming trunks with a deep pocket. We both wore sneakers instead of flip flops. This was definitley a good idea, we saw hundreds of flip flops floating on the tide of tomato, and many people were shoeless at the end of the event. Washing our shoes wasn’t fun, but it was better than losing them. Didn’t take too much We didn’t take a bag with us. There just isn’t room in a crowd like that, and it would likely have been stolen. We took a cheap camera which we tried to waterproof, and a video camera that now needs a bit of love. We also took a plastic bag with some croissants in it, but we bought water when we arrived. There was plenty of food available, but we enjoyed having our croissants on the train. Were in a good mood Being in a good frame of mind is essential to enjoy La Tomatina. Some people were angry about being pushed around or having wine poured on their heads, others panicked when the crowd were too dense. We tried to relax and enjoy ourselves (and practise deep breathing occasionally) and left with a positive view of things. For more information, and to find out what we did wrong, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

Whether you call it a career break, gap year, or a sabatical, the movie Eat, Pray, Love has certainly created a lot of buzz around the idea of taking extended time off to travel the world. And, of course, that's something we approve of! One person fomenting the career break discussion is Sherry Ott from Briefcase to Backpack and one of the leading figures behind Meet, Plan, Go - a North American event with meetings around the US and Canada to help people find career break opportunities themselves. In this interview we talk with Sherry Ott about her own journey, about career break travel, and about Meet, Plan, Go. For more information and links, visit http://indietravelpodcast.com

Ever wanted to travel to China? This week we speak with Coley Dale who has been living and travelling in China for seven years. Coley describes a China of amazing diversity, both physically and culturally. We talk about China's most well-known cities, then head west to get away from the big smoke and into the countryside. We discuss Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan and Xianjing as well as budgets for travel in China and visas for China travel. Coley Dale is the Senior Manager of cTrip's English website and has offered his advice with your China travel planning. All photos are from Coley's Flickr account. For more visit http://indietravelpodcast.com/podcast/travel-china-interview-independent-travel-china