For a truly exciting, spontaneous and liberating experience, hit the road for a road trip with no predetermined destination.

Pack a bag, grab your camera and favorite cd’s or Ipod, pick up your best friend(s) and hit the road to explore new places.

A road trip with no predetermined destination is a great example of that phrase: “It’s not where you’re going but who you’re going with, and how you get there.” Nothing feels better than getting in a car with no plan and just driving. You will learn new things and see new places. You learn amazing things about what is important to you. You learn how to let go. You learn how to be open to newness and strangeness. You learn to trust your instincts. And you will return home with some great stories and a warm little secret feeling about yourself and what you saw.

Tips

• Take plenty of different types of symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>music. Everyone needs a soundtrack to their adventure.
• Stop at all the scenic spots along the way.
• Make sure you take a camera and make plenty of photos to document your adventure.
• You don’t need a lot of money. Sleep in your car, make phone calls to friends that live in the area, make friends in the area, or take a tent! Camping is free or very cheap.
• Stop along the way and talk to the locals.
• Get off the highways and take the back roads and detours.
• Pack your sense of adventure, be open to anything and have fun. You have no schedule, you have no obligations, you have no limitations. This is your chance to just wander.

Whether you go for just a weekend or a couple of a weeks, a road trip with no set destination is a fantastic experience which you wont forget. Get out there and start driving!

For a truly authentic pizza experience you have to eat a pizza in Italy – the home of pizza.

Pizza falls into two distinct categories: Italian pizza and pizza from everywhere else. It might seem ridiculous considering the basic ingredients, but one taste of a true Italian pizza and you will never feel the same about pizza’s again.

The best Italian pizza’s are made in a traditional pizza oven, fired by wood. The burnt edge of the pizza crust shows where it got close to the flames. Because it takes a long time to get the oven ready, frequently pizza is only served at dinner.

While the Pizza Margherita may be the classic Italian pizza, each region in Italy produces their own distinct pizza variations based on the Italian culinary rule of fresh, local ingredients. Pizza Marinara, a traditional Neapolitan pizza has oregano, anchovies and lots of garlic. Pizza Napoli Tomato mozzarella and anchovies. Capricciosa: a topping of mushrooms, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, olives and half a boiled egg! Pizza Pugliese makes use of the local capers and olives of the area while Pizza Veronese has mushrooms and tender Prosciutto crudo. Pizzas from Sicily can have numerous toppings ranging from green olives, seafood, hard-boiled eggs and peas. Of course there are hundreds more pizza variations around Italy to experience.

When ordering a pizza in an Italian pizzeria one thing to keep in mind is that the product is personal size. Each person should order their own individual pizza – one bite will explain why! In certain places outside Italy, there are a few piazzioli who keep to their homeland traditions as best they can with the ingredients they have, but it really isn’t the same. In the end there is no going back once you try a real Italian pizza, no delivery or frozen product will ever stimulate your taste buds the way a real pizza will. An authentic wood fire baked pizza in Italy is something every pizza lover should experience.

The legendary status of Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee makes visiting an essential experience. When you visit Sun Studio, “the birthplace of rock n’ roll” you’ll step back in time to 1954, the year that a then-unknown singer named Elvis Presley recorded his first hit, “That’s All Right (Mama),”.

Sam Phillips opened the Sun Recording Studio in 1950. However he probably never guessed at the worldwide impact his business venture would produce. He could not have known that his recording studio would be the birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll, as cutting edge symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musicians of the 1950s fused Blues and Country to create a unique and revolutionary new sound.

Today, you can see Elvis Presley’s first microphone along with memorabilia illustrating the rich symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musical legacy of Sun Studio Records. You can also hear outtakes of recording sessions at Sun Studio. Among the other well-known performers whose careers were launched at the Memphis Sun Studio are Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, Howlin’ Wolf and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

These people created a new sound in the Studio. It had the beat, the soul and especially the attitude that came to be called Rock N’ Roll. Sun Studio gave the world some of its early rock ‘n’ roll hits, including “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis and “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins.

More than 50 years after it was founded, Sun Studio remains an active recording studio, and if you want to try and follow in the footsteps of these symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musical greats, you can even cut your own single. You will be taken into a sound booth in the control room of the studio where you put on headphones and sing your lyrics into a microphone. Your lyrics will be burnt into background symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>music and put on a personalized CD with the Sun Studio label and your name and song imprinted on it.

Sun Studio’s important symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musical heritage and collection of one-of-a-kind memorabilia make it an unforgettable stop for visitors to Memphis.

If you’re a die hard Elvis Presley fan you have to visit his legendary home, Graceland. A tour of Graceland is a one of a kind experience that will lead you on Elvis’s fascinating journey to superstardom. You’ll experience the cultural changes that led to the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll and see, first-hand, how Elvis became the most celebrated entertainer in the world.

Located in Memphis, Tennessee, Graceland is a14 acre (5.6 hectare) estate which Elvis bought in 1957 for $100,000. He moved both his parents and grandmother in to Graceland to share his new found fame and fortune at the ripe old age of 22. Today around 750,000 visitors a year pass through the front door, and its easy to see why.

Graceland takes you on an incredible journey through the life of Elvis. The mansion tour consists of the living room, symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>music room, Elvis’s parents’ bedroom, the dining room, kitchen, TV room, poolroom, “jungle” den and annex in the main house. Behind the house, you can tour Elvis’s racquetball building and his original business office, a museum of Elvis’ automobiles, personal planes used by the King and a variety of other displays and multimedia experiences. Another highlight is Elvis’s trophy building, which houses his enormous collection of gold records and awards, along with an extensive display of career mementos, stage costumes, jewellery, photographs, and much more. A fitting finale to a Graceland ‘pilgrimage’ is viewing Elvis’ grave located in the Meditation Garden. The grave may or may not contain the body of Elvis, you will have to decide.

Elvis still holds the title of the world’s biggest recording star, having sold over a billion records. With a sound and style that uniquely combined his diverse symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musical influences and blurred and challenged the social and racial barriers of the time, he ushered in a whole new era of American symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>music and popular culture, which rightly earned him the title “King of Rock and Roll”.

Whether you’re a fan of Elvis or just curious as to how the King lived, you have to go to Graceland. Its an experience you wont forget.

If your into martial arts consider enrolling in Asia’s ultimate boot camp at Deng Feng, China’s Kung Fu capital and home of the famous Shaolin monks. The Shaolin Temple in Henan, known in the martial arts world as the birthplace of kung fu and home to the famed “fighting monks,” welcomes foreigners to train in its martial arts classes.

There are around 50 schools in the Shaolin and Deng Feng area with thousands of students training from dawn to dusk. The largest school, Tagou, has 10,000 students. The Shaolin Monastery Wushu Institute at Tagou is foreigner-friendly, with an English-speaking office that can help to arrange travel, lodging, and training. They provide a serious course in one of the most serious martial art forms out there, Shaolin-style fighting. This form of fighting began over a thousand years ago with the monks of the Shaolin Temple. You can train at the Shaolin Temple for a few weeks or a few years. Some children start as young as six years old, most hoping to be the next Hong Kong martial arts movie star!

The Shaolin way of life is spiritual and regimented and a training session gives you a whole new respect for this intense discipline. If you’re not up to the physical demands of trying Kung Fu yourself, the demonstrations by the Shaolin monks are amazing. They leap into the air, balance on blades, break bricks and pretty much defy anything you’ve thought was humanly impossible.

From April 13 – 15 each year Thailand celebrates Thai New Year or Songkran. And the defining feature of Songkran is the throwing of water – when the whole country erupts into the worlds biggest free-for-all water war zone. People roam the roads with containers of water or water guns, or post themselves beside the road with a garden hose and drench others and passers-by while pick-up trucks loaded with barrels of water and little kids with giant squirt guns patrol the streets. Nobody is immune from a splashing, with everyone young and old drenching each other. Its all great fun and fantastically refreshing as April is the hottest month in Thailand.

This modern version of the festival however come from ancient tradition. Songkran was traditionally a time to visit and pay respects to elders, including family members, friends and neighbours. The purity of water is supposed to wash away bad luck and negative emotions, and bring renewal. The true spirit of Songkran is expressed in a gentle pouring of perfume- or flower-scented water, on the shoulder or down the back of the neck for social equals, and usually over the palms for those situated above you, followed by a blessing. Besides throwing water, families also flock to temples to pray, give food to monks and bathe Buddha statues. In some towns the holiest Buddhas are paraded around town so people can bathe the images – bringing good luck and prosperity for the New Year.

Nowadays however the main emphasis of Thai New Year is more about fun and water-throwing rather than the festival’s spiritual and religious aspects. Though traditionalists lament the degradation and commercialisation of the holiday, ancient traditions do remain close to most people’s hearts, especially in smaller towns.

Songkhran is also celebrated at the same time in Laos (called pi mai lao or ‘Lao New Year’ in Lao), Cambodia, Myanmar (where it is called Thingyan), and by the Dai people in Yunnan, China. However the most feverish water skirmishes remains in Thailand especially in places like Chiang Mai or Khao San Road in Bangkok. So if you want to get wet and experience the largest water fight on the planet don’t miss Songkran.