Half-Day Heroes

I've been doing a spot of research since posting about my exciting New Horizons on how to transform the flyBown blog and today I discovered what I think may well be my new favourite travel site.

12HRS is a beautifully designed corner of the internet dedicated to whistle-stop tours in popular destinations. It's a must-see for those of us who love a micro-holiday and want to get under the skin of a city but don't have enough days in their calendar to do it.

This beautifully clean and flowing website was created by Anna Peuckert, a fashion and travel writer from Cologne along with Danish photographer Søren Jepsen (who is also a fan of Eurovision judging by his tweets this month -  and therefore clearly a fine gentleman in my opinion). Jepsen's imagery in particular brings the content to life and is eyewateringly inspiring and emotive.

One of my personal favourites, unsurprisingly, is their 12HRS itinerary for Berlin led by local hipster Herbert Hofmann who is the Creative Director of an über-cool boutique in Kreuzberg. The feature includes a stop for dinner at a little known restaurant called Silberlöffel - after reading about this it's now penciled in for my next trip!

I'm really looking forward to delving further into this superbly innovative take on travel writing and hopefully the team at 12HRS will keep these entertaining reviews flowing in! I'd love to see them whip up a tour of Tallinn or maybe even the great city of Nottingham... If Anna or Søren happen to stumble across these absolute gems I'd be more than happy to be of assistance!

You can jump straight to the 12HRS in Berlin feature by clicking here, or alternatively, see the entire site in all it's glory by heading to http://www.12hrs.net/

New Horizons

Hello...

So far in 2014 this blog has been enjoying a small slice of success and is currently pulling in around 200 views per month. I'm under no illusion that this makes me the next Michael Palin or Bill Bryson, but it is a big deal for me at least. 200 views a month means someone out there must be reading what I put down here and I'm more than happy with that!

If any of you aforementioned visitors happen to be regular readers (I'm a little unsure of this as the frequency of my posts can sometimes leave a little to be desired...) then I have some rather exciting news...

At the end of next month I will be leaving my position at Monarch Airlines to work for another carrier and the great news blog-wise is that I will be working long haul services and actually getting off the aircraft at the other end. I'm not going to divulge exactly who my new employer is as social media and blogging aren't always the happiest bedfellows with corporate companies and a professional career - I'm sure you will understand that! I'm also slightly reluctant to say just yet what destinations I will be visiting as even this could give the game away... But what I will say is that flyBown is gearing up for an exciting new future covering places I never would have dreamed that I would be able to experience!

I'm considering a new layout and design to reflect all of this and I hope you will continue to come back and see what life is like for an international trolley-dolly! I for one can't wait to find out! All that said, I'm also considering writing a few posts on how to manage this kind of work with a happy home life too.

A few months ago this blog celebrated its 6th birthday and in a special post I created an infographic which said that so far I had covered 36 destinations. That list is about to get a whole lot longer...

Here's to the future and remembering that everything happens for a reason.

Thanks for visiting...

Adam

EURADIO!

I have to say when the Beeb announced that they would be running a pop-up radio station purely dedicated to Eurovision this year, I had my doubts... How would they fill 4 days of airtime? Would anyone actually tune in? Is it going to be another half-wash BBC attempt to say they're taking the competition seriously? Et Al...

WOW! I couldn't have been more delighted when BBC Radio 2 Eurovision went live yesterday at noon! The production so far has been super slick with a fantastic schedule. If you haven't given it a listen already - DO IT NOW!! Its GENUINE radio, but for euro-lovers!!

There's been some EXCELLENT live content from Mr Paddy O'Connel from Copenhagen, plus special editions of Sounds of the 60s/70s/80s, commentary of the semi-finals by the incredible Ana Matronic and as I write this, a really interesting show about the Eurovision-Monarchy; ABBA, presented by fellow euro-addict Mr Scott Mills...

They have also created this fabulous Eurovision Playlister on Spotify...

The station is available via the BBC Radio 2 website, the iPlayer Radio app and DAB Digital Radio across the UK from noon - midnight from 8th until 11th May 2014.

Click here to listen!

THANK YOU BBC!!!