A4tripians are always trying their best to provide a comprehensive and yet affordable guide and of course other than that, we are trying hard to break the language barrier. After few weeks time of translation, we are happy to announce that Phnom Penh guide now is available in French Version.

Big credit goes to Chinseng, Lina, Marie Claude, and Nicholas. *clap clap*

Pssst…. Phnom Penh in Simplified Chinese is coming up too!

Buy & Download Phnom Penh Guidebook here!

A4trip has always made it its goal as a guidebook organization to make travel more enjoyable and enriching. We know that travelers all around the world need to have the best-laid plans if they are to get the best out of their trip and a4trip is dedicated especially to make sure that happens, wherever you come from or whatever language you speak. The fact the a4trip’s website now comes in Persian serves to further emphasize that point. This new addition joins over 25 other languages that are available for a4trip from Vietnamese to Swedish; and works are in progress to add more languages in our aim to be truly multilingual.

Visit www.a4blog.com and www.a4friends.com to find out more of our multilingual goals and other catchy side stories that are sure to pique your attention. In these sites you will find stories that will provide you with insights into traveling overseas such as what cuisines to savor to what basic words that would be good to know a foreign land. This and much more are just mouse-clicks away!

If you have any inquiries or want more information about our services please visit our website. You may just be making the best choice in starting your journey to wherever you may be heading.

Just to let everyone have a little sneak peak of what’s coming up within the next few weeks. a4tripians are working hard to make sure that more travel guides are going to be released and ready for sale by these coming weeks. So, that means more varieties of travel guides (in terms of different places and different languages) will be available for everyone’s convenience.

So, guidebooks that are currently ready and on sale are:

Cambodia - Siem Reap English Travel Guide

Cambodia - Pnom Penh English Travel Guide

Also, we have just launched our:

Indonesia - Yogyakarta English Travel Guide

Apart from these which are already launched and on sale, we have a few draft travel guides on sale such as:

Cambodia - Siem Reap French Travel Guide (Draft Version)

China - Beijing English Travel Guide (Draft Version)

China - Beijing Chinese Travel Guide (Draft Version)

Of course, there are other travel guides which aren’t ready yet as some of them are still under the proof reading stage. For example:

Cambodia - Siem Reap Japanese Travel Guide
Vietnam - Hanoi English Travel Guide

With all these goodies coming out soon, it looks like Christmas might be arriving a little earlier than expected

Over the past few years, the waves of cheap airline have been growing and aimed at conquering the traditional airlines market. Cheap flights such as Air Asia, Jetstar, etc are getting popular. Everyone can enjoy the convenience of booking the airline tickets online.

Air Asia from Malaysia is the pioneer of low cost traveling in Asia. It has recently launched a ZOOM promotion. What’s so special about this promotion is that it offered fares that are as low as RM9* one-way from Kuala Lumpur hub to exciting domestic destinations. According to AirAsia’s Regional Head of Commercial, Kathleen Tan, the launch of the ZOOM promotion was a mark of support to the Tourism Ministry’s effort to promote domestic tourism. The booking period for this promotion begins on 28 July – 5 August 2008 for the travel period of 1 September – 13 November 2008. Find out more of the promotion. Also, the AirAsia X’s network focus cover destinations which are more than 4 hours in flight duration from Kuala Lumpur.

FireFlyz is Malaysia’s first community airline and is wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian Airline System Berhad. It currently offer extra flights for Subang – Kota Bharu from 29 & 30 september to 3,4,5 &6 of Otober. One could save more if purchase the airline ticket together with the package of the destinations.

Tiger Airways is based in Singapore, with its primary hub at Singapore Changi Airport. It offers a series of real cost savings Tiger Add-On products such as Luggage Upsize, Sports Equipment Check-in and Seat Selector. These Tiger Add-Ons are designed to ensure passengers can enjoy more convenience, assurance and comfort.

Jetstar Asia is based in Singapore. Jetstar Asia Airways and Valuair merged on 25th July 2005. Both airlines operate out of Singapore and fly to most major cities in South-east Asia. Valuair is now having a promotion from Singapore to Medan, Indonesia from S$128. The newly launched ‘Booklovers on Board’ programme provide a selection of short story books that are recommended by the Singaporean National Library Board as part of its nationwide READ! Singapore campaign. Books will remain on board till the end of August 2008.

Lion Air had the largest market share in Indonesia and was once the official airlines for Miss Asean in 2005. It served various domestic destinations and international destination including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Ho Chi Minh City. Besides, Adam Air is a privately owned airline based in Jakarta, Indonesia. It marketed itself as an airline that is in-between low-cost and traditional carriers by offering onboard service with meal at competitive price. This is an advantage that make it outstand from others. Citilink is another airline company based in Indonesia. You could booking the tickets online for domestic destinations - Balikpapan, Bandung, Batam, Jakarta, Medan, Pekanbaru and Surabaya.

Cebu Pacific Air is based in Manila, Philippine. It is the nationl flag carriers. It scheduled flights to both domestic and international destinations in clude Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. Air Philippines transfers to terminal 3 starting 24th of July 2008. All arrival and departure of Air Philippines and Pal Express will be at the NAIA Terminal 3. It served for domestic destination in Philippine.

Bangkok Airways is a regional airline based in Bangkok, Thailand. It scheduled services to 20 destinations include Thailand, Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. Apart from that, there are Nok Air and One Two Go airline served for domestic destinations in Thailand.

Siem Reap Airways is based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with hubs at Bangkok International Airport and Angkor International Airport, Siem Reap. It operates services at both domestic and international destinations including China, Laos and Thailand.

Tips when booking cheap airline tickets
Book early
Book as earlier as you can. Some budget airlines only allow booking the next three-month, so you should book within the limitation. Besides, some airline companies also used tiered pricing strategy where a small number of airline tickets are sold at a cheap price while the rest will be charged at a higher price.

Fly during the week
During the weekends or the school holidays period, the price of the flight tickets will increase considerably. There is bound to be crowded too. So try to depart and return during the week. It can save you lots of money.

Get to the airport on time
Most budget airline companies will try to reduce number of employees in order to save costs and provide cheap flight tickets to customers. This means that check-in staffs do double-checking as gate staffs. So be sure to get you more time to get to the airport.

Try the conventional airlines
Many conventional airlines sometimes offer cheaper flight tickets than the low cost carrier.

Baggage allowances
Additional fees will be charge on you if your bag has exceeded certain kilograms.

Be sure to check where you are going
Some low cost flights will be landed in the airport that is far away from your final destination.

Sources: asiaforvisitors, Budget airline tips from the BBC in Shropshire

Traveling is memorable, it sticks to your mind for a long time, and follows you through the rest of your life. That is how strong a memory could last. And while these traveling memories are still clear and in your mind, how about sharing it with everyone who are interested to hear about it.

We know that there are many out there eager to hear about your travel stories, not only giving good credits for the destination you enjoyed, also giving the opportunity for many of us to experience the joy that you took pleasure in.

Please do drop us your travel stories at support@a4trip.com, probably along with a picture or two, and allow your story to enlighten many of us. You might just make someone’s day.

This month, we proudly launched our first translated version of a4trip.com website in Basque and Vietnamese. You can see the full list of languages, or change your language settings, from the language selector in the header on any page.

Our goal is to support a4trip.com in 24 languages or more. With this goal, we’ve received response from several of our a4friends who want to help translate a4trip.com into their native languages. The most important factor in all of this has been the hardworking communities that spend their time getting a4trip.com ready to be used in every language across the world. Without them, this process would be much more difficult. We’re working hard to continue to open even more languages for translation, so stay tuned.

After the official declaration of The New 7 Wonders in Lisbon last year, you are now given chance to participate in the second campaign, vote for The New 7 Wonders of Nature.

Among the top 10 candidates, Philippines has 4 of them. These candidates including:

Tubbataha Reef
Atoll coral reef in the Sulu Sea which is composed of two atolls, North and South Reefs. There are over a thousand species including those are endangered can be found here.

The Chocolate Hills
An unusual geological formation in Bohol. Spreading over an area of more than 50 square kilometers, the 1,200 hills of about the same size are covered in green grass. However, the hills will turn brown during the dry season, hence called The Chocolate Hills.

Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park
Located in Palawan and features a spectacular limestone karst landscape with an underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the South China Sea.

Mayon Volcano
Situated on the island of Luzon, Mayon Volcano is an active stratovolcano. Known as the most active volcano in Philippines, having erupted over 47 times in the past 400 years.

The cute Beijing Olympic Mascots (start from left: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, Nini)

23 days to go… Countdown for Beijing Olympic Games from 16th of July!

The Games-time version of the Beijing Olympic Games official website finally launched yesterday. The official website served as a channel for different nations around the world to get the latest news about the Olympic Games. In order to suit different nations’ languages need, the official website is available in five languages, they are Chinese, English, french, Spanish, and Arabic.

Even if you could not witnessed the progress of games at live, you could still get the informations of the game in real-time just like you were present in the live games.
This Games-time website aims at spreading real-time news declared by authoritative sources like Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), International Olympic Committes (IOC), national and regional Olmpic committees. Besides, viewers could also witness the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. It also reported live game progress, competition schedules, interviews from sport stars, social celebrities, Olympic officials, and many more.

For spectators that would witness the games at live, this website provide comprehensive informations like E-maps which cater to any destinations within the certain areas, details of accommodations, guides to the host city, accessible services, transports, etc. It provides conveniences for spectators which will encourage their arrival and assist them in many ways.

In order to make the whole Olympic Games progress a success, the Beijing has spent much efforts in the preparations for the coming games. They spent so much time to build the National Stadium (known as Bird’s Nest) , a satisfactory stage for athletes from all around the world. They also built the 37 Olympic venues of high standard to provide a comfortable space for the athletes and spectators. (So much places and building has been built, can’t name them all.)

To let the world know the real Beijing, the government has devote themselves to preserve the charm of Beijing, like the Purple Forbidden City and the Great Wall, cleaning and beautified the city, design the mascots, and many more. Each mascots has a story behind. Find out more at Official Mascots of Beijing Olympic. The Beijing government also drafted plans for emergencies during the events and a series of security systems to prevent unfortunate events.

To organize the big event of the world, Olympic Games, at the same time promote the tourism in the country, China has spent greatest efforts with time, money, human resources, materials, etc included to let the world see a different China and make them changing their views on China. China’s people will definitely proud of China in terms of their languages and cultures. Anticipating the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games! Cheers!^^

Find out more details at The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.