The 19th Norway International Meeting and Travel Fair - Reiseliv 06 - opened its doors to the trade on Thursday 12 January 2006 with more exhibitors and a larger area than ever. A stronger professional programme was also offered at the show. HM Queen Sonja of Norway attended the opening cermony. This arrangement is something for everyone! The exhibition was represented with more than 1000 exhibitors from over 60 nations. 8000 visited Reiseliv 06 and hopefully they got some inspirations and found a travel company who could make their dreams become true!

On Tuesday 03.01.2006 Rune Gjeldnes broke another Norwegian Børge Ousland's solo ski record from 1997. So far on Rune`s expedition The Longest March, he has been skiing solo 62 days and 2845 kilometres. On Rune`s record day, he kept on for several hours more, and made a total distance of 140 kilometres this day, but this is not the end of the walk. Rune is aiming for more. In few days he hopes to break another record held by some other Norwegians....

Discovery of an ancient village just outside Jerusalem has brought into question one of the strongest images of biblical times - the wholesale flight of Jews running for their lives after the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

We are ready for more assignments. For editors in newspaper and magazines, PR agencies, tourism organisations and tour operators, we in the global travel guide Travel Explorations would like to inform that we have a wide network of journalists world wide. These are more than willing to write exciting and inspiring stories about places for unique adventures. Some are presented on our website, and other would be presented based on requests. As the travel market is becoming increasingly globalized, the marketing factor "visibility" is of growing importance, especially from the strategic perspective. Therefore we in Travel Explorations has continuously given high priority to publish breaking news, exciting articles and travel offers. For example, how big response from travellers do you think will achieve as a tour operator based on news reports, features articles and travel tales?

The Seven Summits represent the highest peaks on the seven continents. The seven summits are Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid, Mt. Vinson and Mount Everest. This mountain is one of the Seven Summits. It's the tallest in Antarctic and for Cecilie it will be her sixth of the 7 Summits (www.7summits.com). Together with Rolf, Inge and Simon, Cecilie will make an attemp reaching the top of Mount Vinson.

On the 31st December 2005, the Norwegian expedition Team Inge manage to reach the Geographical South Pole too. It took them 38 days to make it. In history only 13 Norwegiand have managed to reach the South Pole from the "coast", unsupported! So it is a very special list they have joined. And it starts with the famous Norwegian Roal Amundsen! The wellknown Norwegian tour operator Hvitserk is organising this and another expedition to the South Pole. The other expedition reached the South Pole 27 December this year (2005).

It`s called the biggest party in the world. The Rio Carnival 2006 starts on 25 February and ends 4 days later, so be ready for the big show! During this time the city will explode in joy and music. There are hundreds of street festivities and bands everywhere. Especially be aware of the gigantic party at the sambodrome parade. Nothing compares!

Reports about a Bigfoot being viewed in Kota Tinggi has attracted the attention of both locals as well as the media. Three workers who were building a fishpond in Kampung Mawai claimed they saw a huge furry creature, standing almost 2,5 metres tall. Malaysia Nature Society (MNS) Johor branch member Vincent Chow said an MNS member who happened to be there, found a huge footprint, between 40 cm and 50 cm long, in the mud.

It`s a popular myth that Eskimos have several hundred of words for snow. The more correct name on this people is Inuits, as they would like to be called. Everybody would like to believe this amazing story, but it`s not true according to the researchers Laura Martin. This is well documented in Geoffrey Pullum`s book The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. The idea that Eskimos have so many words for snow has its origin from that people believed Eskimos viewed snow very differently than people with other cultural background.

It`s an around the world race earlier known as the Whitbread race, but has now become the Volvo Ocean Race. The winner of the Volvo Ocean Race will be the team on the boat with most points when they finnish in Gothenburg after circa 6 months from today. For the first time in its long history, the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06 starts from Spain in the province Galicia. There are 9 legs to sail: Leg 1 to Cape Town, leg 2 to Melbourne, leg 3 To Wellington, leg 4 to Rio de Janeiro, leg 5 to Baltimore, leg 6 to New York, leg 7 to Portsmouth, leg 8 to Rotterdam, and leg 9 to Gothenburg. It`s long way to sail and many challenges to deal with! Today Monday 2nd January starts the second leg.....

Which countries and regions are most risky? How can travellers deal with in today's travel environment? Which precautions should be taken? In the previous years there has been several disasters around the world as the threat of avian flu, Ebola, AIDS, wars, violent demonstrations, a massive earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia, the Haitang typhoon in Southeast China and Taiwan, Hurricanes in America, bomb attacks in London, Bali and Amman, and the devastating earthquake in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. So many dramatic incidents have happened in a short time that it seems that travellers should be prepared for dealing with unexpectable situations. That`s the life of travelling today. The only things which is normal is the unexpectable!

"Happy New Year!" to you all around the world. That greeting will be said and heard for the first weeks as the new year gets under way. Especially we want to thank our readers and business partners for the old year, and wish the new year welcome. Regarding travelling we in Travel Explorations wish the best for adventure travellers and hope they will be able to achieve new unique experiences in the new year. Hopefully the environment will be safer and more predictable in the coming year. Our New Year's Resolution for 2006 is something we want share with others.

We in Travel Explorations wish you all a Merry Christmas. Christmas is celebrated in different ways around the world. The Christmas Day is a time for relaxing and fun. Merry Christmas is expressed different around the world. Some examples are: Afrikaans: Gesëende Kersfees, Arabic: Milad Majid, Argentine: Feliz Navidad, Brazilian: Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo, Chinese Cantonese: Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun, Chinese Mandarin: Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan, Columbia: Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo, Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok, Danish: Glædelig Jul, Eskimo: (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo, Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad, Finnish: Hyvaa joulua, French: Joyeux Noel, German: Froehliche Weihnachten, Icelandic: Gledileg Jol, Norwegian: God Jul, or Gledelig Jul, Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo, Sami: Buorrit Juovllat, Spanish: Feliz Navidad, Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År! Independent of how "Merry Christmas" it`s said, it means happiness. So in this way we hope Christmas can bring people closer together, and be helpful for those people who need it most.

Finally the snow has come and the Christmas atmosphere in the Norwegian capital Oslo raise to great heights. What would a Christmas be in Oslo without snow? Few capitals have longer winter than Oslo. It's surrounded by forest, mountains and the fjord. Some of Norway's great winter sites are Voss, Beitostølen, Gålå, Wadahl, Geilo, Hemsedal, Kvitfjell, Hafjell, Lillehammer, Lofoten and Tromsø, but in the outskirts of Oslo city centre there are great opportunities for skiing too. Our photos today show the winter wonderland of Oslo in the Christmas preseason. Famous sites and building as Akershus Fortress, Aker Brygge waterfront, the City Council, the main street Karl Johans Gate, the Nobel Peace Prize Institute and the Royal Palace, look all mysterious in the magic sun light.

After marching for nearly a month the Team Rolf-Cecilie finally reached the Geographical South Pole! The wellknown Norwegian tour operator Hvitserk is organising this expedition. Nobody has ever gone to the South Pole using this route and the area is totally unexplored. There are no maps and no good satellite pictures of this area. The Norwegian lady climber Cecilie Skog has now reached another milestone in her life: reaching the South Pole, but this is not the end of her journey. Cecilie`s aim is also to reach the top of Mount Vinson before she returns to Norway in the end of January. This mountain is one of the Seven Summits. It's the tallest in Antarctic and for Cecilie it will be her sixth of the 7 Summits.