Traveling through the colourful Indian state of  Rajasthan you might find your eyes watering:  women saunter through the streets in vivid saris, farmers sport large bright turbans, elephants are painted in rainbow colours, and even the cities are known for their different shades – Jaipur the pink city, Jodhpur the blue city and Jaiselmer the golden city. Read more

The latest from Venus Adventures Tours for Women – Ethiopia

I am just back from a quick trip to Germany where I went to meet up with Firew Ayele, our Ethiopian guide. Firew is an intelligent, interesting man, who is passionate about his country and people – it is a privilege to have him on a trip, and anyone who meets and spends time with him is usually deeply impressed.
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Venus Adventures have had a request by a client to put on a trip to India in November this year. Julie writes:

India is such a treasure-trove of affordable and beautiful handicrafts, for all your shopaholics out there, it would be a great Xmas-shopping trip! But who needs an excuse to shop, that just comes naturally to us women. India is also historically and culturally very interesting – and we all know that Indian food is just the best!

If you are interested please Venus know asap so  – they need a minimum of 5 clients for it to run. See the 16 day India trip on the website for February 2010, we would use the same itinerary.

Jordan is like a sandpit for adults - a fascinating little Middle Eastern country, with lots of great things to do in and around the sand! Travel distances are not long from one highlight to the next, and a lot of the country can be seen in around 10 days.

My journey started in the capital of Amman. Like any big cities, it is a bustling business centre, a mix of old and new, but not a reflection of the true Jordan. I had arrived very late at night, and slumped into my hotel bed. Suddenly I was rudely awoken at around 3.30am by the dawn chorus of muezzins calling all to prayer. I had failed to notice that my room was right next to the mosque, with loudspeaker aimed at my room! I had to laugh. Yep, my fault for forgetting to put my earplugs in. Welcome to Islam. Read more

Then look no further!!!

Venus Adventures has some GREAT fun trips for women coming up in September, October, November 2009, and now is the time to start thinking about them. There are lots of great air fare specials coming out, so now is also the time to book! Read more

Julie Paterson takes women where they have not been before….  She has steadily added new destinations to the Venus Adventures adventure trips for women, but her particular passion is northern Africa.  She has added Mali as a new destination to the Calendar after her exploration there.  Over New Year join Julie on a challenging African adventure to Timbuktu infamous Festival au Desert, the highlight of our journey. This trip is definitely for the more adventurous – African travel is not always convenient and not always as planned – but very real, very different and very rewarding.

Check out her other trips to Vietnam, Egypt and Ethiopia later this year

Julie Paterson director of Venus Adventures Women’s Travel talks about women’s tours to exotic places. There is even a photo of me and the rest of my Moroccan travel friends dressed up in turbans and lying on carpets….

View the four minute clip here

Julie from Venus Adventures writes: “What! You’re going to Iran?!“ By the way my friends reacted to my announcement that I was going to Iran on holiday, anyone would have thought I had just flung a towel-cum-turban around my head and said that I was off to join Al Qaeda. Read more

A year ago I visited the Afar tribe in Ethiopia. My local guide, Firew, took me into a small, dim reed hut, where inside I could make out a baby lying on a stick and goatskin bed, and in the corner of the hut was a hole in the ground, with smoke rising out of it from a smouldering fire. The baby’s mother wrapped herself in a blanket and then went and sat over the smokey hole. I thought this a bit odd. “What’s she doing?” I asked Firew. “She’s smoking herself” he answered, as though it wasn’t obvious. “Well, yes, but why?!” I assume his brown face went slightly red, when he answered “It’s to purify herself after the birth of her baby…and tighten her private parts…” Read more

The first 2 weeks was spent with a Venus Adventures group in the north of Ethiopia, visiting historic castles, rock-hewn churches, old island monasteries, driving through a patchwork quilt of grain fields, drinking the best coffee in the world and eating delicious Ethiopian food (in fact after the first week of the trip we were wondering how we were going to explain putting on weight in Ethiopia!) Read more