Frank's Christian Thoughts: Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza

Saturday, 17 January 2026

Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 57.

Making a comparison between Independent Travel and being on an Escorted Holiday.

As with all good things, this Travel Biography and Photo Extravaganza may have come to completion. Although I featured three single-venue package holidays (Spain 1972, Rhodes 1999, and Lanzarote 2006), my travel career was all about backpacking, mostly on my own, but one trip with my wife, Alex. That was to the Holy Land 2000. The remaining vacations were single-venue breaks to the Greek island of Kos, along with Lanzarote, Sicily and Malta. Here, there is a difference between a single-venue package and an escorted tour. The latter, like backpacking, involves stopping at multiple venues.

The main header photo of this Blogger page is of my beloved Alex posing at the restored Roman columns at the Asklepion, a combined hospital and religious site in Kos, where Hippocrates treated his patients around 400 BC. Here in the UK, every student who graduates to become a medical doctor takes the Hippocratic Oath. Our modified version of the oath had its origin at the Asklepion, where we visited. The site not only had a Temple of Healing, but also wards where patients were cared for, just as in hospitals to this day. Also, like at present, Hippocrates dispensed medicine, mainly of herbs with specific healing properties. However, surgical procedures were forbidden, as he believed that this would desecrate the body.

As this Travel section of my Blogger page was about an individual backpacker, I didn't intend to post photos of single-venue package holidays unless there was something special about them. Such as Spain 1972, being my first trip abroad, independent of my parents. Rhodes 1999 was our honeymoon, and Lanzarote 2006, which I have also included, as the album contains underwater photos as well as some independent travel, as shown below.

Three factors combined eventually caused my backpacking trips to tail off. These were marriage commitment, age, and health. Although it's extremely rare to see an ageing couple don rucksacks and head for the airport, with me, I backpacked well into my late forties, around twice the age of an average traveller. Yet, whenever I open a newspaper, I come across various travel firms such as Saga, Travelsphere, or Titan Travel, among others. These firms specialising in escorted tours cater to a large percentage of the elderly.

I once read a story about a coachload of tourists stopping at the South Rim village of the Grand Canyon. The driver/escort then told all the passengers alighting that they had only twenty minutes to view and admire the Canyon before boarding the coach to move on. Twenty minutes! Indeed, that may be enough, after gasping, Ooh-Ahh! to snap companions standing at the Canyon's edge with the straight line of the North Rim far away behind them. But such a short duration leaves out a stroll through the Village, even to browse through to buy a souvenir. Any time for a short hike? Forget it!

"Wow! I have seen the Grand Canyon!" The tourist may excitedly boast to his work colleagues after arriving home. Seen it? Yes. But experiencing it? Not at all. That's the difference between being on an escorted tour and travelling alone. In 1978, I arrived alone by public bus at the South Rim. While I was there, I was offered a bed for the night at Phantom Ranch on the Canyon's floor, close to where Bright Angel Creek joins the Colorado River. All of a sudden, a hike, which I never thought about, was on my schedule. It meant hiring a rucksack at the Village, as I was totally unprepared on arrival. The two-day hike from Rim to River and back turned from merely seeing the Canyon to experiencing it. Something like that would have been impossible as part of an escorted tour when the escort told us to be back by a certain time.

About to hike the Grand Canyon, 1978.

And so, I am considering finishing this Extravaganza with the second half of our 2006 single-venue package to Lanzarote. Our self-catering apartment was in Puerto de Carmen, and one of my favourite spots while we were there was a little lava cove, Playa Chica, a popular diving and snorkelling site. This week's album carries on straight after the snorkel, then focuses on first, our day trip to Playa Blanca, on the southern tip of the island, and then a ferry crossing to our neighbouring island of Fuerteventura.

How did we do them? For Playa Blanca, we boarded a public bus and alighted at the venue, where we spent the day. One of the striking sights was the tall Saguaro Cactus near the beach. It stood alone, but it was enough to remind me of Papago Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona, which I visited in 1995. Looking out to sea, the northern coast of Fuerteventura was clearly seen, and the resort of Corralejo was just visible, just over 10 km or six miles across the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

On another day, we boarded a small ferry at the port of Puerto de Carmen for a sailing to Corralejo on Fuerteventura. The weather wasn't on our side. It started to rain on Lanzarote, the only wet day we experienced (it was January after all). The sailing was moderately smooth, but we considered ourselves fortunate, and during the sailing, the rain stopped, and the sky began to let the sunshine through. However, not long after we arrived at our neighbouring island, a gale-force wind picked up. This made the Atlantic very choppy, which did not bode well for the return sailing to Puerto de Carmen.

One of the features of Corralejo was the street layout and residential area, having a startling likeness to California. To see this, we walked a little way inland to escape the blast of the gale-force winds, which were whipping up the grains of sand from the beach and onto our faces. During the windy spell, Alex wore a makeshift mask. Yet, I was amazed at the unexpected Californian scenery.

This is why I'm considering making Lanzarote the final venue of this Extravaganza. I saw Lanzarote as the terminus station of all my travel experiences. For example, the backstreets of Corralejo resembled the layout of a Californian residential estate, the Saguaro Cactus reminded me of Arizona, and Playa Chica of both Eilat in Israel and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The basaltic lava reminded me of Mt Etna, which I visited in 1982. The architecture of Avenue Gran Playa reminds me of my visit to Tijuana, Mexico, in 1995, and the castle of Areciffe is a reminder of both the medieval side of Rome, Rhodes and Jerusalem.

However, although I'm considering finishing this collection of photos, our 2011 single-venue package to the Greek island of Kos contains ruins of ancient Greece, photos of the Asklepion, as well as beautiful scenes. But I have not included this vacation in my main Biography, as I don't consider this to be backpacking. Yet, I might consider posting them if I am encouraged to do so. Therefore, I leave next week open to your opinion. Just one response would make a difference.

Thus, if you're able to, do comment in the forum space below. Should I post our pics of the island of Kos? To any of my readers connected to me on Facebook, you can use the comments section under the link.

Photos of Lanzarote, of Playa Blanca and Corralejo, Fuerteventura.