There is a huge middle ground between the package tour, as invented by Thomas Cook, and the strenuous expedition, as satirised by Monty Python's Crossing the Andes by Frog.

We call it semi-adventurous travel, and it's what we have been doing ever since we were married, well over a quarter of a century ago. The essence of it is that it's inexpensive and independent, but neither back-pack gruelling, trying to save every penny, pice or pfennig, nor endlessly luxurious.

We've toured South India by motorcycle; we've soaked in Hungarian spas; we've eaten barbecues and drunk (too much) vodka in Poland. We've taken the train from Berlin to Moscow and back, and rented a centuries-old house in Malta. We've driven across the United States seven times, and explored Mexico in our old Peugeot 504.

We set the site up because we found it surprisingly hard to find the sort of information and inspiration we wanted; rather like the reason Roger wrote Motorcycle Touring in Europe in the 1980s, then transformed it into a web-site in the 21st century.

Palms, Goa.

We flew in on a cheap package tour -- then hired a motorcycle, and didn't always stay and eat in the package hotel.

It may also sound like a young person's game. Again, it isn't. Roger was born in 1950, Frances in 1945. Yes, the way we travel has changed over the years, but we still do essentially the same things. And in the Himalayas alone, we remember meeting Hanns-Peter in his 70s, Ruby in her 80s, both travelling a lot rougher than we do. If on the other hand you are young, you may be able to find places where you can save an extra few euros, pounds or dollars. For instance, when middle age strikes and you need a trip to the loo in the middle of the night, it is a great comfort not to have to get dressed and stumble down the corridor. Until then, you may well be able to save up to 50 per cent of the price of a room.

Finally, semi-adventurous travel may sound difficult, but yet again, it isn't, and yet again, if it were, we wouldn't do it. On this site we try to inspire you to do the same sort of thing. The site is free, but we reckon we can teach you how to save a lot of money and (more importantly) how to have a really good time. If that's worth money to you, send us a few dollars (or euros, or pounds)to help support the site.

Dikteion Cave, Crete.

This is the birthplace of Zeus himself. As in Goa (picture above) we had bought a cheap 14-day package holiday and then hired our own transport: in this case, a car. There is an article about car hire. Although we spent about half the trip staying in the package hotel, we spend the other half in another hotel in Chania. If a package is cheap enough, extra hotels need not be expensive, especially if you are travelling out of season. This was in March, and in fact we were there for Frances's birthday. There is an anecode about that in Restaurants (coming soon).

The only real trouble we've had from disease was in China, where the habit of eating from a common bowl is a guarantee that if anyone has a cold or the like, many of the others will soon have it too -- though many of the Chinese themselves are convinced that you don't catch colds this way. We suspect (though we cannot be sure) that it was the debilitating effect of the well-known 'Chinese cold' that weakened Frances's immune system and rendered her susceptible to pseudopolyarthritis rhizomelique (PPR) -- which can however be treated and was a lot better by the time we were writing this.

The porno motel.

This was on the way into Miami, somewhere near the outskirts. We had driven across from the west coast to the east -- a surprisingly dull journey -- and it was getting dark; around the time we needed to start looking for somewhere to eat and sleep. We saw a Peruvian restaurant and thought it would be interesting to try, so we stopped at the next half-reasonable looking hotel.

Most of the hotels in the area offered free XXX-rated movies, but so what? The desk clerk was rather amused at the arrival of a middle-aged woman with a walking stick (the PPR mentioned above) but allowed Frances to inspect the room. She found it clean and decent, for a given value of 'decent' and came back to the car laughing. The multiplicity of mirrors in the room (including over the bed, as you can see in this shot) was one thing; the disco ball light in the corner and the pink glass bar were others. There are more pictures of this motel (and others) in our '1000 Motels' gallery (a homage to the late Frank Zappa).

Sometimes we'll stay in the hotel and read. Quite often, if the weather is any good, we will sit at a sidewalk café and watch the world go by. We tend to take long, relaxing meals, and to get plenty of sleep. We'd be better photographers if we could face getting up at dawn more often, but we can't, so we aren't.

In other words, just as we remain flexible about where we stay and what we eat, we stay flexible about what we do. We normally reckon on the occasional day doing nothing, but it doesn't always work. Once, in late 2007, we actually cut a trip short because the weather was too good. It was in the Spanish Pyrenees, and we had assumed there would be a certain amount of hunting for places to photograph, and the occasional day when the weather was dull and we wouldn't feel like doing much: Roger would read, and Frances would do some embroidery. The weather was perfect the whole time, and we found one superb location after another. After 10 days (we had planned to be away a fortnight/14 days) we were so tired we came home.

Pecs.

Pecs is pronounced 'Petch': 'cs' is always a 'tch' in Hungarian, just as 'c' is always 'ts' and 'gy' is a soft 'g' ('j' sound in 'jam'). This does not make it any easier to understand, but it does make it easier to spell out.