• Question: Good places to travel?

    Asked by anon-199008 to Srinath, Natasha, Nana, Luisa, Gautam, Alex on 7 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Srinath Kasturirangan

      Srinath Kasturirangan answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      Depends on what you want to do!

      Deep sea diving – blue hole, Belize
      Hot air ballooning – over the pyramids in Egypt
      Snorkeling / swimming with seals – Galapagos islands
      See Renaissance and Impressionist paintings – Museums in Paris or Amsterdam
      Cherry blossoms in full bloom – Tidal basin in Washington DC
      Visit a great place for science / technology and innovation – Harvard and MIT in Boston -USA / Oxford, Cambridge – UK
      Eat the best food from all over the world in one city – London!

    • Photo: Natasha Dowey

      Natasha Dowey answered on 7 Mar 2019: last edited 7 Mar 2019 11:09 pm

      My favourite places to travel to are the places with really dramatic scenery, the kind of landscapes that completely blow your mind and make you wonder how it’s even possible! Two of my favourites are in the USA, the Grand Canyon (made by a river cutting through layers of rock over millions of years) and Yosemite (made when a huge magma chamber crystallised inside the Earth’s crust and was later exposed by erosion).
      My favourite coastal place to travel around is Cornwall, where I’m from- there are so many awesome beaches and caves to explore.
      I also love travelling to places with interesting culture- the buildings in Havana in Cuba have amazing architecture. Exploring ancient cultures is really cool- Machu Picchu in Peru is incredible, ancient houses built by the Incan people perched on the top of a mountain.
      I think the process of travelling, of taking yourself of somewhere new, with friends or by yourself, of exploring, is the best bit. In some ways, it doesn’t matter where you go, because if you keep an open mind you’ll always find something good to experience!
      To give you a flavour… Me at the Grand Canyon, and at Machu Picchu!

    • Photo: Alexander Allen

      Alexander Allen answered on 10 Mar 2019:

      Goodness me – what a broad question. Let me answer in a couple of ways. I used to frequent Berlin a lot and I adored it. Not only was the food and drink great, but the city is so packed with character and history. Imagine a city that was a key player from the 30’s to the 90’s as a place of politics, war, peace, protests, humanity and inhumanity. The place an be both chilling and heartwarming and I loved it.

      I also went on a food and drink based holiday (spot the pattern) in Portugal that I adored, we got to visit lots of vineyards and try so much amazing seafood that I occasionally have flash backs to this day.

      I can also talk to you about places that are important to physics. Places that you will end up visiting if you study in this field:
      If you go into Astronomy and are doing work on the ground you need to go to telescopes with very low light pollution. Astronomers get to go to Hawaii and Chile in order to use the telescopes or telescope arrays.

      Particle physics naturally has a bit of a hub at CERN in Switzerland (and some in France). This is a facility that is quite open to interested visitors with some science background. I know that our university tries to organise trips to there when it can happen.

      Travel is great. I wish I made more time for it!

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