After more than 11 years, I’ll be returning to Vienna soon. I remember from my last visit a beautiful restaurant with columns and stunning vaulted ceilings near the "Am Hof" square, but unfortunately, I’ve forgotten its name. Does anyone have any idea which restaurant I’m talking about?

I can't find the "Add a photo" button anymore. How do I do it?

Bonjour ,

Je n'arrive plus à accéder aux rubriques " derniers messages " ou " dernières discussions " , on m'affiche " désolé , votre recherche n'a donné aucun résultat " .

Et si je veux voir les messages d'un membre du forum je n'ai accès qu'aux (très ) anciens messages , pas aux plus récents.

Même problème depuis environ 15j.

Bonjour ,

Moi c'est beaucoup plus récent .

Le fonctionnement n'était déjà pas pratique mais là on ne peut plus voir les nouveaux messages qui n'ont pas encore eu de réponses , ni les forums qui n'apparaissent pas dans la rubrique " en cours " , c'est le cas du concours photo , du forum croisières , compagnons de voyage, etc....

Hi, Without changing anything in "my settings," I no longer receive email notifications when a PM arrives or when one of my public posts gets a reply. (I don’t have any followed threads)

Is this a temporary glitch or has the feature been removed?

Hi, I started a thread about Afghanistan.

Out of 4 pages, more than half had nothing to do with the country/topic. The mods closed the thread—why not ban off-topic members and clean it up instead? Instead of closing a thread that had 2 REALLY interesting videos! Because in my thread, there will be more videos to come...

If you close it as soon as a few members go off-topic, letting some former prostitute who’s never set foot in the country tell a guy who spent 10 days there what’s true or not about Afghanistan...

If all the anti-Taliban folks tell you *Le Figaro* or others do a better job than this YouTuber... LOL Journalists often haven’t even been there—they just copy each other or write articles via ChatGPT... *Le Figaro*, for example, gets millions in subsidies to churn out garbage... And now this young guy deserves to be silenced?

Reopen the thread and clean it up! Thanks

Hi everyone! So, I’m heading to India in October for a few months, and I’d love to get some recent info on SIM cards (Airtel or others). Is it easy to find one (at the airport?), and is the process straightforward—or is it still as complicated as ever with addresses in India, guarantors, OTPs, etc.? Also, are there any plans with international calling to avoid roaming with French SIMs? Basically, anything that might be useful—I’ll be transiting through Delhi and arriving in Chennai. Thanks in advance!

What are your positive and negative experiences with dental implants in different countries around the world? Looking for something like 4-5 dental implants, good quality-to-price ratio.

Thanks.

Hi, After sending this message to the VF team: "I notice that I still have my sent private messages, but no longer the received private messages. When the forum closed, I don’t remember deleting them."

And their response: "You’d have to check with other members to see if this is also the case for them, as we have no way of viewing the private messages you received."

I don’t think it’s possible to recover them—no big deal—but just for info, are there other members who’ve been or are in the same situation as me?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Hi there, A question for those who’ve looked into this. What’s more advantageous or preferable: buying a local SIM card for GPS and SMS (we’ll handle calls via WhatsApp), or going with a plan from our mobile provider (Orange) that offers international packages with several options up to 150GB? Does anyone know the price of SIM cards at Vodacom?

Thanks to anyone who chimes in! 😉

Dan

Hi there. I’m planning my next trip to the Philippines. I bought the 2024 edition of the Lonely Planet guide, and what a disappointment! No practical info at all—it’s useless. Someone lent me the 2018 edition, and it’s got everything I love. The problem is, I don’t want to carry two heavy guides. I tried to buy the 2018 digital version, but it no longer exists—they only offer the 2024 version, which I already have in print!

If anyone has the **2018 DIGITAL version** of the Lonely Planet Philippines, I’d love to get it. In exchange, I can offer around fifty digital Lonely Planet guides (PDF or EPUB) for destinations all over the world. Just ask—I might have what you’re looking for (in English and/or French).

Hi there, I’m reaching out because I’ve recently returned to VoyageForum after several years away. Back then, the forum had switched to "read-only" mode, which paused my participation.

Now, I’d like to update my profile, especially by adding an avatar, but I can’t find the steps to do that. Could you point me to the instructions or guide me to a help page if one exists?

Thanks in advance for your help—I’m so happy to be back in the forum community!

Best regards, JULIE

Le problème évoqué a été résolu en revanche un autre est survenu: les compteurs ne tournent plus. On s'en rend compte pour ceux qui postent leur premier msg: tous les chiffres de leur profil restent à 0 malgré un msg posté et le compteur n'apparait pas sous leur pseudo dans le forum. Quant au mien, il reste bloqué depuis 3-4 jours malgré plusieurs msg postés.

Hi everyone,

I’m Yann, a 28-year-old TikToker who loves traveling!

Since I’ve been to several destinations, I’d love to get a flag from each one as a sort of trophy. But from what I’ve seen online, a lot of sites sell them with what looks like really poor quality...

So I’m reaching out to you all to share a site you usually use—help me start my collection! :)

Have a great day!

Yann

I left my heart’s country eight days ago and returned to my adopted one—or was it the other way around? Scotland-Morvan, Morvan-Scotland, I’m not quite sure anymore.

After a quarter without dragging my slippers around here, even though I’d loudly declared I had no interest left in this site, here I am again!

My imagination never stays fallow for long. Just enough time for my inner land to rest. It gets overgrown with fresh nettles, the kind you can pick without getting stung. Then, it’s time to till the fragrant earth and let the story grow.

I hesitated over where to set this story. Maybe the Highlands, maybe the Hebrides, maybe the Orkney Islands, maybe the Shetland Islands. All of Scotland is myth—easy to embroider. But in the end, no. I’d almost be too afraid to bare my soul.

The story will take place at home. Simple, practical.

1)

This morning, I was up well before dawn, feeling a bit grumpy, but nothing a bowl of coffee won’t fix. I love my bowl, and no one dares take it. It’s porcelain, edged with intertwined blue flowers. On the bottom, it says "Revol." The factory has existed long before the Revolution. It was my great-grandmother’s bowl. She drank roasted barley from it during the war, then her Leroux chicory.

Last year, a little guy dropped it. My bowl broke into three pieces. A black anger vibrated deep inside me. The little boy was so upset, on the verge of tears. How could I scold him!

I picked up the three pieces and took Little Boy in my arms. His hair smelled of the light, sweet sweat of toddlers. A gentle hug that healed—his budding sorrow and my anger—everything vanished, and time carried on.

Today, my bowl is even prettier. Man fixed it using the traditional kintsugi technique, except he didn’t use gold powder or lacquer but superglue, and he delicately painted the cracks with woad blue. And my bowl is even more beautiful now.

I’m lingering, I can tell—it’s just that a story wraps itself in life, and life can’t be told in the snap of a finger. Life is long. Like in architecture, you start with a rough sketch, called a "sous-cul" (the initial pencil drawing), then you make a tracing, which is the work itself, the one you later carefully roll up in a wooden tube. Life is like that: you erase, you start over, you use the nub of the pencil until it’s tiny, but you keep going—dreaming, loving.

"Living is a full-time occupation, a unique adventure. Always a surprise and a wonder, which sometimes turns into astonishment. And, from time to time, happiness."*

Alright, enough digressing—this introduction is definitely too long. Tomorrow, I’ll get to the heart of the matter. (I hate that expression; it feels like I’m cutting into someone’s skin.)

*Jean d’Ormesson

2)

Hi there! I have to leave Ivato/Antananarivo on December 16th. I have a lot of ariary that I’d like to exchange for euros since I might not be coming back to Madagascar (after this 21st trip). I think the exchange office at Ivato also buys ariary back. If any of you have seen the rate for this buyback in advance, thanks a million!

Hello,

Be careful when sailing between Somalia and northern Madagascar. It appears to be Somali pirates who have widened their search in the Mozambique Channel, far from their usual attack zone, since, to my knowledge, there are no Malagasy pirates.

https://www.parismatch.com/actu/faits-divers/un-couple-de-navigateurs-franco-australien-retrouve-mort-au-large-de-madagascar-victimes-de-pirates-260904?fbclid=IwY2xjawOaqqdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBLVkRPSGpTVzBUSW9wYUtyc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqinPb_OCfcRQQY-Q_fkyDinuvXgm7JwywSMTxJ-TQw84joH-i3uJ08W7frW_aem_ql7JQ5yOLn3XWyrhSIe7kQ&utm_campaign=mrf-facebook-parismatchmag&mrfcid=20251130692956807717c72c586c0c48

Hello fellow travelers,

After an engine failure in mid-2016 on a long-haul flight from BRISBANE to LYON, I developed a persistent aviophobia that I’m struggling to shake off. It’s becoming more and more of a hindrance.

Up until now, I’ve been using an avoidance strategy (for example, avoiding destinations that would require any other mode of transport than a car or train), but lately, it’s become really limiting.

I’m looking for a therapist—either in-person or via video call—who could help me get past this hurdle.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hello,

In 1985, the film "Out of Africa" was released, which inspired me to visit Kenya for the first time a year later. My passion for animals in their wild and natural habitat, and thus for safaris, was born while watching this film and appreciating Robert REDFORD’s acting.

Of course, the film’s director and Meryl STREEP also contributed greatly to this wonderful movie.....

In a way, I owe him this passion, and I thank him for it. Sometimes, during safaris, when we had our breakfasts in the middle of nature, in one reserve or another in Kenya or Tanzania, I often thought of him.

May he rest in peace, far from our world of madness. Thank you for EVERYTHING, Mr. REDFORD.

( In three weeks in Kenya, I think I’ll often be thinking of him....... )

...

Hi, Is it easy to get by in South Africa if you don’t speak English very well? What’s the best translator to use, please? Thanks and have a great day

Bad news: starting October 2025, the Mauritian tourism ministry is introducing a new tax of 3 € per night per traveler, on top of the existing 55 € fee. This could make other destinations like Madagascar—where no tourism tax is charged—more appealing.

Hi everyone, I used to use the Traveler Buddy app to manage my trips. In this app, you could forward your hotel, flight, event confirmations, etc. by email, and everything was automatically organized so you could easily keep track of your itinerary. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Would you have any suggestions for another app like this, please? Thanks!

Hello, We found an English-speaking guide, but do you happen to know a French-speaking one? He’s offering 6 days for $1,700/day per person. There’s just the two of us.

Thanks so much! Planned for July/August 2025 LesBretonsdu56

Hi there, Our trip is just around the corner—only 10 days to go! Quick practical question: what’s the easiest and most budget-friendly way to use my phone while I’m there? Thanks in advance! Céline

Hi, Disconnected from all browsers, on all devices (but of course logged back in to post this message), I still appear online and active.

What I mean is, when I refresh (while logged out) the "who's online" page, my profile doesn’t move down the list... it even regularly jumps back to the top as if I were active on the site.

I’ve checked several times...

Any explanation?

Hi, where can I find multicolored bougainvillea seeds in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, please? Thanks so much and have a great day!

Hi, I just got back from Argentina and I have some cash left that I didn’t have time to exchange. Get in touch if you're interested! Thanks

What are the different steps to withdraw money from an ATM? Brunomichele

Hi,

I’ve been using a Revolut card for my travels so far, and it’s been working great for me.

But now it has two issues: 1) There are spending limits before fees kick in (1000 euros—easy to hit on a trip abroad) 2) You can’t top it up with a Visa or Mastercard anymore since those networks block those transfers. Now you have to do a bank transfer, which is less convenient. And, debatable, but Revolut now uses its own exchange rate instead of the official one like before. I say "debatable" because when I checked, it’s pretty close to the official rate and the difference is minimal.

So I’m looking for an alternative. Some of you here mention the N26 card. Is it worth it?

4 years without you all was really tough. Well done to the admins for their hard work. 👏 Long live this Forum! 😄