The trips pages are the most popular section of our website - primarily because several search engines have picked them up, and some of them deal with unusual or hard to find content. As they've grown more popular, we feel it necessary to include this disclaimer with them.

First, these are presented as exactly what we call them - a webpage about a trip or part of a trip. This is not in-depth cultural immersion style travel writing - we don't spend enough time in most places to reach that level of detail and we doubt the web is the ideal medium for it anyway. This is also not a travel guide because we make no effort to be comprehensive. We do try to offer tips to other travelers (or tourists if you prefer) that we would have found helpful.

Second, these are written shortly after they are experienced. Then, they do not change barring the exposure of blatantly incorrect information (which we try our best to avoid). This means that a trip from several years ago will describe the conditions at that time. You should already be aware that these may have changed. Also because these are experiences we may present certain places in a particularly positive or negative light. Other people will disagree with this. Negative comments are usually not intended as a condemnation of a place, we may have simply had a particularly bad experience and we will try to present it as such.

Third, we do have ulterior motives here. We didn't start out with them but we've accumulated a lot of email over the years regarding these pages and now we have some themes which most readers could probably pick out anyway.

• No package travel! - We have nothing against package tours themselves and there are some people who they are ideal for (or so we're told). We have nothing against guides, in fact we have often used guides especially in wilderness situations. We just feel that you will have a much more satisfying travel experience if you deal with the residents of a given place directly. Self guided or planned travel has become markedly easier with the internet and those little issues that pop up often become as memorable as the highlights.
• Try to adapt! - Americans are particularly bad about this. Much of the world does not speak English as a first language, although many do as a second or third language. Don't rely on this. It really is not that hard to learn a few basic phrases at least in another language. Cultural mores, tipping practices, hotel and restaurant standards will also vary. If you don't want to accept this fact you probably shouldn't be traveling outside your home country.

A note on our photography: Our photographs are either taken with a digital camera, or with a traditional film camera and then scanned. We reduce the image quality online to try and achieve a balance between bandwith considerations and image details. Our images are generally available for non-commercial purposes (and commercial ones for a small fee), please ask before using them by sending email to webmaster.

A technical note: Our trip pages and indices are generated dynamically via Perl scripts from a central database of our pictures and their descriptions. All of this software was written by us. Perl is your friend! Mrfs.net is hosted by JaguarPC who give us the freedom (i.e shell access) to do all of this.

Finally, our overall purpose is only partially to help other travelers in an educational sense. We also just want to amuse or divert people for a while and show off some of our photography and some of the world that people might not always be aware of.

Happy Voyaging.