Mes: septiembre 2018

Después de un parón veraniego, con muchos kilómetros en nuestro haber, viajes, olas.. volvemos con las pilas cargadas y nuevo material tablero. Comenzamos con un pequeño clip, de Miki Astorga, que en su visita a California, coincidió un par de días con Troy en Ventura, quien ejerció de anfitrión. Pese a no haber llevado ni […]
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David “Duey” Spargo was 2018’s Chosen One, a lucky deserving Stokie who won the Most Ordinary Extraordinary Job In The World competition and found himself enjoying an entire summer of Stoke Travel. Here he introduces himself and the San Vino Wine Fight festival. If you like what you hear and want to have his babies, follow him @the_social_traveller

All about the San.

First things first A’hoy Stokies, my name is David also known as Duey and I am from Townsville Australia. I won the crazy competition of being “The Chosen One” for the Summer with Stoke Travel Co. You may or may not remember me from the following Wikipedia edit a few years back. If you happen to see me out and about over the next few months, come say hello and invite me for a beer/sangria bong, because you never know what might be in it for you as well.

After a quick flight from the English waistcoat of Stanstead, I was embraced by beers and sangria by the wicked Stokie crew on Barcelona’s main beach for the San Juan festival. The Feast of Sant Joan celebrates the official start of the summer. It is the longest day of the year and what is known as the summer solstice in England. San Juan and the Stokies packed a helluva party and whether you like to shoot fireworks, get high with the locals or kick back to beachside tunes you’ll find more than enough going on. After an evening of beach side debauchery with the Stokies I then relaxed for a few days before making my way with the rest of the crew to Haro for the San Vino wine fight.

The San Vino Stoke campgrounds were alive upon arrival with solo travellers, wine connoisseurs, and all round animals sharing one thing in common — a thirst for a wine fight. It was quite a sight, seeing travellers from all over the world going from strangers to friends within minutes. While I occupied a game of beer pong with a man named Jesus, the punters assembled and begun rummaging the many other party games that Stoke offered.  The stage was set and the pre-party tunes were grooving by Mesmeriser, Hiaground and a free style guest appearance from Kiwi Pips to keep the crowd on their toes. Once the Stoke party concluded and the ground was stained with beer and sangria, I joined the masses and made my way up to Haro’s cobblestoned city centre square where the fiesta really kicked off. I experienced first-hand Spanish late-night culture of dancing, singing and indulging in a sneaky pintxos or two. I boogied alongside the Stokie wildlings until the early hours of the morning with most of us allowing a solid two hours sleep before the Batalla del Vino preparation.

I among many of the exhausted party goers crawled on to the complimentary shuttle bus through the vineyards to the mountains base where we began the war path. Walking ever so slowly up the mountain you can hear screams and cries of enjoyment and pain, as patrons of the event are getting hammered with wine in the distance. I have never witnessed so many happy men, women and children in one place. It felt as though they had been saving up all their communion wine throwing rage for this day and by hell did they let loose on us. By the time we cringed through the gauntlet of wine buckets, guns and hoses we met the battle. It was like a scene from 300, a red bloody mess. Stokies united and fought well, and I am happy to say that no Stokie made it to Valhalla that day. However, some of us did walk away with salty, yet sweet red eyes from the delicious vino that had blessed us. When the fight had concluded, I wandered around Gotham city below where locals had fires going, cooking meat on the spit and knocking back cold ones. After warming up with the locals I caught the complimentary plastic Dexter looking bus back to Haro. On the drive back I sat down reflecting “how did I get so lucky to win this competition through Stoke Travel Co and what wild adventure have I gotten myself into.”

Want to live your own Chosen One experience? Well you can prepare for next years competition, or get yourself a Stoke Travel Passport. 

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Get out of there no matter what!

New Year’s Eve is just around the corner and we couldn’t be more excited. This is the best night of the year, never, ever a let down. Not even once has NYE been a disappointment.

We’re based in Barcelona, but so many of us will be in London this New Year’s Eve we’ve decided to compile a little compilation of super fun things you can do in the capital while you ring in 2019 – the year you’re guaranteed to be hotter than ever before.

Go to your favourite bar – just a way more packed version

New Year’s Eve is the best because every idiot in London heads out and clogs up the bars with their stupid cocktail orders. Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe I’ll go for an espresso martini… No, Jennifer, you’ll take a beer, or a cider, or a vodka soda and you’ll let the rest of these good people, especially me, get a drink as soon as goddamn possible. That’s not to mention every fucken bro in the area clogging up the bathrooms while they take way too long to do their heavily cut cocaine and talk absolute nonsense at each other.

Pay an extortionate amount for club entry

Clubs can offer some respite from the nonsense in bars, but clubs charge a premium on NYE, like a nonsensical premium. Some places will charge you up to a hundred quid and more just to get in and have the privilege of paying too much for drinks once inside. Obviously, being New Year’s Eve in London, once inside you’ll want to get royally smashed, and so you’ll spend the next heck-knows how many hours knocking back overpriced swill and seriously making a mockery of any chance of financial stability in 2019.

Party at home and listen to your housemate’s drunk colleagues talk about work

This could be fun and it could be frugal too. Get a bunch of drinks, get a hold of whatever dealer tickles your fancy (who are we to judge?) and invite some of your hottest pals over. You can play your own tunes, and act like complete imbeciles and nobody will judge you or charge you or get in your way. BUT, as we’re young, and London is expensive af, we all have housemates, and those housemates are going to want to invite their mates, and while you’ve been meticulous in your friend cultivation, maybe the individuals you cohabit with have not. So now you’re off your trolley in your own house and all these awkward twats turn up whose only thing in common is that the four cans of cider they’re carrying were all paid for by the same Debbie from accounts, and despite the fact that these are the most boring conversations in the universe, they decide that they want to ring out the old and ring in the new by talking about, oh, I don’t know, fucken spreadsheets or something, thereby rendering you completely sober and putting you in bed by 1:30am.

Stand around in the pissy drizzle to watch some dumb fireworks go bang

New Year’s Eve is cool because the city will put on some fireworks, and they’ll go… zinnnng, POP, and you’ll go, Ooh, ahh, and that’ll be grand, and then someone will pickpocket you and then you’ll get soaking wet because the weather is shitty, and there’ll be nowhere to dance to warm up and the Tube will be a nightmare to get home, so you’ll try and walk and you’ll get mugged and then die of hypothermia.

Do nothing

The best option thus far is to do absolutely sweet FA and stay at home, watch a bit of telly, and wake up fresh the next morning, greeting the new year without a hangover and with a cheerful disposition. Maybe get a bit of gym time in on January 1st and then when you’re walking home cry and cry and cry and cry because my god what have you become?

Ride a private party train to Edinburgh for Hogmanay with Stoke Travel and get well pissed up with absolute legends at the world’s greatest New Year’s Eve party

Really, was there any other option? We’ve got a private train A WHOLE TRAIN that leaves London on the 31st, ferries (trains?) us up to Edinburgh while we mingle across seats and carriages, drink and dance around, play drinking games, and we then go and enjoy the world’s best New Year’s Eve party, if not the only one really worth participating in. We rage all night, and then the next morning we jump back on our train and ride home, broken, perhaps, but not poor and not bored and not miserable. We ended the marvellous 2018 the right way, and we did everything we could to ensure that 2019 will be an absolute cracker.

There are still seat available on the Stoke Travel London to Hogmanay Express, but you’ll be wanting to book them as soon as you can, because given how shithouse New Year’s in London is, we know this trip is going to sell the heck out ASAP. Click here and book now.

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Say sayonara to summer’s shenanigans in style

It doesn’t matter if you call the season autumn or fall, all that matters is that it starts in Europe on Sunday September 23rd.

That’s the day that we officially say goodbye to summer, when nights are longer than days, and we can guarantee that walking around town covered only by a speedo will be a thing of the thankfully distant past.

With Autumn comes a winding down of our travelling and social life, as we prepare to counter summer’s hedonistic excesses and hopefully improve our financial and physical situations. Autumn is less Ibiza and more burpees; more quiet nights in than wild weeks out.

But while we should be absolutely winding back our hectic summer schedules, that doesn’t mean that we have to pull the handbrake on all the good times. At Stoke Travel we like to fill our autumn with uncommon experiences, some different, perhaps more boutique options for the intrepid traveller.

Ready for some autumn plans? Feast your pumpkin on this lot.

Oktoberfest Trains

Oktoberfest is the perfect way to kick off the fall, and while the party isn’t all that uncommon, the event that Stoke Travel builds around it most certainly is. We’ve got fire breathers and magicians, a tunnel made entirely out of titties and bands and DJs, comedians, pole dancers, and plenty of associated fun things to compliment our all-inclusive, cheapest in Munich, accommodation and meal packages.

But to have a truly uncommon experience, why not ride the train with us from London to Munich. We’ll be rolling out of London on Fridays the 21st and 28th of September, and the 5th of October, and returning the following Monday evening. Not only will these trains be BY FAR THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET TO OKTOBERFEST, they will also be the most fun, as we’ll be surrounded with fellow party people, and the Stoke guides will make sure the party gets started well and truly before you arrive. Plus, we won’t be mad if you bring booze on board to get nice and lubricated on the train journey. Maybe play one of these amazing train based drinking games.

Or, if you’re not in London, why not ride one of our buses from Barcelona, Amsterdam, Italy or Prague?

Morocco Surf Adventures

You’d have to be Indiana Jones to find surfing on the edge of the Sahara, where the Atlas Mountains meet the sea, a common travel experience. This is a nice entry point to Arabic and Berber cultures, a place where the sun is usually high and hot, the food amazing, and the waves surprisingly great. Morocco is a short hop from Europe, but really seems like another world. This is a perfect Autumn break, a place to perfect your surfing, or try it for the first time, and tick off a North African country in a completely safe environment, plus you can all that in Stoke style, so you know you’ll be surrounded by absolute legends. Autumn is the perfect time to go surfing in Morocco. 

Barcelona Halloween Ghost Hunt

We are based here in the spooky Catalan capital, so it makes sense that we have a city-wide ghost hunt to celebrate Halloween. You will be dressing up, like a regular Halloween, and drinking shots, like a regular party night, but with our ghost hunt we’ll have you running around the city centre, following macabre clues so that your night is fun and a little informative. Plus, once you’ve completed the hunt we’ll be raging ghoul style in Barcelona’s biggest Halloween party, so you can safely forget all the scary knowledge you’ve absorbed over the night.

Hogmanay

Officially this starts one week after autumn is finished, but it’s an amazingly uncommon event and by the end of the season you should have your New Year’s Eve plans well and truly locked in. We’ll be riding to Hogmanay on our private party trains from London, raging all night in the world’s best, most authentic, New Year’s Eve party in Edinburgh, and then riding back a train full of broken, partied out individuals. And once Hogmanay is done, we can turn our attentions to the frosty delights of Stoke Travel’s winter schedule. Hurray!

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We’re here with Josh, who’s lord of design and image here at Stoke Travel.  What does that mean, Josh, can you tell us a bit about what you do at Stoke?

I always like to say that my job at Stoke Travel is a mix between painting porn and dancing in cages. The latter is more a personal release than an actual part of my job description, but I like to believe it’s one of the reasons they keep me around.

In reality (something we like to keep as far from Stoke as possible) I am the festival designer for Stoke Travel. From the initial marketing, to where each marquee sits, down to the styles of lettering on our signs, I work to give each of Stoke Travel’s events our specific festival vibe. A bit of risque, a lot of the unexpected and loads of our particular brand of festival within the festival.

What goes into designing a festival like Stoketoberfest?

Stoketoberfest is an event we begin planning from practically the minute it ends the year before. I start collecting inspiration and references from all the locations we travel to and parties we have. Then comes the rough sketches and thumbnails, filling scraps of paper and little sketchbooks I carry everywhere. Once I’ve got my ideas sorted, I begin shopping. Thankfully my gay genes come into play nicely here and I spend hours in markets, sex shops, and the occasional strip club hunting for items to use in the set.

Even with all the pieces bought, the most important factor of designing these festivals is the team who brings it all together. We spend all year searching for the best group of chippies, sparkies and artists to work on our festivals. Everyday we start off with a squat circle, turn on the 70’s Roadtrip playlist, look at the sketch for the day and start creating. The setup for Oktoberfest is as long as the festival itself– around 3 weeks. In that time we create hangout spaces, bars, kitchens, stages, shisha lounges, and an epic main area. By the time we finish, we want the experience of Stoketoberfest to be just as memorable as the actual festival.

In many ways I want Stoketoberfest to have callbacks to all the festivals we have done throughout the year. So if you travelled with us to La Tomatina, you might see something familiar appear again in the world of Oktoberfest. Sometimes you have to be extra switched on to pick up on the reference.

So you’ve got some exciting news about the entertainment we have lined up this year?

This year we’ve got a ton of entertainment for the three weeks of the festival: Aussie, Kiwi, and Catalan bands, techno DJs, magicians, circus performers, walking photo booths, carnival games, live paintings, a boob tunnel, glitter people, fire breathers, and of course the Wheel of Misfortune. One thing I’m really excited to announce is that we’ll have DJ Nado, a U.S. Radio DJ with over a million weekly listeners. He’ll be performing our second and third weekends on Friday and Saturday, and broadcasting live through Stoketoberfest back to the US west coast. Another exciting addition to the lineup is MNKYBSNSS. The DJ duo from Bogota, Colombia with number ones on Itunes and Spotify Colombia will be coming to Stoketoberfest to play some sick sets for our second and third weekends.

Why MNKYBSNSS?

We are always looking for musicians with a great sound that would vibe with the Stoke Travel audience and the feel of our festival, and MNKYBSNSS hits both. The guitars, echoing vocals, and synth background are a great hit with our audience and add to the vibe of our festival in the german forest.

And the line-up also includes some bands that have been touring with Stoke all summer, right?

That’s right. Honey Haze, Mesmeriser and Kiwi Pips will join us again in Munich. These guys have been with us from London Big Day Out (rocking 4000 odd Aussies, Kiwis, and Londoners), to San Vino, then the first ever Stoked in the Park Pamplona and Running of the Bulls, La Tomatina, and finally here.

There’s a lot more to the entertainment at Stoketoberfest than just music though, what else can guests expect to see while they’re staying with Stoke?

Guests can expect to never have a dull moment at Stoketoberfest, with all the shows and activities and a rad group of Stokies to hang with. In fact, we pride ourselves on the number of customers that come to Stoketoberfest and have so much fun that they don’t even see the real Oktoberfest.

That’s a lot going on for a simple pop-up hostel, why does Stoke do so much more than just set up tents?

Stoke has developed the festival within the festival concept because we believe travel is so much more than your bed. Really, where you lay your head means the least. It’s the people you meet and the things you experience that really matter. That’s why we have implemented the spectacle. (Insert gay hand motions here) The spectacle of chef-prepared meals catering to all tastes (and the most finicky of dietary requirements). The spectacle of staff who are fellow backpackers, students, and travellers who want to have the same good times as you. The spectacle of weird, wonderful and thought provoking entertainment. Production, decoration, theatre, music, all go that extra mile to make your stay so much more than a bed. And of course the spectacle provided by an open bar of unlimited beer and sangria.

Give us the details: What are the important dates, the need to know info?

Stoketoberfest starts September 20th and goes until October 8th. But I’d recommend booking now! Stoke have weekend trains and buses from London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Italy and Prague. There’s camping, there’s glamping, there’s something for everybody to experience at the festival within the festival.

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We’re gonna need more than ein stein, Einstein.

Oktoberfest is fast approaching and all things Germanic are on our minds again. It’s easy for us to slip into the German way of treating beer like water – particularly when the beer has supposed hangover-dodging properties, we have a culinary hit list just waiting to expand our waistlines, and we already know how cute we’ll look in our dirndls and lederhosen.

So now we look the part, and from a distance we could almost maybe pass off for real life Germans. But, as soon as someone gets within earshot of us they’ll realise that we’re not the real deal. That we’re either Canadian, or Kiwi, or Japanese, or any one of the 90 different nationalities that stayed with Stoke Travel last Oktoberfest.

So here’s a handy little language guide to take with you to Munich. You might want to practice these little phrases on your flight there, or on our London-Oktoberfest party train. Danke schon Google Translate!

Hallo! Können wir bitte auf Ihrem Tisch tanzen?

Hello! Can we please dance on your table?

• When you hit the beer halls you’ll find that sometimes tables are hard to come by – and if you don’t have one, you won’t get served. Solve this problem by dancing on someone else’s, so that way they don’t lose their seat and you can stomp out all of your best moves amongst their bratwursts and sauerkrauts.

Ich sah dich nur von der anderen Seite des Raumes und dachte, “Das ist die Art von Mädchen / Typ, die mir ein Bier kaufen sollte.”

I just saw you from across the room and thought That’s the kind of girl/guy who should be buying me a beer.

• If you’re talking to Germans there’s a good chance that they’ve got more money than you. Ask them to buy you a beer first, and if they do it means you might be in with a chance at claiming your first German flag.

Wow, du füllst das Dirndl / die Lederhose wirklich gut aus.

Wow, you really fill that dirndl/lederhosen nicely.

• The traditional Oktoberfest outfits are designed to accentuate your best assets. For girls the dirndls make for wonderful cleavage, and for guys there’s a big bulky flap where your peepee should be. People love being complimented on their physical appearance, unless they don’t want to be complimented on their physical appearance, in which case you should absolutely avoid it.

Nein, nein, trink nicht davon – jemand hat einfach nur gekotzt!

No, no, don’t drink from that – somebody just puked in it!

• Oktoberfest isn’t the best place in the world to “table surf”, that is go from table to table finishing off people’s drinks. At Oktoberfest it can be a bit of a walk to the bathrooms, so it isn’t uncommon to see people peeing and puking in their glasses – or at least the recently refilled glasses. Make sure your potential sweetheart doesn’t give themself somebody-else’s-puke breath.

Wenn ich alleine stehen kann, bringst du mich nach Hause, Deal?

If I can stand on my own you’re taking me home, deal?

• By your third or fourth Maß, which is German for the litre-deep beer glass you’ll be drinking from, you’ll be very truly feeling the effects of the strong Oktoberfest beer. Those effects are compounded if you’ve been sitting for a while – resting those dancing legs – and then go to stand up again. Impress your new friends by standing up all on your own, then continue to own the dancefloor dance-table so that they can’t resist but either take you home, or come home with you, at which point you’ll need to be able to say…

Dein Zelt oder meins?

Your tent or mine?

• Stoke Travel’s main mating call. Sure, your German friend might not be sleeping in a tent in Munich, but they’ll be so charmed by your bravery and cute attempts to master their tongue, both in language and kissing, that they’ll either take you home, come back to the Stoke camp with you, or put you in a taxi and bid you auf wiedersehen. In any case that’s a win-win-win. Prost!

The linguistic and seductive geniuses at Stoke Travel will be in Munich from the 20th of September until October 8th for all of your Oktoberfest needs. All-inclusive trips include breakfast and dinner, and limitless German lessons from our onsite staff. Come! Bitte!

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Oktoberfest is almost upon us, and with it the season that we again start hearing things about the “purity laws” relating to German beers. The purity laws are often wheeled out as the reason why an Oktoberfest hangover is less intense than a regular hangover, when the level of drunkenness the night before is considered, because less impurities in the beer mean a cleaner experience.

A short answer to the title question is that it doesn’t matter how clean the beer is you’ll still be waking up most Oktoberfest mornings either still drunk, or pretty hungover. You just can’t imbibe that amount of beer without it having a negative effect the next day. But that doesn’t mean that German purity laws aren’t worth mentioning, they do make the beer drinking experience a more wholesome one. Known in the local language as the reinheitsgebot the laws restrict German beer manufacturers from putting anything in beer but four ingredients:

Hops, barley, water and, later added, yeast.

The law came into effect in 1516, in the Duchy of Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital and Oktoberfest is the biggest celebration of beer and the laws that protect its purity. The law was originally enacted by Duke Wilhelm IV and applied only to Bavaria, and was the world’s first food quality law, but in 1871 the Bavarians insisted that it was adopted by all German states if they were to participate in the country’s unification.

Traditionally, in Germany and Bavaria, the beer was brewed by monks and nuns. In part this was because during the 40 days of lent beer was all that they were allowed to consume, and because of this holy association with beer the purity laws were easily adhered to. You can still find evidence of this from the Augustiner brewery, founded in 1328, whose beers feature a monk on the bottle. While this godly connection has ensured that German beers have remained pure, our extensive field research has conclusively shown that the big gal upstairs doesn’t have an interest in preventing our earthly hangovers.

Today there are more than 1,100 breweries in Germany churning out 5,000 different types of beer. At Oktoberfest there are six breweries producing special Oktoberfest biers, all of which adhere strictly to German purity laws. You can sample beers from the Paulaner, Spaten, Hacker-Pschorr, Augustiner, Hofbräu and Lowenbrau breweries. Or all of them.

Now, to the question as to whether German purity laws prevent you from getting a hangover. The answer is absolutely not. No. Nein. No way. The beer at Oktoberfest, when consumed by the litre, will absolutely give you a hangover. Hangovers work like this: if you are drunk, you’ll have a hangover. The severity of the hangover will be dictated by a) how drunk you were, b) how much sleep you got, c) how tough you are, and d) whether you’re willing to have a morning beer to kill it.

At Stoke Travel’s Oktoberfest camp you can drink all the German beer you want for only €10 per day, making Stoke Travel the perfect place to cure your Oktoberfest hangovers, as well as get the party started for a big day trying the six festival beers, and then hitting up our famous Stoketoberfest after parties, with DJs, live bands, and our twisted carnival installations.  

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