Have you ever gone sand sculpturing? If not, you might like to know it’s history and how fun it can be if you enjoy playing with sand. You might remember playing with sand castles as a kid and using two simple ingredients to make each one- water and sand.

The FIESA is one of the largest sand sculpting competitions in the world, which is held every year. This is a great activity, which allows people to create some of the most elaborate sand sculptures.

Are you familiar with the FIESA International Sand Sculpture Festival? This is one of the largest sand sculpture exhibitions in Pera, Algarve. Since 2003 this event has gone on annually, dedicating each year to a new theme to explore and have people build. Every year there are around 60 artists who use a total of 35000 tons of sand to create 50 works of art. It is clearly one of the biggest festivals in the world simply by the size of the sculptures made and the area taken up by each work of art. There is 15,000 square meters for artists to use for building their creations, and everyone is hard at work to take home the prize for the best sculpture.

The theme for 2011 was the Animal Kingdom, and everyone had so much fun making sculptures that resembled their favorite animal. Animals from adult and children’s fiction alike were celebrated, and the concern is for the preservation of species going extinct right now. Scenes were made in the sand of animals in danger of dying out, living in their habitat naturally. A very poignant look into what the human species really think of the animals we inhabit the planet with. The festival will open April 15 and be available until June 15th for people to watch how the sculptures are built.

Algarve, very popular and beautiful tourist spot in Portugal situated very near to Faro city and Faro District. It is very attractive place and people around Europe commonly visit this place. Also it is the third richest place in Portugal which makes the people spent their vacation by enjoying sand castles.

During this period Algarve is awakened and alive with life and fun. Put this festival on your list of things to see and places to visit before it is too late.

As a freelance writer for BestFlights.co.za, Cecelia Owens writes travel related articles for this top South African travel comparison website as well as the “Come Have Fun in Algarve, Portugal ” article.

Sometimes we just can’t help but want to get away from it all. Taking a break, going out of town, looking for zen – whatever we may call it, we need that time out from everything. Taking a vacation is essential if we want to survive from our monotonous, mundane and stressed out daily regime.

Going on a vacation does not equate to useless spending spree to satisfy our caprice. More than a vanity, it is a need. We are not built like heavy machineries or computers with multi-core processors. An integral part of our lifestyle, vacations are as important as annual trips to the denstist. 

3 reasons why we need vacations: 

1.       Prevent yourself from being burnt out. When you push yourself to the limit, you come to a point of inefficiency. Instead of contributing, you tend to be a nuisance to everyone at a burnt out state. A great weekend getaway can help find that much needed reset button. 

2.       Serious ailments could come from chronic stress. Chronic stress and sleep deprivation are partners in crime. Sleep deprivation could pose a slippery slope of health issues. From lack of sleep, to altered moods triggered irregular body chemistry, up to poor digestion and organ dysfunction is only minor from the long list of health risks involved. Chronic stress comes from the disability to press the stop bution. A vacation is all we need to recharge our battery pack. 

3.       Over work and over fatigue leaves us with less or no time at all for our families. Aside from poor health, we also suffer from ill maintained relationship. We work hard to give our families the comforts of life only to let our relationships with them suffer. A vacation can bring the family back together  just like in regular Kodak moments. 

Overworked people tend to produce less, have poor health and spend days as lonely as possible. And the best solution, if not the only, for these problems are taking out of town or out of the country vacations and staying at hotels or cabins or Nipa huts.

How then should we plan for a vacation? First step is to know your destination. Determine your itinerary.  Determine your budget and start saving up. Compare rates from several hotels.  Book the best hotel for your stay. Review sites and local listings will help you on your decision. Learn how to use your checklist. It should look like this:

1.       Geographical aspects of the destination

2.       Proof of identity

3.       Determine who will stay with your house and your pet

4.       Get the right clothes for the occasion

5.       Make sure you are covered by your policy

6.       Bring international checking account and don’t bring all of your credit cards

7.       Set all your online accts to vacation mode

8.       Give everyone a heads up that you will take a break

9.       Check international roaming charges

10.     Personal items needed

11.     Cameras and video recorders

12.     day 0 checklist

Take all necessary precautions and assignments. If staying in a fancy hotel, visit the site daily. Let this serve as an inspiration for you.