Welcome to the Grey Nomads Forum! The forum is intended to be a place where travellers, soon-to-be-travellers, and dream-of-being-travellers can exchange tips, advice and information and have a chat in a friendly and welcoming environment.
Newcomers ... don't be shy in saying G'Day and asking a question or two, or offering an opinion.  You will find no shortage of people here who will be happy to make your acquaintance and who will be delighted to share their expertise and to help you in any way they can.
Since starting in 2005, this forum has gained a reputation as being friendly, welcoming and inclusive. We are determined to safeguard that reputation and expect members to follow some basic ground rules.

• Posters should refrain from ‘personal’ attacks. We welcome and encourage healthy discussion and debate but do expect members to show courtesy and respect to one another at all times. If any member or visitor has any concerns about the nature of any of the threads on the forum, or about a specific poster, they should contact the Webmaster immediately and the appropriate action will be taken.
   
  
• We do not allow defamatory posts, racist posts or posts denigrating someone’s sexuality. 
   
  
• Although the Grey Nomads forum is focussed on issues affecting the grey nomad lifestyle, discussions do sometimes meander into other areas of general interest, particularly in our “I Digress” section. We do however ask that members avoid discussion of politics and religion as experience has taught us that these issues can lead to bad feeling and this is, above all, a positive forum. 
   
  
• We reserve the right to edit or delete posts which we feel have ‘crossed the line’. We also reserve the right to warn offenders or to simply ban them.
   
  
• As previously stated, the Grey Nomads forum exists primarily to allow people interested in the grey nomad lifestyle to help, encourage and guide one another in their big adventures. Posts are not to be used for the sole purpose (however well disguised) of promoting other websites or forums, or advertising products or services. Posts deemed to have breached this guideline will be removed.
   
  
• The forum is divided into a number of sections to allow members and visitors to more easily find the discussions that are of interest to them. We ask that members try to post in the most appropriate section for their subject matter in order to facilitate the smooth running and efficiency of the forum. If members inadvertently post in the wrong section, we may – for the sake of clarity and consistency – move the topic to a more ‘suitable’ location. If we move your post, please do not take offence. We only do so to ensure the efficiency of the forum, and to enable members and visitors to more easily access the information or discussions they are interested in.   
   
  
• The Grey Nomads forum has a private messaging system which allows members to communicate directly with each other in a positive way and perhaps provide each other with email addresses or other personal details once they get to know each other a bit better. We ask that members retain their friendly and helpful manner when using the messaging system.  Please do not use the PM system to criticise other members or their views.  If anyone has an issue with another member or any of their posts, please send me a PM and I will address it.  The PM system is also not in place to advertise products, websites or other forums. We request any user who feels this rule has been breached to contact the Webmaster immediately.   
   

• Forum members should have one membership only. If for any reason, members feel the need to gain another ‘identity’, they are asked to contact the Webmaster to discuss. 
   
   
• Titles of topics – Try to give each new topic a name that gives readers an idea of what it is about.  This not only helps people to determine whether the topic interests them, it also is important if someone wants to search information that has been posted on a particular topic later on.
  

• Order of topics:  As a default, topics on our forum are displayed by the date/time they were created rather than the date they were modified or added to. This means that if someone places a new post on a thread that was initially started several weeks ago, you may not notice it if you use the forum’s default settings.  If you’d like to change the order that posts are displayed on your computer, you can do that on your profile section.  Just click on your own name once you’ve logged in.  The top left-hand side of the page is labelled the ‘Profile’ section, and you will see a link entitled ‘settings’.  Once you have clicked on the ‘settings’ link, you can see several options available on the ‘order of topics’.  To change it, just select the option you want and ensure you click ‘Save changes’ at the bottom of that page to store your preferences.
  
  

• Posting photos – Photos can be included in posts. If you’d like to upload a photo, just click on the grey ‘attach files’ button which is underneath the space where messages are typed in. Navigate to your image file, click on it and it should appear in the post.  Problems may occur if the photo is too big ... please try to limit your image files to 3mb at most (files under 1mb are best).
  
  

• Avatars:  We have enabled the ‘avatar’ function on our forum which allows people to upload a small picture that appears under their username.  Please choose your avatar carefully and try to avoid images that could offend others.  Your cooperation is appreciated.

Thank you all for your co-operation in these matters. We look forward to your contribution to the forum and hope you find it an interesting, helpful and happy place to spend time.  

-- Edited by Webmaster on Wednesday 3rd of July 2013 08:14:27 AM