travel

  • Why it’s time to ditch the boring fly-and-flop holiday

    Winter is coming. Half-term is around the corner. Soon it will be Hallowe’en, which will sound the Christmas klaxon and before you know it you’ll be Googling: “How hot is Seville in November?”.

  • This sibling to Cliveden is London’s most surprising new hotel

    “Welcome home.” I haven’t heard those words uttered upon checking into a hotel in years. It has gone out of fashion, like chocolates on the pillow and the morning newspaper.

  • The science behind planning the perfect ski holiday

    The perfect ski holiday does exist. Anyone who has found themselves on a blissfully rolling slope, a vista of peaks surrounding them under a clear but crisp cerulean sky, with only their nearest and dearest for company, will maintain that true sublimity can be found in the snow-capped mountains of winter.

  • The ancient Scandinavian capital that rivals Helsinki

    Folks in Turku, also known as Åbo by its partially Swedish-speaking population, have a saying: “Why Paris, when we have Åbo?”

  • Hotel room service as we know it may soon be a thing of the past

    Now that most hotel rooms come with a fairly decent pod-type coffee maker, I rarely order room service of any kind. I once splurged on breakfast with someone I was dating, when we were staying at the George V in Paris. It felt the most glamorous, sexy weekend imaginable, so we’d ordered a full spread the night before, on a drunken whim.

  • ‘A typo in my wife’s surname could cost us £4,000’

    Gill Charlton has been fighting for Telegraph readers and solving their travel problems for more than 30 years, winning refunds, righting wrongs and suggesting solutions.

  • The best October half-term holidays to book now

    As the leaves begin to change and October approaches, so does another golden opportunity for a family getaway. And while the autumn half-term holiday may only be a week long, this short window offers a great chance to find some sun or fun before the winter takes hold.

  • Europe’s most affordable city break? It’s in Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Look for a crowd-free city break in one of Europe’s best-sellers – Dubrovnik, Barcelona or Rome – and you’ll struggle to find any resemblance of an ‘off-season escape’ anymore. Sure, they’re quieter outside of the school holidays, but for as long as the sun shines and cruise ships drop their anchors, these classic destinations attract throngs year-round. Their high prices unwavering.

  • I visited Charlotte Church’s new wellness retreat to heal my PTSD

    The last few years had felt like walking an emotional trip-wire. After a series of events left me feeling deeply unsafe in my own body, the PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) I’d been diagnosed with had left me exhausted. Every aspect of life was affected. Decision making was paralysing; sleep disrupted by toe-to-jaw-clenching. With trust levels at an all-time low, sometimes I’d be eggshell-fragile emotionally; other times my brain would slam on the brakes, leaving me with the mental clarity

  • How a high-end cruise does wellness – from caviar spaghetti to in-suite pampering

    The term “wellness” has permeated most areas of our lives, promising that if only we made some lifestyle tweaks, we would unlock healthier, happier, halo-topped versions of ourselves.

  • What happens when cruise ships collide

    Log into YouTube and you’ll find any number of videos depicting graphic scenes of cruise ships colliding with each other, or crunching into the unforgiving walls of concrete docks. Some collisions occasionally hit the headlines too, such as when MSC Opera crashed into a much smaller riverboat in Venice in 2019 – fuelling passionate calls for the city to clamp down on such unwieldy visitors.

  • It’s time to return to the Far East – the cheapest region for a long-haul holiday

    Empty beaches, balmy weather and romantic meals at bargain prices – it’s the winter-sun holiday of dreams. This year, however, it may also be a viable reality. The Post Office’s Travel Money Long Haul Holiday Report has found that, thanks to the strength of sterling against local currencies, prices are down in some of the world’s most alluring holiday hotspots, with the Far East offering particularly good value.

  • The French plan to save the planet? Stop poorer people flying

    I was living in Edinburgh when I first saw an advertisement that would transform air travel. “Making flying as affordable as a pair of jeans – £29 one-way.” The fare for EasyJet’s first flights from Luton to Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1995, celebrated in its inaugural advertisement campaign, seems rather pricey by modern standards. You can get a ticket on that route on EasyJet for less than £29 today and fares on some other low-cost carriers can be under a tenner.

  • The most romantic hotels in Manchester

    On a romantic break in Manchester, you can spend your days checking out some of the city's exciting cultural venues and exploring its vibrant central neighbourhoods, dipping in and out of shops, bars and cafés as you stroll. In the evening, watch an up-and-coming band in an intimate venue, enjoy a show in one of the city's theatres or book into one of its innovative restaurants to share seasonal small plates, pizza or Indian street food.

  • You can still visit the Caribbean during hurricane season – and save thousands of pounds

    Hurricanes and tropical storms are a fact of life in the Caribbean and can cause serious havoc for locals and travellers alike. They develop almost every year in the summer and each one is given a name from a list created in advance by the World Meteorological Organisation. Their strength and threat is categorised on a rising scale from one to five with the highest number the most extreme. This is when sustained winds of 157mph or more strike, destroying homes, felling trees and wiping out power

  • ‘It’s the most moving experience you’ll ever have on foreign shores’

    At last, the Great War battlefields and cemeteries of France and Belgium have been recognised as World Heritage Sites by Unesco. Most people already knew that they were rather important, so UN recognition – as well as coming very late – might also be thought to add little.

  • The surprising reality of summer skiing in the Alps

    “Where is the skiing?”

  • Forget Como – the smaller Italian lake of Orta offers the perfect autumn escape

    Big is beautiful when it comes to the Italian Lakes. But small is perhaps even more beautiful, and certainly more intimate and less visited. So forgo the major lakes – the famous trio of Como, Maggiore and Garda – and consider instead the largely unsung quartet of Idro, Iseo, Varese and Orta.

  • Why plane cabins have barely changed in 50 years

    Think of the first car you bought or rented. Now compare it to the first plane you boarded. Which looks more different? No contest. Your car today has far more comfortable seats. There’s so much tech in it that your dashboard looks like a spaceship. You might have a glass roof and the surfaces – leather, fabric, carbon fibre – are light years ahead of the scratchy cloth and cheap plastics of old.

  • The foreign billionaires turning Scotland into their playground

    There is clearly something about Scotland. There must be, as a flurry of American millionaires – and even billionaires – are investing in the country’s wilder corners including, reportedly, a friend of George Clooney. Trump is at it too, developing a brace of luxurious properties, with further developments backed with Indian and Danish money. So who is investing in what and why?

  • The secret world of Britain’s blue-plaqued houses – and what it’s like to live in one

    It was 1968 and an American pop guitarist had recently moved into the third-floor flat of a Georgian townhouse in Mayfair. But despite his global fame, the music fans who rang the doorbell at 23 Brook Street were not here for Jimi Hendrix. In a strange synchronicity of the city’s history, Hendrix’s flat was next door to the former home of another musical virtuoso: composer George Frideric Handel, who lived at number 25 Brook Street for 36 years from 1723.

  • ‘Dark tourism’ sites added to Unesco’s World Heritage list

    Dozens of new locations have been added to Unesco’s ever-expanding list of World Heritage Sites, including an infamous detention centre in Buenos Aires, four memorials of the Rwandan Genocide, and a host of First World War cemeteries.

  • Why the French are obsessed with our Royal family

    For a people which rabbits on about republicanism as if they invented the thing, the French aren’t half obsessed with royalty – and, most notably, the British monarchy. Coverage of the present state visit by our royals has been extensive, notably as King Charles and President Macron presided over Wednesday’s remembrance ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. They seemed to be getting on as pretty close friends. This followed wall-to-wall coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, its aftermath and the su

  • The perfect holiday in North America’s greatest city

    Vancouver easily earns its reputation as one of the world’s most beautiful cities, surrounded by the sea and hugged by soaring mountains – reflected in seemingly endless gleaming glass skyscrapers.

  • The 10 best things to do in Vancouver

    There’s something about being surrounded by dazzling wild nature that makes you want to dive straight in to explore, and Vancouver gives plenty of opportunity to indulge. Join its sporty locals running, climbing, biking, and paddling the city parks, mountains and waters – just minutes from the downtown core – to understand why Vancouver so frequently makes it into the top of any Most Liveable City poll.

  • The best bars and nightlife in Vancouver

    Although short-lived, British Columbia’s tangle with prohibition (1917-1921) cast a long shadow over alcohol regulation, which bars still wrestle with today – for instance, the ban on barrel-aging or infusing spirits was only lifted in 2017. Thanks to most licenses being ‘food primary’, the city has a raft of small restaurants with superb bars – but little in the way of traditional pubs.