501 Places

According to the GfK Ascent Survey of 15,000 UK holidaymakers in 2009, as presented at the CIMTIG organised Travel Vision 2010 evening, UK tourist numbers for last year to Egypt are up 20% and Turkey up 9%. On the downside the Canary Islands have seen a drop of a massive 22%, while numbers are also [...]

Last night’s excellent Travel Vision 2010 seminar at the Travel Club in London threw up a flurry of statistics about UK travellers. Hosted by CIMTIG and the British Travel Awards, the main part of the evening was the presentation of the findings of a survey of over 15,000 UK holidaymakers, exploring their decision making behaviour [...]

We Brits are renowned for our lack of culinary flair. Most visitors to the UK do not find evidence to the contrary (excellent British food exists in many places,  but these are rarely found near the main tourist centres). Most of our European neighbours would probably make excuses about washing their hair or grooming the [...]

Ask most people who don’t travel outside of  mainstream destinations what scares them about more adventurous travel and you’ll get a variety of answers. Some will mention terrorism, others a fear of foreign food and others still will be put off by the heat. But there is one thing that turns so many people away [...]

Did you know that the complete works of George Orwell are now online and freely available?  I only discovered this yesterday, and I was instantly drawn to a page from Homage to Catalonia, the story of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Born as Eric Arthur Blair but known around the world by [...]

As the number of travellers taking short city breaks has increased in the last decade a variety of companies are now offering apartments as an alternative to staying in a city centre hotel. Ryanair and Easyjet opened up many of Europe’s lesser known cities, and while it has become cheap to get to an obscure [...]

The moon is our nearest celestial neighbour, and the subject of so many myths and legends. When out in a remote location far from the interference of light pollution, the light of a full moon can be bright enough to light up a walking trail or a outdoor meal, and at the same time dim [...]

Living overseas can be a great experience. We tried it for a year and enjoyed so many things about living in New York. But there is something about the country where we grow up that forms an emotional attachment for us. Symbols of the UK make us smile and reminisce about home, while hearing a [...]

For most of us our mental image of a break from the routine involves a sandy beach, hot sunshine, exotic locations and somewhere far away. But these virtues can be found much closer to home than you think. Well, apart from the sandy beach in my case; and the exotic location; actually there’s not much [...]

A collection of new videos on YouTube is creating a bit of a stir. You can now travel the length of the Trans-Siberian railway from the comfort of your desktop. The journey has been captured on video and uploaded for all to enjoy. Can experiencing a journey virtually ever replace actually travelling? This is the [...]