501 Places

Looking around the Victoria and Albert museum in London I was struck by the signs on a couple of exhibits that read “Please Touch”. These were objects that visitors could best appreciate through exploration of texture and weight and not just by looking. Great for kids I thought; but the message ran far deeper than [...]

Next month we will exchanging our hard-earned pounds for Japanese yen and I will be once again cursing my lack of hindsight. Almost exactly four years ago we would have got 250 yen to the pound; we will be lucky now to get much over 120. Japan, already known as an expensive country, has doubled [...]

Last night’s debate in London, organised by FourBGB and TravelBloggersUnite, brought together bloggers and travel companies and (as far as I am aware) set a precedent in this respect. Both sides listened attentively and I think most in the room would agree that not enough is known about what one side might want or need from the other. [...]

If you spend any time reading all these fancy travel blogs you’d be forgiven for thinking that travelling is one big holiday. Seeing new places, meeting new people, sampling the food and drink of the world and watching the most glorious sunsets day after day on a string of exotic beaches: surely it can’t get [...]

Have you ever stood and watched people fixed in a spiritual trance (however you define one) and wondered just who it is who is missing something? Is it they who are feeling something magical about the place you’re visiting, a mysterious power, an energy; and you just haven’t got what it takes to feel it [...]

I recently spent four days in Austria as part of a wider project for Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) to explore the country’s ‘Hidden Treasures’. It was a pleasure to return to somewhere I hadn’t visited for 16 years, especially as the memories of my previous visits were happy ones. I was left to find [...]

Hotels take a lot of effort into impressing guests with additional touches, whether it be chocolates on pillows, branded writing pads or disposable slippers. When it comes down to analysing the bare essentials however, a stay in a hotel for me is about two main factors: the bed and the shower. Why is it so [...]

Last night’s CIMTIG event brought together a panel of experts from different media to make their case in the search for the most effective way to reach customers in today’s technology rich and time poor world. Representatives of Google, O2, News International, radio and ‘out of home advertising’ (billboards, underground, bus shelters etc) argued how [...]

Imagine receiving a notice to say that you must leave your family home within the next month in order to ‘help the national war effort’. Few would have begrudged the cause in the autumn of 1943, but for the villages of Tyneham in Dorset this would still have been a letter that they hoped they [...]

It’s getting harder than ever for many businesses to attract new customers and to persuade them to part with their hard-earned cash. Travel businesses in particular are feeling the squeeze with a recent survey by ING Direct suggesting that up to 40% of Brits are planning not to go on holiday this summer. In such [...]