The Long Weekend: A child-friendly country house just half an hour from central London January 28, 2019 City life can be tough, especially if you have a toddler intent on destroying every moment of peace and quiet in your so-called “spare time”. Frazzled urban parents may be left without the energy to plan a faraway escape – and this is where Stoke Park comes into play. Jump on a fast train from [...]
Holiday Homes: The best places to snap up a ski home in Austria before Brexit restrictions apply January 25, 2019 Ski resorts are rapidly discovering that it is actually the summer months that keep the cash tills ringing. This is why those offering year round Alpine appeal are proving to be the winners in the fickle property market, too. The Austrian Tyrol is no exception and while many of Europe’s ski resorts lie empty once [...]
Island Hopping in NYC: How the Big Apple’s revived ferry service kickstarted an unlikely glamping craze January 21, 2019 In the UK, a diamond-mesh fence tends to signify you’ve arrived at the perimeter of a day-release prison or, perhaps, a scrapyard. Not so in America. And especially not in New York: a goodly portion of its waterfront is lined with the stuff. But somehow the Yanks manage to put these utilitarian barriers to use [...]
From igloo glamping to glacier kayaking, the frozen landscape of the Pemberton Icecap has been transformed into a tourist hotspot January 18, 2019 Outside, the sun is blazing hot, a white glare cast across a vast expanse of snow. Inside the ice cave, it’s one degree above freezing; a gleaming cool blue cut through with a trickling lake of glacial water. Centre stage is a moulin, a frozen “straw” of ice that glows as the sunshine above ground [...]
More than a year after the British Virgin Islands were devastated by Hurricane Irma, this paradise is finally leaving recovery mode. Simon Miller sails its beautiful coastlines January 11, 2019 On 6 September 2017, hurricane winds of up to 215mph battered the British Virgin Islands. The strongest winds ever to have made landfall all but destroyed the islands, and resilient locals were faced with rebuilding their lives and communities. During the hurricane, Sunsail’s BVI base at Tortola was totally destroyed. Dozens of boats were ripped [...]
A stay at Valsana Hotel in Switzerland, the geothermally powered Alpine retreat January 4, 2019 These days, a sense of wellbeing isn’t just about body and spirit but also about leaving a lighter carbon footprint. Which is why the new, eco-friendly Valsana Hotel is the perfect place to spend an Alpine spa weekend without feeling that you’ve given Mother Nature a battering. The Valsana is Switzerland’s first hotel to be [...]
Desert X is Coachella’s lesser known contemporary art festival and it’s drawing 200,000 art lovers to the area January 4, 2019 The locals were… curious. For the past few weeks, as they’d gone about their business around the nine cities that make up Greater Palm Springs, or hiking in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains, strange things were afoot. A deep hole was being dug into the desert floor close to the small resort town [...]
One of the USA’s most iconic hotels, Ocean House is famous for its timeless coastal experience dating back to the Victorian age January 3, 2019 With its fancy turrets, myriad windows and pastel-lemon façade, Ocean House is an imposing place. Found on the bluffs of Watch Hill, a well-to-do town in Rhode Island, on first appearances it’s a hotel that looks like a stuffy, Victorian grand-dame, fitted in an overblown crinoline dress, and exuding old-fashioned principles. In part, its looks [...]
Minicab and Uber drivers to lose exemption from congestion charge December 19, 2018 Minicab and Uber drivers will no longer be exempt from the £11.50 congestion charge from April next year, Sadiq Khan announced today as part of his push to curb pollution levels. TfL expects the changes to reduce the number of private hire vehicles entering the congestion zone each day by up to 8,000, a 44 per cent drop from current levels. [...]
Brits face paying for a visa waiver to travel to the EU after Brexit December 14, 2018 Brits travelling to the EU after Brexit face a €7 (£6.30) fee to holiday abroad without a visa, it is reported. The charge will come in in 2021, when Britain’s two-year transition period with the EU ends and the UK officially leaves the EU. If the UK’s transition period is extended beyond 2021, then the [...]