Robin Nowacki combines culture and cuisine with football on a visit to Barcelona – the capital of the Catalonian region of Spain
Read the full story »America or Asia? Sardinia or Spain? St Andrews or St David’s? Better bars or better beaches? Whatever you’re planning, our suggestions will help
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Contains information on changes that might affect both short and long term travel plans, plus all the latest travel news and views
and who uses old fashioned screens any more?
Go back before it started and we replied to small ads in the newspapers when we wanted to book a hotel, a guest house or a B&B. As soon as Boxing Day came, people trooped into travel agents to arm themselves with bulky travel brochures. I remember visiting a family and there would be a pile of brochures a foot high next to an armchair. Their evenings would be spent leafing through them to decide where to go. Once a short list was compiled a bookshop was visited to get the guidebooks. Back to the travel agency with a final decision as soon as possible and to make sure we could get the place we wanted before others did. The biggest concern was whether the pictures in the brochure matched what the place was really like.
Fast forward to today and we don’t flood the travel agents. We can see what they offer by just finding their website. We can get into the tourist destination websites and see videos of where we plan to go. Hotel sites show us room images, how far we are from locations and provide interactive maps so that we can see where we will be. And we can book online if we want picking flights that suit us rather than accepting what we are told. Don’t want to go from Saturday till Saturday? It’s less of an issue than it once was.
There are no piles of brochures around anymore but for some reason, guide books still are popular despite the fact they are out-of-date almost as soon as they appear. We can book hire-cars, excursions and restaurants before we go. And check in advance what others might think of them but that’s a different story. The only thing that hasn’t changed has been the problems getting there. Planes and airports are still the same necessary evils in going on holiday.
CD-Traveller would have been printed and available from WH Smith at a price. Today it is online and free. Our deadline for publication is about a second before we go live instead of a month ahead of a print date.
The travel industry grabbed the possibilities offered by the web with both hands and so did visitors. In a film called Perfect Strangers made in 1945 the mousy wife played by Deborah Kerr used to dream of far-away places beyond the garden wall and where they might go on holiday if life ever made it possible instead of a week in some genteel seaside resort. She collected brochures from Thomas Cook (was there another travel agent in those days?) so not much changed in nearly fifty years.
But in the last twenty, the world has become closer. We can see before we travel using real-time cams. What will the next twenty years bring?
Yesterday I was down in Portsmouth. Co-incidentally HMS Ark Royal was being positioned by tugs at a wharf before it is taken from Portsmouth for the very last time and cut up for scrap.
One of the great TV successes of the last year has been the Great British Bake-Off and it was a cookery book that was the best seller last year. Does the same appeal extend to us visiting food festivals and food shows? Do these events attract us for days-out? Take the largest which will be held this weekend in Knutsford, Cheshire at Tatton Park.
Does some masochist calculate train fares spending days in locked-up windowless, tea-deprived cells trying to calculate these unfathomable things? Many moons ago, did I dream that some government minister or another potential human say that the huge array of fares would be simplified or was that wishful thinking?
The kings of extracting money in additional charges have to be the airlines. EU rules have altered some of the ways such as banning add-on prices behind very low fares but more needs to be done. Some add-ons can be avoided and others can’t
One of the attractions of going on a cruise has been the fact that it often looks like a cheap holiday. This needn’t be true because cruise companies have developed their own ways or rifling your pockets for that odd £100 or so.
Over the years, CD-Traveller has considered the problem of review sites. I had no idea that a company could set up 40,000 different addresses to use. And where one company exists there must be others. All working with companies to deceive us.
Never slow in grabbing headlines or sending out press releases, NYC and Company – the tourism marketing arm for New York City – is now specifically targeting us to visit the Big Apple this summer.
Next Thursday is the seventieth anniversary of the Dambusters raid on three dams in the Ruhr district of Germany. There are celebratory events taking place throughout England during the next ten days or so.
Yesterday’s headline story in Metro and other publications about the unfortunate lady who travelled to Madagascar as a part of a charity exercise and then came down with a tape worm in the brain with life-threatening implications produced an eye-catching story.
The announcement by the Heritage Lottery Fund of £68 million in support of just six projects today gives an indication of how important these are. Usually many more than six are allotted funds and few are allotted as much as has been given today.
The title of this story sounds like a film doesn’t it? And this is a story where tourism meets the appeal of the cinema.
The Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth gives a panoramic view of the landscape below. That bland statement does no justice at all to the views you get from the viewing area, the café or the crow’s nest situated some 110 metres above the ground.
Today’s the day that the museum devoted to the Swedish group opens on an island called Djurgaarden in Stockholm.
In the last few weeks you will have seen television adverts for Tunisia. Wherever they go, at some stage visitors will hear of excursions to El Jem home to one of the largest Roman amphitheatres in the world.
It’s a brave person that wakes me up before 6am. Yet I’ve found myself wide awake well before my alarm clock this last week or so, thanks to a couple of perky songbirds perched right outside my window and singing their hearts out
It is bank holiday time and millions of us will take to the roads to visit attractions throughout our countries. The main reason must be due to the good weather, weather that a week or so ago we thought we wouldn’t see soon.
Reims CathedralIn our countries there is a time of the year when museums stay open at night and visitors see places in a completely new light. But in France there is the opportunity to see museums, churches and other heritage sites thoughout the summer bathed in lights or just open to view.
Two years ago, Frederic [...]
Readers living outside London and the south east of England can turn away now for the debate on whether there is enough airport capacity in the south east has taken another turn.
In the last two years, a third of all new jobs created in our countries have been in tourism. 2.6 million of us work in tourism. Which is one reason why when Visit Britain launches its strategy document for attracting more visitors, it pays for us to listen.
Every year in May, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia celebrates its famous Courtyards Festival, a tradition in which many of the courtyards or “patios” in the historic quarter are open to visitors for a few days.
Today is a public holiday in the Netherlands. It is Queen’s Day. If you though the Brits could make pageantry and the monarchy a big tourist draw then watch the events in the Netherlands!
We have five pairs of Heat Holders socks – loved by the likes of former five time Olympic skier turned TV presenter, adventurer and journalist, Graham Bell – up for grabs!
The annual Lyme Regis Fossil Festival draws crowds of up to 14,000 every year to meet with other enthusiastic amateurs as well as experts. Coming up this bank holiday weekend is the 2013 Fossil Festival.
The winners of the most prestigious event in the UK theatrical calendar, the 37th Olivier Awards with MasterCard, were announced last night at a glamorous ceremony at London’s Royal Opera House
Adrian continues his train journey from Thurso to Inverness, is surprised at the lack of visitors and has trouble with Gaelic
LOVE really is in the air in America’s Capital Region this spring, as Virginia celebrates the many reasons to fall for the Virginia’s fascinating landmarks, historic towns and breathtaking countryside with 16 new giant “LOVEwork” artworks and installations
Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to a thriving programme of events, with something to attract every kind of visitor
From the website:
“The CAA is the UK’s independent specialist aviation regulator. Its activities include economic regulation, airspace policy, safety regulation and consumer protection.”
With its sprawling desert bush, thick rainforests and white sandy beaches, Australia is an exciting and fascinating holiday spot. But how do you see as much as possible in 10 days? Laura gives you a busy itinerary to see as much as you can
Up until 9th March, Air France is giving you the chance to win one of 2 pairs of tickets it is giving away every day. Access is via their facebook page ( we’ll give you the weblink in just a moment) and all you have to do is to guess where the daily photo is. Then you could win a round trip of your choice from the destinations they fly to. And given how big Air France’s network s, that gives you a fairly wide choice. So click on www.facebook.com/airfrance and good luck. You can enter each day as long as you can identify the photograph. And if you win, let us know where you chose to go to and why for the benefit of the rest of us who may not hve been so lucky!
Around here the schools have just broken up and kids are everywhere. But so are cars heavily laden with luggage so it is obvious that some people are leaving tonight for the Christmas break. Maybe they are all trying to travel before even more snow comes over the weekend.
ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) claims that today and next Wednesday will be two busiest days on the roads or at railway stations, airports and ferry terminals as people make the way off for the break. They estimate that 3 million us will be heading away of the Christmas period. This number is about the same as last year so our appetite for a break seems as strong as ever
The pearl trade employed most Bahrainis and although its economic importance has long since waned, pearls still play an important part in Bahrain today. CD Traveller gives you the lowdown on the Kingdom’s national icon
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