Our government has announced that it is going to investigate why so many children are being taken out of school during term and going on holiday.The figures, it says, show that the number of people being given fixed penalties has trebled over the last three years to about 15 or 16,000 (figures aren’t available yet [...]

The results of the autumn 2008 survey by Passenger Focus are out this morning. To remind you, Passenger Focus is the body that monitors the rights of train passengers and each half year it interviews 25,000 passengers with paper based surveys at railway stations and on trains across the country.Overall satisfaction is up across the [...]

Anyone who has been to Stanfords in London or Bristol and seen the miles of books and maps that they sell can be overawed by the number. (Incidentally, Stanfords will give you back £5 voucher if you spend £25 with them but the offer ends at the end of January. See www.stanfords.co.uk for details)Most are [...]

An independent online travel agent, www.sunshine.co.uk, issued the results of a survey last week . Apart from things which you could probably guess, for example, 77%of people made a new years’ resolution to lose weight , the survey also said that 60% or respondents (the survey covered 1,225 people) do more exercise while they [...]

Last night was Burns Night, the evening when Scots all over the world get together and celebrate the poetry and Scotland of their national poet Robert Burns.But today, 25th January is also the 250th anniversary of his birth in Alloway, near Ayr. Coincidentally or by design, his birth starts amost year long celebration of things [...]

You probably remember the G’day Australia tourism campaign though it seems to have been muted of late and not as good as the “Where the Bloody Hell are you” campaign.Well this week they took the campaign to the USA under the “G’day USA” title.Yes I did say this week. You might remember that (unless you [...]

Last December the state government of NSW in Australia decided to launch Family Funday Sunday. The idea was to bring more people onto ferries and into the city. To do this it cut the price a family ticket to just $2.50 (about £1.20). The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Sunday was already the most crowded [...]

Last week AOL ran a little feature listing the 10 worst destinations for tourists in the UK. Apart from 1 in Wales (Holyhead) and 1 in Scotland (Cumbernauld) all were in England. (Well done Northern Ireland in not making the list.)Some of them seem a little unfair. Wolverhampton has a lot going for it, Bantock [...]

This year sees the centenary of the introduction of the state pension. Before David Lloyd George introduced it in 1909, people were expected to support themselves in their retirement or be supported by their family. Nowadays we have 5 million pensioners who regularly, come recession or no, holiday. Large numbers collect their pensions abroad as [...]

Today is, apparently, Blue Monday, the day of the year when we are the most depressed. It coincides with credit card bills coming in after the Christmas extravagances and a combination of long, dark nights and lousy weather. And its dark here still, and raining and windy and I did get a credit card bill [...]

Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary has announced that Heathrow will get a third runway. Building should start in 2015 and be complete by 2019. there have been news reports that the government will speed up the planning process so that this runway might be ready in 2015 but that surely is on the understanding that [...]

Over 300 events will take place in Scotland this year as the country celebrates what it has termed it’s Homecoming Year.

Although it began with the new year events, it kicks off properly with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns over the weekend of the 24/25th of January and ends, not unsurprisingly with St Andrews’s day on November 30th.

Just how much is the credit crunch hitting travel?I ask because today I travelled on a train with two men, one reading a copy of the Sun and the other, Metro. Both were on what used to be called the workers train, that is the first train out in the morning. Both were talking of [...]

Unless you have been asleep for the last 48 hours it has been hard not to see news about the advertised job in Australia. For about seventy thousand pounds a year you have to live on Hamilton Island off the Queensland coast, feed the fish, survey all you behold and write a regular blog. Well, [...]

Turned off by chain hotels? Bored with ‘boutique’? Bettina Kowalewski, author of Bed in a tree – a gorgeous coffee table book published by DK Eyewitness Travel about the world’s craziest, quirkiest places to stay– suggests provides some inspiring alternatives from an actual bed in a tree in South Africa to a hanging eco-sphere in Canada, a giant suitcase in Germany and glass igloo in Finland!

Following on from yesterday’s blog on the success of Liverpool as one of the 2008Cities of Culture, I thought which city this year.As is now the custom there are two, Vilnius in Lithuania and Linz in Austria. Linz is twinned with Edinburgh but as far as I can see, Vilnius is not twinned with any [...]

As we wrote a year ago, Liverpool was one of two European cities of culture in 2008. the Liverpool Culture Company has just presented it’s report on the effects of the year and reckons that it generated about £800 million for the city and encouraged 3.5million first time visitors. To me this seems a tremendous [...]

After a year of hard work and few breaks, Poppy (my 10-month old Puppy) and I decided to have a week away between Christmas and new year. Unlike the Marloes holiday last June, we decided to do this just a few days before departure.

For a lot of people today is the first day back at work and here in the south east, the snow may not help despite the fact that we have no more than a couple of centimetres of the stuff.What will annoy people is the annual party every year when rail prices increase. I thought [...]

Escape damp and dark London for a weekend in Marrakesh and enjoy a taste of Middle East culture without a long haul flight.

Stay at a traditional Riad to add to the experience and immerse yourself in the different sights and sounds around the Place Djemaa market square.

As the sounds of Jingle Bells and Auld Lang Syne fade into the background Marrakesh can offer a great weekend escape and experience of Middle East culture without the pain of a long haul flight. The Atlas Mountains provide a spectacular backdrop overlooking the Place Djemaa.

On New Years day, Kew Gardens opened its gates and waived its entrance fees. Why?To begin the year long celebrations for its 250th birthday. In 1759 it opened its gates for the first time and some of the trees planted about that time still survive. Apparently some 26,000 of us visited Kew on that day. [...]

A new year starts and probably everybody wishes it was a great deal better than the last one, me included.As holidaymakers, we face an interesting year where the pound has devalued against a lot of currencies. The euro is probably the most important currency to us since it is in countries who use the euro [...]