A day in… Belfast

Adrian explores Belfast in a year when the city majors on its links with the ill-fated Titanic.

Top 10 Valentine’s breaks

Boutique hotel experts Mr & Mrs Smith have sifted through the schmaltz to find Valentine’s packages that will really set hearts aflutter (and won’t involve soggy petals clogging the plughole). Here are 10 hot properties that offer something a little bit different…

Defra Pet Travel Scheme

From the website:

“This site explains what you have to do to bring your pet dog, cat or ferret into (or back into) the UK through the Pet Travel Scheme (or PETS for short) without putting it into quarantine. It also explains the requirements for bringing many other types of pet animals into the UK. This site also tells you about quarantine in the UK for animals that don’t qualify for PETS. Printable factsheets are available for both vets and the public.”

A Day in…Great Malvern

Great Malvern is a mixture of stone and Victorian buildings. Most of it is grand and obvious, Subtlety and modesty were not features when Great Malvern was at its zenith. Fashionable from Victorian times until, perhaps the second world war, Malvern is probably best known for the water that’s bottled there and the fact that the Queen takes it with her wherever she travels.
So is it worth stopping off and spending a day there?

2011 Open Weekend

Starting on Saturday is the Open Weekend. This has been devised as a foreunner to the Olympic Games. Cities and towns throughout our countries have more than 1,200 events that have been devised to show you sporting and cultural achievements.

Fiji and Low Carbon Travel

We hear a lot about the effects of travel on the amount of carbon emissions created. Being sceptical along the lines of Tom Fuller who writes a really interesting environmental column in the Los Angeles Examiner (freely available via the net), I am not an ardent proponent but neither do I believe that life stays the same. There is another climate change meeting coming up in Copenhagen shortly and Fiji has rather stolen some of the thunder by declaring that, as an entire nation, they will become a low carbon destination.

Help: Wanted a Holiday

We have received the following meassage from one of our readers, Daisy.
We have put it on CD-traveller, with her permission, so that our readers can see what suggestions they might have to make.

So, the day has come, where the prospect of going abroad on holiday, whilst a volcano is erupting in Iceland, becomes a choice between a package holiday and no flights. And, let’s face it, none of us are about to drive down to Portugal having taken the boat, or have the old school days 6 weeks to play around with.
Here I am thinking several things:
1) Due to illness I cannot drive
2) Due to volcanoes I cannot fly (well, I am not happy about the risk of getting stuck somewhere with no means to get home!)
3) Due to Job and Dog I am unlikely to manage hitch-hiking for 6 weeks around Europe or pay for a package holiday where my dog is not included
4) Due to work being slow I am not flush enough to fund a chauffeur…
5) Due to life choices I am single, and therefore have no dedicated driver

WHAT ON EARTH WILL I DO THIS YEAR FOR MY HOLIDAYS???