We’ve got the low-down from Mr & Mrs Smith – one of our favourite travel teams – on two top spots to stay in South Australia. Your definitive guide starts here…

[ January 11, 2010; 2:00 pm; July 1, 2010; ] July 1st 2010, Trafalgar Square, midday

www.canadadaylondon.com

This year there are 3 capitals, Istanbul in Turkey, Essen in Germany and Pecs in Hungary. Now that there are so many countries in the EU it is getting to the point where one place each year will mean it will take 27 years to get around to the same country again. So we will have at least two per year and probably three. Yes I know Turkey isn’t in the EU but the definition they use of Europe is wider than the geographical or political definitions.
So, a little about each.

Last week The Sunday Times wrote a piece by Matt Rudd about how unfriendly airports are to children. It presupposes the question that airports are supposed to be friendly in the first place. Not just for children but for everyone.
Airports are there to enable you to catch a flight to somewhere so surely the prime aim is to get you through and out as soon as possible? If you are flying in then the same applies. It is get you off the plane and out into the real world. Then some bright spark decided to add duty free shops, then cafés, then restaurants, then shops, then lounges, then viewing areas and places where you can spend £20 on a ticket to win a car. All of a sudden they were bigger than villages. All they need is a Tesco or a Sainsbury and I can do my weekly shop there as well

As long as there have been hotels, there has been those who want to know what happens inside them. Thirty years ago, the television series “The Duchess of Duke Street chronicled the comings and goings of a hotel in Victorian London. Nearly 80 years ago the film, Grand Hotel did the same thing.

Novotel, the hotel chain has been running a survey in Australia. Fiji and New Zealand for the last 10 years into what guests leave behind in their hotels and it is intriguing to see how habits have changed over the decade. Most of us believe that the guests nick the soap and the little shampoo bottles but is this still the case?

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!

If some of the ski holiday companies are to be believed some of us have got so enamoured of the white stuff that we are “inundating” (their word not mine) companies with enquiries about skiing holidays.
Can this be true? Haven’t they seen enough of the stuff? Have they forgotten already the need for clearing paths and roadways, waiting for non-existent trains and buses to get to work, delayed flights to take them to ski resorts and no milk in the villages because the delivery trucks can’t get through.

This has almost become a national pastime and I have contributed to quite a bit of it myself when it is deserved which is more often than not.

But when the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) criticises them (which isn’t as often as they should), you would hope they got their facts correct. Just one fact wrong and Ryanair will attack which is precisely what has just happened.

It began when John Fingleton, the chief executive of the OFT criticised the airline for only allowing one type of credit card to be used for payment that didn’t attract any sort of Ryanair fee. (This card is actually a pre-paid card so is it technically a credit card?)

Whether you’re staycation-ing or vacationing, CD Traveller tells you what’s happening in the travel world

Looking out of the window at the large dollop of snow that has fallen overnight, it is easy to think of warmer parts of the world and getting away from the cold and bleak view I see. Where to go is one issue but who I go with is another.
You could be forgiven for thinking, after seeing the Which? Holiday report on tour operators that you should avoid the big companies like Thomson, First Choice, Thomas Cook, Cosmos and Virgin because they haven’t done very well in the report.
You would be wrong.
This is not to say that the survey is wrong.

Sailing, boating of all sorts, canoeing, surfing and kayaking are popular pastimes. Marinas mushroomed around our coastlines. In a 2006 survey sponsored by Sunsail it was estimated that nearly 3.7 million Britons are regularly involved in watersports for recreation.
Sometimes through no fault of their own, difficulties are encountered and the first call is to the RNLI, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The RNLI is run solely on public donations; the government makes no direct contribution. It is manned by volunteers who give freely of their time.

This view comes not from anyone in the UK but from two German trades unions. According to Der Spiegel’s online news service,(www.spiegel.de) the head of the German police union and the head of the pilots union have both called for bans on the sale of liquids like perfume and alcohol because of their potentially lethal use. Alcohol is inflammable and exists in perfumes as well as the bottles of spirits we buy.
The police union chief, Rainer Wendt, claims that once a passenger clears security checks and gets airside, everything a terrorist needs to build a contraption can be found in the duty free and restaurant areas.
True or not, this ban is unlikely to happen.

January traditionally sees increases in the price we pay to go by rail, and in London, by bus and tube as well. This year’s rail price rises are not as great as in previous years because of the government formula (based on inflation) used. But this only applies to regulated fares. Unregulated ones, which include off peak fares, can be raised by what the train operators wish so increases of up to 6% are to be found.

Apparently, train fares in the UK are the most expensive in Europe.

Fancy becoming a flight attendant? Helen Press, a former flight attendant with over 12 years experience with a major airline, shares the highs and lows of the job

Just before Christmas, we mentioned a few ideas that some of the experts thought would flourish in 2010. Today we have the thoughts of another four groups on what they think, ABTA, IPK, STA Travel and the Intercontinental Hotels chain. You might remember that Mintel thought it would be another year of the staycation with days out and weekend breaks becoming more prominent. And Euromonitor forecast the rise of pop up hotels which could be assembled (and taken down) quickly and which would offer inexpensive accommodation.
ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) says that Sri Lanka, Mexico and Thailand will see more tourists from the UK than they had in 2009.

This is the time of the year when those can claim to be able to forecast where we will holiday come out with their thoughts. And usually the most popular, Spain, France and the UK appear way down the list if it all because it will take a momentous change to remove these three from our lists. So they talk about other places that they claim will see more people will go to. Before we look at some of the forecasts tomorrow why do you choose where we go in the first place?
There are a few reasons why people holiday where they do and it can be summed up as CPCP, cash, preference, convenience and persuasion.

Patrick Gihana Mulenga – commercial secretary at Rwanda Embassy – talks to CD Traveller about his holiday experiences

[ January 29, 2010 9:00 am to January 31, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 29-31 January

Royal Horticultural Halls, London                                                                                   

www.adventureshow.co.uk

[ January 22, 2010; January 23, 2010; January 24, 2010; ] 22-24 January 

RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin 4

www.holidayworldshow.com

€8

[ January 15, 2010 9:00 am to January 17, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 15-17 January

Manchester Central

www.holidayshows.com/manchester.htm

[ January 15, 2010 9:00 am to January 17, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 15-17 January 

Kings Champions Centre, Belfast

www.holidayworldshow.com

£5

[ January 8, 2010 9:00 am to January 10, 2010 6:00 pm. ] 8-10 January

Earls Court, London,

www.thefranceshow.com 

Tickets are now £10 each; accompanied children under 16 are free