[ June 1, 2010 9:00 am to October 1, 2010 6:00 pm. ] Explore inside the Rows stores and help unravel their mysterious past. You will be taken to a part of the city that’s rich in hush-hush history and a tea shop where high tea is definitely on the menu!These tours will give you a much closer look at the city’s unique treasures than ever before [...]

On the face of it, the use of bodyscanners to deter terrorists or, to put it another way, to make us feel that we are as protected as possible when we fly, is something that few would argue with. But all is not simple and there are many justifiable objections to them, not the least of which is privacy. And health risks. And whether the machines work.

For 2 months, Gloucester cathedral will host the largest exhibition of UK sculpture outside London. There will be 75 different pieces on display in the cathedral and its grounds. So big is the venture that when I was there a few weeks ago, they were erecting scaffolding and preparing for it. It was going to take a whole week to just get the exhibits into position. Called Crucible, the event opens on September 1st and runs until October 30th so there is plenty of time to get down to Gloucester to see it. And it won’t be going to any other towns or cities. Miss this opportunity and you don’t get another.

Last week, Lonely Planet let us in on how offering your time and skills is a great way to see new places and give something back. The problem is volunteering holidays – the big travel trend of 2010 – aren’t cheap. Make no mistake: altruism can cost. CD Traveller suggest some other ways in which you can have an ethical, environmentally friendly holiday experience without paying the earth

Like the airline industry, it seems that cruise companies have started developing new ways to relieve you of your money. It was always the case that an outside cabin cost more than an inside and the closer you were to the top of the ship the more expensive it became. But most people looked on cruising as an all-inclusive holiday. When you paid you had little more expense to consider other than how to tip and how much. And even that started to be priced in so you paid for it at the point of purchase. That is changing. Now there are add-ons. And most of them are little things but which add up to big money for companies.

This story is a little different from the usual things you read here but I make no apology for including it. On this bank holiday weekend, there will be lots of people working in some aspect of tourism in Wales who will have ideas on how to improve things; to make that day-out, that stay, that attraction better or more appealing for us the visitor. And those ideas should be supported.
The Tourism Society in Wales offers a £5,000 award to someone,-anyone- to help develop a project that will improve, help or build tourism in the principality. You can be in business, in academic life or just that person with a great idea.

On the West Sussex coastline, Littlehampton is almost a traditional seaside resort. For decades, Londoners caught the train down for either a day out or for a week’s break in a guesthouse. Those days are long since gone you might think but no, you meet people who have been going to Littlehampton for years and years. It breeds loyalty like a lot of our seaside towns.

As we enter the last bank holiday of summer, (and the last until Christmas) many of us will consider driving somewhere for the day. There will be the usual bank holiday traffic to contend with, roadworks that stunt traffic flows and then all the wonderful sights as you motor down pretty roads. There’s a brown sign to some National Trust property, a yellow AA sign for a fete, a pine furniture sale in a village hall and another pointing out that I can buy blackberries at the next lay-by

Figures recently released show that the slowdown in us visiting both Spain and the United States have ended. During July, the numbers of Britons visiting Spain rose by 4.5% and to the Us by up to 9%. This would seem to show two things; that the weakening euro has encouraged us to go back to visiting countries we found expensive last year and that the rise in Air Passenger Duty last November is not affecting our desire to travel long-haul

A while ago I wrote complaining about the food at Heathrow. (see CD-Traveller December 2nd 2008) You could go to an Irish pub, have Italian food but where was British food? Even in the pub, there were things that only Americans might revere as being British food. As the first sight of something British when visitors come and see us, you would hope that the food at least could be something more than the standard meals that you can find almost wherever you are in the world.
Well, that is about to change for starting August 26th

[ September 11, 2010; 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. ]
RAF Leuchars, Scotland
Adults £20, Seniors/Children, £10, family Ticket £48

We’re becoming a nation of airborne adventurers. As flights get cheaper, holidaymakers are bypassing Blackpool in favour of more exotic locations like Bali and Borneo. We return invigorated, inspired and refreshed but there’s a catch: as tourists we can actually have an adverse impact on the countries we visit. So what’s the modern traveller with a conscience to do? Lonely Planet’s new book, Volunteer: A Traveller’s guide to making a difference around the world, has some suggestions

Last year there was a lot of anecdotal evidence that more of us were visiting castles and heritage. You might remember Sir Thomas Ingleby from Ripley Castle in North Yorkshire saying that his visitor figures were up and Dover Castle has announced a 35% increase in visitors. Now there is more widespread evidence from Visit Britain that it our heritage that draws visitors.

To people outside the south east of England, Chichester is one of those places that sounds like many others. If anyone has heard of it then it is probably due to the fact that it is where a theatre festival is held, because it is near Glyndebourne or because it is the county town of West Sussex. For those more local it is a well visited centre for day visits either because of the shops, the cathedral or the nearby Roman ruins at Fishbourne (the largest Roman palace yet discovered in the UK) where one of the finest mosaics is to be found.

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, there are apparently 880-900 comedy shows. The number of jokes in all material must be difficult to count especially since there are some of the fastest tellers of joke who pack hundreds into each performance.
The winner of this year’s award for the funniest joke has gone to Tim Vine. And it’s a holiday joke so I thought I’d reproduce it here.

You don’t need us to tell you about Cornwall. At some stage in your life you will have heard about the lanes, the beaches, the cliffs, the food and the people.
It’s one of the great British holiday destinations and it crops up quite often in the travel pages of the newspapers and magazines. But not often in the main part of the paper.
Yet that is what happened yesterday in The Times.

Lonely Planet, the BBC owned magazine and tourist guidebook publisher, has surveyed its readers and announced their first ever awards. The idea behind these new awards is to discover what the top experiences of its readers were. But Lonely Planet widened the questions so that its readers were able to offer wider opinions outside the normal sort of awards.

[ September 3, 2010 to September 5, 2010. ]

[ August 27, 2010 to August 29, 2010. ]
Bramham Park, Leeds

[ September 18, 2010 to September 19, 2010. ]
Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
Adult: Saturday £7, Sunday £6, Both days £11
Book online and save £1

After the collapse of Blue Skies Destinations, (yesterday) Goldtrail, Flight Options (the owners of Kiss) and Sun4You in almost as many weeks and following on XL, Globespan and Libra, one of the common questions is can I trust my tour operator to still be around when I go on holiday? Who should I book with? Does anyone offer full protection?
As with most things in this world nothing is certain but here are some thoughts.

[ September 28, 2010 to October 3, 2010. ]
Richmond, North Yorkshire,

[ September 11, 2010 to September 13, 2010. ]
a long weekend of free talks and guides through the colleges.
Cambridge, Cambs.

It’s official. Today, staycation has been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary so they must think that the word, if not the holiday idea is here to stay. Unlike some tour operators who have blamed reduced profits this year on weather, volcanic ash, strikes and the economy for the fact that Britons and Irish are not going abroad. So is the staycation just a passing fad?
The head of Wyndham’s In Europe, thinks not.

CD Traveller reader, Maryann Noronha, takes us on a tour of her five favourite destinations

(Here is the latest posting by Clive Culley. Travelling long haul by a budget airline is rare for us in Europe so here is his view of one of the few opportunities around. He is having connection problems in Indonesia so we suspect we’ll get a glut of stories for you and then some gaps till he arrives at some bigger places. In a couple of weeks time, we’ll give you the complete opposite, – a long haul flight in first class)

Because Spain has attracted so many British and Irish holidaymakers over the years, a small percentage dip in visitors hides a drop of tens of thousands. The decline has been going on for a few years yet Spain remains as the most important destination. To Spain, the decline is worrying despite the vast numbers who still travel there.
Why do fewer Brits and Irish visit and what can be done to attract them back again?

After talks today, Unite, the union involved has withdrawn its proposed strike action at the airports of BAA. Heathrow, Stanstead, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports could have been affected by the strike which was likely to have taken place later this month.
A new pay offer has been recommended by the union and voting will take place over the next 3 weeks. If rejected by members the earliest a strike could now take place would be in September.