The best holiday money saving tips for the year ahead

Make the most of your hard-earned cash with Stephen Baker’s 25 top holiday moneysaving tips

Explore Shandong

Heading to China in the year of the Dragon? Seek out Shangdong – steeped as it is in myth and supernatural allure

Consumer Direct (formally the National Consumer Council)

From the website:

“Consumer Direct is the government-funded telephone and online service offering information and advice on consumer issues. Consumer Direct is funded by the Office of Fair Trading and delivered in partnership with Local Authority Trading Standards Services.”

A Day in… Hexham

About 30 minutes outside Newcastle as you drive west towards Carlisle, you come across Hexham. It’s more than just a market town, Here is one of the most significant Christian sites in English history. It was here that Wilfred founded his abbey just a few miles south of Hadrian’s Wall. Why he picked such a place I don’t know. Why you should pick the town for a days’ visit is easier to explain.

Dust the volcanic ash off your suitcase and take the train

We are all smart enough not to travel to flooded areas, but the truth is that natural disasters such as volcanoes do not just affect the area surrounding their location: The eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in southern Iceland erupted for the second time in less than a month yesterday, after geoscientists were forwarded of signs of life – after being dormant for nearly 200 years – by the occurrence of 1000s of small earthquakes which started at the end of 2009.

Holiday Visits that Don’t Impress

The launch of a new book edited by Bill Bryson, “The Road Less Travelled”, which looks at less well known, less visited places has given the Sunday Times to use the book and ask if readers know of others. The five places it says are the most over-rated are Stonehenge, Petra in Jordan, the Colosseum in Rome, Machu Picchu in Peru and Angkor in Cambodia. So far it has had 90 comments on its website for and against the choices. And that’s a lot more than articles usually get.

New New York

The Big Apple has been mesmerising visitors for years. Its pleasures are eternal but the particulars of where to stay, eat and play are ever in flux. CD Traveller breaks out their little black book…