Planning a week-end away in Wales but not sure where to stay? CD Traveller has done the hard work for you. We’ve selected five chic retreats from Alastair Sawday’s new book Special Places to Stay Wales.

Alastair Sawday has a knack for picking out stylish, well-run places – the sort the CD Traveller team would choose for a short break ourselves. To give you a flavour, we’ve picked five of our favourites from Sawday’s new book Special Places to Stay Wales.

In Greece, there have been cries of outrage at the suggestion by some German parliamentarians that they sell off some of the Greek islands. The money raised from the sale, goes the suggestion, would reduce the large economic deficit that the country has. As there are about 6,000 Greek islands and only about 80 are inhabited, there remain a huge number which make no contribution to the Greek economy.
Is this such a bad idea?
There are islands in the Caribbean that have been sold and then developed for tourism. In the Maldives, islands are co-developed for tourism with the locals and the state receiving taxation. And there seems to be a ready market for people to buy islands so here is a slight alteration to the idea. The attraction of the Greek islands for tourists has existed for centuries.

Sick of the sleet and snow? CD Traveller asked four top travel journalists to share their ‘hot spots’ for 2010. Get ready to top up your tan

Last month CD Traveller reader, T Fleetwood, wrote in for some recommendations on what fifty somethings should see and do Down Under. Always aiming to please, we asked the experts –Tourism Australia and Tourism New Zealand –for a few ideas. Here’s what they had to say…

Summer 2010 will see South Africa stage football’s greatest show: the FIFA World Cup. The games will be held in nine cities including Durban. The city has been pouring millions of rand into new infrastructure including a state-of-the-art football ground, The Durban Stadium, which will seat no fewer than 70,000 fans.
But there’s more to South Africa’s third largest city than the FIFA World Cup Finals. Local resident, Heather Reed, reveals why South Africa’s seaside playground rivals Cape Town as the Rainbow Nation’s most popular tourist destination…

Whether you’re staycation-ing or vacationing, CD Traveller tells you what’s hot and what’s not in the travel world

As usual, when St David’s Day falls on a weekday, some of the celebrations fall on the preceding weekend. And so at Caldicot Castle in Monmouthshire, they have an open day on Sunday 28th February with free admission to the castle. For 5 hours, starting at 11am, you can enjoy a number of activities in not only the castle but the country park as well including the ever popular historic re-enactments.
So why should you consider going to Caldicot instead of one of the other St David’s Day activities?

Dover castle
This is just to let you all know that, for the 4th year in a row, Visit Kent and Kent County Council will be organising the Big Day Out on Saturday March 27th. So why, might you ask, am I telling you this so far in advance? The answer is that tickets for all [...]

Like many other eurozone countries, Greece suffered from having fewer tourists from the UK and Ireland last year. Overall money from tourism was down by 11% but that masked areas of growth. Some operators reported that some of the more expensive islands to go to like Kefalonia showed increases.
So given the state of the Greek economy and those headlines that litter the press, should anyone be worried about holidaying in Greece this year?
The simple answer is probably not.