A few months ago, CD-Traveller mentioned that Scot Rail would be introducing a slightly different version of its Club 55 deals (CD-Traveller 2nd May 2010). Now that we are in July, The offer has started so this is just to remind you what is on offer.
For both July and August you can travel anywhere in Scotland for just £22 for standard class and £27 for first class. This is the fare for a single ticket and you can just walk up to a ticket office on the day of travel and buy the ticket there and then. Because I look well over 55, I have yet to have to show evidence that I am indeed over 55 but it might be handy if you had something like a driving licence just in case.
Bear in mind though that there are lots of fares that will cost less than £22 so check first before you buy a ticket. But for those longer journeys, this can be a good deal.

If you are thinking of visiting Ireland and over 66 then you might want to consider seeing Ireland by rail.
Why?
Because it will be free.
Anyone over 66 from the UK is entitled to apply for a Golden Trekker pass.

Last week it was the North Carolinians who named UK visitors as the ones they were targeting. They were visiting travel agents urging them to push North Carolina with its two direct links to the state (Gatwick-Charlotte and Heathrow to Raleigh-Durham) as the place British visitors should holiday in.
Now New York has followed with a worldwide campaign called “See More, Be More. This is New York City”. Not the snappiest of headlines but it is supposed to “reflect the feeling of personal transformation that lingers long after a trip to NY ends,” according to the creative head of NYC & Company, Willy Wong. Or to put it another way, good holiday memories.

If you scan down the 750 or so items listed in our events column you will find strange, amusing and oddish ones that reflect the make up of our countries. Take, for example, the National Scything Championships at the annual Green Scythe Fair that were held exactly a week ago at Thorney Lakes in Somerset. Who does ego to fairs like this? How much interest can there be apart maybe, from enthusiastic scythers?
Quite a lot seems to be the answer because record crowds gathered including lots of children. What is a record crowd for an event like this I hear you ask? 50? 500? The answer is more than 2,000 for what I would have thought was of only little interest. How wrong I am.
According to the organisers scything is a sport. Agriculture’s answer to snowboarding.

Today’s the day.
It’s the grand opening of Universal’s new theme park, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. At Orlando in Florida, Universal have put a lot of time, effort and money (Universal won’t say how much but figures of close to $200 million have been bandied around) into creating a spectacular attraction that they are hoping will dazzle visitors from around the world.
Will it?
Last month they held a sneak preview from buyers around the world and the general view amongst world weary travel executives and journalists was that it would.

Last week, Visit Chester & Cheshire held their annual tourism awards. There were 15 categories and Tatton Park won the award for best visitor attraction of the year. It isn’t the first time it has been successful, this being the third time this century. Receiving over 750,000 visitors each year, some of the reasons for its likely success are that it combines 50 acres of gardens, (out of 1,000 in all) a mansion, a park and it is easy to get to from two motorways. They also have a large number of events operating throughout the year and you can see those by looking at CD-Traveller’s event pages.
Of course, they weren’t the only winners. The award for the best tourism experience went to the shark dive at the Blue Planet Aquarium near Ellesmere Port. Sharks have never been one of my favourite things so I am one of the exceptions since the Aquarium even gets large numbers voting in its favourite shark category. (Bella the Black Tip Reef Shark won last years with 3,000 plus votes!)

If you haven’t voted for the Art Fund Prize yet then you have only until the 18th of June to do so. You can vote at www.artfundprize.org.uk/2010/vote/ for one of the final four contenders. The prize, £100,000, will be awarded by the judges after the closing date and your vote will help to influence them. The 30th of June will be the date that the winner will be announced and we’ll let you know as soon as we can which is the lucky museum.

You might wonder what an African country and the largest conservation charity in the UK have in common. At this time of the year there are tourism awards that are given out and both have received a pretty similar award.
The World Travel & Tourism Council, (WTTC) is a body that you may not have come across. It is a forum for 100 of the top business leaders in travel and tourism across the world. They have just announced what they call their Tourism for Tomorrow Awards which reward sustainable tourism. The destination that has won this year’s Destination Stewardship Award is Botswana for the way that it treats tourism in the Okavango delta

Last week was National Ice Cream Week. Where are most ice creams sold? I haven’t a clue, possibly at beaches, but I do know that the end of the week coincides with the announcements of where we think the best beach in the UK is. The Cadbury Flake Great British Beach Awards (you can guess who the sponsor is) are not decided by water quality, cleanliness of the beaches or some government team. You will have voted for them online so therefore the winners were totally up to you and based on your own criteria.
And Rhossili Bay in the Gower was voted the runaway winner. It received 47% of all the votes with Tresco in the Scilly Isles coming second on 19%. Then came Margate and Blackpool on 10%.

Now that June is on upon us and the weather is improving (ie no more bank holiday weather with luck), we are into the season of the village days. These village days are the way that money is raised for community projects. It could be for a new hall at one extreme, its maintenance or it could be just for local charities. It brings people into the villages and some people I know go from one to the other in June. The end of the season comes at about the time the schools break up for the summer holidays.
Virtually every weekend in June we have a village day in our district and on some Saturdays, two or three.
You may have the same in your area. And if you want to let others know where they can go for a good day out, e-mail us at editor@cd-traveller.com and it will be listed in our events section.