The CD-Traveller team share their top 2011 travel experiences and look at the top spots for 2012

Hurray! Westminster Council has finally seen sense and scrapped its plans to charge for parking in the evenings and on Sundays – for now at least.

UPDATE: 17/12/2011. Scottish Tourism Minister Fergus Ewing has announced that there will be no accommodation tax in Edinburgh.Without the transfer of powers from the government to loacl authorites, any such introduction would be illegal.

History travel website, Historvius, picks ten of the best destinations for European city breaks bursting with history, perfect for everyone from the casual sightseer to diehard history buffs

It seems that it was only yesterday that I was in Edinburgh at the re-opening of the National Museum in Chambers Street. But it was four months ago. A short time. So it is surprising to learn that the museum welcomed its one millionth visitor yesterday since its re-opening.

Which are the most popular places to go in the UK for overseas visitors? Counting how many of us visit our own cities isn’t easy but for those coming from abroad, the International Passenger Survey provides some answers and now, Visit Britain has played looked at the data and come up with some answers.

CD-Traveller tells you what’s hot and what’s not in the travel world. This month it’s good news for Greenwich and Glasgow but Gulf Air may want to rethink their plans to introduce in-flight phone and internet access

I happened to see the Sarah Jessica Parker film, I Don’t Know How She Does It, last night. The film, based on Alison Pearson’s best selling novel, was shot in Boston and had the effect of making me want to book a break in Boston.

According to Rough Guides, Glasgow should be the Scottish capital. The travel guide publishers have hailed the city as a “warmer less expensive alternative” to its east coast rival

According to the BBC, some 22,000 people visited the newly opened Chambers Street part of the National Museum of Scotland on Friday, its opening day. I was one.

According to STR Global, the compilers of worldwide hotel data, this is the number of hotel rooms that will open in Europe during 2011. That amounts to 747 new hotels but what’s that considering the size of Europe? The interest is in where the expansion is happening.

The traveller is an odd beast. What we prefer is a downturn. Then prices of hotels, flights and car hire drop. But then in downturns we might also have to trim our spending or, at worst case, face redundancy. But as the market improves and people feel more confident prices rise and the traveller gets hit by increased costs with not necessarily any improvement in income to pay for it. I suspect we are in that cycle now. Air fares have risen and now comes evidence from Trivago’s Hotel Price Index that hotel prices this December are going up as well.

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

According to ABTA, about 2 million of us will leave the country to enjoy Easter abroad. And maybe some decent weather after the returning wintry conditions of this week.
It won’t come as a great surprise to many of you that Spanish resorts are doing well with Tenerife and the Canaries leading the way. You could also guess that Egypt and Turkey are doing well and so they are but Tunisia has also picked up a lot of bookings. Going slightly further afield, Florida is attracting the usual school age groups and booking seem to be up despite the fact that the biggest new attraction, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter doesn’t open until June 18th.
The usual places seem to fill the top spots each year for overseas citybreak destinations. Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin lead the pack with Milan and New York not far behind and this is despite the weakness of the pound against the euro and the dollar.
So who is going away?

The phrase above is the slogan that Visit Britain us using as part of its advertising campaign to encourage Americans to come and see us. The slogan thought up by Californian, Jay Masunaga, in a competition designed to publicise Britain as a holiday destination for the gay community.
To complement the promotion, Visit Britain has also come up with categories of people to whom Britain would appeal. These are Foodies, Night Owls, Event-Goers, Culturati, Chillers and Fashionistas. You can guess what most of these are but how about Chillers

Holiday accommodation can be expensive but the range of choice is wide. Beginning with hostels, campsites, caravan parks you can consider B&B’s, guesthouses and hotels of an increasing number of stars.
But have you ever considered university accommodation?
Obviously it has its drawbacks, not the least of which is you can’t stay there when the students are around. So you’re limited really to holiday times such as Easter, July through to the end of September and over Christmas. But those are also the times when other accommodation carries a premium price. And universities are in some of the most popular shortbreak and citybreak destinations. Take Cambridge for example. Trying to find accommodation there can be a real problem in summer when overseas tourists visit

Now that the children have broken up from school, they can still get bored quite easily. Combining shopping and visiting Father Christmas has been a solution, going back decades, to keep them occupied. At Christmas and Hogmanay, Princes Street in Edinburgh is turned into a mini entertainment arena.
Up at the Haymarket end is the German market with gluhwein strongly in evidence at about £3 a mugfull. This year it celebrates it’s tenth year so there are some extra special offers. The stallholders make their way from Frankfurt for the month long stay. Apart from German food and beer you will find crafts such as turned woods, candles and toys. It gets busy as the day wears into evening so, for the remaining few days, why not visit it in mid morning. Given the weather at the moment the gluhwein is especially welcoming!
For those who prefer it there is the Traditional Highland Village Christmas Market Christmas just up from the German market. Unlike the German market, this one lasts until January 4th so there is food throughout Hogmanay.

Around here the schools have just broken up and kids are everywhere. But so are cars heavily laden with luggage so it is obvious that some people are leaving tonight for the Christmas break. Maybe they are all trying to travel before even more snow comes over the weekend.

ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) claims that today and next Wednesday will be two busiest days on the roads or at railway stations, airports and ferry terminals as people make the way off for the break. They estimate that 3 million us will be heading away of the Christmas period. This number is about the same as last year so our appetite for a break seems as strong as ever

As the summer ends we are beginning to get a better picture of where we actually went and what we did this summer past.

Both Hoseasons and Park resorts who largely operate holidays in Britain, have announced that they did bumper business this year as did the caravanning industry. Some sites were full in August.

There are plans for a new runway at Heathrow. Some people think there will be another one at Gatwick when the planning rules expire in about eight years time. In the meantime the crunch is hitting airports now. The extent was brought closer to everyday life with the decision of Prestwick airport to shed about [...]