Day by day, Donald Trump is reshaping America. We travel the west coast from Canada to Mexico speaking to people about their hopes and fears, and how their lives are changing July 11, 2018 The Seattle skyline, with the iconic Space Needle against the backdrop of Mt Rainier, may be familiar from TV series including Frasier and Grey’s Anatomy, but it’s the city’s music scene that sent ripples across the world, through Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix. “The music scene helped build Seattle’s liberal values,” says Nick, a [...]
A land of conquest, casinos and copious wine, Georgia is perhaps Europe’s most surprising destination July 5, 2018 It has been said that Georgians ‘think with European minds and feel with Asian hearts’. Their nation, clamped between Russia and Turkey, is neither fully European nor Asian but rather in a category all of its own. If one symbol encapsulates the Georgian psyche it is the Kartlis Deda “Mother of Georgia” statue, which towers [...]
Beirut survived 15 years of civil war, and now Lebanon’s once-beleaguered capital is a highlight of the club scene June 22, 2018 It’s barely nine o’clock in the evening, and I’m uncomfortably close to my first brush with death. Or, to be more precise, Death, a lethal-sounding concoction made with gin, vodka, cognac, sherry, lemon, orange and cinnamon, stored in a bottle featuring a skull and crossbones on the front. It’s the creation of a small, dapper, [...]
Beirut survived 15 years of civil war, and now Lebanon’s once-beleaguered capital is a highlight of the club scene June 22, 2018 It’s barely nine o’clock in the evening, and I’m uncomfortably close to my first brush with death. Or, to be more precise, Death, a lethal-sounding concoction made with gin, vodka, cognac, sherry, lemon, orange and cinnamon, stored in a bottle featuring a skull and crossbones on the front. It’s the creation of a small, dapper, [...]
Escape to Tea Country: With over 150 years of tea making heritage, Sri Lanka is a brew-lover’s paradise June 18, 2018 Sri Lanka, the teardrop shaped island in the Indian Ocean, is the size of Ireland, yet it’s home to an incredible diversity of wildlife. In the deep waters off the southern cape, blue whales, the largest animal on earth, come to breed. Herds of the largest land animal, the elephant, freely crisscross the island. Leopards [...]
For King and Country: As Swaziland celebrates 50 years of independence, the king took to the stage to make an astonishing announcement June 8, 2018 Portraits of the Lion and the Great She Elephant — King Mswati III and his mother — stare down from the wall of the immigration office. The animal print pattern of the king’s tribal dress seems a world away from the border-bureaucracy of entry stamps and customs forms, but it’s part of the dichotomy of [...]
Barsham Barns review: These luxury cottages in North Norfolk raise the bar for self-catering getaways June 4, 2018 When it comes to travelling with my entourage of beautiful friends, I’m finished with hotels. I’m done with hanging around near a cheese plant in the lobby as the last stragglers check in. I’m tired of resorting to £6 cocktails in empty hotel bars, and of “let’s freshen up and meet downstairs in 15 minutes”. [...]
Feeling brave? Then try bob rafting on the slopes of La Plagne March 23, 2018 If you’re the kind of skier for whom speeding backwards down a black run in an ice storm no longer delivers the requisite adrenalin kick, you need to try bob rafting. Mooted as an amateur’s alternative to bob sledding or the luge — which really should only be attempted by those with a death wish [...]
Can Eco-Tourism Help Cape Town During Its Worst Ever Drought? March 19, 2018 You wouldn’t suspect there was anything odd about the bathrooms at the Cape Grace hotel. Until, that is, you looked inside the tub. There, dangling uselessly from the porcelain, you’ll see a neatly snipped-off inch of chain that once held a bath plug. This plug, along with every other in the hotel, has vanished. Clues [...]
Cliveden House review: Celebrate your last moments of childlessness with a luxury babymoon to this stately home March 9, 2018 A babymoon may sound like a wheeze designed to milk that most susceptible of consumers, the prospective parent, but dismiss it at your peril: it’s a last chance to indulge your egocentric childless selves, so grab it with both hands. With that in mind, I whisked my better half to Cliveden House and Spa. Where: [...]