My Holiday: An amazing trip from Mumbai to Delhi on the Maharajas’ Express January 16, 2017 My most memorable holiday was taking the Maharajas’ Express from Mumbai to Delhi back in 2010. I was born in India but on the other side of the country in a coal mining town called Asansol, about 200km west of Kolkata. I hadn’t really seen the western part of the country, certainly as a tourist, [...]
How to get into the world’s top airport lounges, from Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong to Qatar Airways’s Al Safwa lounge in Doha January 16, 2017 When flying long-haul, I tend to get to the airport early. Not because I’m one of those anxious flyers who likes to sit around in departures for three hours staring at the flight status screens, but because some airlines have upped their lounge game to such a point that it’s essential to allow enough time [...]
Think cruises are boring? Try an adventure cruise for cool, trendy people January 16, 2017 Ultimate Yangtze This epic voyage up China’s Yangtze river includes an excursion to see the Three Gorges Dam, an incredible feat of engineering whose infamy is matched only by its grand scale. After that you’ll cruise through the Wu Gorge, known for its forest covered mountains, before heading straight into the Qutang Gorge, the shortest, [...]
Paradise Beach: Enjoy rum, monkeys and tropical luxury on the twin islands of St Kitts and Nevis January 16, 2017 French settlers brought their pet monkeys to the Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis in the 17th century. Soon after they promptly escaped and began multiplying (the monkeys, not the French), wreaking simian havoc wherever they went. The marauding apes now outnumber humans and routinely devastate crops in dawn raids, munching their way through [...]
London’s iconic Goring Hotel hits record £14m in revenue January 15, 2017 The Goring Hotel in Belgravia reported its highest ever turnover in 2016, coming in at more than £14m with a profit of £1.6m. In a year which saw the Goring Dining Room receive its first Michelin star and the hotel awarded five stars in the Forbes Travel Guide, profit before tax almost quadrupled to £2m. [...]
Property interview: Melissa York speaks to CEO Fredrik Korallus of upstart hostel brand Generator about breaking America January 13, 2017 From the way chief executive officer Fredrik Korallus talks about his hostel group Generator, you’d think he was heading up a trendy Shoreditch club night. He speaks about “having the right art, the right music, the right culture” and even aspires to turn the £20-a-night shared accommodation hubs into “living art centres”. But exceeding expectations [...]
Long Weekend review: We brush up on our swing at this luxury golf and tennis resort in Marbella January 6, 2017 The Weekend: You’ll have to make some pretty tough choices at Puente Romano. It’s more than likely to be sunny, so you could build up a sweat on the tennis court, or on a lounger. Choose which pool to swim in, or go to the beach. Have a massage or a facial. And then you [...]
Exploring the Sardinian paradise of Costa Smerelda, Europe’s top playground for the fantastically wealthy January 6, 2017 Some places are just so beautiful, so unbelievably picture-perfect, so utterly, gob-smackingly Instagrammable, that you think, ‘if this didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent it.’ So I’m taken aback on finding out, on my first afternoon on the Costa Smeralda – one of Europe’s top playgrounds for the super-wealthy – that actually someone [...]
Holiday Homes: We travel to one of Spain’s most exclusive sports and leisure resorts to see how it’s been transformed to appeal to modern investors January 6, 2017 When La Manga Club opened in 1972, it was at the forefront of sports and leisure destinations across Europe. It took only two years to build the ground-breaking project in Murcia, south-east Spain, but it quickly became a celebrity hangout for sports and showbiz stars alike. Guests included Kenny Dalglish, Gordon Strachan, Juliet Binoche, Salma [...]
Already thinking about summer? These will be the most popular tourist destinations of 2017 January 6, 2017 If being back at work is already getting you down, why not give yourself something to look forward to by planning your summer holiday right now? Staycations are set to be a big trend in 2017 due to the fall in the value of the pound, but Gatwick airport is confident that weary workers will [...]