Life & style, Travel

WIN a luxury self-catering adventure break to Perthshire with VisitScotland Adventure Pass

VisitScotland has teamed up with Equazen to give you an action-packed adventure break in Perthshire, Scotland. Equazen produce healthy fish oil products, which will help keep you fighting fit and ready for Scotland’s Great Outdoors. WIN an…

WIN a 4-night adventure break for 4 to the eco-friendly Loch Lomond Waterfront Lodges worth £1,800

Explore a thrilling variety of adventure activities, whilst taking in the awe-inspiring landscapes that Scotland has to offer. With over 10,000kms of coastline, spectacular scenery, and unspoilt countryside, it’s no wonder that Scotland is known as…

Get Active, Get Outdoors & Go For It with VisitScotland Adventure Pass!

Get Active Get active in the New Year and explore some of Scotland’s great variety of adventure activities, whilst taking in the awe-inspiring landscapes that Scotland has to offer. With over 10,000kms of coastline, spectacular scenery, and…

WIN a luxury adventure break for 4 to the sandy beaches of St Andrews, Scotland

Get Healthy, Get Outdoors and Go For It with the VisitScotland Adventure Pass this Spring. Explore Scotland’s great variety of adventure activities, whilst taking in the awe-inspiring landscapes that Scotland has to offer. With over 10,000kms of…

The death of budget travel?

We must have known that it wasn’t going to last, and that future generations would look back on the early years of the 21st century as a lost golden age of rock-bottom-cheap travel, when you could zip to Paris for a weekend in almost less time, and for…

Couchsurfing

What if I said you could travel anywhere in the world and not pay for accommodation; that you could leave your Lonely Planet at home and be given a personalised itinerary of everything to see and do? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, no…

Happy when it rains

Going on holiday in Scotland? In the winter? Ach, you’ll have heard the jokes. You might have made some of them yourself. No, it probably won’t be that sunny. Or warm. However, as the pound plummets abroad and air fares shoot up, holidaying at home is…

Patrick Richardson - Reports from Beyond

TRAVEL BOOK The best travel writing is much more than just writing about travel, something this hugely experienced journeyman doesn’t seem to realise despite a lifetime of wanderlust. This glossy coffee table effort is subtitled ‘A Journey Through…

Air apparent

I am so stupid. I’m shuffling forward on a bench in a King Air plane above Hollister, California. Only now, at 15,000 feet, after a quarter of an hour of shivery anticipation, and a mere stride from an open door to the sky, do I realise the implications…

Summer wine

‘Authentic Fado tonight!’ the waiter announced, as I peeped inside his restaurant on my first night in the city. I was pulled in and fed with espedatas, huge fish kebabs, just off the chargrill, while serenaded gravely by folk ballads. ‘The Fado songs…

Norway

Given that Norway is one of the few places in Europe more expensive, and with worse weather than Scotland, it’s not one of the most obvious destinations for a summer holiday. But for those who appreciate quirky historic towns, dramatic scenery and a…

Streets of glory - Edinburgh Rat Race

Edinburgh will be reclaimed by hundreds of scurrying creatures this month. Claire Sawers meets the people behind the Rat Race

Nice and easy does it - Côte d’Azur

Richard Moore braves the glamour and the husband hunters of the Côte d’Azur and discovers a wealth of treasures

Three places nearby the Côte d’Azur

Cannes Although most famous for the illustrious film festival that swamps the city in actor-types every May, Cannes' reputation for glamour is evident throughout the year. The main streets are packed with expensive boutiques, but most of the town's…

Three to try: adventure sports

Transgression Park Head to the top of Edinburgh’s Ocean Terminal for a spin on your BMX, skateboard or inline skates. Not yet a consummate professional? Lessons and equipment hire are available for all three ‘freesports’. There is also a designated…

Munich

Beer. It might as well be the first word here, since there’s no getting away from it in Munich, even outwith the world-renowned annual piss-up of Oktoberfest. Löwenbräu, Hofbräu, Augustiner, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Spaten, Fraziskaner – you name them…

Scottish Surfing

Even when the surf’s up in Scotland, chances are the temperatures won’t be. But with advancements in wetsuits over the past few years, it’s now possible to surf the Scottish coastline year-round. Fuelled I suspect by seeing one too many photos of…

Barcelona

Everywhere you look in Barcelona, you see Ronaldinho. Reproductions of the FC Barca hero fill the shelves of each tourist tat-peddling stall and storefront, even in the shadow of Antoni Gaudi’s mighty Sagrada Familia cathedral, which emphasises the…

City Beaches

The busy beach and Old Port at Barceloneta (head to the bottom of La Rambla and keep walking past Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Barcelona Head’) is one more reason to fall for Barcelona, although it’s not the only city where visitors can find sand and surf within…

Belfast

St George’s Market on a Saturday morning. High, tented ceilings filling up with barbeque smoke; cheerful art graduates selling hand-printed T-shirts side by side with grumpy, knowledgeable fishmongers and cheese merchants; stalls offering gourmet olive…

Shopping in London

Something cool For a one-stop shop of new designers Sunday Upmarket (Liverpool Street, sundayupmarket.co.uk) has 140 stalls of accessories, fashion and interiors. Keep an eye out for Maria Helena Spector’s jewellery made from silver, lava and…

Shopping trips

Blow the budget For every traveller who sees haggling as an integral part of any good holiday there are many more who would happily swaddle their first born in giftwrap and hand them to the next passer-by if it meant they never had to play the…