Thailand | Island Escape | Luxury | Five-Star Accommodation | Spa & Wellness |
Tropical Islands are subject to tropical weather, and sometimes that suits the frogs more than travellers. Wet season in the Gulf of Thailand can be a happy place for both however.
"I slide across in the water to get a closer look at my banana-bound tree frog and he suddenly turns shy. With a leap he exits his leafy shelter and lands on the bamboo edging along the villa. The round stalks are hollow and provide the perfect hiding hole for a photo shy frog. He pops his head forward to see what I'm doing, revealing just his nose and eyes while staying at the ready to retreat. I do the same in the pool, soothing my sunburn below the surface of the water."
France | Adventure | Cycling | Food & Wine |
I checked the maps again, and noted the 250m bump in the topographic map. Not shown on the map was an ever strengthening head-wind. This was no sea breeze, rather a potent climatic event is so strong that the locals gave it a name. “La Mistral” is an unpredictable adversary for cyclists, arriving with little warning and crashing through the countryside like a drunken impressionist.
Australia | Kayaking & Canoeing | Birdwatching | Off the Beaten Track | Wildlife & Nature |
The splash as we slide into the water echoes off the cliffs that crown way overhead, book-ending a sky daubed with 3D tufts of cloud. Our laughter bounces back at us too, the only human sounds in a world fashioned in fantastic textures and rich hues. The sky is a vivid, almost enamel blue. Olive rock-shelf shallows darken to bottle green depths carved by millennia of wet seasons. And the precipitous red-rock walls that contain the summer floods, and reflect sun and sound in winter, are samples of extraordinary natural stonemasonry, revealing every step in their tortuous creation. Back on shore, dripping on a towel unrolled in a lazily shifting wedge of shade, I feel like I am an integral part of the remote and rugged country enfolding me. And that is bliss!
Australia | Off the Beaten Track | Adventure | Nature | Outdoors |
Horror stories rarely live up to their hype, and the road into Purnululu National Park, in Australia's Kimberley region, is not the monster which park notes and friends’ tales had steeled us for. That’s not to say the road is never a beast or that the 53km drive in from the Great Northern Highway can’t take 3 hours, or longer, but it is not as rocky as we expected, has fewer blind corners and drop offs, and only one stretch of sand, and bitumen-to-park takes us just 1h20 minutes. The drive is also more spectacular that we imagined, looping around and through ranges lain like rough-hide reptiles on the cattle stations it traverses.
Vietnam | Asia | Culture | Food & Wine | Cities |
Small and bent with bunions, her feet rest atop black velvet scuffs. Her silver hair is pulled into a bun wrapped in beaded black mesh. A gold-and-jade ring and jade bracelet adorn the bird-like hands with which she removes a plastic box from the drawstring bag between us. As we share a bench beside Hoan Kiem Lake, in the heart of Hanoi, I watch the elderly Vietnamese woman daub red areca nut and white slaked lime on a betel leaf and fold it into a quid. But she doesn’t pop this parcel in her mouth; she puts it aside and prepares more stimulant, adding several threads of tobacco to a chunk of nut in a metal canister, and grinding them to a course paste with a spatula. Hawkers with postcards, gaudy fans and photocopied Lonely Planet guidebooks ply their wares around us as she packs up, finally donning her velvet scuffs and standing. Having folded the square of plastic spread on the bench to protect her black-satin trousers (I just sat down), she smiles at me and moves away, small steps taking her around the lake’s concrete shore.
India | Culture | Gourmet Travel | Five-Star Accommodation | Historical
When one thinks of India, good scones with jam and cream are probably the last things that come to mind. But in Darjeeling the niceties of English high tea are as much as a staple as a piping-hot curry. The Darjeeling region is home to 87 tea plantations including Glenburn Tea Estate, where the afternoon tea is as good as it gets. Glenburn, a working tea plantation bordering the Himalayan province of Sikkim, has five-star accommodation in the original planter's residence, and grand hillside villas with breathtaking views of the Himalayas.
India | Cruising | Adventure | Birdwatching | Off the Beaten Track
The sun might sun blaze across India's Assam province, but it’s cool beneath the deck awning of the RV Charaidew, which cruises the mighty Brahmaputra River - up to 30 kilometres wide in places - from Guwahati, Tezpur or Jorhat. A journey on the rustic Charaidew, which has 12 comfortable cabins, offers a fascinating insight into rural India, with visits to temples, remote villages and national parks including the remarkable Kaziranga National Park, home to the rare one-horned Indian rhinoceros.
Ireland | Celebrities | Cities | Shopping | Destinations
The Irish are quite blase about megastars, which is why so many descend upon Dublin for some time-out from fans and paparazzi. Lisa Kudrow, Liz Hurley, Andie McDowell, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael Jordan and Robbie Williams – to name but a few – may shop in Grafton Street or dine at local restaurants and no-one bats an eyelid. The hottest celebrity accommodation in downtown Dublin is the Clarence Hotel, owned by U2s Bono and The Edge. Situated on the banks of the Liffey River overlooking the city’s trendy Temple Bar district, the Clarence has 49 rooms including a rooftop penthouse where many a celeb has slumbered; elegant Tea Room Restaurant, and popular Gravity Bar - where you never know who you'll run into.
Northern Territory | Australia | Culture | Indigenous Culture | Off the Beaten Track |
An indigenous community in Arnhem Land welcomes visitors to listen closely to the wisdom of their ancestors. Hidden in the landscape itself are simple ochre and ash paintings, and hidden within those paintings are stories that have travelled through time.
"Wilfred shares his treasures with great care, revealing details that the untrained eye can easily overlook and earning your respect with his affection for the hill. Wilfred and Injaluk get along like two old friends, each revealing something of other, and I get to know Wilfred as I get to know his ancestors. He is typical of the people from Arnhem Land, a place where respect is cultivated from one generation to the next."
Nepal | Himalayas | Asia | Trekking | Responsible Travel | Outdoors |
Mountains. That’s what generally lures trekkers to Nepal. Specifically the Himalaya, the greatest mountain range on Earth, which consists of impossibly high mountains that are impossible to resist, even when you’re there.But there's no missing the human inhabitants of Nepal's high places and a new way of trekking is promising to put them in the picture even more, through community-built, eco-friendly lodges.
Canada | North America | Destinations | Nature | Off the Beaten Track |
You’d expect a country whose exports include kooky comedians Jim Carrey, Mike “Austin Powers” Myers and Leslie Nielson (of Flying High and Naked Gun fame) to have a unique take on a world-famous tourist attraction. Canada actually goes beyond the call of duty to exceed those expectations. In fact, ever since 63-year-old American schoolteacher Annie Taylor became the first person to ride a barrel over Niagara Falls, in October 1901 – accompanied by an anvil (for ballast) and her cat – this natural wonder has had an offbeat side. You don’t even have to step off the tourist-beaten path to find unusual offerings in Ontario’s Niagara region; most of them are right there in the brochure.
Mongolia | Central Asia | Cities | Destinations | Off the Beaten Track |
Ulaanbaatar is a surprising place, a city of one million (half Mongolia’s population) where yesterday’s communism, in the form of Soviet-era buildings and military-parade squares, rubs shoulders with today’s consumerism, in the form of designer brands now taking their place under the Mongolian sun (a larger-than-life Sean Connery graced a billboard outside a new Louis Vuitton store when I was there). Although it’s one of the world’s coldest capitals, daytime temperatures can reach the mid-30s in summer, when you’re likely to see women in sexy sundresses, children playing in fountains and eating gelato, and policemen riding Segways to direct holiday traffic.
Germany | Europe | Culture | Historical
Marc Llewellyn searches for the perfect cuckoo clock in Triberg, the cuckoo capital of the Black Forest. He visits the House of 1000 Clocks, a shop which sells cuckoo clocks costing up to $4000 a piece, and which sports the ‘world’s biggest cuckoo clock’ – one of two competing stores in town revelling in the title. This shop sells up to 10,000 clocks a year. It’s all carved stags heads, woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels, and dangling metal pine cones here. A brief look at the history of cuckoo clocks in the area, and why people buy them.
UK | Wales | Europe | Nature | Island Escape
Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire Coast, South Wales. Marc Llewellyn takes a trip by fishing boat to the most important breeding grounds for puffins in the world. These small seabirds, look like clockwork creatures as they flap their tiny wings and head clumsily for their nesting holes. The island is a bird-watching phenomenon, with dozens of species breeding here.
UK | Europe | Family Friendly | Travel Tips
Three days in London and so much to see, with two young kids in tow. Marc Llewellyn and family explore the Imperial War Museum and visit the fabulous Children’s War exhibition, which looks at war through the eyes of children (including air raids, rationing, and blackouts). Included too are tips on where to eat and stay with kids, a red bus tour of London, and visits to Buckingham Palace and the National Portrait Gallery.
