Ideas, suggestions and recommendations that can help you choose from a more limited palette of options that we know — both from professional and personal experience.

In praise of the lowly travel agent …

When your mind turns to the question of where you're going to go on your next holiday, what are your options? In the good old days (that I'm old enough to still remember) the answer was simple. You just visited your local travel agent as he (or more usually she) had access to the information that you did not. Nowadays, it's gotten a lot more complicated as there are any number of sources and resources

Food, glorious food!

I've recently returned from a whistle stop tour of southern India. I spent 7 tiring days criss-crossing Kerala but all that travelling was more than compensated for by the wonderful food that I experienced along the way. Contrary to what many people say, I didn't experience any episodes of 'Delhi Belly' and believe me I ate practically everything that was on the menu so perhaps it ultimately comes down to where you actually consume your

Like your wine and looking for a new wine destination to explore?

Then how about getting yourself and your fellow connoisseurs out to Portland — Portland, Oregon that is! Yes, believe it or not the City of Roses in rain-swept Oregon located in the pacific northwest of the United States has been quietly developing a reputation for itself in recent years by wine buffs in the know. Increasingly, small craft wineries located throughout the Willamette Valley have been moving their operations to Portland, pairing on-site facilities with

Foodies Paradise!

There are many reasons why an increasing number of people choose to go cruising. For some, it's the convenience and civility of being able to experience a couple of destinations (and indeed countries) over the course of a week or two , without having to constantly pack and unpack as one would otherwise have to do if you were doing a coach tour or travelling independently. For others, it's the safety of numbers or the

Californian Sipping

I like my wine. I don't know a lot about it and certainly wouldn't call myself a connoisseur but I drink enough of it that I should by now — if volume were anything to go by — know the difference between the good stuff and the vinegar! Having said that, wine, like food, is very much a thing of personal preferences, don't you think? I tend to prefer New World Wines myself and invariably

The bear, unadulterated truth!

It appears to be a symptom of this multi-connected, always on-world we now inhabit that people are craving more and more 'experiences'. One upon a time, people traveled to various destinations in order to see what those destinations had to offer and in the main, those offerings were usually centred around the old stalwarts of scenery, history, architecture, culture, food, people etc. In more recent times, an additional component has been added to this list

Am I unique? I wouldn’t bet on it!

You've probably heard the old one-liner that goes: 'You're unique — just like everyone else'. Well, I was in Las Vegas last month for an event called PowWow which is one of the largest  events on the global travel industry calendar where supplier network with buyers etc. It was a short visit that lasted just two days but I must confess that I didn't gamble one single cent — not on the roulette or Black

Does constant travel desensitise us to each new experience?

I don't know if this is a phenomenon that any of you out there has experienced but I recently had the good fortune to see the Grand Canyon when I flew over to Boulder City from Las Vegas. I had first experienced the Grand Canyon over twenty years ago when i was visiting a relative in Phoenix, Arizona and decided — almost on the spur of the moment — to hire a car and drive

Legroom — worth every penny!

If like me, you are over six feet tall, then long haul flights are a right pain — in the legs! In their efforts to squeeze ever more revenue out of flights, airlines have been literally squeezing ever more rows of seats onto their aircraft with the result that the seat pitch (the distance in inches from one seat to the one in front of it) has been shortening in recent years. The usual solution

Don’t forget your pills!

I, unfortunately, am of an age and with a genetic predisposition to hypertension so like millions of others like me, I must take prescription tablets for my high blood pressure every day. On a recent multi-centre business trip to the States, I stupidly left all my medication behind me in one of the hotels and didn't discover my error until I had arrived at my next city. With over a week still to go before

Turkey is in the news of late — but for all the wrong reasons!

Having said that — don't always take as gospel, what you hear on the news as everything is 'spun' these days. Not from a propaganda point of view you understand. It's just TV's way of competing with the sensational headlines mentality that you often see demonstrated by certain tabloid press. Even the 'serious' news channels get caught up in this behavior. The reality(and consequence) of such spin/selective editing, was graphically demonstrated to me about 10

Stay here when you’ve hit rock bottom!

Most people's image of Turkey is not unlike most people's image of Spain — sun, sea, sand and value-for-money holidays. Turkey offers all that of course but there is another side altogether which travelers often don't get to see and that's because no one ever tells them about it and that's the Turkey of fairy chimneys, underground cities, ancient christian churches carved into the living rock and of course hospitable people who are extremely proud

The art of getting a quote that is both competitive in price and relevant to your needs starts with gathering all the right information about what you want to do (or think you want to do!).