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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.

May 12, 2012

Day 2 in Puglia

There are so many places to go and things to do in Puglia but two good places to start are the city of Ostuni and the town of Alberobello. You may never have heard of either but believe me, you don't know what you're missing! Ostuni sits perched atop a hill that overlooks the surrounding Puglian countryside and is known locally as the white city on account of its preponderance of white-washed walls and buildings. Although it has

May 9, 2012

Puglia — and the Santa Claus connection!

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love Italy. It just seems to tick all the boxes — history, culture, architecture, landscapes, its people and above all — its glorious food. It’s also hard to believe that prior to 1861 Italy didn’t exist! Prior to that date, it was little more than a collection of city states and principalities in effect. The problem with Italy nowadays is that a few ‘jewels in the crown’

May 2, 2012

May Day, May Day!

OK, we've cheated a little — we should have said May Month but that doesn't really have the same resonance now, does it? What on earth are we on about? It's just our ham-fisted way of drawing your attention to the fact that during the entire month of May, Royal Caribbean (along with its sister brands of Celebrity and Azamara) will be offering savvy consumers just like you, amazing deals, discounts and free upgrades across

April 24, 2012

Get ready to experience the ‘hidden’ Italy

Some of you may already be familiar with Italian destinations such as Rome, Venice, Florence, Sicily or the Amalfi coast but how many of you have ever visited Puglia in the far south? Probably not that many, I suspect. Puglia is, like most of the rest of the Italian mainland, a veritable treasure trove of antiquities, impossibly beautiful churches mimicking every conceivable architectural form and boasting cuisine to rival anything that one could reasonable expect to find in even

How the role of the humble travel agent has changed in recent years.

Before the arrival of the Internet, everyone used travel agents to book their travel arrangements because agents were able to access information that was not generally accessible to your average traveller. The Internet changed all that and empowered consumers by enabling them to research and find all sorts of interesting 'goodies' online. This democratisation of travel created the illusion in the minds of many consumers that they no longer needed travel agents and that they

Summer has arrived!

I'm not talking literally of course — just figuratively — and wearing my travel agent hat! Easter has always traditionally represented the start of the summer season as this is when tour operator summer charter programmes begin and winter charter series end. It is also then an appropriate time to remind people of the kinds of things that they need to think of/prepare for, before setting out on their overseas travels. What follows is a

Some Travel Advice

You save long and hard for your holiday — a year (perhaps longer) — and therefore you don't think it unreasonable to expect that everything goes according to plan. Indeed, for the most part, that is precisely what happens day in and day out for countless thousands of satisfied holidaymakers every season. The planes leave more or less on time; the resorts turn out to be exactly as described in the brochures and the accommodation

When’s the best time to rent a car — before you travel or after you arrive at your destination?

Any travel agent worth his or her salt will always recommend that you book your car hire before you travel, rather than doing it locally — and with good reason! Take price for example: it is a little known fact that car rental prices work along similar principles to published air fares. That is to say that the nearer you get to your pick-up date the more expensive the rental is going to be. It's

What’s the difference between a published and a consolidated fare?

Consumers mistakenly assume that the Internet is the sole repository of all things cheap! This myth continues to perpetuate itself partly because travel agents have never been particularly good about telling their own story and letting people know the alternative sources that they (the agents) have access to. A perfect example of this is consolidator fares. Many of the air fares that are displayed in the booking engines of countless travel web sites throughout the world generally fall into

April 2, 2012

Five Great Destinations for Foodies

If you're anything like me then you love your food. Indeed they say that the world is basically divided into two types of people: those that eat to live and those that live to eat. I most definitely fall into the latter camp and have the waistline to prove it! Food also happens to be one of the highlights of any trip abroad so I am often surprised that more people don't base their travel arrangements around this fact.

March 28, 2012

Fancy travelling business class?

Travelling business class is one of those experiences that most of us rarely get to enjoy — unless of course you're a corporate hotshot or you're loaded. You'll be delighted therefore to note that SAS airlines are currently running with a promotion that is offering roundtrip business class fares to various points in Scandinavia for as little as €296, including taxes. Travel must be undertaken between April 26th and September 2nd of this year. Like

When is the best time to go on holidays?

This is a question that is often asked of travel agents and the answer obviously depends on where in the world that you're intending on travelling to but as a general rule of thumb, if you talking about holidaying anywhere in Southern Europe, then May or September are usually the two best months in which to take your holidays and for the following three reasons: 1. The weather tends to be quite pleasant (like a

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