Ile de Ré, a gorgeous place on France’s Atlantic coast, is one of my favourite close to home destinations. It’s perfect for either a short break for a couple or a longer family trip, ticking all the boxes for a great holiday: Short flight (1½ hours from Manchester to La Rochelle); no jet lag; delicious food and wine; no driving; and lots of time spent outdoors.
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“Wot - no Santa?”
Lapland = Santa. Well not always. In fact, it’s only really one month a year when this winter wonderland is awash with families all on the hunt for the man with the beard. But visit outside of December, when Santa is taking a well-earned rest, and you’ll find a much quieter, rather surreal place which is perfect for adults (and older children) to indulge in a host of snowy activities.
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Sabah, Dabah, Do!
For me Borneo has always had an air of mystery about it. I remember watching a TV programme with David Attenborough roaming through the undergrowth in search of orangutans. I had to get a map out to find exactly where this wild place was.
Sandwiched between mainland Malaysia and Indonesia, Borneo is the third largest island in the world and its land mass is shared between three sovereign nations: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
I recently had the chance to spend some time travelling through Sabah, one half of Malaysian Borneo (the other half belonging to Sarawak) to see what it offered, which turned out to be a huge variety of exciting things to see and do: I found myself being mesmerised by the most stunning scenery, gawping in awe at towering peaks, laughing uncontrollably at a female orangutan getting the water from a coconut, donning rather unsexy leech socks to trek through the rainforest and cruising the Kinabantangan River in search of wildlife.
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Travel resolutions for 2015
With a new year just beginning, surely one of your resolutions will be to try something a bit different on your travels in 2015? Maybe it’s as simple as snatching that first weekend away from the children, just the two of you? Or trying an alternative ski resort (here’s one)? Or just turning left out of Faro airport instead of right on your annual trip to the Algarve (here’s what you could find)? Whatever your travel resolutions, I always find it’s better to plan things well in advance to ensure you get what you want, when you want. Plus planning holidays is the perfect antidote to the January blues!
Here are a few travel related things I’m looking forward to in 2015 which might inspire you:
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