Travel

Packing for a long weekend away can be a highly stressful experience but packing for a festival where you need to include all necessities for the unpredictable English weather means you need to step up your packing game. This handy infographic from Ready Steady Store provides this summer’s ultimate festival packing guide.     Featured image by Stinkie Pinkie from Ocean Grove . CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Have you ever heard the expression 'buy cheap, buy twice'? Well, when it comes to car hire rip-off, this couldn't be more accurate. There are the usual car hire rip-off tactics; charging you for your fuel before you take the car and then refunding you a fraction of the cost when you bring it back full, or virtually nothing if you've used a drop of juice;  Or charging you for one car, but sending you off in one with an engine half...

Sardinia Holiday Review: South West area, Pula and Chia. I love hot holidays, so as much as my husband tried to convince me that a holiday cottage in Wales was the answer to relaxation with kids, I was having none of it. If you don’t get on a plane, it’s not a proper holiday. OK, I do enjoy a UK break every year, but I know he was just trying to avoid the ‘babes on a plane’ scenario, which he...

The train operator of one of the busiest rail networks in Britain is set to axe 350 services a day. The RMT was shown the amended timetable in a meeting with parent firm Govia Thameslink (GTR), which owns Southern Rail. GTR said its amended timetable would be a temporary measure until staffing returned to normal. Union general secretary Mick Cash told the BBC: "This latest savage attack on passenger services by GTR is nothing to do with staff sickness and everything to do...

The start of Wimbledon always signifies the start of the summer for me. It is a time of year when the smell of fresh cut grass hangs in the air, with people busying themselves in their gardens in the warmer weather. With the current news bulletins dominated with negativity in one shape or form, now is a wonderful time of year to get out and about and immerse yourself in what this Great Britain has to offer. There are countless...

Thirteen years ago my husband and I, married that day, waved goodbye to family and friends through the rear window of a 1957 Armstrong Siddeley. It was midnight, we were giddy with excitement and had no idea where we were headed. My parents had arranged a surprise hotel for our wedding night. In stately fashion we rolled through Wiltshire villages, dissecting the day with feverish hilarity. We laughed at the vicar asking my dad not to smoke in the church,...

With Glasto diehards now making their way homwards, it's official: festival season has begun in earnest. There's plenty to keep us occupied at home, but if music plus sun is your dream holiday, here are six of the festivals in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Nos Alive Algés Promenade, Lisbon; 7th-9th July 2016 Nos Alive is one of the leading music festivals in Portugal. 'Think Glastonbury with guaranteed sun' say The Times, and the line-up suggests exactly that: it has...

When you’ve paid out a small fortune for a weekend break you can be forgiven for going budget on the airport hotel, but when you turn up to be welcomed by a service station bunker, it can be a sure-fire way to ruin the first leg of your trip. I write from my own bitter experience. It has not been fifteen minutes since I checked in and rather than kicking back over a glass of wine in the bar in...

The debate over Heathrow expansion continues to be bitterly contested by Gatwick Airport despite a third runway being recommended by the Airports Commission in 2015. Gatwick, it seems, is still missing a trick. For all the environmental and logistical benefits of building a new runway in Sussex, the fundamental problem is that it doesn’t operate as a hub in the way Heathrow does today. If it is to become a viable solution, it needs to transfer out as many travellers...