It’s Saturday night and I’m swimming in steaming, thermal waters in the land of the midnight sun. Up here in Akureyri, at the top of the world, is Iceland’s second city. Just 60 miles from the Arctic Circle, the summer landscape is lush and green, far removed from the frozen scenes of winter. Buried in the Vaglaskógur forest, a recently discovered hot spring is creating a buzz. The water was found accidentally by engineers digging one of Iceland’s longest tunnels, the 4.6-mile long Vaðlaheiðarg

ANOTHER one pops. Champagne cork that is. It’s a Saturday afternoon on board Beyond. I’ve taken up the invitation to celebrate with Celebrity Cruises as it launches its biggest cruise ship in the UK. This is the cruise news of the year and a sign the industry is flourishing once again. You might remember that cruising suffered severely after outbreaks of Covid on board liners early in the pandemic with passengers stuck on ships which couldn’t dock. When the travel industry shut down, this Ame

Chocolate tastings, wine pairings, drinks at a “Pink Palace”: WOW. No, that’s what the sign on the door says. Welcome to Porto’s World of Wine, a new attraction on the banks of the Douro that celebrates the wine-making heritage of Portugal’s second city, its people and achievements. Opened last year, after five years of development and more than €100m of investment, it still feels like it has just been unwrapped. It has been spearheaded by the Fladgate Partnership, a company that owns some of

The sky blends into the sea and the rain slaps on to the sand as I start my holiday in Wales. This is the best sight in Swansea. There’s miles of seafront that looks out across the Bristol Channel. Apparently when the sun is shining you can see over to Ilfracombe in north Devon. It must be gorgeous. But with the low clouds and the wind driving the rain in all directions, I just shiver. I go to the hotel. This ancient city positioned on the south coast is Wales’ second largest after Cardiff.

WHEN UK scientists announced a new covid-19 strain that was up to 70% more contagious had been found in Kent in south-east England, it spread fear around the world. With the country already having one of the highest per capita covid-19 death rates in Europe, from the outside it was starting to look like “plague island”, the New York Times suggested.​ ​ Not surprisingly Britain’s reputation as a travel destination plummeted. Despite a national lockdown, the strain – now dubbed the UK variant – h

Travel Bulletin features editor Natalie Chalk got a sneak peek at The Apex, Celebrity Cruises' first vessel to be launched in the UK in ten years. The billion-dollar liner was on show in a shipyard in Saint Nazaire. Measuring 1,004ft long with a cruising speed of 21.8 knots, it follows in the wake of Celebrity Edge, marking the second ship in the Edge Series. The brand has a history of pushing the envelope with technology and luxury and they’ve done it yet again. Inside, there’s a dazzling thr

It may not sound as if we’re heading out on a wild South African adventure but this is how our safari begins. We’re wrapped up all warm and cosy in a Land Cruiser while our guide, wearing nothing more than shorts and a T-shirt, turns and asks what we want to see. Lets go find some cats, we say. As the sun rises we bound off into Kruger National Park on a jeep convoy. Thousands of animals roam this vast space, an area roughly the size of Scotland. While the park is home to 147 species, the main

The words ‘bike’ and ‘holiday’ are not two that I would ever put together, but here I am with my ‘go as fast as I dare’ face on as I whizz pass butterflies, birds and bees This is what cycling in Umbria is all about. I thought I’d chuck in the towel before I’d even get started, but I’m enjoying the moment. The only thing puzzling me was is it the bike that I like or the landscape… “That’s my villa. Down there – on the left with the red roses trailing over the windows,” I said. Someone else pic

It’s the fabulous festive fizz from France that’s about to burst the prosecco bubble. Cremant, a French sparkling wine made the same way as champagne but selling at half the price, is being described by industry experts as ‘one of the best-kept secrets in wine’. But with word now getting out, sales are rising. Total exports of cremant to Britain have almost doubled in a year, making it an increasingly popular alternative to champagne and other sparkling wines for bubbly-loving Britons. In fac