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I closed my eyes and stuck my finger on a map of western Europe: ‘This is where we’re going on holiday!’

Sick of relying on internet recommendations, I left my next destination to chance. Luckily, it led to me discovering a magical hamlet in the Cévennes mountains of south-central France An unruly rabble bursts on to the street: a noisy eruption, bubbling towards us. This isn’t closing time on the Croisette in Cannes. A flock of sheep bustles past our cottage towards the shade of a huge chestnut tree, driven by three generations of herders and their dogs. The waterlike cacophony of their bells slows until only the odd tink tink punctuates the cicadas’ hum. The sheep graze, the shepherds doze off,

Travel

‘How green are our valleys?’: in the footsteps of miners on south Wales’s new forest trail

The first stage of an ambitious new hiking route that will link woodlands across Wales takes walkers into the wild hills above the valleys’ old mining villages Bracken and heather ripple across the plateau. I exhale into the chill autumn air and my breath mists a view that reaches all the way to Gower and the ochre peaks of Bannau Brycheiniog (formerly the Brecon Beacons). Far below, the Ogmore valley’s terrace houses look like tiny constellations but up here on Tarren y Fforch, it’s just me and a few sheep taking springy steps between tufts of bilberries. If this corner of the south Wales val

Travel

Tell us about a great conservation tourism experience

Tell us about a favourite tourism project that supports conservation initiatives – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break Tourism can be a force for good when done well – and we want to hear about places and projects you’ve discovered that help conserve local ecosystems and cultures. Whether it was a volunteering holiday planting trees in Scotland, a stay at an eco-hotel that helps protect local flora and fauna, or a project breathing life back into abandoned villages, tell about us your experience for the chance to win a holiday voucher. The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall

Travel

What AI Travel Booking Means for Your 2027 Commerce Budget

AI agents still drive a sliver of travel bookings, which makes waiting look prudent. The commercial terms those agents run on are being written this year, and the sellers who sit it out will be priced by someone else’s integration.

Travel

A Greece for all seasons: my autumn roadtrip through the Peloponnese

An out-of-season journey through the peninsula reveals Byzantine villages, deserted beaches and friendly tavernas As I drove across the causeway which links the tiny fortress island of Monemvasia to the south-eastern coast of the Peloponnese, the Aegean sparkling on all sides, I recalled a line by Yiannis Ritsos, one of Greece’s greatest 20th-century poets. Ritsos lived in Monemvasia, in a house that is today a museum on a cobble-stretch by the tawny castle walls. A favourite passage goes: “The voyage is neither a leave-taking nor a home-coming – an ethereal bridge …” The excuse for my trip to

Travel

‘A haven of soft light, warm sunshine and sandy beaches’: readers’ favourite autumn escapes

In search of autumn festivals, good food and islands where it still feels like summer? We asked you to recommend your best off-season breaks • Tell us about a spooky spot in the UK – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher Last October, while I was cycling around south-west France, near the Spanish border, a tip from a local waiter led me to Collioure, near Perpignan. The town was like a Mediterranean dream, where the summer crowds had faded, leaving behind a peaceful, artistic haven of soft light, warm sunshine, cobbled streets, sandy beaches – and the Pyrenees as a backdrop. In the early ev

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Travel

The Welsh mountain inn that helped conquer Everest

As a new film about Sherpa Tenzing Norgay is released, we visit Pen-Y-Gwryd, the Snowdonia hotel that served as British ‘base camp’ for the 1953 expedition and where the spirit of adventure lives on In the early hours of 2 June 1953, guests at the Pen-Y-Gwryd hotel in the heart of Eryri (Snowdonia) were woken from their sleep by the sound of footsteps running down the corridor outside their rooms. The commotion was followed by gleeful shouting and the sound of champagne corks popping. A late-night telephone call to the hotel’s owner had moments earlier confirmed that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing

Travel

Winter warmers: 10 of Britain’s best heated lidos

From an infinity pool with sauna in Scotland to a restored Victorian gem in Bristol, here are 10 great spots where you can swim in comfort year-round Portavadie, on the banks of Loch Fyne on the west coast of Scotland, was originally earmarked as an oil rig, but plans fell through. Today it is a marina with holiday homes, a restaurant and bar, a gift shop, and a leisure centre with what is believed to be the biggest heated outdoor infinity pool in Scotland. There are also outdoor spa pools and a sauna, an indoor pool and a gym; treatments such as massages and facials are available. The facilit

Travel

‘A winning combination of culture and nature’: exploring Germany’s green heart by bus

From ancient forests to spas, medieval cities and the birthplace of Bauhaus, Thuringia packs a punch for a car-free autumn break It’s early morning in Erfurt, the capital of Germany’s Thuringia region, and Domplatz is abuzz with local growers setting out crates of vegetables and flowers beneath the soaring medieval cathedral towers. This 14th- and 15th-century engineering wonder holds the Gloriosa, the world’s largest medieval free-swinging bell, cast in 1497 and weighing 12 tonnes. Though the city and surrounding landscape are notably flat, its skyline is pierced by soaring church towers and

Travel

Tell us about your favourite spooky spot in the UK

With Halloween approaching, we need you to send us your travel tips on eerie sites and ghostly tours. The best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break For our Halloween edition of readers’ tips, we’d love to hear about spooky spots, haunted houses and ghost tours you’ve experienced around the UK. Perhaps you enjoyed a guided (or self-guided) city ghost walk, visited a haunted castle or wandered around eerie ruins at twilight. Tell us what made it so spook-tacular for the chance to win a holiday voucher. The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay a

Travel

A lakeside idyll: laid-back cycling and autumn hikes on Italy’s Lake Iseo

Smaller and less visited than Como and Garda, Lake Iseo harbours a gorgeous car-free island ideal for easy-going cycling and sightseeing Rust red and burnt sienna speckle the green mountain rising from Lake Iseo. Golden autumn sunlight shimmers on the water. Monte Isola, Italy’s largest lake island, is a peak of sheer cliffs and dense forest, dotted with old fishing hamlets and hillside villages, each as pretty as the terraced villas of Lake Como and Garda, but with far fewer visitors. I arrive at the small port town of Peschiera Maraglio – where striped wooden boats jut from the water like th

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Travel

Healing waters: 10 of the best spa towns in Europe for a restorative autumn break

From Alpine valleys to belle époque towns, dip your toes in the therapeutic waters and steaming mineral pools at spa hotels offering centuries-old healing treatments In 2021, Unesco designated 11 historic spa towns across Europe as one transnational world heritage site, recognising their “exceptional testimony to the European spa phenomenon, which gained its highest expression from around 1700 until the 1930s”. This was the original wellness tourism, and these grand health resorts include Bath in England and the town of Spa in Belgium, as well as the west Bohemia spa triangle of Karlovy Vary,

Travel

‘A candlelit spa, followed by an ice-cold plunge and a nightcap’: readers’ favourite European wellbeing breaks

From a historic bathhouse in Sweden to forest bathing in Croatia, readers share their favourite places to relax and recharge • Tell us about a small European ski resort – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher Tucked away off a pretty shopping street in a beautiful art nouveau building is one of Stockholm’s oldest spas, Centralbadet where a day ticket costs from £23. As winter darkness descends, candles are lit around the pool and a quiet calm envelops you. Swimming by candlelight is a treat. Next a sauna followed by an ice-cold plunge. Afterwards a nightcap is in order so it’s a brisk walk

Travel

‘Vibrant, design-led and surprisingly green’: why the Dutch city of Eindhoven is perfect for a relaxed arty break

After electronics giant Philips left, the city reinvented itself as a multicultural hub for creativity and innovation, and the home of Dutch Design Week A baggily clad skateboarder’s wheels clatter across concrete floors, the noise bouncing off exposed pipes and iron girders. Vaulted skylights set in high ceilings illuminate the industrial space and its central kitchen, from which my main course – a silky lemon risotto, spiked with samphire, rhubarb, garlic, baby onions and basil – has just been transported. I’m in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, in North Brabant, famous for its historic connecti