Essen business hotel Last weekend, I stayed in the InterCityHotel in Essen, Germany. It was a perfectly pleasant business hotel, handily located for the central train station. But it did one thing differently that pleased me enormously. Fruit juice for breakfast Call me a glutton, but I like to drink more than a thimbleful [...]
Continue reading about Petty Gripes: #3 – Little glasses at breakfast in hotels
European Capital of Culture 2010 This post comes to you from Dortmund in Germany, where I am staying while I research the Ruhr Metropolis’ status of European Capital of Culture 2010. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much there is to see and do here – even if the schtick of converting a giant ironworks/ [...]
Continue reading about Museum closing on a Monday: A tradition Europe needs to break
(Or the world’s most satisfying Mars Bar) Earlier today, I had one of those brilliant moments where I realised I’d stuck it to The Man: I made money out of Ryanair. Ryanair loophole A couple of months ago, I read a story about a customer finding a loophole in Ryanair’s in-flight service that [...]
Tourist information office advice If you go into a tourist information office, you are generally looking for advice on what to do, where to go etc. It would be a bad tourist information office that just told you to look at all the leaflets and brochures that are scattered around the room. Tourism authority [...]
Continue reading about Why tourist board websites alienate travellers
United Breaks Guitar When the whole ‘United Breaks Guitars’ furore broke out, was I the only one that wished more backpackers would fly with United Airlines? Wonderwall on the beach You know the sort I mean – the people who don’t seem to be able to go travelling for more than two days without [...]
Continue reading about Petty gripes: 2 – Backpacker guitarists
I’ve been a little slutty recently, and contributing to a couple of other blogs. Ironically, given my little hissy fit about ‘character’ accommodation yesterday, I’ve picked out a place I’d happily pay to stay at for 101Holidays.co.uk. My choice is the Hunter Valley Cooperage in New South Wales, Australia, which I visited last November. It’s [...]
Twitter confessions An interesting bout of shame-faced confession broke out on Twitter a week or so ago. A few travel writers – most of whom spend their time tracking down stylish design hotels or character-heavy, family-run accommodation – admitted where they actually like staying. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the ‘boutique’ pseudo art installations or quirky, personality-packed [...]
Information from hotel This morning, I received a reply from a hotel. I’m currently researching a feature on getting away from the whole family Christmas thing and thought this resort might be a good possible inclusion. But I needed a bit of information on it first before I could assess. The response The response, pasted below, [...]
Continue reading about Hotels: How not to respond to information requests from journalists
Less coverage of green travel in travel media You don’t hear quite so much about green travel these days, do you? For a good few years, it was the flavour of the month in the travel media. Far too much attention was devoted to travelling without flying, environmentally-friendly hotels, carbon off-setting and other ‘innovations’ that [...]
Continue reading about Green travel: Did many travellers care in the first place?
High speed rail network in Spain I’ve recently got back from a short break to Spain, and I was amazed at the expansion of the country’s high-speed rail network. Those who know me will be aware that high speed rail has been a hobby horse of mine for quite some time. I think the UK’s [...]
Continue reading about High speed rail: How the UK and Australia can learn from Spain