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Let the good vines roll in New Zealand

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:01 GMT

There is no more sublime way to travel than in a hot-air balloon, I thought, as we drifted towards the town of Martinborough, on New Zealand's North Island. But to the sheep munching weeds in the vineyard below, the appearance of this monster was the signal to scatter in panic.

My holiday in Australia: Polly Burton, aged 7

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Five island havens in Australia

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:00:01 GMT

24-Hour Room Service: Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart, Australia

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:00:01 GMT

When the Tasmanian government took possession of a seen-better-days line of 19th-century warehouses and a disused jam factory on Hobart's blustery waterfront in the Seventies, it could have done two things: knock the whole lot down and commission a steel-and-glass number in their place, or preserve the historic façade and wait for someone with funds and imagination to do something interesting with the shell. The island's government took the controversial second option – then waited 30 years before Australia's first dedicated art hotel opened in 2004.

Stay The Night: The Royce Hotel, Melbourne

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:00:01 GMT

In the 1920s, the rich people of Melbourne would swagger around the Rolls-Royce showroom on St Kilda Road, a leafy highway that drills south from the city centre. Today, the building is a recently refurbished, five-star, family-owned boutique hotel, appropriately named The Royce Hotel.

Ride like the devil in Tasmania

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:00:32 GMT

When I told people I was coming to Tasmania, even seen-it-all Aussies, they said: "Ah, you'll like it there. It's like Britain in the 1950s." I was expecting a genteel sort of place with comfy boarding houses dressed with lace curtains.

Hotel Of The Week: Ohtel, Wellington, New Zealand

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Although New Zealand is dead cool for the kind of traveller who enjoys dangling at the end of a bungee cord, nobody ever accused its cities of being hip. Ohtel, which opened this year in Wellington, the capital, aims to do something about that: it proclaims it is New Zealand's only designer boutique hotel.

Australia and New Zealand in winter: a photographer's guide

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:35:28 GMT

Mauritius: The life aquatic

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:00:26 GMT

If you like your towels fluffy, your bathtubs vast and your waiters attentive - and I certainly appreciate all three - then Mauritius is the place to come. Then again, I've always been worried that there's something ever-so-slightly pathetic about rolling from your oversized bed straight onto a padded sun lounger and then, well, back again. Even spa treatments involve lying flat on your back most of the time.

Serene dream: Ruby Wax thinks big in Thailand and Laos

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:00:01 GMT

My dream was always to go to Laos before it got Starbucked to death by my people, before a great deluge of tourism washed over its enchantment. I was told to get there fast, before the crowds came. But you can't reach Laos directly from the UK, which was how I found myself in Chiang Mai – a city in northern Thailand that, I'd heard, was also fairly untouched. Wrong. Chiang Mai, whatever anyone tells you, is a nightmare: a beehive of dishevelled bamboo shacks on stilts filled with plastic, giant-headed cats and insanely grinning tin Buddhas, as well as over-lit restaurants that seat 800 people.

Families: 'Any suitable beach resorts near Sydney?'

Fri, 02 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Q: I will be travelling to Sydney soon and wondered whether there are any beach-style resorts in the surrounding areas. I will be with my nine-year-old daughter and would like to stay somewhere with other children around. Any ideas? S Whitehouse, London

The Active Traveller's Guide To: New Zealand

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

I'm an adrenalin junkie. Will I get my fix?

My Holiday In: Tanzania

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

WHAT I LIKED

Hotel of the Week: Valley Wing of the Shangri-La, Singapore

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

I am a very important person. I know this because I am staying in the Valley Wing of the Shangri-La Singapore. Only very important people stay here. We have our own driveway, our own entrance, our own check-in. We are different from those ordinary fellows who stay in the hotel's Tower and Garden wings. If we're so important that we've run countries and corporations, we get our own lift to the very best suite. But even if we're not quite that important, we can still command a chauffeur from the airport, the services of a butler and free champagne at any hour of the day or night.

Hotel Of The Week: Valley Wing of the Shangri-La, Singapore

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

The Complete Guide To: South Pacific Journeys

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

A Journey To Paradise?

Stick it in your family album: Hemingways head south to Australia

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

The Travel Issue: Alice Springs in September

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

A police van noses up and down Todd Mall in Alice Springs, past galleries displaying indigenous artworks, past the tourists enjoying dinner alfresco on a balmy spring evening. A group of Aboriginal people are sprawled on a patch of grass, some drinking, some quarrelling. A young police officer jumps out. "Move on," he tells them. "Move on now."

Two states, two time zones, 700 miles. Just one road

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

You can tell when something is not quite right. From out of the haze on the outback desert artery that is the Tanami Track, there is a pick-up truck going in reverse. Three hundred miles from the nearest town, in heat nudging 40C, is not a good place to lose all but reverse gear.

The Complete Guide To: Australia

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

How quickly can the adventures begin?

Take a trip to Australia's secret marine wonderland

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

"A manta ray just surfaced, about 200ft to starboard." The calm voice of Carl, our dive master for the day, suggests this is by no means an unusual occurrence and certainly nothing to get worked up about. But I've never seen a manta ray before so I'm hopping around the boat as giddy as a schoolgirl.

Borneo, Malaysia: Stalking holiday

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Deep in the jungle of eastern Borneo I found myself out of breath on the lip of a ravine. We'd been hacking through often dense, steamy rainforest for two days. This climb, about the 20th of the day, had been tiring. My journey to the top of this hill had begun with a series of hop-on-hop-off plane journeys from peninsular Malaysia to Sabah on Borneo, its easternmost state. Next, a 4x4 drive along rutted tracks carved between green oceans of palm oil trees. Then, we'd trekked on foot into barely touched virgin jungle one hour from the coast and camped overnight by a stream in the rainforest. That was three days' march ago. Now I had no bearings other than the ground immediately ahead and the backpack of the local guide-tracker in front.