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China : Thames Town

The only thing that's askew is that this ever-so-British-looking Thames Town, that's complete down to a traditional fish and chip shop and street signs showing High Street, Oxford Street, Queen Street and similar, is anything but British. Full Story.

England : Oxford Castle

Holidaymakers looking for the out-of-the-ordinary can today do time in the one-time cells of what was once one of England's toughest prisons, a hell-hole housed within the 5-metre thick walls of the country's historic Oxford Castle. Full Story.

Kempton : Tasmania

KEMPTON's not one of those places that springs quickly to mind when planning a motoring holiday in Tasmania, yet the little community has had the welcome mat out since the mid-19th century. Full Story.

Spain : Barcelona

While there's no danger of running out of things to do in Barcelona, there is a serious risk that you'll be so overwhelmed by the number and variety of the city's attractions. Full Story.

Malaysia : Langkawi

The Curse of Mahsuri goes back to a time none can put an exact date to, but which historians believe was probably around 1820. Full Story.

Prague : New Year's Eve

Sparks shower nearby revellers; laughter and squeals of delight fill the air and we expect to hear screams of pain too, but they must be drowned out by all the fun. Full Story.

How To Be A Good Travel Flyer

Here are some tips on how not to be one of those who drive fellow travellers to the point of rage and temporary insanity. Full Story.

England : Charles Dickens

From when he was a young boy Dickens had a fascination for ghosts which culminated in arguably his most famous novel, A Christmas Carol in which the skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge changes his ways after a visit by three spirits. Full Story.

Skiing in Korea

Unlike Australian and New Zealand alpine resorts this picture-postcard winter playground has a vast indoor water park, Peak Island, that's about a two-minute walk from the Dragon Hotel. Full Story.

NSW : Newcastle

Amongst historical nearby attractions is Fort Scratchley that formed an integral link in our defences against potential invasion, whose canons were Australia's only ever to fire in anger. Full Story.

Italy : Umbria and Tuscany

Perugia is the capital of Umbria about halfway between Rome and Florence and it's Perugina chocolate factory makes the world-famous chocolates called Baci – Italian for "kisses". Full Story.

Vietnam : Mekong Cruise

This captivating cruise is aboard the stylish 62-stateroom AmaLotus that’s owned by Australia's APT Touring, and which began her Mekong career only in September this year. Full Story.

Ubud Writers and Readers Festival : Writers Festivals as a Travel Experience

The 2011 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival offered a cultural smorgasbord, or Rijsttafel, as a banquet is called in Indonesia. It was a whimsical fusion of colours, flavours and styles from Indonesia, Australia, and all the continents on the globe. Full Story.

The Antarctic Peninsula

Can't get enough of David Attenborough's Frozen Planet - then why not get off your butt and head straight to the Antarctic Peninsula. Antarctica's treacherous, spiny tendril is an odd but irresistible location. Full Story.

Savannah - The Future Ship Lost In Time

Costing nearly US$50m which came from the US Atomic Energy Commission, Savannah quickly ran into trouble over the size of her crew - and their pay. Full Story.

Travelling Green in Indonesia

Near the Udayana University between Jimbaran Bay and Nusa Dua where the environment provides the right vegetation for larvae, pupae and butterflies for at least 80 species and allows 50 species of birds to flourish and fly. And there are five species of land snails and the occasional squirrel. Full Story.

Geelong Wine Region : Toast to the Coast

The Geelong Wine Region is part of the Port Phillip Wine Zone in the State of Victoria. It's a cool climate wine region with a similar terroir to the famous French wine regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Full Story.

General : Top 5 Impossibly Remote Holiday Destinations

We're talking about the world's most-remote island destinations, places that have even the eyes of your travel agent glazing over, and yet have holidaymakers lining up to visit like there's no tomorrow. Full Story.

Canada : Clayoquot Wilderness Resort

Clayoquot is for the serious seeker of communing with nature, strolls on km's of empty beaches, walks through cedar and rainforests, and a quiet so almost-cuttable you could target a pine needle hitting the water at a hundred paces. Full Story.

New Zealand : Sea Kayaking the Abel Tasman

The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of New Zealand's nine Great Walks. My friends and I made Abel Tasman National Park a two day sea-kayaking destination. Full Story.

New Caledonia & Vanuatu : Santo

The quick-thinking Captain Nelson then swung his ship towards shore, planning to beach her, but she ploughed up onto a hidden coral reef instead. Over 5000 troops and crew were ordered to abandon ship, slithering down ropes and nets. Full Story.

Caribbean : Mayreau

Mayreau looks convincingly straight out of the Garden of Eden, and we're told that in fact, at under four square kilometres, it is one of the tiniest dots in all of the jumbled patchwork of islands and cays that make up the Caribbean. Full Story.

Germany : Rothenburg

Before the coining of the name Romantic Road, Rothenburg still had a country air about it, with the occasional cow or sheep wandering along its cobbled alleyways. Full Story.

How To Survive Overseas Travelers

Tourists from France expect the world to speak French. Those from the south of the United State are amazed that the few others anywhere else eat grits. Full Story.

Scotland : The Witchery

Once they were slums that those down on their luck would wait agonising months, often years, to get out of - today the most affluent wait up to nine months to get into them. Full Story.

Mississippi : The American Queen

Vessels that could carry up to 400-plus passengers, or purely freight-only, churned up and down the river 24-hours a day, and plied a myriad tributaries that reached like tentacles into an amazing 31 States. Full Story.

Sailing The Mediterranean

Remarkably within a year guests were clamouring for repeat sailings, and travel agents found well-heeled clients wanting to be pampered aboard a SeaDream yacht as a means of escaping the continuing political and economic turmoils at home. Full Story.

Ho Chi Minh City

Crickets, guests soon learn, are in fact a pretty staple local food item in the region because of their high protein content. Attracted by battery-powered fluorescent lights at night amongst the rice fields. Full Story.

Outback Australia : Travelling On The Sheep's Back

As part of a self-drive tour of Australia's outback, Marjie Courtis visited three disused shearing sheds in three days, and old river landings and ports on the Murrumbidgee, Darling and Murray Rivers. Full Story.

New Zealand - 4WD Adventures

On arriving in Auckland, David and Amanda decided that a "nice long drive" would be a good way to see the country, so they bought a campervan, and weeks later ended up in Queenstown. Full Story.

Geelong : A Bright Look At Itself

Geelong takes a bright look at its past with a series of more than 100 boldly painted and decorated bollards, permanently ensconced on its waterfront. The bollards, reclaimed from a dilapidated pier on Corio Bay. Full Story.

USA - Deadwood

Students of America's Wild West are as mystified today as ever they were about the real relationship between two legendary figures of Deadwood - Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. Full Story.

New Zealand - On Track To Mt Misery, Moas & Possum Pies - TranzAlpine Rail

When the New Zealand government decided in 1883 to build a railway line between Christchurch on the South Island's east coast and Greymouth on the west, many of its ministers mused openly about an appropriately slap-up celebration to which to invite themselves for the line's completion. Full Story.

Canada - Vancouver

The Prince of Wales is open from May to early September each year - from October to April the local population dwindles to around just-over 100 hardy locals who see through winter. Full Story.

Australia - Eyre

This ample track, a good 50 metres wide in places, went just as far as the huge microwave tower that was about 10 km south of the tarmac, then it closed in. Full Story.

The Unknown Truth of London Bridge

The idea crashed like a lead balloon, with not a single expression of interest in buying the bridge when it was advertised world-wide. Then Mr McCulloch arrived on the scene. Full Story.

Australia - Mt Hotham

It's cold in Australia, which can mean only one thing - great snow! Mt Hotham has undergone a transformation in recent years, more snowmaking and lots of village developments. Full Story.

Australia - Great Southern Railway : The Ghan

Originally begun in 1878 to link Adelaide with Stuart - now Alice Springs - it took 51-years to reach Alice, and another 75 years after that to get to Darwin. Full Story.

Mauritius: Making up for Lost Dodos

In Mauritius one can also pay homage to the long-lost dodo and other extinct species, a consequence of Western colonisation. At Ile aux Aigrettes (Egret Island) a set of sculptures of a number of extinct species. Full Story.

New Zealand - Hobbiton

By now you must have heard of the movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings and how it was filmed across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand. Now you can visit the real Hobbiton! Full Story.

Haberfield, Sydney - Food, Foodies & Focaccias

Visit Haberfield, Sydney for an Italian food experience. This suburb, 6 km west of Sydney's CBD, celebrates three different cultures at Piazza Federazione on Ramsay Street and sports three flags, one Italian, one Australian and one Aboriginal. Full Story.

Las Vegas - Sahara Hotel & Casino

For The Beatles it was their digs when they played the local Convention Centre in 1964, and the casino robbery scene in the original Ocean's Eleven was filmed in its vast 7,900sq metre casino. Full Story.

Australia - Bokissa Private Island

This rare little gem is called Bokissa Private Island Resort, just off Santo in the north of Vanuatu, and made famous by James A. Michener who penned his famous Tales of the South Pacific about its beauties. Full Story.

Cycling North East Victoria

Cycling and food pursuits complement each other wonderfully in North East Victoria. Join Marjie Courtis as she cycles her way around NE Victoria enjoying the sights, the wine and the food. Full Story.

Holiday Special - Top 5 Impossibly Remote Holiday Destinations

We're talking about the world’s most-remote island destinations, places that have even the eyes of your travel agent most-likely glazing over in disinterest. Full Story.

USA : Yosemite

Whether it is the thousand-foot waterfalls or Yosemite's monumental granite peaks, you are left gasping at the natural beauty of the world's most famous glacial valley. Full Story.

Orange - NSW

Orange is 260 kilometres west of Sydney via Bathurst. While there drive to the top of Mount Canobolas: it's the highest point in a straight line between Sydney and the Indian Ocean, and offers splendid vistas of Orange. Full Story.

Madagascar : First & Third World Encounters

Madagascar is a place of the unexpected. You can expect Bank and Road Encounters of the Third World Kind, and Mobile Phone Encounters of the First World Kind. Full Story.

Queensland - Fraser Coast

Chris says the two have tackled wave over two metres high, and yes, sometimes they've both been "wiped-out" in those conditions. But they scramble back on board to once again brave the wild surf. Full Story.

Madagascar : Follow the Lemur

In the grand scheme of the animal kingdom, the enchantingly alien lemurs belong to the class of mammals, the order of primates and the family of Lemur (Lemuridae) both found at the Lemur's Park, Antananarivo, Madagascar. Full Story.

London - St Sepulchre

St Sepulchre is still the venue today for regular free lunchtime recitals on that grand 300 year-old organ, while the 12 bells that still ring out from its 32m high bell-tower are those mentioned in the macabre 17th Century nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons". Full Story.

Madagascar : No Ordinary Island

Marjie Courtis found that in many ways her preparation for Madagascar was good, but in many other ways, it was totally inadequate. But visiting a unique country like Madagascar is not something one can readily prepare for. Full Story.

Gordon River, Tasmania

Our three day, two night cruise delivers us around the scenic Macquarie Harbour into which feeds the great Gordon River. The itinerary is an unhurried mix of still water river cruising, soft adventure, sightseeing and lavish cuisine. Full Story.

Townsville, Queensland:Yongala Dive

Further dives found the Yongala to be laying on her starboard side and facing north, her hull fully intact in 20- to 30-metres of water. This suggested she’d been swamped in the darkness by mountainous seas that had sent her quickly to the bottom. Full Story.

Bowral, NSW

Walt Disney in 1964 turned this and parts of seven others into a Hollywood musical starring Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, a classic that's proven a near-50-year success. Full Story.

Port Vila Kiwanis Club Charity Cup Day, Vanuatu

When a group of expatriate Aussies in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila decided that life without a racetrack just wasn't the same as back home, they decided if they couldn't get to a racetrack, they'd get a racetrack to them. Full Story.

Keeping An Even Keel In A Bubbly Sea

For Mustapha the ship's parrot, the lure of a life before the mast proved to be a fatal attraction. Full Story.

Millau, the Millau Viaduct & the Massif Central, France

Le Viaduc de Millau (Millau Viaduct) is a man-made wonder spanning a wondrous valley in the Massif Central of France. The elegant multi-span cable-stayed bridge has linked the Causse Rouge and the Causse Larzac above the Tarn Valley. Full Story.

Winter Fun - Indoor Skiing

At least two snow domes (as indoor skiing areas are refered to as) are opened each year around the world. As of today, more than 3 dozen snow domes of various sizes are operating around the world. Full Story.

Hotels - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Restaurant and bar staff are all Directors of Lasting Impressions, while the housekeepers all boast of being Directors of Immaculate Impressions. Full Story.

Cambodia - Angkor

Restoration work still continues today on the more-than 100 temples that make-up the 81ha complex of Angkor Wat (Angkor means City and Wat means Temple,) and which draw more than one-million visitors a year. Full Story.

Namibia

The enormous dunes of the Namibia, the world's highest and oldest, date back 80 million years and strike the visitor with their sublime, sculpted shapes and majestic, apparently endless ranges. Full Story.

Cairo

Product Director Fiona Orton says that after this year’s revolution, services and facilities for tourists have returned to normal in Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel and the Sinai Peninsula. Full Story.

Galapagos Islands

UNESCO World Heritage listed Galapagos Islands, even though the islands themselves, particularly the more remote uninhabited ones, remain largely unchanged. Full Story.

Borneo

Like so many of the world's wilderness habitats, Borneo is a land under threat. In 1997, the world was reminded of island people's precarious farming methods when the annual burn-off continued unabated due to the late onset of the monsoonal rains. Full Story.

Easter Island

Just how and from where they arrived has long been a raging debate amongst anthropologists and archaeologists. An enigma made all the more intriguing by the fact that almost all of the oral history is hopelessly garbled. Full Story.

Thailand - Golden Triangle

When summer arrives in Thailand’s Golden Triangle, the sun turns an eerie blood red as rice farmers burn the residue from their recently-harvested crops, leaving a surreal haze drifting across this ever-mysterious pocket of Southeast Asia. Full Story.

NSW - Southern Highlands

Some shots will be fired and then there'll be the famous 92nd Gordon Highlander bayonet charge – we have to teach a lesson to our favourite enemy, those perfidious French! Full Story.

Canada - Alaska & Vancouver

Some of the less-charitable on Canada’s Vancouver Island were little backward in suggesting that one of their local doctors, Howard McDiarmid would do better sticking to medicine than dreaming about one day becoming an hotelier. Full Story.

Snowboarding - Buying The Right Snowboard

Unless that money tree you planted when you were five has started bearing real fruit, you may have to put this "all new gear" pipe dream on hold for another few seasons. Full Story.

Outback Australia - Nullarbor Links

Only three true golf courses are involved (2-holes each at Ceduna, Norseman and Kalgoorlie,) with artificial greens at the others. Fairways could, at the most kindly, be referred to as “rough,” and to date only one player has carded a hole-in-one. Full Story.

NSW - Kiama

Old churches, the magnificent Italianate post office, and many historic commercial and municipal buildings still retain a grand 19th century solidity about them… as does the sandstone-lined harbourside walk that on weekends hosts a bustling market. Full Story.

Latvia - Riga

For most visitors to Latvia, the search for 12 Alberta Iela, on the northern fringe of Riga’s CBD, and the struggle up some eight flights of steep, narrow stairs to the Janis Rozentals & Rudolfs Blaumanis Museum, would be low on their list of priorities. But it shouldn't! Full Story.

Hawaii : When Hollywood Meets Hawaii 5-0

We told you here some fifteen months ago that Hollywood was toying with a re-make of one of the most popular TV detective series ever, Hawaii Five-O that was filmed for twelve years from 1968, and which 30 years later is still on TV screens around the world today. Full Story.

The Amazon

When making a choice about which lodge to visit, try and make your stay worthwhile with a visit of as long as possible. Amazonia is both relaxing and exciting, but a hurried visit will leave you wanting. Full Story.

Sailing The Mediterranean

As one Australian travel writer wrote after sailing SeaDream in the Mediterranean, “dining is like you're in the world's finest restaurant – with a ship underneath it". Full Story.

Puerto Rico - Carmelite Convent

In this first of a two-part feature, David Ellis discovers a boutique hotel in Puerto Rico with a history as rich as any tale Hollywood could conceive out of the Caribbean; and next week he continues its remarkable journey from convent to flophouse to an extraordinary boutique hotel.)  Full Story.

Across the Atlantic - Malaga in Spain to Madeira in Portugal

It's not for just a week, but a whole 12-nights as we swan our way from Malaga in Spain to Madeira in Portugal, and across the Atlantic to San Juan in the Caribbean. Full Story.

Australia - Tasmania In Six Days

A drive along the east coast through some picturesque towns led to an overnight stay at the beautiful seaside town of Bicheno. It also gave us the opportunity to take a tour on a boat around the Freycinet Peninsula during which we spotted dolphins and fur seals. Full Story.

Canada - Clayoquot Wilderness Resort

Clayoquot is for the serious seeker of communing with nature, strolls on km's of empty beaches, walks through cedar and rainforests, and a quiet so almost-cuttable you could target a pine needle hitting the water at a hundred paces. Full Story.

New Zealand - Sea Kayaking the Abel Tasman

The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of New Zealand's nine Great Walks. My friends and I made Abel Tasman National Park a two day sea-kayaking destination. Full Story.

Australia - Northern Territory : The Ghan

Prior to the arrival of that first service, the train for many years terminated at Port Augusta, and from there passengers continued on by road to Stuart. Full Story.