Holidays
How did my children become more middle class than me?
In a café in Norfolk last week, my seven-year-old son uttered words that mortified me. No, he didn’t comment loudly…
Frightful flights, a falling pound: why would you go anywhere but Britain for your summer holiday?
The epiphany came when I was standing in the oxymoron of a speedy boarding queue at Gatwick, waiting to have…
The UK’s best beaches – according to Spectator writers
Tom HollandTrevone, Cornwall Pretty much every summer, my family and my cousins head for a farm in north Cornwall,…
Why have I bought a car I don’t actually like?
I am currently in Brittany with the family, having made the 11-hour drive from London on Monday. It sounds like…
Hunt-the-iPhone was the highlight of my hols
For years, Caroline and I have been squabbling over where to spend our summer holidays. Her ideal is a family-friendly…
Barometer
Out with a whimper Usain Bolt managed only a bronze in his last appearance in the 100 metres at the…
I have seen the future of tourism, and it’s designed to keep you out
There are few more beautiful places in this world than Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas. I know this because, right…
Dear Mary: How can I make a conversation-stopping gaffe go away?
Q. What should a host do when a guest says something so embarrassing in front of the assembled company that…
Anglesey: la dolce vita in north Wales
We teased our friends by saying that our holiday would be on a far-away island. The Maldives, perhaps? No, Anglesey,…
Adventures on the isle that seduced Odysseus
Gozo — Malta’s tiny island neighbour — was once rather a crucial spot in the Mediterranean. The Knights of Malta…
The wonders of the Muslim world that my children will never get to see
I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local…
Please come on holiday to poor, broken Greece. It needs you
At the weekend, I tried — and failed — to get some money out of an empty cashpoint near Omonia…
Antwerp: the compact, charming capital of a country that doesn’t quite exist yet
Napoleon didn’t think much of Antwerp. ‘Scarcely a European city at all,’ he scoffed. If only he could see it…
Tourists are trickling back to Egypt – to beat the crowds, go now
Egypt’s revolution of 2011 didn’t just get rid of President Mubarak: it did a pretty good job of clearing out…
The charming little airport that ruins thousands of holidays
Horror films occasionally use the device of the deceptive idyll. An apparently restful place — a clearing in the woods,…
Onsen: dive into another side of Japan
I’m hovering starkers beside a hot spring, or onsen, in a faded resort in southern Japan, while the Japanese grandmother…
The hotels trying to turn Cornwall into Kensington
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
A buffet in an Egyptian tomb
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
You can still book your flight to Mars
Space to dream Richard Branson’s dream of commercial space flights has suffered a setback after a prototype craft crashed. But…
I swam up to a beautiful girl on the beach, and my life changed
I’m writing this from Portugal, where I’m staying with my old friend Sean Langan. His family has owned a farm…
Andrew Marr’s diary: Seeing shadows of Syria in Limousin’s ghost village
No, no, no, you don’t want a house abroad — the paperwork, the taxes, the piping, the cost of the…
Dear Mary: Is it an insult to be given anti-ageing cream?
Q. When someone gives you anti-ageing cream as a present, is that an insult or a compliment? — A.O., Provence…
The word ‘holiday’ has become a political taboo
It’s August in Tuscany, and the market towns are eerily quiet, presumably because most of their inhabitants are off on…
Four gadgets to take on holiday — and two to leave behind
One inarguably good thing about electronic publishing is that it solves that old quandary about what books to pack for…
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You’ll mock me, but I have to ask: why don’t any of my friends have holiday homes?
Hugo Rifkind 9 August 2014 9:00 am
This is to be one of those columns that makes the writer faintly wish there wasn’t an internet. It would…