Expert Insights

September 11, 2013 Weird and Wonderful Wildlife Facts

Read time – 3 minutes Planet Earth is teeming with wildlife; big cats prowl African savannahs, birdsong symphonies ring out from rainforest canopies, whales breach at the ends of the Earth as Mountain gorillas beat their chests from an East African jungle nest…our animal kingdom always astonishes and amazes us. There are millions of different...

September 11, 2013 Tackling Altitude On Everest Trek

Read time – 4 minutes “Chickole, chickole” were going to be the wisest words I would hear on my Everest base camp trek. Meaning “slowly, slowly” our guides Lakpa and Nima would repeat them every time we hoisted our packs on. With every inch the trail snaked higher into the mountains, the closer their words...

September 11, 2013 Cross Country Skiing Holiday in Norway

Read time – 1 minute Norway: in summer, a lush mountain arena bedecked in tiny wildflowers. But once the skies expel millions of frozen flakes, this landscape is a shrine to pristine winter white, like the Christmases you dreamed of as a child. Norway in Winter Gliding through this landscape on skis, as the locals do,...

September 11, 2013 Kerala – God’s Own Country

Read time – 2 minutes A gentle voice coaxed me from outside my cabin on board the Kerala houseboat. A faint knock accompanied the words, “good morning – tea or coffee?” Already awake, I had been lazily gazing through my cabin window since the first blush of dawn. Watching Kerala wake up, palm trees swaying...

September 11, 2013 Bear Watching in Canada’s Great Outdoors

Read time – 3 minutes Vicky bears all about her recent wildlife adventure in Canada’s great outdoors hotspot, British Columbia… “CAUTION: BEAR IN AREA” proclaims the yellow and blue sign on the jetty. The boat’s engine is cut. We drift full of anticipation. I am not the only one scanning the forest ahead, half expecting...

September 10, 2013 Egypt Family Holiday

Read time – 2 minutes “After we have seen the Mummies can we see the Daddies?” asked my son on a recent visit to the British Museum. By the time I had finished explaining that Mummies actually had something to do with bandages and dead, rich people rather than ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’ his attention had...

September 10, 2013 Finding Shangri-La in Nepal

Read time – 4 minutes Let me start by saying “Namaste” – a Nepalese greeting, and a word which will always conjure up my fondest memories of Nepalese culture. It translates as ‘I bow to you’, just one facet of the respectful way the Nepalese treat all forms of life. Nepalese prayer wheels For years...

September 10, 2013 Lapland Winter wonderland

Read time – 2 minutes This is the part where I’m supposed to say how silent it all was. But it wasn’t. I could hear everything; the crunch as snow compacted under my boot, the distant burble of the icy river, even the soft whisper of snow landing on frozen pine needles. The forest was...

September 10, 2013 Angored in the past, steeped in the sublime

By Sasha Reid The monsoon is due to arrive at any moment and the Tonlé Sap is at its lowest ebb. Our boat scuffs the riverbed sending plumes of mud and silt billowing in its wake. Behind us, Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s present day capital; ahead Siem Reap, gateway to the ancient Khmer capital, Angkor. The journey...

September 10, 2013 Souk-ed in: A Marrakech Adventure

Read time – 2 minutes Marrakech – the ‘Pink City’, where the world rushes and laughs with an acrobatic nonchalance. The imperial stronghold calmly absorbs one more visitor without batting an eyelid. Colourful Moroccan slippers It is a city which demands to be wooed. You must prove your devotion to unearth its secrets. Brave the...