Travel

Taveuni Palms, Fiji

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It’s raining. What’s Plan B, Barry? “There is no Plan B.” Other than ‘the bride’s done a runner’, these are the last words you want to hear on your wedding day. But here we are: Taveuni Palms, north east Fiji, hoary clouds sagging low in the sky, and a tangible unease as we quaff champagne and smoke cigarettes, praying for the sound of patter to dissipate. We’d arrived the day before, landing at Matei Airport, which more closely resembles a wooden shack, where one man sits, glances at your passport and waves you through with a resounding ‘bula’. Colleen, one half of the husband-and-wife team who manage Taveuni Palms, is…

Likuliku Lagoon Resort, Fiji

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The sound of choral singing skips like sunlight across the sea as we approach Likuliku. The staff are out to greet us, stood on the edge of the long wooden pier, dressed in traditional garb of sulus and bark-made warrior skirts, with guitars strumming to the echo of the ocean. I can taste the water spraying in my face as our boat speeds toward the resort. As their carol gets louder, the joy is palpable; a welcome as warm as the climate. We didn’t know it yet, but this type of reception is typical in Fiji: serenaded on arrival, gifted with a traditional seashell garland, and showered with cocktails. Typical,…

The Calima

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As the Saharan winds whip up a dehydrating frenzy, the Calima blocks out the sunrise across the ocean to the east. That’s right, I’m in Tenerife doing my best Attenborough. British holidaymaker staple since the 1940s, banana plantation extraordinaire and proud to boast of 362 days of sunshine a year. Don’t be fooled by the fruit machines in the airport or the football-shirt-wearing Luddites on the promenade though, there is something changing in the night sky. I landed on the island on a humid Thursday afternoon in July. For some ungodly reason, I had chosen to travel out in the first week of the school holidays, so the airport was a seething…

Alphonse Island

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I remember packing an old suitcase when I was about seven years old. My petulant and all too precocious nature had boiled over and my mother had offered to help me pack my luggage so I could move out. A napkin on a stick over my shoulder? No, no, no, I was far beyond my years for a traditional, Enid Blyton escape. I packed my leather suitcase and satchel, red-faced and mildly enraged, adding all my Ladybird books as a pseudo-guide to life. I had told my mother that I wished to live with my grandparents. This was on the basis that they were willing to buy me all the…

Passavant & Lee

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Jon Passavant and Benj Lee are hardly strangers to the layer cake of the fashion industry. This duo have fronted campaigns for Dunhill, Armani, Ralph Lauren and Levi’s to name a mere handful. Whilst on set in New York the two models met having spotted each other at the usual castings and calls and after three years of product development launched accessories brand, Passavant & Lee. Some years ago, we remember being huddled in the office around a No 25. Attache. It was arguable one of the most beautiful briefcases we had ever seen. The outer shell is crafted from aircraft grade aluminium and covered in a full-grain Horween leather finish, while…

Sensational Soneva – The Maldives

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To date, the magic of The Maldives has eluded me regardless of the regular encounters I have with euphoric ambassadors who are willing to preach its virtues the world over. As someone who likes to think they have a strong eco warrior side, I have perhaps a rather misguided ideal that if I avoid these precious islands, I will protect them from the ravages of tourism. The very essence of The Maldives, their purity, rarity and fragility is what has kept me away. In hindsight I have acted as a latter-day conscientious travel objector, I have withstood the pressure to visit in my rather grandiose desire to single-handily protect these…

Diyabubla, Dambulla, Sri Lanka

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Sri Lanka is a well-established destination, with inspiring experiences like national parks, venerated temples, tea plantations and rose-gold beaches. But as a short trip, this was more about the quality not quantity, a focus on achieving an authentic starter-pack sense of the people and the place. So we stripped the itinerary right back to focus on just three things. First, to visit some of the iconic Buddhist temples and start to understand this powerful faith and its influence on three quarters of the population, Second, to see the natural and diverse beauty of Sri Lankan beauty (despite its relatively small size Sri Lanka in fact is in the works top five hot…

Dryhill Farm

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The Cotswolds. An area of south-central England renowned for its ability to attract American holidaymakers who are looking for ‘traditional’ England. Little do they know that ‘traditional’ England is a tourist attraction for the British too. I expect far too few of my countrymen will know the villages of Castle Combe or indeed Painswick. Small, limestone-filled, chocolate-box houses line the small cobbled streets, surrounded by roving hills and farm fields. Having lived in Bristol now for over six years, driving up to the Cotswolds for a flagon or nine with motoring editor Oliver Smith has become a regular occurrence. This perhaps may have desensitised me to the outstanding natural beauty…

ANDERMATT

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