Travel view: Independent on Sunday, 5 June 2011
Money does grow on trees…or at least under them. The Amazon has featured a good deal in the news in recent weeks, most stories examining the value of the world’s largest rainforest if denuded as agricultural land or penetrated for oil or gas.
Independent on Sunday, 21 June 2011
Sweden is home to a fantastical hotel experiment that will wow architecture fans but not comfort seekers, says Sarah Barrell
Like many good stories, this one began around a campfire.
In 2008, travel guide Kent Lindvall hosted one of his far-flung fishing trips to a remote part of Russia’s Kamchatka region. Here he got talking to his guests, Swedish architects, about the inspirational film Tradelskaren (The Tree Lover), where three urbanites rediscover their rural roots by building a house together in the woods.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/hotels/stay-the-night-treehotel-swedish-lapland-2296336.html
Travel View: Independent on Sunday, 22 May 2011
“Gowalla!” said a friend of mine. “It’ll be fun.” This wasn’t an African greeting but an attempt by a techie to get me enthused about location-based social media apps. Halt the collective yawning and knitting of brows and bear with me.
The rise of these GPS-powered “games” like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places has lately moved beyond something that teenagers and geeks do to show off about where they are, what they’re doing, and who they’re doing it with, to become a traveller’s tool.
Travel notes: Independent on Sunday, 17 April 2011
There has been much talk of happiness this week. According to a new study by Gallup, Britain lags behind other countries such as the United States in the cheeriness stakes.
Travel view: Independent on Sunday, 20 March 2011
Travel with children: it’s something I used to believe was an oxymoron. Parents who strapped their newborns to their backs and travelled overland across Africa were not to be trusted. The same suspicion was raised by those who went on a two-week holiday to Thailand with their toddler.
Apart from the fear factor (bugs, bites and boiling nights) my main concern was that travelling with a small child wouldn’t be fun. In fact, it would be so lacking in fun as to remove the reason to travel in the first place. A reason that speaks of escapism but whispers a need, for the travel addict at least, to briefly deny their reality … or step into someone else’s for awhile.
Travel view: Independent on Sunday, 20 February 2011
“Are you sure?” is the current question greeting news of a planned trip to the Middle East.
And by that I don’t mean Gaza or Tunis but anywhere in the Near East. I got an “are you sure?” from my husband, my sister, and my editor when I announced I was off to Syria and Lebanon. My airline was, of course, more pragmatic. BMI, which flies to some exciting, if not edgy, near-eastern and pan-Saharan spots, advised me to register online with the Foreign Office, then sent me off.
Evening Standard:
“Pee pee,” says the waitress hovering at my table with a bottle of water. I’ve arrived at La Residence, a spa hotel on the Mediterranean coast near Carthage, in Tunisia, sister to the Mauritius outpost, just in time for lunch.
Read more: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/anything-dukan-do-6554921.html
National Geographic Traveller
The city that never sleeps? From all-night parties to rooftop pools, we pick the best New York hotels to rest your (not so) sleepy head.
Read more: http://natgeotraveller.co.uk/jan11/
With its striking architecture, thriving arts culture and dynamic dining scene, ‘Toronto the Good’ fully deserves its new ‘good time’ label, says Sarah Barrell.
Everywhere you look in downtown Toronto skyscrapers are rising. This new landscape of chrome and glass, unrecognisable from a couple of years ago, disorientates me as I try to find the ferry terminal. When I eventually make it across to leafy Toronto Island, I’m rewarded with a view back to the mainland of the perfect North American pop-up city, seemingly growing before my eyes.
Read more: Telegraph Travel: 20 October 2010
Forte dei Marmi’s newest hotel looks like it belongs in Miami and its pricey villas are full of Russians. And yet this Tuscan resort is trying very hard to remain authentic, says Sarah Barrell
This is not my usual Italian welcoming party – my in-laws prefer something a little less showy – but then I’ve never been to Forte dei Marmi, and by Italian standards it’s a fairly unique resort. Given that this seaside town has most lately been associated with, if not the Russian mafia, then that country’s wealthy elite, my transfer vehicle seems appropriate.
I find myself on Forte dei Marmi’s narrow, pine-shaded streets within half an hour of leaving Pisa airport. Nowhere are the spaghetti roads and dramatic cliffy drops into hidden, rocky bays that characterise stellar Italian resorts such as Amalfi or Portofino. Here, a landscape of square, modern villas and contemporary takes on country houses line a neat street grid. A palm stretches up from behind a gated driveway, an electric-blue sports car sit in front of a manicured lawn. Inland, behind this orderly patchwork, are the elegant folds of the Apuan Alps, in front, a stretch of golden sand.
Sarah Barrell 