Covering the globe
BEST WORLD TRAVEL
On a guided holiday with Trafalgar, the great British summer is nowhere to be seen. But the rain and mist prove the perfect accompaniment to an evening optional excursion, visiting the wild, rugged isolation of Devon’s Dartmoor – a place which has evidence of human habitation dating back 4000 years. Stopping in the village of Princetown to pick up local guide Peter, we make our way by coach to the remote Dartmoor Inn, a cosy, low-beamed, thatched roof pub which is apparently haunted by three ghosts.
We tuck into a traditional English pub meal and get to know our fellow Trafalgar passengers. Although the age of the other guests is undeniably on the senior side of the spectrum, chatting to some of them over dinner it’s clear we all have one thing in common: a love of travel. After sharing stories of our own, we huddle around the inn’s blazing log fire while Peter captivates us with tales of highwaymen and ghostly figures roaming the moors. He talks of the tradition of storytelling and how fireside tales have been passed down through the generations, keeping the rich British history alive. We are spellbound, the brooding weather outside providing easy inspiration for our imaginations. Driving back through the fog, I watch the rain on the window and once more reminisce about previous holidays, making a mental note to keep my family history alive, too.
Sands of time, Dubai
‘‘The Empty Quarter’’ is, our Arabian Adventures driver tells us, the largest sand desert in the world. He lets the air out of the tyres to handle the soft ground – and I start screaming. Dune bashing is not for the fainthearted.
Our modern day caravan of 30-plus four-wheel-drives screams up and down hills, stopping for a demonstration of falconry (female peregrines can hit flying speeds of 360kmh and it feels like we’re not far behind) and an awe-inspiring sunset, before we reach a faux Bedouin camp. The camel ride is not compulsory but the photo opportunity is too good to miss.
We queue for pita bread and kebabs. I’ve given up trying to keep the sand out of my shoes as I head to the bar for a beer. My 24 hours in Dubai is almost over and it’s finally cool enough to raise an armpit to this strange but fascinating place.
Hawaiian Highlights, USA
Shangri La Hotel Just 10 minutes beyond Waikiki and in the shadow of Diamond Head sits the former home of Doris Duke, the American heiress once dubbed the richest girl in the world. After their honeymoon, Duke and husband washed up in Honolulu in 1935 and in a way, she never really left. (The husband, however, very quickly became an afterthought.) She bought this piece of prime coastal real estate and, over nearly 60 years, gathered what is now a stunningly beautiful and culturally significant repository of Islamic art and decoration, including priceless furniture, carpets, panels, ceilings, tiles and mosaics; even whole rooms. Her legacy is also most poignantly seen in what’s not there: an empty hard to believe I’d left my 18th floor hotel room on Waikiki only 25 minutes earlier. Here, roadside vendors sell pineapples, bananas and nuts; primrose yellow wild hibiscus – Hawaii’s state flower – and monkey paw trees fringe the road. This is the coast surfers travel the world to visit in winter, when huge swells ripple down the Pacific from the north, causing the kind of waves that sort out the surfing men from the boys. It’s also where turtles head in summer to take up residence at Laniakea Beach. Further along the coast you’ll find Haleiwa town, notable for the world-famous-inHawaii snow cones from Matsumoto Shave Ice. There’s usually a queue stretching down the road for one of these incredibly sweet confections of powder-soft shaved ice and syrups in dozens of flavours. Haleiwa is also about three minutes from where the plane crashed in the television series
Yes indeed, in the words of every tour bus driver in this area, if only they’d kept walking.