Katie Treharne

This is cornucopian-style luxury: lofty tea plantations, fertile backwaters and lavish jungle. When it comes to luxury Kerala holidays, the hill stations sown with tea plantations and canals and the lagoons strewn with water hyacinths are merely the hors d’oeuvre. Luxury in Kerala isn’t limited to its natural canapé, although it is certainly an ambrosial ingredient in a typical Kerala soiree. India’s southernmost state has a sharp sense of what’s haute and what’s not. The entrée might just be...

Goodbye houseboats, and hello luxury. Kerala is loaded with small luxuries, such as karimeen fish roasted in banana leaf and then smeared with turmeric and other Keralite spices; backwaters balancing bushy water hyacinths alongside coir-woven houseboats; and mountain slopes coloured-in green with tea plantations and slender silver oaks.

When it comes to luxury journeys through Kerala’s backwaters and the misty Western Ghats, however, it’s time to tell the state’s teak and bamboo kettuvallam f...

What springs to mind when you think of a traditional bistro in Paris? Perhaps it’s a quick espresso and a copy of Le Parisien, or a simple baguette and French onion soup. If you’re feeling lucky, a steak tartare. It certainly wouldn’t be the velvet folds of a parmesan risotto with crisp crepes, or perky cubed beetroot and streaks of aubergine on gold-rimmed ceramics. Neither, would you find casseroles that steam the eyes, crossed with plump pork Milanese or scampi risotto. Spooned between a v...

If you’re not checking in your baggage, a lot weighs on choosing the best carry-on luggage. Unlike check-in bags, carry-on luggage directly accompanies you across the airport, onto the plane, and into your new destination.
As a result, check-in luggage must be robust enough to withstand any blows, knocks and rattling it may encounter from the airport to the overhead compartment. At the same time, it needs to be light, easy to maneuver and spacious enough to fit all your non-negotiable holiday...

Arming yourself with the best hard shell luggage should be your first priority if you want to properly protect your belongings on getaways. Compared to soft shell luggage, hard shell suitcases are far superior at deflecting knocks and blows. They also last longer, as the solid shell can handle more wear and tear.
Investing in high-quality hard shell luggage is one of the best ways of guaranteeing that your luggage will make it through any trip unscathed. However, not all hard shell suitcases ...

Correctly selecting the best luggage sets the foundation for your trip, whether you’re traveling for work, jetting off on an annual getaway or taking a longer sabbatical. Not only does high-quality luggage help you to pack and unpack efficiently, but it also helps you to get from A to B without any unnecessary bumps in the road, like damage or difficulty maneuvering.
Mattis Oppermann, a Swedish designer and the co-founder of the Carl Friedrik luggage brand, notes that the key to choosing the ...

These are chambers turned into nests of nature. Scarred driftwood, shaven pebbles and corkscrew pinecones have been lifted from the groves and dunes of the central Portuguese shore and planted into rooms galvanised by the seacoast. A mingling between nature and luxury, the concrete and glass-bound front of this hotel gives way to a futuristic design that might have been plucked from a 21st-century dystopian novel; plump tree trunks flank the route to the citadel-tall glass doorway.

I stood at the epicenter of India’s only Latin Quarter, Fontainhas in Goa, surrounded by a palette of purple, orange, red and blue painted houses topped with ornamental roosters and terracotta tiles.
Latin Quarter, Fontainhas in Goa
Boarded windows painted with Christian art were garnished with petals and pots of tulips, a shrine to the quarter’s Catholic roots.
Past the traditional Portuguese taverns and the sweet scent of coconut and cinnamon-infused deserts from the confeitarias, I recogni...

Take a leap back into the 1950s, when travel was for the fabulous. This was the era of jetsetters, when Elizabeth Taylor flurried out of jumbo jets in a swing dress and kitten heels, and Marilyn Monroe descended to the runway drenched in fur and clinging to a Bermuda green suitcase. This was the time when travel was marvellous, when Anita Ekberg frolicked in the Trevi fountain, ball gown and train amok. If you take the zeal of the golden era of travel and combine it with a 50s cover of Vogue,...

In the deep blue of Iceland’s remotest northern fjords, a humpback whale breaks the ocean’s surface and ejects a geyser of ocean spray. The midnight sun hangs heavy in the sky, casting its golden rays over the Arctic Ocean and its best-kept secret, a pod of docile humpback whales. Nothing but a thick dry suit and an arm’s width separates you from these massive creatures. Here, in the depths of the far-flung fjords of Akureyri, adventurers go where only fishing dinghies have ventured before, t...

Somehow, the South Wales coast has been swept under the rug. When someone says ‘sand dunes’, we might think of the Gower Peninsula’s Oxwich Bay. ‘Castles’ might conjure up grand images of Conwy Castle or Chirk Castle up north.

Down the rabbit hole, head past royal canvases and weighty drapes, and land upright inside Windsor Castle at Queen Elizabeth II’s exclusive 90th birthday celebrations. Next, enter another of the royals’ stomping grounds and blend in with the Gothic mahogany furniture and alpine arch ceilings at the iconic Cliveden House. Watch how Jim Carter, in the masque of Mr Carson from Downtown Abbey, springs forth from the country gardens ready to wait on you hand and foot.

Katie Treharne
Katie is a travel writer based in Cardiff. When she’s not writing, she’ll likely be chasing her next deadlift record in the gym or plotting her next adventure
Hay-on-Wye: it’s the sort of the destination where many get lost in bookshops, Alice in Wonderland style. As archetypal as its bookshops and literary festival may be, that’s just the first chapter in this small Powys town.
As you roll out of the Welsh outback and into Hay-on-Wye, the storyline of your holiday has a few po...

Shake up your perception of Shakespeare’s life and times in Stratford-upon-Avon, surrounded by the Warwickshire countryside. As William Shakespeare’s birthplace, it’s only right that an itinerary in this medieval market town has a very Shakespearean twist.
While the itinerary is designed to play out over three days, you might want to attack one or two of...