We had a busy weekend at Global Holidays as we had a stand at the Harrogate Wedding Show.

It was a really enjoyable two days and we ended up giving advice to hundreds of brides and grooms who stopped by our stand wanting information about potential honeymoon destinations. The range and types of honeymoons that newly weds want is amazing and the requests really are a test of your travel knowledge as you have to think quickly about who goes where, what attractions there are to see and think which hotels you recommend in a particular place.

The range of destinations that honeymooners want to go to ranged from the beaches of Brazil, treking in Peru, multi centre holidays in Thailand and plenty of the luxury holiday destinations like The Maldives and Dubai. Throw in other honeymoon destinations we were asked about such as the USA, Australia, Italy, France and even dog sledding in Lapland and that gives you an idea how diverse our travel knowldege needs to be !

Things have changed. I spent my honeymoon on the east coast of Yorkshire for a few nights. I can tell you that in late November with howling gale force winds and the rain lashing down it is no match for an exotic beach honeymoon destination like The Maldives. My wife still hasn’t forgiven me for deciding to go there. I was thinking of the cost !

As well as talking to lots of brides to be it was amazing to see the how sophisticated weddings are. There seems to be a company that specializes in all things that you might want at a wedding. There were companies at the wedding show that organised the chair covers, companies that orgainise wedding entertainment, an amazing choice of wedding venues and, of course, wedding dresses that would look sensational at any wedding.

Judging by the number of people we talked to at the wedding show wanting exotic and often expensive honeymoons it seems that spending a large amount of money on a fantastic honeymoon destination shows no sign of being affected by poor economic times.

If you would like a quote for your honeymoon please call us FREE on 0800 433 2300.

DavidB Travel News harrogate wedding show, honeymoon destinations, wedding and honeymoons

Have you read the book “50 things to do before you die”? Did you look through and think to yourself that it would be nice to do just one or two of those things? The BBC even did a TV program with their slant on the subject. You can even buy a book called “501 things to do before you die” and “501 places to see before you die”. 50 things was tough enough but getting around to seeing 501 is going to need two lifetimes! I even bought a book called “501 cities you must visit”. At this rate I’m going to be travelling the world for a very long time!

When I flick through these books I try to rank them in order of preference. Where should I go to first? It’s a really tough decision because there are so many wonderful places to visit.

I think I have now decided which is the first on my list of exceptional places to visit before I die. This trip has twice been Voted Best Attraction by the North American Travel Journalists Association. It was the Winner of the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011 World Travel Award as “World’s Leading Travel Experience by Train”, as judged by 170,000 travel agents worldwide.

This trip appears in books like “Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the Worlds Greatest Trips”, National Geographic. It has been voted many times as “one of the great train rides in the world”, and of course train journey enthusiasts vote for this trip as the best in the world year after year.

What is this journey of a lifetime? It’s a train journey on The Rocky Mountaineer!

This amazing train journey takes you through some of the best mountain scenery in the world. You are taken over amazing bridges over the most fantastic raging rivers and you see all this from a train carriage that has a panoramic view from its see-through dome.

The Rocky Mountains in Canada is where this incredible train journey takes place. The journey appears in all the books with suggestions about what we all need to do before our time is up. I have just decided that the Rocky Mountaineer train journey is high up on my list of things I need to do and it’s not as expensive as I thought!

Take a look at The Rocky Mountaineer holiday experience we can book for you.

DavidB Canada canada train journey, rocky mountaineer, train through the rocky mountains

Sylvia Kenny, of Leeds City College Travel & Tourism department, has just returned from a holiday on the island of Sicily and in this guest blog article she tells us how much she enjoyed the island and her trip up Mt Etna, despite the daily volcanic eruptions!

Leaving behind the green and pleasant land of England in August (particularly green this year after all the summer showers!!) it was quite a shock to find ourselves looking down on Sicily from the air and to see the arid, brown landscape. On arrival, we experienced showers of a different kind – the air was filled with fine, volcanic ash. We discovered Etna had been active throughout August – there were a series of small eruptions daily.

We were based inland from Taormina on the slopes of Mount Etna on an agri-tourism complex (a working vineyard and farm with rooms and self-catering apartments). The restaurant on site served delicious home cooked food with home produced wine. The meals included many local specialities and the emphasis was on simplicity and flavour. We enjoyed views of the coast and Mount Etna from the large swimming pool.

Our visit to Taormina was well worth the effort and made much easier by the park and ride facility and the fact that everything in the historic town is within easy walking distance. Taormina is spectacularly perched on the side of a mountain with stunning views of the Gulf of Naxos below and Mount Etna behind. We started our tour with a visit to the Teatro Greco– a near perfect amphitheatre. We wandered through the historic streets and enjoyed the gelati shops and the delis on the Corso Umberto. When you want to escape the crowded streets you can visit the public gardens, a lovely tranquil place designed by Lady Florence Trevelyan Cacciola, an 19th-century Scottish aristocrat. If you have time, you can descend to one of the many beaches using the cable-car.

Eventually we were drawn to Mount Etna. There are many different ways of visiting. You can take a tour from Catania or Taormina. As we were based on the slopes of the mountain we decided to drive to Rifugio Sapienza and to take a cable-car to 2500metres (29 euros pp). From here you can take a guided tour or explore the lunar landscape of black lava on your own. Get there early to avoid the crowds and be prepared to feel the effects of the high altitude!!

Catania is famous for its markets, particularly the noisy fish market (La Pescheria) and the food market withmountains of cheese and fruit. The city is very busy and parking is difficult so it may be worth travelling in by train or bus.

If you hire a car it is well worth paying the extra cost of the CDW. The Sicilian drivers are very aggressive and do not obey any of the rules of the road – they never stop at stop signs or roundabouts. All the cars look as though they have been in numerous accidents and you feel like you will be next!

There are many things to see and do in Sicily but it is also a great place if you just want to relax.

Here are some photographs of Sicily that Sylvia took whilst she was on holiday.

DavidB Italy catania, Mt Etna, Sicily holiday

Global Holidays today launched its own travel video production service. Working in partnership with a professional Internet video production company the service is aimed at hotels, tour operators, tourist boards and travel agents who want to use video to promote their travel and tourism service.

Filmed in HD and using a professional presenter the cost of the video service has been set so that it is affordable to most hotels and travel companies.

For more information call 0113 258 2222 or see our web page about travel video production.

 Take a look at our video below for a flavour of what we think video promotion can do for your travel business.

DavidB Travel News hotel videos, Internet video, online travel video, travel video production

Global Holidays has launched a new holiday section called  “Adventure Holidays & Adrenalin Rush”. Aimed at people that want more from a holiday than sitting on a beach and drinking cocktails the holidays featured include the Mt Kilimanjaro Summit Climb, a 20 day trek to Everest Base Camp, an 11 days Antarctic tour, holidays to Costa Rica and for adrenalin junkies, bungee jumping over the Victoria Falls and even a flight to the edge of space in a MIG 29.

More adventure holidays are being added all the time and we hope to have a database of about 50 of the top adventure holidays in the database in a few weeks time.

If you fancy an adventure then take a look at our new  Adventure Holidays  page

DavidB Adventure Holidays antarctica holiday, climb mt kilimanjaro, costa rica holiday, everest base camp trek