Category Archives: Travel

From the end of the pier to the circus, UK seaside resorts in lockdown hope to salvage a summer

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Norfolk’s picture postcard destinations were set for a bumper year – now they are fighting for survival

On a cloudless May morning, the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth on England’s east coast looks postcard perfect, but it’s deserted – the shops are shuttered and the beachside carparks closed. A scattering of lone joggers and cyclists make their way along the promenade, known as the “golden mile”, while one beach hut serves takeaway coffees and ice-creams.

While the UK has begun its first tentative steps towards easing lockdown restrictions, foreign leisure travel is still expected to be off the table for some time. Could a gradual reopening of the economy throw a lifeline to Britain’s struggling tourism industry, provided the virus is brought under control when the peak school summer holiday season begins?

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Cruise firm Carnival slashes jobs and pay in face of Covid-19 crisis

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World’s largest cruise company declines to give details for extent of redundancies

Cruise ship company Carnival has announced a wide-ranging programme of job losses and pay cuts as it desperately seeks to cut costs in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The world’s largest cruise company said it would save “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the course of a year after making the cuts but declined to give details of the extent of redundancies and furloughs.

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What is the future for travel and migration in age of Covid-19?

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Lockdowns are starting to ease but travel and migration will be disrupted for longer

Our globalised world has been brought to a crashing halt by coronavirus.

By April, over 90% of the world’s population – 7.1 billion people – lived in countries with coronavirus-related travel restrictions on people arriving from abroad, a Pew study found.

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Barcelona without the tourists: ‘We’ve reclaimed our city but inherited a ghost town’

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Last year Barcelona received 30 million visitors – now there are none. Emerging from Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdown, how do its tourist-weary residents feel about getting their city back?

For six weeks, the streets of Barcelona were deserted. Not a soul except the Deliveroo and Glovo riders and the occasional shopper, masked and gloved, making a foray to the nearest supermarket before scurrying back home. In a city with one of the highest population densities in Europe, there was no one to be seen.

Throughout this time, people here have shown an extraordinary and perhaps unexpected degree of discipline, stoicism and collective spirit in sticking to the rules of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.

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World tourism faces worst crisis since records began, says UNWTO

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Travel industry could see an 80% decline in international arrivals for 2020 amid crisis that threatens livelihood of up to 120 million people

International tourism faces its worst crisis since records began, with up to 1.1bn fewer people taking trips globally in 2020. The scale of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact is outlined in a report by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), which predicts a decline in international arrivals of between 58% and 80% this year.

This is due to widespread travel restrictions and the closure of airports and borders worldwide. The prediction of a 58% decline is based on the gradual reopening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early July; the 80% figure is based on early December.

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‘It’s a tough island to live on’: why coronavirus spells doom for Ibiza

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Clubs on the White Isle are starting to cancel their events, a disaster for workers who survive on summer income. Pete Tong and others explain what happens next

• Coronavirus and culture – a list of major cancellations

Ibiza welcomes more than three million visitors during the summer months, pumping billions into its economy. Close to 75% of the island’s 147,000-plus population get their income from tourism, directly and indirectly – besides the fabled nightclub scene, there’s the hotels, Airbnbs, restaurants, bars, shops, taxis, and other businesses that exist because of the pull of the clubs. But a huge question mark hangs over them all, with the clubs beginning to cancel their summer seasons due to coronavirus.

So far Hï Ibiza, Ushuaïa, Amnesia and Eden have all cancelled their May calendar. Pacha hosted a virtual house party with a promise to “#seeyousoon”; their latest social media post stating, “After this moment’s respite, Pacha and Ibiza will look even more beautiful.” DC-10 have cancelled their opening party and said they are currently unable to confirm any future dates at the club. Privilege have yet to comment.

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Cruise companies accused of refusing to let stranded crew disembark due to cost

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Death toll of crew stranded by coronavirus continues to rise as industry blames ‘impractical’ safety requirements for blocking disembarkation

Some cruise companies have refused to agree to rules that would allow tens of thousands of stranded crew back to land, citing concerns about cost and potential legal consequences, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The largest trade association for the cruise industry has called the CDC’s requirements for disembarkation “impractical”.

The standoff comes amid a deteriorating situation on many ships around the world and a rising death toll of crew members.

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The bittersweet story of Marina Abramović’s epic walk on the Great Wall of China

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In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the wall to meet in the middle, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the start

From the moment in 1976 that Serbian and German performance artists Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, who died last month aged 76) clapped eyes on each other they were inseparable. Ulay found Abramović witchy and otherworldly; she found him wild and exciting. Even their initial encounter was propitious: they met in Amsterdam on their shared birthday of 30 November.

The pair began to perform together, describing themselves as a “two-headed body”. For years they lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling across Europe in a corrugated iron van and performing in villages and towns. Their artistic collaborations matched their personalities: they focused on performances that put them in precarious and physically demanding situations, to see how they and their audience would respond. In one, called Relation in Time, they remained tied together by their hair for 17 hours. They explored conflict, taking their ideas to extremes: running full pelt into each other, naked, and slapping each other’s faces until they could take no more.

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Where now for travel? Lonely Planet closures point to an uncertain future

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As the travel publisher closes its Melbourne and London offices, a former guidebook writer asks what’s next for an industry in crisis

Covid-19 has changed everything. In particular, it has changed everything about travel. As a Lonely Planet writer you learn fast that change is the only constant on the road. Still, no one was expecting the changes announced last week: that Lonely Planet is to close its Melbourne production facility and London offices “almost entirely”, as well as its magazine and Trade and Reference division. However, the famous guidebooks will continue to be published, though they are temporarily on hold.

As travel has outpaced the growth of the global economy for the last eight years, Lonely Planet has grown to become the world’s largest travel publisher, accounting for 31.5% of the global guidebook market. But with planes grounded, borders closed and people quarantined, where travel is headed next is anyone’s guess. “[It’s] a sad and difficult day for all of us in the Lonely Planet family,” wrote managing director of publishing, Piers Pickard.

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‘I live alone at sea. Here’s how to be happy in isolation’

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Our lives have changed radically but we can adapt, says a former Guardian journalist who has lived solo on a boat for three years – and learned to love it
Living alone in the wild

‘I want to reassure people,” I announced grandly on Instagram the other day, “that it’s easier to change behaviour than you think.” With anxious friends facing a massive change of life in the face of coronavirus, I wanted to spread some calm.

The reason I’d started dispensing “wisdom” like some nautical soothsayer was that I gave up a much-loved job at the Guardian three years ago to pursue a simpler life on my tiny sailboat. I ended up crossing the Channel to France, sailing down the Atlantic coast to Portugal, into the Mediterranean, through Spain and Italy to Greece. It’s the slowest life imaginable, travelling at walking pace, completely immersed in nature. I sleep freely in secluded bays, by white beaches, fish and octopus swimming below me. I’ve sailed with dolphins and whales, woken to horses galloping on deserted beaches in southern Italy, and anchored by castles and cathedral-like cliffs. It is magical and it is nourishing.

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London underground packed as services cut to curb Covid-19 spread – video

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Carriages and stations appeared crowded in footage shared on social media on Tuesday morning as Transport for London closed a number of stations and reduced trains despite thousands of key workers, including NHS staff, still relying on the tube to get to work.

On Monday, Boris Johnson announced that people should stay at home and only travel to and from work where 'absolutely necessary' as the UK tries to prevent the spread of coronavirus

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‘Time is running out’: airline industry warns government

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EasyJet and Ryanair to stop flying on Monday and less than 5% of passengers expected at airports amid coronavirus

Airlines and airports have warned that time is running out for the government to enact promised measures to help the aviation industry, with EasyJet and Ryanair set to stop flying after Monday and less than 5% of normal passenger numbers expected at major airports.

Further talks are expected between ministers and the industry on Monday as the government wrestles with how to keep critical infrastructure functioning.

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Anger grows among Britons on holiday as lockdowns block returns

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Stranded British travellers decry Foreign Office assistance and ‘exorbitant’ replacement flights

Thousands of British holidaymakers could find themselves stranded abroad, as flight cancellations, travel restrictions and lockdowns due to the global coronavirus pandemic complicate their journeys home.

As many as 100,000 tourists may still be in Spain, despite a near-total lockdown and government orders that all hotels be shut down within the week. Recent days have seen the epidemic in Spain spiral into one of Europe’s worst, claiming more than 1,000 lives.

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Coronavirus: cruise passengers stranded as countries turn them away

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Thousands in limbo around the world as vessels seek a port at which to dock

As countries scramble to close their borders in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship passengers are stranded on the high seas while their vessels seek a port at which to dock.

The Norwegian Jewel, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, has been refused permission to dock in French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and is piloting to American Samoa to refuel.

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Airlines make dramatic cuts to services and call for state bailouts

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Aviation consultancy warns that international industry could collapse within months


Major airlines including British Airways, Ryanair, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic announced a dramatic scaling-back of their operations on Monday, including plans to cancel the majority of their flights and ground thousands of planes, with experts and industry executives calling for government bailouts to avoid bankruptcies.

The moves came as an aviation consultancy warned that the international airline industry will collapse within months, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, unless states worldwide inject billions of dollars of emergency funding to see it through the coronavirus “catastrophe”.

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US expands travel ban to UK and Ireland amid Coronavirus outbreak – video

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All travel between the United States and the UK and Ireland will be suspended from midnight EST on Monday. Vice-president Mike Pence announced the new measure at a coronavirus task force news briefing on Saturday.

A top medical official Anthony Fauci said the move could change the course of coronavirus's spread across the country, which he said 'has not yet reached its peak'.

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Lie-flat beds in economy class: Air New Zealand unveils bunks for budget travellers

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Airline which operates some of world’s longest flights is considering ‘Skynest’ sleep pods with pillows, sheets and blankets

Air New Zealand has announced it could have flat beds in economy for some of its long-haul flights, but it will be more than a year before customers could get the chance to sleep in one of the new pod beds.

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My mum only had a few months to live. So we rented a van and took a road trip

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We’d been incredibly close when I was a child. Then, in 1994 she went away and never came back. Now here we were, taking to the road with no real plan after her cancer diagnosis

I had been sitting in the cafeteria of a hospital in Perth, Australia, for seven hours waiting for the phone to ring.

Seven hours of drained coffee cups, watching families cry and cling to each other, wondering if they were tears of grief or relief, seven hours of slowly feeling the panic rise up through my body.

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‘I’m a stranger in my own city’: Prague takes on Airbnb to dam flood of tourists

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Joining a battle already being waged by many other cities, the Czech capital’s mayor wants new laws to limit the lettings website

For decades, its mesmerising blend of baroque and gothic beauty was closed to mass tourism by the iron curtain that divided the communist east from the capitalist west during the cold war.

Now Prague, which has gained an unenviable reputation as a destination for stag nights and pub crawls, has become the latest European city to propose a radical assault on Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms as over-tourism threatens to overwhelm it and drive out residents.

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