Category Archives: Travel

Croatia to join Schengen zone, but Romania and Bulgaria kept out

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Two refused countries will try again after Austria raised concerns about unauthorised immigration

Croatia has been given the green light to join Europe’s open travel zone, but Bulgaria and Romania were kept out because of opposition led by Austria over concerns about unauthorised immigration.

Croatia was cleared to become the Schengen zone’s 27th member after talks between the bloc’s interior ministers in Brussels. From 2023, people will not have to stop for border checks as they pass between Croatia and the rest of the zone.

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Lonely Planet selects Manchester as top travel destination for 2023

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Publishers praised UK city’s arts scene and gastronomic diversity as it makes the list of 30 best places to go

Lonely Planet has chosen Manchester as one of its must-visit destinations for 2023, the only UK destination to make the guidebook’s annual Best in Travel list.

The city is described as “one of the best – if not the best – cities in the UK, with something for everyone” in a roll of honour that includes Sydney, Lima, Montevideo, Marseille and Dresden.

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Heathrow ‘ready for Christmas rush’ after making plans to avoid disruption

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Airport vows passengers will not face daily cap during biggest festive getaway in three years

Heathrow airport has said it is prepared for the biggest Christmas getaway in three years and promised that passengers will not have to face a return of the daily cap that was introduced as summer holiday travel descended into chaos.

Europe’s busiest airport, which said last month that on the busiest travel days over the festive period travellers may have to fly outside peak times to manage the festive rush, said it was working on contingency plans for potential strike action over the period.

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Drones circling over Snowdonia could bring life-saving mobile signal to remote areas

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A prototype craft that will fly network telecoms starts trials with north Wales mountain rescue services next year

Drones circling above the peaks of Snowdonia, providing an airborne mobile network in remote areas, may soon become a feature of the region’s mountain rescue operation.

The drones – like small unmanned gliders but with twin engines – would carry equipment providing 4G and 5G connectivity that would link mountain rescue teams and other emergency services with people stranded, lost or injured in remote hills where the mobile phone signal is often patchy or nonexistent.

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Heathrow passengers may have to fly outside peak times in run-up to Christmas

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Airport still has shortage of 25,000 staff and is keen to avoid disruption of summer

Heathrow has said passengers may have to fly outside peak times on some days in the run-up to Christmas to avoid further travel chaos, as Europe’s busiest airport admitted it is still short of 25,000 staff to meet high demand.

The airport, which this Sunday is due to lift the current cap of 100,000 passengers a day that was introduced in July as summer holiday travel descended into chaos, said it was in talks with airlines over the selective cap.

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Relief tinged with unease as Japan reopens after two ‘really tough’ years

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In Kyoto, local shop owners are ready to welcome back tourists but there is a way to go before a return to pre-Covid days

After more than two years of near-total isolation, Japan has reopened its borders to overseas visitors – but the road back to the pre-Covid tourism boom could be long and bumpy.

Last week, the country lifted some of the strictest pandemic border controls in the world when it removed a 50,000 daily cap on arrivals, reinstated waivers for short-term visas and dropped a rule requiring tourists to visit as part of group tours.

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Taiwan opens borders to tourists as restrictions eased after 2.5 years

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Entry rules to island lifted to allow unfettered access, while mainland China remains one of the few places keeping borders closed

Taiwan lifted all its Covid-19 entry restrictions on Thursday, allowing tourists unfettered access the self-ruled island after more than 2.5 years of border controls.

Hong Kong and Taiwan, together with mainland China, required most visitors to complete a mandatory quarantine period throughout the pandemic, even as most countries reopened their borders to tourists.

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‘UK travel is on sale’: plunging pound attracts US visitors

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Operators catering for inbound tourists enjoy best month for bookings in three years

The plunging pound may cause British holidaymakers to choke at the prices if and when they next choose to go abroad. But one slice of the travel industry is seeing a silver lining in the storm clouds.

Tour operators catering for visitors are quietly calling it their best month for bookings since October 2019 as US tourists take advantage of sterling’s tumble.

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Australian air travellers waiting more than three months for passports as Covid delays persist

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Australia Post offers a priority service for $225 but there are fears it will just push those already waiting further into a backlog

Thousands of Australians are heading into school holidays anxiously waiting for new passports to arrive, with longer wait times for first-time adult and children’s passports amid ongoing delays.

The Australian Passport Office (APO) continues to see unprecedented demand post-Covid, receiving up to 15,000 applications per day and experiencing around six weeks of work in the processing queue.

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Qantas to offer vegetarian meals on all domestic flights again after customer backlash

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Airline had started offering a single meal option on shorter Australian flights, prompting ire from travellers with dietary restrictions

Qantas will start serving vegetarian meals on all domestic flights again after a backlash from travellers.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020 Qantas reduced its meal offerings on board all domestic flights under 3.5 hours, ​​which meant only providing a single option on some flights.

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Severe weather causes major flight disruptions at Sydney airport ahead of AFL grand final weekend

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Approximately 40 flights due to land in or depart Sydney were cancelled on Thursday morning, leading to cancellations in Melbourne

Hundreds of people have had their travel plans thrown into chaos as high winds and heavy rainfall led airlines to cancel dozens of flights in and out of Sydney airport in the lead-up to the AFL grand final.

Approximately 40 flights due to land in or depart from Sydney were cancelled on Thursday morning, leading to knock-on cancellations in Melbourne, as severe weather warnings were issued by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) for heavy falls and thunderstorms across New South Wales’ east coast.

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Anger as Center Parcs announces closure of UK resorts for Queen’s funeral

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Guests in middle of holiday will have to spend night elsewhere or go home early

Center Parcs has been accused by customers of “ruining people’s holidays” after it announced that it would close its UK sites for 24 hours from Monday morning to mark the Queen’s funeral.

The criticism came after the holiday company announced that guests at its five UK parks would have to leave by 10am on Monday, even if they are in the middle of their stay, and will not be able to return until the same time on Tuesday morning.

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Jetstar flights cancelled, leaving 4,000 passengers stranded overseas for up to a week

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Travellers in Bali have run out of medication and been offered tortuous routes home

Mass flight cancellations have left 4,000 Jetstar passengers stranded or forced to cancel trips, with the carrier only able to offer flights a week later in many cases.

Many have reported being left in Bali well beyond their planned return date without access to medication, or being forced to lose wages because they could not return home in time to work.

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Athens ranked cheapest location in Europe for city break

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Prices have fallen and a weekend in the Greek capital costs £207, compared with £218 in runner-up Lisbon

Athens has been ranked the cheapest location for a city break on the continent, ahead of traditional budget-friendly eastern European destinations.

Analysis of a dozen typical tourist costs for UK visitors in 20 popular cities by Post Office Travel Money found prices in the Greek capital have fallen by 15% since 2021.

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Wizz Air named worst airline for UK-departing flight delays

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Flights found to run more than 14 minutes late on average as UK plans to reduce compensation

The budget airline Wizz Air was the worst performer for UK flight delays among its peers last year, according to analysis that has raised fresh concerns about government plans to slash customer compensation schemes.

The Hungarian carrier – which operates short-haul flights from 10 UK airports including Belfast International, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Gatwick and Luton – was found to have flights running an average of 14 minutes and 24 second behind schedule in 2021, months before the latest travel chaos took hold.

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British travellers left struggling to board flights after NHS Covid pass down

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Users trying to check in for flights were left unable to access proof of their vaccination status for several hours on Thursday night

British travellers were left struggling to board flights after the NHS Covid Pass system went down for several hours on Thursday night.

Users trying to access proof of their vaccination status via the NHS app and website found that the service was unavailable, with the app telling users: “We are sorry the NHS Covid Pass is currently unavailable.

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‘Very good for tourists’: Thailand aims for high season with U-turn on cannabis

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The once-banned drug is now on sale at market stalls, beach clubs and even hotel receptions. But the laws in this ‘pot paradise’ are blurry

A distinctive sweet smell wafts through Fisherman’s Village night market on the Thai island of Koh Samui, drifting up between the sticky mango rice stalls and bucket cocktail vans. The Samui Grower cannabis stall is doing swift business tonight. A table is laid with glass jars, each displaying a different flowering green bud, with labels saying things like ‘‘Road Dawg’ hybrid THC25% 850TBH/gram”.

Elsewhere on the island, at Chi beach club, tourists lie on couches puffing ready-rolled joints and munching pizzas topped with green cannabis leaves. On Instagram, the Green Shop Samui offers a marijuana menu of fantastically named buds: Truffle Cream, Banana Kush and Sour Diesel, alongside hemp cookies and cannabis herbal soap.

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EU under pressure to ban Russian tourists from Europe

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Ukrainian president says Russians ‘should live in their own world until they change their philosophy’

The EU has been urged to introduce a travel ban on Russian tourists with some member states saying visiting Europe was “a privilege, not a human right” for holidaymakers.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with the Washington Post that the “most important sanction” was to “close the borders, because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land”. Russians should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy”, he said.

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New Zealand borders fully reopened as last Covid restrictions lifted

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Cruise ships, international students and visitors from China and India among those who will be able to once again travel to New Zealand

New Zealand’s borders are fully open for the first time since they abruptly snapped shut to keep Covid-19 out in March 2020.

The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the nation was “open for business” after the final stage of the phased reopening, which began in April, was completed on Sunday night.

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BA owner IAG returns to profit for first time since start of Covid pandemic

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Airline group says demand is strong despite ‘historic challenges’ at Heathrow and elsewhere

British Airways has returned to profit for the first time since the start of the pandemic, with its owner International Airlines Group saying demand was strong despite “historic challenges” still facing the industry.

IAG said that there was no sign of bookings tailing off in the autumn and beyond – in the face of pessimistic forecasts from its main airport base, Heathrow – and that demand for the most lucrative transatlantic routes was continuing to grow.

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