Where do you recommend for a winter sunshine break?
Simon Calder on seasonal getaways, the Italian Riviera, the Channel Tunnel and US road trips
Q Given the wet and miserable winter and early spring weather in the UK, where would you recommend for a week’s sunshine break between the end of January and March less than four hours’ flight time from one of the London airports?
“OTMN”
A I hope I am right to infer that you can travel more or less when you like between late January and the end of March. Therefore you should avoid the middle two weeks of February, when prices soar and crowds increase due to school half-term holidays.
Going before mid-February I recommend you aim well south – to the maximum of your four-hour limit. The obvious (and excellent) package holiday options are in the Canary Islands. My favourites are Lanzarote and Tenerife – with the resorts of Puerto del Carmen and Puerto de la Cruz respectively offering relaxed and sunny holidays.
Gran Canaria is just fine, too, if the prices or schedules are more favourable. Madeira is another possibility (though 100 miles further from the equator), especially if scenery and culture are more important to you than sandy beaches.
Agadir is roughly the same latitude as the Portuguese island, and is likely to offer lower prices as Morocco is the latest destination for a fares war involving Ryanair.
By late February, Tunisia and Malta will both be likely to deliver sunshine, a friendly welcome and loads of history into the bargain. Again, see which is offering the best value. In March, you can widen the search to include many mainland Mediterranean destinations, of which Malaga and the rest of the Costa del Sol are likely to be most reliably sunny. Just make sure you get there and back before the Easter school holidays, which in 2025 are likely to begin in the first week of April.
Q I am going from Pisa to do the Cinque Terre, walking from one end to the other. How many days do I need? What are the best train tickets? And can you suggest the best places to stay?
Steve McC
A The Cinque Terre – “Five Lands” – comprise the pretty waterside villages of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. They are ranged along nine miles of the jagged coastline of Liguria, which no road can penetrate. The tangled paths linking them offer a rewarding range of hikes. The “harmonious interaction between people and nature to produce a landscape of exceptional scenic quality” won the area a place on the Unesco world heritage list.
The main path is the Sentiero Azzurro, or Blue Trail. The most popular stretch is the easternmost link between Manarola and Riomaggiore – hewn from the side of a cliff and known as Via dell’Amore, or “Path of Love”. Regrettably, a landslip means that the path is currently closed until later in the summer. The alternative, the high-level Via Beccara, is strenuous.
In reasonable physical condition, you could cover the ground in a day – or even a morning. But this is a location that rewards deeper exploration, and I suggest you plan for a couple of days to delve into each of the villages.
You could stay in one or two of the Cinque Terre, but in your position I would set up a base in the fine town of La Spezia: a busy port city with good places to stay, eat and sightsee. Trains to Riomaggiore run at least every half hour and take just seven minutes. The fare of €5 (£4.30) is best paid on the excellent Trenitalia app while you are walking to the station; no need to pre-book. The three-star Hotel Mary is perfectly adequate and just two minutes from the station.
Assuming you are between the ages of 12 and 69, you will also need the Cinque Terre card to access the national park in which the five villages and the paths are located. Again, obtain it online. The daily cost is €7.50, or €15 on each of 19 specific high-season days during the year.
Finally, while in La Spezia please take the scenic bus ride out to Porto Venere on the end of the peninsula. The sublime location is one of my favourite places in Italy, which is saying a lot.
Q You wrote in your article about the Channel Tunnel that there’s a charge of £17 for each passenger who goes through the tunnel, and that many flights to Europe are available for less than that. This is nonsense. I got a quote for three people to go to Seville at the end of May for £1,700 for a three-day return. Where can I find those cheap tickets, please?
Dave R
A “Load factor active, yield passive” – that is the mantra that has helped Ryanair become by far the most successful budget airline in Europe. What it means is the airline will do all it can to fill every flight. And the main mechanism to do that is price. The Irish carrier will set fares as high as the market can stand. Over school half-terms (the reason for your sky-high quote to Seville) fares will soar, but at off-peak times the market often won’t stand for very much.
“We’re happy to fill flights at loss-making airfares,” Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary confirmed to me earlier this year. And he is true to his word. Last Thursday, I flew from Manchester to Vienna (a similar distance to London-Seville) for £14.99. A week today, among the many offers available are Edinburgh to “Dusseldorf” (actually, Weeze, a former air base near the Dutch border) for £13, and a choice of flights from London Stansted to some lovely French towns (Beziers, La Rochelle, Nantes …) for about the same. To see what is available (and check my deductions), I suggest you search “UK to Everywhere” on Skyscanner for a specific date.
Of course, the airline expects to be able to upsell to all but the stingiest passengers (of whom I am one). Seat selection, fast-track security, baggage charges, onboard delicacies: Ryanair did not get to be formidably profitable by selling at a loss. Overall this year the airline expects to make an average profit of more than £9 per passenger.
As I also observed in the article about the Channel Tunnel, many of these extras are simply bundled in with the Eurostar ticket price. But my argument remains the same: for a terrestrial travel revolution, we need competition and lower costs on trains between the UK and Europe.
Q After reading an Independent article, my wife and I are considering a road trip holiday in the US. Is it as straightforward as just booking flights, car hire and accommodation on the likes of Expedia – or are there hidden pitfalls we need to be aware of?
Tony H
A While I am delighted that you feel inspired to take a driving trip across the US, pitfalls abound. So thank you for the opportunity to spell them out.
First, your flights. Many people (including me) are attracted by A-to-B itineraries, such as San Francisco to Los Angeles, Atlanta to Miami or across Texas. You can generally fly out to the starting point and back from the end point for a reasonable fare – and it saves doubling back.
Generally, if you stay within a single state, there are no “drop-off” fees, and that also applies to Georgia-Florida combinations such as Atlanta to Miami. But Chicago to New York could land you with a charge for renting in the Midwest.
A good agent will be able to advise on the flight and car options, and I urge you to book the two together.
If you book car rental yourself, standard practice when you reach the counter is that you are invited to purchase all manner of insurances and upgrades. At the end of a long flight, you may not have your wits about you.
After being burned financially on a DIY trip where I booked flights and car rental separately, I now invariably buy US fly-drive trips through Trailfinders. It seems that this giant company does not allow its customers to be messed around at the rental desk: with a Trailfinders booking, which covers all the necessary insurances, I just pick up the car and go – remember to fill it up to the brim before dropping it off at the end of the trip.
Buying flights plus car rental together also turns the purchase into a package holiday, with extra consumer protection.
You might want to book your first night’s accommodation in the US, but when I am on the road in America I prefer to make my decisions on the day. So far I have never failed to find a decent motel.
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