Winter Holiday Planning & Autumn Update

Posted on November 7, 2011

As I write this on a cold, grey Sunday in Suffolk with the lights on and curtains shut at 4pm I wish I could look forward to an escape to sunnier places!  Due to my ever growing work load I won’t be doing that in a while, but I can arrange it for you!  Take a look through my website for some gorgeous ideas and inspiration of where to go next. As always, it’s going to be a busy travel time over the festive period of Christmas and New Year, so please don’t delay if you have not yet booked your winter holiday getaway!  If it’s winter sun you are looking for, there are some great special offers for Egypt, Gambia, Cape Verde, Morocco or Cyprus.

In the first quarter of next year, the best option for guaranteed sun and warmth with no rain is the Caribbean.  Plenty of fabulous villas, luxury hotels, sailing yachts or private islands await you and there are some really good long stay offers around too.  February half term is already looming (thankfully as if it gets here soon, so will Spring!!), and ski holidays are popular at this time.  If you want to take your family to the slopes in February please ask me to have a look at the best options for you, flights are already very busy.  If you like a bit of adventure and activity, keep an eye on the late availability for these group holidays – there are some incredible destinations on offer with some places still available to travel in November or December this year.

And it’s never too early to plan for the next summer!  All major tour operators now have their summer brochures out and the early booking offers will mostly end by Christmas.  Of course, once the turkey is finished and the sale adverts are on TV thoughts turn to booking summer holidays, so get ahead of the crowd and bag the best deals now!  Many of you ask me for large villas and private houses for groups of family and friends.  These are in high demand, especially in Europe, so don’t leave it until the last minute.  If you are planning a honeymoon for the summer, please make sure you book soon – you don’t want to have to settle for second best!

Right, so that’s looking foward – let’s look back for a moment and I’ll give you a round up of website updates and travel news from the month of October 2011.  The press coverage for Travel With Jules was a feature in the trade paper, Travel Weekly, take a read to find my tips for  African safaris and I also had my first advert in the November issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine in the advertorial supporting the launch of the fabulous Frozen Planet programme.  What incredible photography we have seen so far on that series – last weeks footage of penguins stealing rocks from each others nests had me in stitches!  I’d love to go and see the penguins and have lots of holiday options for you if you would also like to do that!  I also had a feature in Pure Weddings magazine, highlighting honeymoons in Kenya, unfortunately published just before the terrible kidnappings out there.  On that note, people increasingly tell me that they don’t want to go to Kenya anymore.  Please, please keep things in context.  Kenya needs tourists, and as a result of this and previous incidents featured in the western press thousands of Kenyans lost their jobs, couldn’t feed their families any more and consequently there were more riots and famines … yes, these things happen (anywhere in the world), and I would never send anybody somewhere that is not safe. But keep it in perspective – Africa is a massive place and these incidents are in tiny isolated areas.  I would still feel safer on the streets of Nairobi than in London and remember – good news never makes the news … thousands of people enjoy African safari holidays every month of the year but you’ll never see a headline that reads ‘Another 1000 people had a fabulous holiday in Kenya’!

So, off my soap box and looking at other things that were on our TV screens last month – I had a huge amount of interest in Route 66 following Billy Connolly’s trip across the states on a bike last month, nice to see travel to the USA so popular again.  Joanna Lumley has shown us the real Greece – have a look at this site for some inspiration about the many options for holidays in Greece - walking, cycling, sailing or just enjoying the fishing villages, tavernas and meeting the locals. Keep watching Frozen Planet for travel and wildlife to the Polar regions – remember though if you want to go ‘this season’ the best time for Antarctica is now (November – February), so don’t delay. Check out my experiences page about Ice Hotels for Arctic igloos and white weddings!

On the website I’ve expanded on quite a few of the original pages with more experiences added for Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa and Thailand. Several more Caribbean destinations have been added including St Vincent, Turks & Caicos and Grenada. An adventure in Chile, a Galapagos Cruise and Easter Island have been added to Latin America. With tourism developing in Central Africa, particularly to see Lowland Gorillas, new destinations on the site include Central African Republic, Gabon and Republic of Congo (not DRC!). Sierra Leone is another interesting African destination with classical bush and beach on offer.

Last week I was on the Personal Travel Advisors stand at the Conde Naste Luxury Travel Fair and spoke to lots of people about their plans for their next holidays, let me help you with your holiday plans, leave the stress behind and let me worry about the research and the details, sit back and relax and let your Personal Travel Advisor do the work for you!  This week, it’s the main event of the year in the travel trade calendar – the World Travel Market in London.  I’m off there now to meet old friends and make new ones and pick up some more inspiration and product knowledge to pass on to you all for exciting new holidays!

So, that’s my update for now – keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for my news as it happens and additions to the website and I look forward to hearing from you and helping turn your travel dreams into reality.